Maccast 2017.03.20 - Show #606

Links

Opening

Opening Music

Music is Say Anything by Manda and the Marbles

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News

New iPad Pros this week?

MacRumors claims that "reputable supply chain analysts" told them Apple would launch new products this week.

The Apple System Status page was updated this morning to note that the store would be down for maintenance between 3:00 AM and 8:30 AM on Tuesday

The "products" were not specified, but because the new iPads are just around the corner that lead some to think it could be new iPads

That would be odd normally because Apple traditionally has held an event at the end of March to announce new iPads.

No invites have been seen and a quiet launch seems not like Apple.

A few theories abound

Apple would quietly launch the new iPad line-up with low coast 9.7-inch model, updated 12.9-inch, and the rumored 10.5-inch model.

Rumors of an updated iPhone SE with a 128GB model

A new "(Product) Red" edition of the iPhone 7

I'd put my money on the updated SE and not a quiet iPad update.

Apple will want to hold an event, but where.

Last year it was at the Apple Campus, but Tim already said they had their last event there.

The new "Steve Jobs" theater at Apple Park is not ready yet.

The Bill Graham theater see likely, but I think it will happen in the first weeks of April

There do seem to be new iPads nearing release

Ship dates on the iPad Pro 12.9-inch have been slipping

A mobile data marketing firm, Fiksu, told TechCrunch they have seen iPad model listed as "7,1," "7,2," "7,3," and "7,4," show up in logs for devices near Cupertino and around SFO.

The four numbers likely indicate two different models in wi-if and cellular versions

The report claims the devices are running a mix of iOS 10.3 beta and "iOS 11".

the device usage was noticed across a range of apps like games, music, real estate and weather apps

DigiTimes seems to think the supply chain points to an announce of the iPad 10.5-inch at an event in early April

They say it will be set to mark the "inauguration" of Apple's new campus Apple Park

The DigiTimes reports says Apple will target the new "Pro" iPads at the education and business sectors.

Interestingly they say the 10.5-inch iPad Pro will be out in April, but that the 12.9-inch models release date remains "unclear" and could slip to May or June

More expensive iPhone, blame the parts.

DigiTimes is claiming that parts for the new iPhone "Edition" (aka the iPhone 8) are going to be more expensive.

Not surprising and also likely the reason we've been hearing that the newest iPhone will also have a price tag north of $1,000 USD.

DigiTimes says the new OLED iPhone will use a thin film touch sensor overlaid onto an AMOLED display supplied by TPK Holdings.

They note that the new panel requires a new type of 3D Touch sensor and those will also be $15, vs. the $9 cost of the 3D Touch sensors in the current iPhones.

Doesn't sound like much of a difference, but that's a 60 percent increase in component cost.

We've heard reports of other new components like a new front facing camera with 3D and depth sensing technology. Allowing it to do facial recognition, iris scanning, and be used in AR applications.

Also new wireless charging components, new fingerprint sensor, and integrated "function bar"

All a lot of new tech and components in the bill of materials that will drive up the cost for Apple which means a higher price tag if they want to maintain their margins.

The reality too is they know customers will pay to be the first with the "new" iPhone. You can be sure even at that price they will not be able to produce enough to keep up with demand.

A report from the Nikkei Asian Review claims the "curved" screen wont be that curved

Also that it will be purely for ascetics and not for function

We had already heard similar rumors last week that it would be like the 2.5D display in the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.

To counter that, and maybe explain the rumor discrepancy, the Korean site ETNews reported the new iPhone would have a "water drop design" mimicking the curvy body of the original iPhone.

It claims a curved 3D back glass back with the flatter 2.5D front glass.

At least one analyst, Morgan Stanley’s Kate Huberty, thinks Wall Street (which is already bullish on the iPhone 8) may still be underestimating it's impact

She thinks iPhone unit sales will rise by 20 percent in fiscal 2018 (Which for Apple starts October 1st, 2017), about twice as much as her peers are predicting.

She event notes that it could be as high as 30 percent.

Remember though, especially with a new device, Apple always seems to wrestle supply chain issues.

The latest data from Kantar showed that iPhone 7 was the top selling smartphone in most of the largest markets.

In the US iPhone market share was 42 percent, all Android makers combined had 56.4 percent.

In Europe iPhone held at 22.7 percent share and iPhone 7 was the best-selling phone in France, Germany and the UK.

It was not all rosy though. iPhone lost share on Japan and Spain. It also saw it's share in China fall 16.6 percent, but iPhone 7 did remain a "top-selling" phone.

Apple hires security researcher Jonathan Zdziarski

He has accepted a position with Apple's Security Engineering and Architecture team.

He notes that his move is, "the conclusion of what I feel has been a matter of conscience for me over time. Privacy is sacred;"

Mentioning that he's joining a group of "like minded individuals" who share his passion for protecting the security and privacy of other.

With his research efforts over the years Zdziarski uncovered and reported many security and privacy flaws to Apple's team

He also, according to iMore, recently made [Little Flocker]( https://www.littleflocker.com/) which is a monitoring tool that will watch apps running on your Mac and not allow them to access files without your explicit permission.

The Security Engineering and Architecture team has been responsible for hardening iOS, creating Gate Keeper and System Integrity Protection on the Mac and the new Bug Bounty program announced late last year.

It seems like a really great fit to me and having him on Apple's team is good for both us and Apple.

More 5th Gen Apple TV evidence

Bloomberg said Apple was testing a new 4K Apple TV

Now, Firi Games, says they saw an unusual device identified as an "AppleTV6,2" and running "tvOS 11.0" connect to Phoenix HD for Apple TV

The IP in the logs also seemed to be in a range linked at Apple's Cupertino HQ.

It's important to remember that device identifiers in logs can be faked fairly easily, so someone could just be playing around.

Still the Apple TV could get a 4K rev soon and the timing would make sense.

What else a new Apple TV would bring is unknown. So far 4K is all we've heard, but I would think a modest CPU and GPU bump could also happen.

International News

Apple announced last Friday that they would be opening two new R&D Centers in China and will spend at least $507 million total to bring four centers on-line

Apple had already been working on two centers in Beijing and Shenzhen and will now add facilities in Shanghai and Suzhou.

All of the facilities are expected to open in 2017

With declining iPhone sales in China Apple is looking to get more favorable trade deals and opening new facilities can only help.

Apple hopes to staff the facilities with talent from the supply chain and graduates from the country's best universities.

Apple put a focus on internship programs they plan for the new facilities which they hope will "develop the next generation of entrepreneurs." in China,

Apple will resume sales in Indonesia after being force two stop sales a few years ago due to new local regulations.

Indonesia enacted an 30 percent rule, meaning to sell Apple has to use a minimum of 30 percent local components in smartphones distributed throughout the country.

They have met the requirement by promising a local research and development center in Jakarta a commitment which promises a $44 million investment over three years.

Apple will begin selling the iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 6s, and iPhone 6s Plus through six retailers across major cities in Indonesia on March 31.

Indonesia is the 4th most populated country in the world with over 260 million people, so getting back in that market was an important move for Apple.

Apple has not paid taxes in New Zealand in 10 years.

That is despite generating revenue of $4.2 billion in New Zealand since 2007.

The thing is Apple not paying taxes to the New Zealand's Inland Revenue on those sales is perfectly legal.

A treaty between Australia and New Zealand over dual income tax claims default payments to the country where the company is controlled from.

Apple New Zealand is owned by a parent company in Australia and the taxes for both countries are paid to the Australian Tax Office.

Some critics in New Zealand are not happy about situation saying that "it's just that age-old distinction between legality and morality." and calling on Apple to "do the right thing".

I get that many want corporations to walk the righteous high road, but seriously? This is business and Apple is following the rules. Would you not take a tax deduction to credit because, "the state really needs the money". Didn't think so.

You now have more time to buy AppleCare+

MacRumors is saying that Apple is adjusting the rules for AppleCare+ on iPhone to be more in line with their other products like Macs and AppleTV

You will now be allowed to purchase AppleCare+ for your iPhone up to a year from the date of original purchase according to the rumor site.

The current rules state that AppleCare+ for iPhones must be purchased within 60 days.

At this point Apple has not announced or confirmed the rumor.

Apple's AR timeline gets some clarity

Citing "knowledge of the company's plans" Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says Tim Cook is "very serious" abut AR

First Apple has hired an army of experts from companies like Dolby Laboratories and engineers who worked on the Oculus and HoloLens

According to the piece Apple recruited Mike Rockwell from Dolby to run the main AR team at Apple

Rockwell also had also advised Meta, a small firm that makes $950 AR glasses.

The piece also says "hundreds" of engineers are now engaged on the project.

Combine that with acquisitions of companies in the fields of AR hardware, 3D gaming and virtual reality software.

The belief is that Apple will begin with adding AR features to the iPhone and eventually develop a set of AR glasses as an accessory for the iPhone

For the iPhone efforts the piece says Apple has put set of the iPhone camera team working on AR-related features for the iPhone

Adding depth sensing functionality to allow for new features and control of images and objects in images

The team Apple is putting together seems to be mimicking the effort and strategy Apple used to bring the Apple Watch to market

Apple will need to tackle issues of how to make a product that has the power and battery life to accomplish the task

Chances are Apple will need to develop new chipset and techniques along with and OS and software to pull it off.

Luckily these are skills Apple defiantly has.

Applications, how we will use it in day to day life, is also key. Apple tends to not do "gimmicks".

The piece concludes that AR-enhanced glasses are "further down the road" and that it's key for Apple to get the product right (I agree).

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Feedback, commentary, opinions

"The" wake from sleep monitor trick

Have you tried turning it off and back on again?

If you use File Vault the restart commands Control+Option+Power (restart) and Control+Option+Command+Power (shutdown) will not work on the login screen. That is because it's the FileVault login and not the main OS login.

How secure is your macOS account?

So you do the right thing to protect your Mac's users account. Set up a great secure login and password. You make sure your Mac locks when it goes to sleep and have it lock after a few minutes of inactivity. You're data is safe and protected in case of theft or your nosey roommate, right?

This is exactly the question Javier had when he emailed me this week.

If your mac gets stolen, can someone access the files via Target Disk Mode? Yes.

What about if it's encrypted with filevalt? No.

How secure is our mac when someone else is trying to get in without the admin password? Without FileVault on, not at all.

Target disk mode

Many may not realize that Macs have for a long time had a feature, Target Disk Mode, that allows you to "mount" the internal hard drive from one Mac on another Mac using a USB, Firewire, or (in some cases) Thunderbolt cable.

You connect the two Macs together and boot the one you want to be the "target" while holding down the Command + "T" keys

Once it's on and mounted all the files on the volume are accessible, without having to log in. It's like you attached it like a USB external hard drive.

When FileVault is on the "target" Mac cannot be accessed without entering the FileVault credentials.

Resetting the user and admin passwords

Another thing not many people know is that your user account passwords, including the admin account passwords, can be reset when booted from the recovery partition.

Boot the Mac holding down Command + "R"

Once in recovery mode, go to the 'Utilities' menu and choose 'Terminal'

In the terminal command prompt type `resetpassword`

That will allow you to select a user account on the Mac and enter a new password.

Click Save, restart and login using the new credentials. Done.

Again this technique will not work on a Mac with FileVault enabled, the user accounts won't be accessible because the volume is encrypted.

You can use the Disk Utility in Recovery mode first to authenticate FileVault and mount the boot drive.

Once you have done that they you could reset the account passwords.

Bottom line, if you are not using FileVault and only relying on your user account credentials the only thing protecting your data from unauthorized access is security by obscurity.

You hope who ever is trying to get unauthorized access to your data doesn't know about the above techniques.

Why does FileVault make a difference?

When you set up and use FileVault Apple makes it seem like just your main OS X login credentials work to unlock your Mac and FileVault, and they do.

Behind the scenes though the two credentials are stored separately and in separate parts of the system.

When you enable FileVault, the system will mirror your account password to the FileVault volume's EFI login prompt.

After being enabled when you log in you're actually seeing the FileVault prompt and not the main macOS system prompt. Apple has designed them to look the same though. At this point your Mac's hard drive is still encrypted and not accessible until you pass FileVault authentication.

Once you do pass the system volume is mounted, your login credentials are passed to the system login (in the background), your are automatically authenticated to your user account (because the username and passwords are mirrored) and you are logged into your Mac.

If you change your account password in the Users & Groups system preferences in OS X, then the FileVault EFI login password is also updated to match.

Where things become different with FileVault enabled is when you try and use any password or account reset methods outside of the Users & Groups system preferences on a Mac you're already authenticated on with FileVault.

In this scenario the "passwd" command in the Terminal and the "resetpassword" tool in the Recovery volume will not properly update the EFI login password.

Simply put, with FileVault on, there is no way to bypass or reset the user account passwords without first getting past the FileVault login.

What if you forget your FileVault login?

You really don't want to find yourself in this scenario, use a Password manager or some other method.

If you do Apple has provided a few "backup" plans.

Using the Reset Password assistant

Wait up to a minute at the login screen, until you see a message saying that you can use the power button on your Mac to shut down and start up again in Recovery OS. If you don't see this message, FileVault isn't on.

Press and hold the power button until your Mac turns off.

Press the power button again to turn on your Mac.

When the Reset Password window appears, follow the onscreen instructions to create a new password.

When done, click Restart.

If you were able to reset your password with the Reset Password assistant, log in to your account using your new password.

Create a new login keychain.

Reset using your Recovery Key

If FileVault is turned on and you have a FileVault Recovery Key (something you're asked if you want to create when you turn on FileVault), you can use that key to reset your password.

You can also set it up to allow your iCloud account credentials to be used to unlock your disk and reset your password. Just be aware that with this option Apple is storing your encryption keys in iCloud.

At the login screen, keep entering a password until you see a message saying that you can reset your password using your Recovery Key. If you don't see the message after three attempts, FileVault isn't on.

Click the arrow button next to the message. The password field changes to a Recovery Key field.

Enter your Recovery Key, then follow the onscreen instructions to create a new password. Click Reset Password when done.

Create a new login keychain.

One last thing.

FileVault only encrypts the macOS boot volume by default when enabled.

If you backup with Time Machine, Super Duper, Carbon Copy cloner, etc. and those volumes are not encrypted then their data is accessible should the drive be stolen or attached to another Mac.

For Time Machine volumes when you choose the volume in the Time Machine preferences you'll see an option to "Encrypt Backup"

For 3rd party backup solution please check with the software maker to see if they support File Vault encryption and follow their instructions. You may need to do something special to make sure it works.

You can enable FileVault on other external volumes by right+clicking (Control+Click) the volume in the Finder and choosing the 'Encrypt…' command.

FileVault 2 encryption on external drive sonly works on Mac OS Extended (Journaled) formatted volumes.

Apple Car play disappointment

Play feedback from Steve

I'm afraid I can't speak too much to this, because I can't afford new cars (or expensive new head units) so I don't have access to car play. I drive a paid for 2001 Subaru with 200,000 miles on it.

I want to open this to the community.

One thing I did wonder is would "Open Maps" have worked in your scenario where "Show Maps" did not? I get that you shouldn't have to do that, but was just curious.

Another tip I can give you when messaging gets something wrong is to use the command "Change it" instead of cancel.

Also when Siri says "would you like me to send it?" you can say "review it" to have it read back to make sure it's correct before sending.

Finally, according to Apple's CarPlay developer site it says that, "CarPlay now supports messaging apps. If your messaging app is enabled to work with Siri, it can be updated to appear in CarPlay."

They also have a link for feedback if you have an audio, automaker, or messaging app you think should work with CarPlay, but doesn't: https://developer.apple.com/contact/carplay/ (Requires a developer account). You could also use the iPhone section at http://www.apple.com/feedback/ I guess?

I think your are correct that access for 3rd party maps apps is not open yet.

Do more with your Live Photos

Thanks to not Apple, but Google

Google's [Motion Stills]( https://get.google.com/motionstills/) app is designed to remove motion shake from your Live Photos

A recent update though has brought some other functionality

It will also let you combine multiple Live Photo's together into a movie and loop your Live Photos back and forth, so you have a loop.

You can even add text that is "live". It tracks a person or object.

You can save your creations back to Live Photo or share them as a animated GIFs

The latest update also adds a feature that many wish Apple would add. The ability to set the key frame for the Live Photo.

This is important because when you see a Live Photo in Photos its the still frame that is displayed. The one you took might not always be the best one.

How to do it?

Get Motion Stills for free on the App Store

Open the App, it will access your photos (with permission) and find your Live Photos

Select the Live Photo you want to change the key frame for.

In the Motion Still editor turn off Motion Stills and Loop Back and Forth

Tap the share button and choose export Live Photo.

Use the slider to choose the key frame you want and tap the check mark button.

A new copy of the Live Photo with your selected key frame will be saved to your Camera Roll.

Closing

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