LTA 124: December 2023

Panel:

• Bart Busschots (host) – @bbusschots

This solo show starts with a few followups, some regulatory and legal news, a little HR news, and the highlights from Apple’s services and original content. The four main stories are Push Notification spying, the Beeper Mini saga, the US import ban on Apple Watches, and the Operation Triangulation iPhone hacks. Finally, the show finishes with some other quick Apple-related stories that made the news in December.

You’ll find detailed show notes below the fold, and if you enjoy this free show, please consider clicking on the donate button at the top of the left side bar – the show is free for you to listen to, but not for Bart to Produce!

Updates & Followup

Quick updates to long-running stories the show continues to track, and to stories covered in recent shows.

• Apple wasn't quite done with end-of-year lists/awards:

  • 'Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus' is Apple's podcast of the year — appleinsider.com/…
  • Apple highlights the 2023 top App Store apps and games — appleinsider.com/… (Apple's Press Release)

• Features promised at WWDC continue to arrive:

  • Apple Releases iOS and iPadOS 17.2 with Journal App, Messages and Music Improvements, and More — www.macstories.net/… (Apple's Press Release for the Journal App)

    • How to start journaling with the new iPhone Journal app — www.cultofmac.com/…

  • VPN apps come to the Apple TV:

    • ExpressVPN brings its VPN app to the Apple TV — appleinsider.com/…
    • NordVPN releases app for Apple TVs running tvOS 17 — appleinsider.com/…

  • A promised fix is delivered: iPhone Users Will No Longer Face Wireless Charging Issues on Cars After iOS 17.2 Update — www.macobserver.com/…

  • Related: other un-pre-announced improvements arrive too:

    • Apple releases tvOS 17.2 with 3D movies and better system navigation — appleinsider.com/… (Apple's Press Release for the tvOS re-design
    • iPhones 15 Pro can now record spatial video for the up-coming Apple Vision Pro headset — www.apple.com/…

• Apple beefs up Self Service Repair with new diagnostic, extended to iPhone 15 & M2 Mac — appleinsider.com/… (Apple's Press Release)

  • You can now access Apple’s official diagnostics tool online for DIY repairs — arstechnica.com

• Apple's gaming push continues:

  • Sonic Dream Team races onto Apple Arcade — www.cultofmac.com/…
  • Unity 6 announced with AI tools, plus Apple & Meta partnerships — appleinsider.com/… (Vision Pro support)
  • 'Resident Evil 4' now available on iPhone 15 Pro, iPad, & Mac — appleinsider.com/…
  • Related: Apple is pushing hard to make the Mac relevant in gaming — appleinsider.com/… (Mac execs made the case for how transformative Apple Silicon is for Mac gaming in a recent in-depth interview)

• Apple continues to quietly work away on AI:

  • Apple demonstrates its commitment to AI with new open source code release — appleinsider.com/… (MLX, an ML framework for Apple Silicon)
  • Apple wants AI to run directly on its hardware instead of in the cloud — arstechnica.com (Published Research Paper)
  • Apple's 'Ferret' is a new open-source machine learning model — appleinsider.com/…
  • Apple offers publishers millions to train AI on archives — appleinsider.com/…

• Apple continues to diversify its supply chain, and it remains complicated:

  • Apple isn't happy about India's demand to upgrade older iPhones with USB-C — appleinsider.com/… (Unlike EU, India wants Apple to back-port USB-C into older models)
  • Apple gets backlash from India after uncovering hacks on journalists — appleinsider.com/…
  • Rising star Luxshare secures major stake in Pegatron's iPhone factory — appleinsider.com/…
  • Apple's iPad development moves from China to Vietnam — appleinsider.com/…
  • Foxconn pours another $1 billion into India expansion — appleinsider.com/…

Regulatory Rundown

• European Commission grills Apple and Google on app store risks and ad practices — appleinsider.com/… (DSA implementation)
• UK regulator prepares to restart Apple cloud gaming probe in January — appleinsider.com/…

Legal Latest

• Apple and Corellium settle legal dispute over virtualized iPhone software — appleinsider.com/… (Terms not known)
• Apple settles Family Sharing lawsuit with $25 million fund — appleinsider.com/… (claim was: "Apple misrepresented to users their ability to use Family Sharing to share subscriptions to certain apps with other members of their Family Sharing groups.")

Apple HR & Acquisition News

• Apple's war on unions continues:

  • Apple refuses to recognize Southampton store union, staff pushes forward anyway — appleinsider.com/…
  • Barcelona Apple Store union will strike on December 23 — appleinsider.com/…

• Apple executive behind Touch ID, display multitouch is retiring — appleinsider.com/… (Steve Hotelling)

• Tang Tan, Apple's VP of Product Design is leaving Apple to join Jony Ives' design firm LoveFrom to work with OpenAI on some kind of AI device — arstechnica.com/… & www.bloomberg.com/…

  • Related Insight: "More designers from Ive’s team at Apple now work at LoveFrom than remain at Apple" (John Gruber) — daringfireball.net/…

Apple Services & Original Content Highlights

• Apple TV+: Apple TV+ pulls five wins at the Children's and Family Emmy Awards — appleinsider.com/…
• Apple News+: Apple adds The Athletic to News+, Wirecutter coming soon — sixcolors.com/…
• Porsche and Aston Martin preview gorgeous next-gen Apple CarPlay — www.cultofmac.com/…

Main Stories

1. US Senator Ron Wyden reveals that both Apple & Google have been forced to silently participate in an entire type of spying we were not aware of — Push Notification Metadata

   • US senator: Govts spy on Apple, Google users via mobile notifications — www.bleepingcomputer.com/…
   • Apple admits to secretly giving governments push notification data — arstechnica.com/…
   • Apple Requires Only a Subpoena to Turn Over Push Notification Tokens to Law Enforcement; Google Requires a Court Order — daringfireball.net/…
   • Apple Updates Law Enforcement Guidelines to Require a Judge's Approval Before Handing Over Push Notification Records — daringfireball.net/…

2. Beeper Mini briefly allowed Android users to access the iMessage infrastructure, a brief cat-and-mouse game ensued, and Apple won

   • Beeper Mini for Android sends and receives iMessages, no Mac server required — arstechnica.com/…
   • Android iMessage app Beeper mini isn't working, and Apple probably killed it — appleinsider.com/…
   • Apple confirms it blocked Beeper Mini citing security risks — appleinsider.com/…
   • Beeper Mini developers say fix is 'coming soon' for iMessage Android app — appleinsider.com/…
   • Beeper Mini for Android lives again, but for how long is anybody's guess — appleinsider.com/…
   • Beeper Mini is down for 5% of users, but there's a fix — appleinsider.com/…
   • The slow death of Beeper continues, and more senators want to get involved — appleinsider.com/…
   • Not dead yet: Beeper Mini's new fix requires Mac access — appleinsider.com/…
   • Beeper has more ridiculous work-arounds for its iMessage bridge hack — forums.appleinsider.com/… (Requires jail-broke old iPhone, and Beeper say this is their last roll of the dice)
   • DOJ antitrust lawyers question Beeper over Apple's iMessage hack — appleinsider.com/…
   • Opinion: Beep Beep — daringfireball.net/…

3. Apple's long-running patent dispute with Masimo over the blood oxygen monitor in recent Apple Watches came to a head in December — the sales ban warned about in November actually happened, for a while, and is now stayed rather than resolved:

   • Apple working on a software fix to prevent Apple Watch import ban — www.cultofmac.com/…
   • Apple 'pausing' Apple Watch sales in US over patent dispute — www.cultofmac.com/… & Apple Watches being pulled from stores this week due to potential import ban — arstechnica.com
   • Masimo open to an Apple Watch settlement, if Apple would only call — appleinsider.com/…
   • Apple's legal bid to pause Apple Watch sales & import ban fails — appleinsider.com/… (Appeal to ITC)
   • Apple won't offer Apple Watch service replacements on out of warranty devices — appleinsider.com/… (during import ban)
   • Apple halts sales of the Apple Watch Series 9, Apple Watch Ultra 2 in its online store ahead of Dec 25 ban — appleinsider.com/…
   • Biden administration confirms it won’t overturn Apple Watch ban — www.cultofmac.com/…
   • United States Apple Watch import ban has begun with no resolution in sight — appleinsider.com/…
   • Apple appeals Apple Watch ban, citing 'irreparable harm' to its business — appleinsider.com/… (Appeal to US Circuit Court of Appeals)
   • Appeals court pauses ban on patent-infringing Apple Watch imports — arstechnica.com & Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 returning to select Apple Stores today, online tomorrow — 9to5mac.com/…
   • Apple still pursuing software fix to avoid Apple Watch import ban altogether — appleinsider.com/…
   • Masimo has spent $100M in Apple Watch patent infringement fight — appleinsider.com/…

4. The highly sophisticated and carefully targeted 4-year Operation Triangulation hacking campaign:

   • 4-year campaign backdoored iPhones using possibly the most advanced exploit ever — arstechnica.com/…

     "Researchers on Wednesday presented intriguing new findings surrounding an attack that over four years backdoored dozens if not thousands of iPhones, many of which belonged to employees of Moscow-based security firm Kaspersky. Chief among the discoveries: the unknown attackers were able to achieve an unprecedented level of access by exploiting a vulnerability in an undocumented hardware feature that few if anyone outside of Apple and chip suppliers such as ARM Holdings knew of"

     …

     "the infections were delivered in iMessage texts that installed malware through a complex exploit chain without requiring the receiver to take any action"

     …

     "The exploit’s sophistication and the feature’s obscurity suggest the attackers had advanced technical capabilities"

   • The detailed report from Kaspersky Labs — securelist.com/…

     "Our guess is that this unknown hardware feature was most likely intended to be used for debugging or testing purposes by Apple engineers or the factory, or that it was included by mistake"

Quick Stories

• Apple selling a standalone second-generation AirPod Pro USB-C case for $99 — appleinsider.com/…
• Apple pilots new way to allow developers to offer discounted subscriptions — appleinsider.com/… (Developers can offer discounts on one subscription to users who have another subscription)
• PETA names Apple as the 2023 Company of the Year — appleinsider.com/…
• Apple Podcasts comes to Teslas — appleinsider.com/…

Legend

Note: When the textual description of a link is part of the link it is the title of the page being linked to, when the text describing a link is not part of the link it is a description written by Bart.