MacRumors

Google is testing a new feature for its Google Chrome app for iOS, which will let Incognito tabs be locked with either Face ID or Touch ID on an iPhone or iPad.

As highlighted by 9to5Google, the latest Chrome beta will blur Incognito tabs in the Chrome app until confirmed with the ‌iPhone‌'s biometric authentication.

The feature can be enabled by going to Settings > Privacy > Lock Incognito tabs when you close Chrome. There's a similar option in the Google Search app that confirms identity with ‌Face ID‌ or ‌Touch ID‌ when returning to an incognito search session after 15 minutes, and there's also a privacy lock built into Google Drive.

Google has not updated the Chrome app for iOS since November as it is delaying new versions of most of its apps at the current time. It's not clear when the new feature might launch in the release version of Chrome, but Chrome 89 is expected to launch next month.

The Incognito tab locking feature is limited to beta testers at the current time, and according to 9to5Google, not all beta users are able to access the locking option as there is a server-side element involved.

The U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce this week sent a letter to Apple [PDF] inquiring about the accuracy of the App Privacy labels that Apple asked developers to start adding to apps back in December.

In the letter, the committee asks Apple about reports suggesting that some App Privacy labels are offering "misleading and false information." The query was prompted by a January story from The Washington Post that found over a dozen apps with inaccurate privacy labels.

Apple requires developers to provide information on all of the data that an app collects, but developers are self-submitting the privacy label details on an honor system, without verification from Apple itself. Apple has said that it routinely audits the information that's provided and works with developers to correct inaccuracies, but it's impossible for the company to verify every app's privacy listing.

App developers that do get audited and are found to have failed to disclose accurate privacy information can have future app updates rejected or in some situations, the apps can be removed from the App Store entirely if not brought into compliance.

Committee members Frank Pallone and Jan Schakowsky told Apple that a privacy label is "no protection if it is false," in the letter that urges Apple to improve App Privacy labels.

"According to recent reports, App Privacy labels can be highly misleading or blatantly false. Using software that logs data transmitted to trackers, a reporter discovered that approximately one third of evaluated apps that said they did not collect data had inaccurate labels. A privacy label is no protection if it is false. We urge Apple to improve the validity of its App Privacy labels to ensure consumers are provided meaningful information about their apps' data practices and that consumers are not harmed by these potentially deceptive practices."

Apple has been asked to provide the following details on its App Privacy system:

• Details on the process by which Apple audits the privacy information provided by app developers and how frequently audits are conducted;
• How many of the apps audited since the implementation of the App Privacy label were found to have provided inaccurate or misleading information;
• Whether Apple ensures that App Privacy labels are corrected upon the discovery of inaccuracies or misleading information; and
• Details regarding Apple's enforcement policies when an app fails to provide accurate privacy information for the App Privacy label.

The committee asks that Apple send the requested information by February 23, so Apple has two weeks to craft a response.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Amazon today has Apple's AirPods Pro available for $179.98, down from $249.00. This is an Amazon all-time-low price, and it's just about $10 off from the best price seen over the holidays.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Amazon. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

AirPods Pro are Apple's high-end Bluetooth headphones, offering active noise cancellation and many more features. The included charging case also supports Qi wireless charging, so you can recharge the headphones via any compatible Qi mat.

The AirPods Pro are in stock and ready to ship in 1-2 business days, but this sale will likely expire fast so if you're interested head to Amazon soon.

We track sales for every model of the AirPods in our Best AirPods Deals guide, so be sure to bookmark that page while you shop around for the wireless headphones.

Google has rolled out a suite of new video editing features for Google Photos on iOS that adds granular controls for editing things such as brightness, contrast, and exposure. In addition to the fine-tune controls, users will now have the ability to crop, change the perspective, and add filters to videos directly within the app.

In September, Google announced a redesigned editor for Google Photos that puts machine learning editing suggestions right in the center of the app UI alongside larger tabs to access editing controls directly. Google says this new redesigned experience will be available on iOS in "the coming months."

The new video editing tools themselves are already available on iOS according to Google thanks to a server-side roll-out, given the app was last updated more than two months ago. Google Photos remains a part of a handful of Google apps on the App Store that have gone for weeks without a proper update.

Google Photos was last updated in December and some have theorized that the lack of updates is due to Apple's new privacy "nutrition labels" that educates users on what data an app collects about them and whether it shares the data with 3rd parties. On December 8, Apple began requiring all app updates submitted to the App Store to include the labels and the absence of updates for Google apps seemingly suggests an unwillingness from Google to reveal its privacy practices.

Google said at the start of January that it would update its apps with the new privacy labels in the week following the statement, but so far many of its most popular apps such as Google Maps, Google Search, Google Meet, and Google Photos remain without an update or labels.

A number of Apple patent applications, published earlier today, appear to be directly related to its long-rumored mixed reality headset, covering a range of aspects including design elements, lens adjustment, eye-tracking technology, and even software.

The patents, filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by Apple, were made public earlier today and seemingly relate to specific features of its mixed-reality headset product.

Firstly, Apple applied for a patent related to several of the design elements of a head-mounted display unit in a filing titled "Head-Mounted Display Unit With Adaptable Facial Interface." This filing attempts to explain how a number of individual design elements can prevent a headset from being moved around by facial movements, increase the ability of a user to move their face when wearing a headset, and improve general comfort.

In supporting a headset on both the upper and lower facial regions separately, Apple seeks to reduce tension and facial compression for a more comfortable fit. This is achieved with "a light seal that conforms to the face of the user," which also blocks out environmental light, various facial supports of different stiffnesses, and even a "sprung" lower section. Among the recent deluge of reports surrounding Apple's mixed reality headset was The Information's remark that Apple is using a supportive "mesh material" around the headset for comfort.

In another application published today titled "Electronic Device With A Tunable Lens," Apple describes a lens-adjustment system for a head-mounted display unit. To present content optimally to a specific wearer, the optical lenses inside a VR/AR headset usually have to be adjusted.

Apple's system for adjusting lenses involves using a first and second lens element "separated by a liquid-filled gap with an adjustable thickness." In modulating how much fluid is allowed in this gap, the headset is able to move the lenses closer together or further apart to be suitable for a specific user. Unlike many other VR headsets, which require users to manually move lenses, Apple's system is entirely electronic and controlled by actuators. Lens elements may also be "semi-rigid" to be able to adjust their curvature as needed.

Earlier this month, The Information claimed that Apple's headset would feature "advanced technology for eye tracking." Now, a new patent application from Apple simply titled "Eye Tracking System," outlines a process to detect the position and movement of a user's eyes in a head-mounted display unit.

The eye tracking system includes at least one eye tracking camera, an illumination source that emits infrared light towards the user's eyes, and diffraction gratings located at the eyepieces. The diffraction gratings redirect or reflect at least a portion of infrared light reflected off the user's eyes, while allowing visible light to pass. The cameras capture images of the user's eyes from the infrared light that is redirected or reflected by the diffraction gratings.

Infrared cameras and a light source can be placed within the headset behind the lenses to detect infrared light bounced off of a user's eyes. The "diffraction grafting," placed between the camera and a user's eye, may take the form of a thin holographic film laminated to the lens, and serves to direct the light from a user's eye directly to the camera, while allowing visible light from the headset's display to pass through as normal. The IR camera would need to be placed at the edges of the display panels, near to a user's cheekbones.

The filing goes on to describe in detail how this system allows the headset to precisely locate and track the movement of a user's "point of gaze." The system is so accurate that it is even able to detect pupil dilation. In terms of software applications for eye tracking, Apple remains vague, but it does suggest that the technology could be used for "gaze-based interactions" such as creating eye "animations used in avatars in a VR/AR environment."

The Information said that Apple's mixed reality headset will use "cameras on the device, the headset will also be able to respond to the eye movements and hand gestures of the wearer." It is also of note that in 2017, Apple acquired SensoMotoric Instruments, a German firm that made eye-tracking technology for VR headsets. One purpose suggested by The Information was as follows:

Apple has for years worked on technology that uses eye tracking to fully render only parts of the display where the user is looking. That would let the headset show lower-quality graphics in the user's peripheral vision and reduce the device's computing needs, according to people with knowledge of the efforts.

Finally, Apple has revealed a user interface concept for "a virtual reality and/or augmented reality device," in a filing called "3D Document Editing System." The patent application sets out how documents can be edited in a virtual 3D space. The system involves a keyboard being paired with the headset via Bluetooth or a wired connection to edit text.

The VR device may be configured to display a 3D text generation and editing GUI in a virtual space that includes a virtual screen for entering or editing text in documents via a keypad of the input device. Unlike conventional 2D graphical user interfaces, using embodiments of the 3D document editing system, a text area or text field of a document can be placed at or moved to various Z-depths in the 3D virtual space.

The filing adds that the headset may be able to detect a user's gestures to move selected content in a document such as highlighted text, shapes, or text boxes, and explains that users could move document elements in three dimensions on a Z-axis. It goes on to list a number of specific finger gestures to perform specific actions in a 3D text editor application.

In some embodiments, a document generated using the 3D text editing system may be displayed to content consumers in a 3D virtual space via VR devices, with portions of the document (e.g., paragraphs, text boxes, URLs, sentences, words, sections, columns, etc.) shifted backward or forward on the Z axis relative to the rest of the content in the document to highlight or differentiate those parts of the document. For example, active text fields or hot links such as URLs may be moved forward relative to other content in the document so that they are more visible and easier to access by the consumer in the 3D virtual space using a device such as a controller or hand gestures.

The patent application also proposes that the headset could pass through a view of the user's real-world environment in the document editing software.

In some embodiments, the VR device may also provide augmented reality (AR) or mixed reality (MR) by combining computer generated information with a view of the user's environment to augment, or add content to, a user's view of the world. In these embodiments, the 3D text generation and editing GUI may be displayed in an AR or MR view of the user's environment.

This is similar to The Information's claim that the "cameras on the device will be able to pass video of the real world through the visor and display it on screens to the person wearing the headset, creating a mixed-reality effect," and the general parity of these patent applications to recent rumors about Apple's mixed reality headset is striking. While patent applications cannot be taken as evidence of the exact technologies Apple is planning to bring to consumer products, it is difficult to look past the way in which these patents fit into the bigger picture surrounding Apple's AR/VR project.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has said that Apple will reveal an augmented reality device this year, and according to JP Morgan, the device will launch in the first quarter of 2022. The headset is expected to be priced around $3,000, competing with the likes of Microsoft's HoloLens 2, which costs $3,500. Yesterday, designer Antonio De Rosa shared photorealistic renders of what Apple's mixed reality headset is believed to look like based on recent rumors.

In late October, Apple filed an unspecified product in the Bluetooth SIG database with a "B2002" name, "Personal Computer" category, and "TBD" model number, and now the company has filed its trio of Macs with the M1 chip under the same entry.

The latest MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini with the M1 chip were added to the listing on February 10, 2021.

While these additions to the database rule out the possibility of the "TBD" item being an M1 Mac, the listing otherwise remains a mystery. Many other existing Apple products can be ruled out too, as there are separate Bluetooth database listings for the iPhone 12 lineup, Apple Watch Series 6 and Apple Watch SE, AirPods Max, HomePod mini, fourth-generation iPad Air, eighth-generation iPad, latest iPad Pro models, and more.

Products rumored to be in Apple's pipeline for release in 2021 include its long-awaited AirTags items trackers, a new Apple TV, second-generation AirPods Pro, and more, but it is simply unclear what the "TBD" listing represents.

In addition to entire products, Apple does occasionally file components in the Bluetooth SIG database, such as the H1 chip in the second-generation AirPods and the W2 chip in the Apple Watch Series 3. The "TBD" listing has a "Controller Subsystem + Host + Profile" description, so it is possible that it refers to the M1 chip or another component in the M1 Macs and simply has yet to be updated to reflect that, but it remains to be seen.

A group of U.S. chip companies, including Intel, Qualcomm, Micron, and AMD, have today sent a letter to President Joe Biden to request "funding for incentives," while Apple supplier TSMC is undertaking a considerable expansion as chip demand outstrips supply (via Reuters).

The letter to the President asked for "substantial funding for incentives for semiconductor manufacturing" to be included in his economic recovery and infrastructure plans. The letter from the U.S. firms noted that the U.S. share of semiconductor manufacturing has dropped from 37 percent in 1990 to 12 percent today.

This is largely because the governments of our global competitors offer significant incentives and subsidies to attract new semiconductor manufacturing facilities, while the U.S. does not.

Working with Congress, your administration now has a historic opportunity to fund these initiatives to make them a reality. We believe bold action is needed to address the challenges we face. The costs of inaction are high.

Intel, in particular, has suffered from a myriad of problems. With major client Apple dropping Intel for its own custom silicon, and Microsoft expected to follow suit in the near future, Intel has struggled to deliver technological innovations. This is after the company has repeatedly reported delays with its latest processors, while its main competitor, AMD, has proceeded to capture valuable market share. After a major investor pushed Intel to shake up its entire business model, the company is hoping that new CEO Pat Gelsinger will help it to find its way.

While subsidies for chip manufacturing and semiconductor research have been authorized by Congress, the quantity of funding has yet to be decided. The association of companies hopes to receive significant funding in the form of grants or tax credits to claw back market share.

The formal request comes amid a global shortage of chips, which have hampered the automotive industry and popular games consoles in particular. The majority of the supply of the constrained chips comes from Taiwan and Korea, which have come to dominate the industry in recent years.

EETimes is today reporting that unlike the U.S. firms, TSMC, Apple's main chip supplier, is raising $9 billion from bonds to expand production. The company has approved the establishment of a $186 million subsidiary in Japan to expand research on materials for three-dimensional chips, following unconfirmed reports that TSMC plans to open its first overseas chip-packaging facility in Japan. TSMC also plans to combat U.S. chip makers on home territory this year by opening a new manufacturing facility in the U.S. state of Arizona.

TSMC is currently trying to meet unprecedented demand that exceeds its production capacity as global demand for secure supplies of chips skyrockets, boosting component prices by as much as 15 percent in the past two financial quarters. The chip shortage has not severely affected Apple since TSMC gives it priority over other clients such as Microsoft, Sony, Volkswagen, and Toyota because it holds much larger orders.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Apple this week shared a short film on its YouTube channel in France called "Le Peintre," which translates to "The Painter." Shot on the iPhone by Paris-bared director J.B. Braud, the video depicts a house painter who rings the doorbell of a large house and gradually realizes that he is the victim of a misunderstanding, according to Apple.

Apple has highlighted the video on a new page on its French website that promotes iPhone 12 models as being able to shoot cinema-quality video.

From February 15 to February 28, Apple will be hosting virtual Today at Apple sessions with French filmmaking professionals, including Braud. Anyone can register for these free sessions, hosted over Webex, but they will likely be in French only.

Apple is also promoting the video on Twitter with a #LePeintre hashtag, complete with a custom paintbrush hashflag icon, as spotted by MacRumors reader Aaron.

Apple has announced that students who have yet to subscribe to Apple Music can now get a six-month free trial – double the standard three months offered to students – in the United States and select other countries.

Apple says the promotion is open to students in the United States studying for a bachelor degree, post-graduate degree, or an equivalent Higher Education course at a University or College. Eligibility in Canada extends to Post-Secondary School students, and in Japan to junior, technical colleges, and special courses.

Students must verify their eligibility by confirming your student status through UNiDAYS. The limited time promotion ends April 30, 2021. When the trial ends, the ‌Apple Music‌ plan for students is $4.99 per month, compared to the standard $9.99 per month for individuals.

This is only the second time Apple has offered students a limited time six-month promotion offer for ‌Apple Music‌. The last one arrived in July 2019. This latest one was first spotted by a Twitter user and subsequently reported by The 8-Bit.

Google-owned mapping app Waze has been updated with support for Audible audiobook streaming, according to a press release on the Audible website.

The integration with Waze means drivers with an Audible membership can access its catalog of more than 600,000 Audible Originals, audiobooks, podcasts, and other audio programs.

"We are very excited to kick off 2021 by welcoming Audible into the Audio Player family," said Adam Fried, Head of Global Partnerships at Waze. "Audible is such a beloved brand with a huge catalogue of content and we're thrilled to be able to bring it straight to their drives. Our users have already driven over 100 billion kilometers while listening to content from streaming services on our Audio Player, and we can't wait to bring this experience to even more users thanks to our collaboration with Audible."

Audible members can listen on Waze by launching the Waze app and tapping the music note icon to select Audible as their audio player. Audible members will also receive next turn directions from Waze inside the Audible app.

"We're delighted to be able to offer our members around the world a new way to access Audible," said Derek Murphy, VP, Business Development at Audible. "Whether you're listening to the latest Audible Original or catching up on a recent best-seller, Audible on Waze allows you to seamlessly enjoy audio content that entertains, inspires and informs you."

Audible is the latest streaming service to integrate its audio experience into Waze by using the Waze Audio Kit. Other streaming services that feature as part of Waze's Audio Player Program include Pandora, Deezer, iHeartRadio, NPR One, and TuneIn Radio.

Waze can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Google is testing a dark mode for its desktop search website that responds to a user's system display setting, a move that may have gained traction to alleviate eye strain issues for people working longer hours from home.

The test appears to have limited rollout at the moment, but as the images show, the very dark gray theme extends not only to the Google homepage but search results, too.

It's unknown when dark mode for desktop search could be officially rolled out globally. "We're always testing new ways to improve our experience for our users, but don't have anything specific to announce right now," Google told The Verge.

It's not the first time we've seen dark mode appear on Google's desktop search, either. The feature appeared for some users back in December, but then quietly disappeared into the internet ether.

Apple introduced Dark Mode way back in 2018 with macOS Mojave and iOS 13, and support for the system-wide option is now a staple feature of most native and third-party apps on both mobile and desktop.

But as we learned from Google's protracted stop-start efforts to bring dark mode to Gmail, there's no saying when or even if this change will ultimately see the light of day.

However, there are alternative methods available for getting rid of the plain white background on your Google searches. One of them we like is the browser extension Dark Reader, which is available for Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge.

Starting with iOS and iPadOS 14.5, Apple will proxy Google's "Safe Browsing" service used in Safari through its own servers instead of relying on Google as a way to limit which personal data Google sees about users.

Safari on iOS and iPadOS includes a built-in feature called "Fraudulent Website Warning." As Apple describes it, having the feature enabled will prompt Safari to warn users if they're visiting a suspected phishing website, or in other words, a website attempting to steal your data such as username, passwords, and other information.

In order to provide this feature, Apple relies on Google's "Safe Browsing," a database/blocklist of websites crawled by Google of websites that it deems to be suspected phishing or scam. In practice Google sends Safari a list of hashed prefixes of URLs that it determines to be malicious/phishing, Safari then checks the website you're trying to visit against the list from Google. Any match in hashed prefix will cause Safari to request the full URL link from Google, and by using the hashed prefix, Google never sees the website's URL you're trying to go to.

While Google doesn't know which specific URL you're trying to visit, it may collect your IP address during its interaction with Safari. Now on iOS/iPadOS 14.5, that's no longer the case. As confirmed by the Head of Engineering for WebKit, Apple will now proxy Google's Safe Browsing feature through its own servers instead of Google as a way to "limit the risk of information leak."

Screenshots posted on Reddit of incoming/outgoing connections on a device running the latest iOS 14.5 beta shows a new "proxy.safebrowsing.apple" URL, and testing by MacRumors shows the same URL alongside "safebrowsing.g.applimg.com" and "token.safebrowsing.apple" being used to proxy "Safe Browsing."

The new change in iOS and iPadOS is part of a comprehensive set of privacy-focused features for the iPhone and iPad and Apple's recent forceful push towards more stringent privacy features/rules. In addition to the change in "Safe Browsing," iOS 14.5 will also require apps to asks for user's permission before tracking them across other apps and websites.

The new requirement called "ATT" or App Tracking Transparency has caused companies such as Facebook and Twitter to voice concerns about how the new feature will impact their bottom-line, specifically when it comes to personalized advertising.

Another noteworthy feature in the upcoming update is crowdsource reporting for accidents, speed traps, and hazards within Apple Maps. Apple released the first beta to developers and public beta testers last week and says that iOS and iPadOS 14.5 will roll out to the public in the "early spring."

Though Google has promised to update its suite of apps with App Privacy labels to comply with App Store rules that Apple began enforcing in December, many of its major apps have gone months without an update and still list no privacy information.

It's been so long since Google last updated the Gmail app, in fact, that Gmail now displays a warning that the latest security features are unavailable. As discovered by Techmeme editor Spencer Dailey, when you go to log into a new account in the Gmail app for iOS, it gives a warning that you should update and suggests that you only continue with the sign in "if you understand the risks."

Unfortunately, there is no update available for the Gmail app. Version 6.0.201115 of the Gmail app is the only available version of Gmail on the iPhone and iPad, and it hasn't been updated since December 1.

Google on January 5 claimed that it would be adding privacy data to its app catalog "this week or next week," but by January 20, most apps still had not been updated with the App Privacy labels.

Google has since quietly been adding labels to apps like YouTube, but major apps like Gmail, Google Search, Google Photos, Google Maps, and others still do not have privacy details. Even in apps that have gained with labels, there have been no feature or security updates for the most part.

It continues to be unclear why Google is taking so long to add App Privacy labels to its iOS apps, and there's no word yet on when Gmail will get an update. Google has been regularly updating its Android apps, and the last update for the Android Gmail app was released on February 9.

There has been speculation that Google is hesitant to provide the privacy label data because of the negative feedback that other companies like Facebook have received, but there's still no confirmed explanation. Dailey suggests in his blog post on the issue that Google's delay could perhaps be due to behind the scenes efforts to overhaul some of its data collection methods, and if there is indeed tweaking like that going on, it would explain why many of the main apps have yet to be updated.

App Privacy labels have been required since iOS 14.3 and are designed to provide customers with details about what data an app collects from them so they can make an informed choice when opting to install an app. App developers are required to self-report privacy information in the ‌‌App Store‌‌, and developers must identify all data collection and use cases.

Update: Google has pushed a server side update that removes the out of date warning when attempting to sign into a new account in the Gmail app.