MacRumors

Anker in December debuted a new LED flash accessory that's unique because it's the first iPhone flash option that's Apple certified with Made for iPhone approval.

Anker started accepting pre-orders for the flash earlier this month ahead of a launch in late January, and we were able to get our hands on the LED flash to try it out.

Priced at $50, the LED flash from Anker is designed to work with Apple's newest iPhones, which means it is compatible with the iPhone 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max.

There have been other flash accessories on the market in the past, but these have all worked over Bluetooth. Anker's LED flash has a Lightning cable that plugs right into the Lightning port on the iPhone, so it's perfectly synced with the rear cameras and goes off at just the right time.

Design wise, the flash is a little cube with an LED bulb at the front, a Lightning cable at the bottom, and a power button at the side. It comes equipped with a storage pouch and a little diffuser accessory to make the lighting less harsh for when you want a softer look. At the side opposite the power button, there's a tripod mount so you can mount it if desired, but holding it is an option too.

Anker's flash is equipped with a 700mAh battery, which is good for approximately 10,000 shots in flash mode or 50 minutes of light during video capture. Using the flash for video requires putting it into a flashlight mode, which can be done by pressing on the power button.

Once the battery has been exhausted, it will need to be recharged, which can be done with a 5W charger and a USB to Lightning cable. Recharging takes about 75 minutes.

Using the flash with the iPhone requires no setup because of the Lightning cable. Once it's plugged in, it works with the built-in Camera app of the iPhone when the flash is turned on, and it can also work in third-party apps.

According to Anker, the flash accessory is meant to offer 4x more light than the standard built-in flash of the iPhone, which has always been weak and often of very little use for most images.

Anker's flash provides more even lighting throughout the image, and it provides a cooler color temperature. You can see the difference between no flash, the built-in flash, night mode, and the Anker flash accessory in the images below.

The LED flash from Anker puts out quite a bit of light, which is useful for photos and videos alike in low lighting conditions. The diffuser is a useful tool too, as seen in these comparison images.

For those who are into iPhone photography, Anker's little cube flash is a tool that will give you more options when capturing images and videos, and it's certainly more useful than Apple's built-in flash.

Those interested in the Anker flash can pre-order it from Amazon for $50, with orders set to ship out on January 25.

Apple is considering creating original podcasts focused on TV shows and movies from its Apple TV+ streaming service, reports Bloomberg. The podcasts would be used to promote ‌Apple TV‌+ content.

In the summer of 2019, Apple began asking podcast producers to pitch ideas for podcasts with connections to ‌Apple TV‌+ shows, and has since discussed making podcasts with the producers of some of those TV shows.

Apple's streaming TV service, which launched in November, has less content than other streaming services like Hulu, Disney+, and Netflix, so podcasts could provide Apple with a way to draw in new viewers. Though Apple is new to streaming TV, some of its shows, like "The Morning Show" have already earned award nominations and wins.

‌Apple TV‌+ competitor Netflix creates podcasts that offer behind the scenes looks at TV shows, so Apple could potentially offer something similar for its own shows.

Apple's plans have not been finalized, and it's not clear when ‌Apple TV‌+ podcasts might start rolling out if Apple does indeed decide to continue on with the project.

Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. built and oversees a $10 million high-tech forensics lab built expressly for the purpose of cracking iPhones, according to a new profile done by Fast Company.

The lab is equipped with "mind-bending hardware" and a team of technology experts, many of whom are ex-military. The facility itself features a radiofrequency isolation chamber that prevents iPhones being used in investigations from being accessed remotely to keep them from being wiped.

Vance's team has thousands of iPhones at the facility in various stages of being cracked. There's a supercomputer that generates 26 million random passcodes per second, a robot that can remove memory chips without using heat, and specialized tools for repairing damaged devices to make them accessible once again.

All of the iPhones are hooked up to computers that are generating passcodes in an effort to get into the iPhones, and sometimes that requires going through tens of thousands of number combinations. Those who work at the facility, including director Steven Moran, also attempt to narrow down possibilities using birthdays, significant dates, and other info that could be used in each specific case for an iPhone passcode.

Proprietary workflow software tracks all of the iPhones at the facility, including their software and their importance, for the purpose of deciding which iPhone to work on and which might be able to be cracked using a newly found third-party solution.

Vance has been a major critic of Apple and has called on the government to introduce anti-encryption legislation to make it easier for law enforcement officials to get into iPhones needed for criminal investigations. According to Vance, 82 percent of smartphones that come into the unit are locked, and his cybercrime lab can crack "about half."

Apple's frequent software updates continually make breaking into iPhones harder by making the process more complicated, which can make it close to impossible to breach an iPhone in a timely manner. "The problem with that, particularly from a law enforcement perspective, is, first of all, time matters to us," said Vance.

Vance believes that it's "not fair" that Apple and Google can prevent law enforcement officials from accessing smartphones. Vance says that law enforcement is entrusted with a responsibility to "protect the public" but Apple and Google have limited access to information "just because they say so." Vance is of the opinion that there should be a "balance" between protecting user privacy and getting justice for victims of crimes.

"That's not their call. And it's not their call because there's something bigger here at issue rather than their individual determination of where to balance privacy and public safety. What's bigger is you've got victims and you've got a law enforcement community who have strong imperatives that should be recognized and balanced equally with the subject decision-makers by the heads of Apple and Google. Today, I think it's unbalanced.

Apple's argument is that it provides iPhone data from iCloud without breaking into the iPhone itself, but Vance says that a serious criminal doesn't have an ‌iCloud‌ backup. A user can also choose what information is stored remotely, and "in many cases" smartphones do not backup between the time when a crime takes place and an iPhone is shut off.

Law enforcement officials can also obtain device metadata like the time and location of a phone call from SIM cards or phone carriers, but Moran says that's the difference between being able to read a letter and being limited to just the envelope the letter came in.

"Even if we are lucky enough to get into the cloud or even if we're lucky enough to get some of the metadata, we're still missing an awful lot of important information that's critical to the investigation."

Vance says that he's not "whining" about the encryption problem, but his lab is "not the answer" as most of the U.S. can't afford to do the work that the New York cyber lab does.

Fast Company's profile of Vance's cyber lab comes as Apple is gearing up for another battle with the FBI. Apple has been asked to unlock the iPhones used by Florida shooter Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, and while Apple has provided ‌iCloud‌ data, the company will fight requests to unlock the actual devices.

For more on New York's High Technology Analysis Unit and facility, make sure to check out Fast Company's full profile.

Note: Due to the political 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 CEO Tim Cook is in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum conference and he plans to attend a breakfast with U.S. President Donald Trump, reports Bloomberg.

Cook and IBM CEO Ginni Rometty will brief Trump on a new campaign designed to highlight the multiple ways to get an education.

Cook has attempted to have a cordial relationship with Trump, and recently took Trump to tour Apple operations in Austin, Texas, but there have been tensions between the two due to an ongoing trade dispute with China and more recently, Apple's refusal to unlock the iPhones used by Florida shooter Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani.

Ahead of the breakfast with Trump, Cook on Tuesday met with the prime ministers of Finland, Spain, and Croatia, but it's not known what was discussed.

Note: Due to the political 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.

When Apple Card launched last year, it didn't support importing transactions into various budgeting apps, which was a major negative for customers who use Quicken, YNAB, Lunch Money, Mint, and more.

As of today, though, Apple has a solution - an option to download a spreadsheet that has all ‌Apple Card‌ data, which can then be imported into many budgeting apps.

As outlined by TechCrunch, ‌Apple Card‌ users can follow these steps to access a document containing their monthly statements:

• Open up the Wallet app.
• Choose ‌Apple Card‌.
• Tap the "Card Balance" option.
• Tap on a monthly statement.
• Tap "Export Transactions."

The option to export transactions will show up when a monthly statement is available. The ‌Apple Card‌ transactions are exported in a Share Sheet format with a CSV document, but in the future, Apple also plans to add an OFX option.

Apple's newly added feature to download transaction data in a CSV format should be a welcome change for ‌Apple Card‌ users who use budgeting services that accept imports. Some apps, like Quicken, accept imports, but may need file format conversions prior to import. Quicken does not support CSV files, for example.

Apps that require API-level integration like Plaid or Co-pilot will still be unable to download ‌Apple Card‌ content, and there's no word from Apple on when and if support will arrive.

Apple may release a Smart Keyboard with a scissor switch design for its next-generation iPad or iPad Pro models, suggests Taiwanese industry publication DigiTimes, although full details are not available yet.

A paywalled preview of the report vaguely claims that "Apple's next-generation iPad series reportedly will feature a scissor switch keyboard," which is presumably referring to an accessory rather than a built-in hardware keyboard. The full report should be released tomorrow with more details.

In July 2019, reputable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claimed that iPad keyboards would stick with a rubber dome design rather than scissor switches in 2020-21, adding further uncertainty to this report.

Apple switched to a butterfly mechanism for its MacBook Pro keyboard in 2016, and after years of issues with sticky or unresponsive keys, it finally returned to a scissor switch design with the new 16-inch MacBook Pro last October. Kuo expects the 13-inch MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air to follow suit in 2020.

We'll update this post when the full report is released.

Update: The full report claims that Apple will likely release new iPads with "glowing" scissor switch keyboards in the second half of 2020, which presumably means a backlit Smart Keyboard. The report also reiterates that a 13-inch MacBook Pro with a scissor keyboard will be released in the first half of 2020.

More than two years ago, Apple informed the FBI that it planned to roll out end-to-end encryption for iCloud backups, according to Reuters. Apple ultimately dropped the plan at some point after the FBI objected, although the report notes that it is unclear if the federal agency was a factor in the decision.

A former Apple employee told Reuters that the company did not want to risk scrutiny from public officials for potentially protecting criminals, being sued for making previously accessible data out of reach of government agencies, or the move encouraging new legislation against encryption.

"They decided they weren't going to poke the bear anymore," the person said, after Apple's legal battle with the FBI in 2016 over unlocking an iPhone used by a shooter in the San Bernardino, California attack. In that case, the FBI ultimately found an alternative method of unlocking the iPhone.

Apple faces a similar standoff with the FBI over refusing to unlock two passcode-protected iPhones that investigators believe were owned by Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, the suspect of a mass shooting at a Naval Air Station in Florida last month. Apple said it has provided the FBI with all data in its possession.

Apple has taken a hard line on refusing to create a backdoor into iOS that would allow the FBI to unlock password-protected iPhones to assist in their investigations, but it does provide data backed up to iCloud to authorities when lawfully requested, as outlined in its semiannual Transparency Reports.

Note: Due to the political 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.

Disney+ is coming to Europe sooner than we thought. Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom will now get the streaming service on March 24, Disney revealed today.

Additional Western Europe markets, including Belgium, the Nordics, and Portugal, will follow in summer 2020, said the company in a press release. Disney+ is already available in the Netherlands, where it launched as a free pilot trial back in September.

The new launch date is a week earlier than was initially scheduled. In November, Disney CEO Bob Iger said the launch date for European markets would be March 31.

Pricing has also been confirmed at £5.99/€6.99 per month, or £59.99/€69.99 for an annual subscription. Disney+ will be available on Amazon Fire devices, LG and Samsung smart TVs, Roku's streaming devices, Apple TV, iOS, Android, Xbox One, and PS4 at launch.

Users will access high-quality and commercial-free viewing, up to four concurrent streams, unlimited downloads on up to ten devices, personalised recommendations, and the ability to set up to seven different profiles, including the ability for parents to set Kids Profiles that have an easy- to -navigate, child-friendly interface to access age-appropriate content.

Over 500 feature films and over 7,500 shows will be available on the service including new original content like the critically acclaimed "The Mandalorian" and "The World According To Jeff Goldblum," along with timeless classics like "Lady and the Tramp" and the entire Pixar library.

(Thanks, Ricardo!)

Apple is widely rumored to release four new iPhones in the fall, including one 5.4-inch model, two 6.1-inch models, and one 6.7-inch model, and Japanese blog Mac Otakara has offered a few details surrounding these devices. The information is said to come from sources within Apple's supply chain in China.

The translated report is quite difficult to decipher, but here are some details that are being suggested:

• 6.7-inch model will have a thickness around 7.4mm, which would be nearly 10% thinner than the iPhone 11 Pro Max at 8.1mm
• All four new iPhone models will have OLED displays and Face ID
• 5.4-inch model's height would be between the iPhone SE and iPhone 8, while at least one of the 6.1-inch iPhone models would have a height that falls between the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro
• 6.7-inch model will be slightly taller than the iPhone 11 Pro Max
• 5.4-inch and lower-end 6.1-inch models will have dual-lens rear camera arrays identical to the iPhone 11
• 6.7-inch model will have a triple-lens rear camera with larger sensors than the iPhone 11 Pro Max
• 5.4 inch, 6.7-inch, and at least one 6.1-inch model will have different numbers of microphone holes along the bottom

In line with analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the report suggests that the new iPhone lineup will be introduced in September as usual.

Apple today began selling certified refurbished iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max models for the first time since the devices were released in September 2018.

At the time of writing, the refurbished models are available in Space Gray, Silver, or Gold with 64GB, 256GB, or 512GB of storage through Apple's online store in the United States. All of the models are unlocked, aka SIM-free.

Refurbished models available:

• iPhone XS - 64GB: $699, down from $999 in September 2018
• iPhone XS - 256GB: $829, down from $1,149 in September 2018
• iPhone XS - 512GB: $999, down from $1,349 in September 2018
• iPhone XS Max - 64GB: $799, down from $1,099 in September 2018
• iPhone XS Max - 256GB: $929, down from $1,249 in September 2018
• iPhone XS Max - 512GB: $1,099, down from $1,449 in September 2018

Apple says all refurbished iPhone models are thoroughly inspected, tested, cleaned, and repackaged with a new white box and all manuals and accessories. Apple also installs a new battery and replaces the outer shell, making it nearly impossible to distinguish between a refurbished and brand new iPhone.

Any refurbished iPhone model comes with Apple's standard one-year warranty effective on the date the device is delivered, which can be extended with AppleCare+ at a cost of $199 for the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max.

Apple is not offering refurbished iPhone XR models at this time.

Starting in February, Apple is hosting its annual company wide fitness challenge for all of its employees, tasking them with closing all three Apple Watch Activity rings every day of the month.

Employees who successfully finish the challenge will be rewarded with a t-shirt that says "2020" in a logo with Apple Watch Activity-style rings, as shared by an Apple employee.

The employees who complete the challenge every day will earn a "gold" ranking and will receive a gold pin along with their t-shirt, and there are also silver and bronze rewards accompanied by silver and bronze pins.

Apple in 2018 and 2019 hosted similar challenges offering employees Activity-themed Apple Watch bands as prizes.

Apple's February fitness challenge is internal only and is limited to Apple employees, but Apple also regularly hosts public fitness challenges, though these do not come with physical rewards.