MacRumors

A week and a half after releasing iOS 12.3 with a revamped TV app, Apple today released iOS 12.3.1, a bug fix update that isn't expected to include any significant new features.

The iOS 12.3.1 update is available on all eligible devices over-the-air in the Settings app. To access the update, go to Settings > General > Software Update. As with all iOS updates, iOS 12.3.1 is free to download, but it may take some time to propagate to all iOS users.

According to Apple's release notes, iOS 12.3.1 addresses a handful of bugs related to the Messages app and VoLTE calls.

iOS 12.3.1 includes bug fixes for your iPhone and iPad. This update:

- Fixes an issue that could prevent making or receiving VoLTE calls
- Fixes issues in Messages that could cause messages from unknown senders to appear in your conversation list even though Filter Unknown Senders is enabled
- Fixes an issue that could prevent the Report Junk link from appearing in Messages threads from unknown senders

Apple did not offer a developer or public beta testing period for iOS 12.3.1, as is common for bug fix releases that are intended to address only a very few targeted areas and thus don't require significant feedback from users before public release.

Apple surprised us with a MacBook Pro refresh earlier this week. 2019 models feature faster Intel processors with up to eight cores for the first time, as well as "new materials" added to the keyboard to hopefully reduce issues such as sticky and repeating keys that prompted Apple's worldwide repair program.

Apple didn't elaborate on the new materials, but the repair experts at iFixit have completed a teardown of the 2019 MacBook Pro and discovered a "subtle change" made to the silicone membrane covering the keyboard switches.

Whereas the membrane in the 2018 MacBook Pro is "semi-opaque" and "feels like silicone," iFixit says the cover in the 2019 model is "clearer and smooth to the touch." Based on infrared analysis, it appears the 2018 membrane was made with polyacetylene, while the 2019 covers uses polyamide, aka nylon.

iFixit also found that the metal dome over each key switch is "subtly different" as well. "It could be a new surface treatment, and/or a tweaked alloy, possibly to alleviate problems with durability, bounce-back, or other issues," they said.

Beyond the keyboard, the 2019 ‌MacBook Pro‌ has few changes, as this was merely a spec bump. The notebook still earns iFixit's lowest repairability score, as the processor, RAM, and flash storage remain soldered to the logic board, while the keyboard, battery, speakers, and Touch Bar are glued together.

Barclays analyst Blayne Curtis and his associates today shared their expectations for both 2019 and 2020 model iPhones following their trip to Asia earlier this month, where they met with some suppliers within Apple's supply chain.

Our summary of the research note, shared with MacRumors:

• The trio of high-end 2019 iPhones will have relatively few design changes, beyond additional rear camera lenses, with production set to ramp up in the typical July-August timeframe
  

• 3D Touch will be eliminated in all 2019 iPhones as Barclays previously predicted, possibly signaling a Haptic Touch expansion
  

• The next-generation iPhone XR will have 4GB of RAM, up from 3GB, as previously predicted by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo
  

• 2020 iPhones will have more significant changes, including 5G support, 3D sensing via the rear camera system, and acoustic fingerprint technology that could allow for full-screen Touch ID
  

• "A few suppliers" mentioned a potential "iPhone SE 2" with iPhone 8 internals in early 2020, but others had no knowledge of it
  

• LG may become a secondary supplier of OLED displays for 2019 iPhones, with a 10-30 percent split of orders with Samsung, ahead of Apple transitioning all of its iPhones to OLED as early as 2020

Other rumors have suggested that 2019 iPhones will feature frosted glass casing, larger batteries, and a bilateral charging feature that allows users to charge AirPods or an Apple Watch by placing them on the back of the iPhone.

Apple will likely unveil its latest iPhones in September as usual at Steve Jobs Theater.

Apple has begun promoting the opening of its second retail store in Taiwan. Located right outside Taipei's Xinyi A13 shopping mall on a tree-lined plaza, the standalone construction had promotional graphics installed on its temporary hoarding overnight.

The logo on display is a play on the word "Taipei" in Mandarin, with the Apple logo inserted into the first character. The slogan on the facade says "Creativity starts here, Apple Xinyi A13."

From the outside, the building appears to be a single-story design, but likely conceals interior staircases leading down to an underground floor, with a thin carbon fiber roof held up by two stone pillars and a curved floor-to-ceiling glass facade, which would give it an affinity with Apple's existing store in Chicago, Illinois.

The adjacent Xinyi A13 shopping mall is still being constructed by the Far Eastern Group but is expected to open in September, so there's a chance the new Apple store will open to the public around the same time.

The new store is within 15 minutes' walking distance of Apple's first Taiwan store at Taipei 101 shopping mall in the Xinyi district, which opened in July 2017. Apple has reportedly confirmed that the opening of the new store won't affect the operation of Apple Taipei 101.

(Thanks, Andrew!)

The United States Senate today voted almost unanimously to approve an anti-robocalling bill that would cut down on the number of illegal robocalls that people receive.

The TRACED Act (Telephone Robocall Abuse Criminal Enforcement and Deterrence), first introduced in January, increases penalties for robocalls, provides authorities with more time to act, promotes the adoption of call authentication and blocking tools, establishes an interagency group for exploring additional scam call deterrents, and clears the way for criminal prosecution of robocallers.

"This bipartisan, common-sense bill puts a bullseye on the scam artists and criminals who are making it difficult for many Americans to answer the phone with any bit of confidence about who's on the other end of the line," said Senator John Thune. "While this bill would make it easier for federal regulators to levy more substantial financial penalties on these bad actors, we take it one step further by working toward creating a credible threat of criminal prosecution - laying the ground work to put these people behind bars. It's not every day that you see over 80 senators from all corners of the country lend such strong support to a bill like this, but I believe it highlights the urgency of this matter. I want to thank Sen. Markey for all of his work, and we urge the House to take up the TRACED Act without delay."

If the TRACED Act passes, individuals or companies who flout telemarketing restrictions could receive fines of up to $10,000 per call, and the FCC would have up to three years to prosecute after a robocall is placed, up from one year.

It would also require voice service providers to adopt call authentication technologies, which would let cellular carriers verify that incoming calls are legitimate before even reaching consumer phones, and it requires the FCC to create rules to help protect consumers from receiving unwanted calls or texts.

Some carriers like Verizon and T-Mobile have already implemented limited protection features that are designed to cut down on scam calls, but it's a pervasive problem that has only been growing worse in recent years.

Last year, an estimated 30 percent of all phone calls were spam calls, a number that could grow to 42 percent of all calls this year.

The FCC last week proposed new tools that would clear the way for mobile phone companies to block robocalls by default, and last year, the FCC called on companies to adopt call authentication systems for eliminating spoofed phone numbers.

The TRACED Act will now head to the House for consideration, where it is also likely to see similar support.

Some employees of Snap have access to internal tools that allow them to access Snapchat user data and have in the past abused those tools to spy on Snapchat users, reports Motherboard.

According to two former employees, a current employee, and internal company emails, Snap employees have access to internal tools that let them access location information, saved snaps, phone numbers, and email addresses from users.

One of the tools, SnapLion, was designed to gather information on users in response to valid law enforcement requests. Snap's Spam and Abuse team has access to Snap Lion, as does a Customer Ops team and security staff. One former employee told Motherboard that SnapLion offers "the keys to the kingdom."

The SnapLion tool has legitimate purposes and is used for such within the company, but the two former Snap employees confirmed that it's also been used for illegitimate reasons, though information about specific incidents was not made available.

One of the former employees said that data access abuse occurred "a few times" at Snap. That source and another former employee specified the abuse was carried out by multiple individuals. A Snapchat email obtained by Motherboard also shows employees broadly discussing the issue of insider threats and access to data, and how they need to be combatted.

Motherboard was unable to verify exactly how the data abuse occurred, or what specific system or process the employees leveraged to access Snapchat user data.

A Snap spokesperson said that privacy is "paramount" at Snap, and that little user data is kept. What data is stored is protected by "robust policies" to limit the number of employees who have access. "Unauthorized access of any kind is a clear violation of the company's standards of business conduct and, if detected, results in immediate termination," the spokesperson told Motherboard.

Snap monitors who accesses user data, but the former employees say that the logging procedures aren't perfect, and that years ago, SnapLion did not have robust data protection tools to track what employees were doing. It's not clear if employees are still abusing internal tools, but Motherboard's investigation suggests it did happen in the past.

Snap said it limits internal access to tools to only those who require it, but SnapLion is no longer a tool purely intended to help law enforcement. It is now used more generally across the company. A former employee who worked with SnapLion said the tool is used for resetting passwords of hacked accounts and "other user administration."

Much of what's shared on Snapchat is ephemeral, with content disappearing after a short period of time. Users should be aware, however, that certain data is collected and stored by Snapchat, such as phone number, location data, message metadata (who a person spoke to and when), and some Snap content, such as Memories.

A full accounting of Motherboard's Snap investigation can be read over on Vice.

The new high-end 8-core 15-inch MacBook Pro that was announced on Tuesday offers significant performance improvements over the previous high-end 6-core ‌MacBook Pro‌ from 2018, according to new benchmarks.

In a Geekbench benchmark uploaded this morning, the new ‌MacBook Pro‌ with a 2.4GHz Core i9 chip earned a single-core score of 5879 and a multi-core score of 29184.

Comparatively, the high-end 2018 ‌MacBook Pro‌ has earned an average single-core score of 5348 and a multi-core score of 22620. Single-core speeds are up almost 10 percent, while multi-core scores are up an impressive 29 percent.

Apple has said that the new 8-core ‌MacBook Pro‌ can offer up to 40 percent faster performance than a 6-core ‌MacBook Pro‌, and two times faster performance than a quad-core ‌MacBook Pro‌.

The higher-end stock ‌MacBook Pro‌ features a 2.3GHz 8-core 9th-generation Intel Core i9 processor, which can be upgraded to a 2.4GHz 8-core 9th-generation Intel Core i9 processor for $200, which is the version that's been benchmarked.

Apple's entry-level 15-inch machine features a 6-core 9th-generation processor, while all of the 13-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ machines use quad-core 8th-generation processors.

The new ‌MacBook Pro‌ models can be ordered from the online Apple Store and will be in retail stores later this week or early next week.

Samsung is in talks with Apple about supplying OLED displays for a 16-inch MacBook Pro and future iPad Pro models, according to Korean site The Elec, which does not have a proven track record in terms of Apple rumors.

We first heard about a potential 16-inch to 16.5-inch MacBook Pro from well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who said the notebook will launch at some point in 2019 with an "all-new design," but he did not comment on which display technology the notebook will use or share any other details.

Kuo later said Apple is planning to release a new 15-inch to 17-inch MacBook Pro with a mini-LED backlight in the first half of 2021. It is unclear if this will be a future iteration of the 16-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ or exactly how Apple's plans will play out.

Kuo has also previously claimed that two new ‌iPad Pro‌ models will enter mass production between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020, but again, he has not commented on what display technology the tablets would use. He also expects a new iPad with a mini-LED backlight in late 2020 to early 2021.

Little else is known about the rumored 16-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ or new ‌iPad Pro‌ models at this time. Apple surprised us earlier this week with new 2019 MacBook Pro models, but the only changes are faster processors and a "new material" added to the keyboard for improved reliability — hopefully, at least.

Given this week's ‌MacBook Pro‌ refresh, it is reasonable to assume that Apple will not release the rumored 16-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ until at least the fall. Or, if the 16-inch ‌MacBook Pro‌ has been delayed internally, then perhaps it won't debut until an event next year such as WWDC 2020 in June. It is too early to say.

Students pursuing higher education prefer to use Macs over PCs, according to new data shared today by Apple device management company Jamf.

71 percent of students surveyed said they would either use a Mac or prefer to use a Mac if cost were not a consideration. At the current time, of those students, 40 percent use a Mac and 60 percent use a PC. 51 percent of current PC users would rather be using a Mac.

70 percent of students surveyed said they would choose or stay with an organization that offered a choice between Mac and PC. 78 percent of students said that it's important for employers to offer their employees a choice between PC and Mac.

Students who said they preferred Mac over PCs offered up several different reasons. 59 percent cited ease of use, 57 percent cited durability, and 49 cited synchronization over other devices. 64 percent said they "like the brand," while 60 percent preferred the style and design of the Mac.

Among those who said they preferred PCs, the only dominant factor in the decision was price.

43 percent of students using a PC said that the Mac provides the greatest value despite its higher price point, while 80 percent of Mac users said that the Mac offers a better value. 83 percent of students currently using a Mac said they want to continue using Macs in their workplaces.

"Employers are looking for top talent in a competitive job market. Providing workers with the tools they know and love is a key way to attract, retain and empower them to be their most productive," said Dean Hager, CEO, Jamf. "The next generation of job seekers wants their tech to just work so that they can focus on their job. They see Mac as more modern, intuitive and reliable - and would like to continue to use it as they launch their careers."

Jamf's survey, conducted by Vanson Bourne, is based on responses from 2,244 current college and university students across five countries.

A Chinese man on Wednesday pleaded guilty in Oregon to one count of trafficking in counterfeit goods, after he managed to trick Apple into replacing hundreds of fake iPhones with authentic handsets through its warranty program (via Bloomberg).

Quan Jiang, 30, a former engineering student at a community college in Albany, Oregon, sent around 3,000 counterfeit devices to Apple, via one of the state's three Apple stores or online. Jiang used fake names and claimed the iPhones wouldn't turn on and should be replaced under warranty.

Apple replaced almost 1,500 of the fake handsets with authentic iPhones, each with an approximate resale value of $600 on the Chinese market, where counterfeit Apple products are a big problem.

Apple only realized something was afoot as early as June 30, 2017, when its legal counsel sent Jiang a "cease and desist" letter to an address in Corvallis where 150 of the warranty claims had originated.

Apple's lawyers said that's when the company knew he was importing counterfeit Apple products, according to comments made by Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Thomas Duffy in a court document.

"Submission of an iPhone that will not power on is critical to perpetuating iPhone warranty fraud, as the phone will not be able to be immediately examined or repaired by Apple technicians, triggering the Apple iPhone replacement process as part of its product warranty policy," Duffy wrote, quoting Apple brand protection representative Adrian Punderson.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Oregon, between January 2016 and February 2018, Jiang was the recipient of multiple packages containing as many as 20 to 30 inoperable, counterfeit iPhones from partners in Hong Kong.

After delivering the genuine replacements, Jiang's associate would pay Jiang's mother, who lives in China, who would then deposit the money into Jiang's bank account.

Apple is said to have rejected 1,576 warranty claims associated with Jiang, but the 1,493 claims that resulted in replacement iPhones being delivered by Apple represented an $895,000 loss to the company, according to court documents.

Jiang will be sentenced on August 28 and faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, a $2 million fine or twice his proceeds, whichever is greater. Bloomberg reports that the U.S. Attorney's office will recommend a prison sentence of three years and at least $200,000 in restitution to Apple, under a plea agreement, provided Jiang also forfeits his 2015 Mercedes-Benz CLA 250 coupe.