MacRumors

Apple has sent its top privacy executives to Australia twice in the past month to lobby government officials over proposed new laws that would require companies to provide access to encrypted messages.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Apple privacy advocates met with attorney general George Brandis and senior staff in Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's office on Tuesday to discuss their concerns about the legal changes, which could compel tech companies to provide decryption keys to allow access to secure communications such as that provided by WhatsApp and iMessage.

Apple has consistently argued against laws that would require tech companies to build so-called "back doors" into their software, claiming that such a move would weaken security for everyone and simply make terrorists and criminals turn to open-source encryption methods for their digital communications.

While Apple's position is clear, the Turnbull government has yet to clarify exactly what it expects tech companies to give up as part of the proposals. A source familiar with the discussions said that the government explicitly said it did not want a back door into people's phones, nor to weaken encryption.

However, given that encrypted services like WhatsApp and iMessage do not possess private keys that would enable them to decrypt messages, a back door would seem the only alternative. "If the government laid a subpoena to get iMessages, we can't provide it," CEO Tim Cook said in 2014. "It's encrypted and we don't have a key."

As it happens, Cook's comment only applies to iMessages that aren't backed up to the cloud: Apple doesn't have access to messages sent between devices because they're end-to-end encrypted, but if iCloud Backup is enabled those messages are encrypted on Apple's servers using an encryption key that the company has access to and could potentially provide to authorities.

However, Apple is moving in the same direction as WhatsApp and Telegram to make encryption keys entirely private. As announced at WWDC in June, macOS High Sierra and iOS 11 will synchronize iMessages across devices signed into the same account using iCloud and a new encryption method that ensures the keys stay out of Apple's hands.

As senior VP of software Craig Federighi noted in interview with Daring Fireball's John Gruber, even if users store information in the cloud, "it's encrypted with keys that Apple doesn't have. And so they can put things in the cloud, they can pull stuff down from the cloud, so the cloud still serves as a conduit — and even ultimately a kind of a backup for them — but only they can read it."

How this will play out in Apple's discussions with the Australian government – and indeed other governments in the "Five Eyes" intelligence sharing network seeking similar access to encrypted communications – is anything but clear. According to sources, Apple and the Turnbull government are taking a collaborative approach in the discussions, but previous statements by officials imply a tougher stance behind the scenes.

Last week, Senator Brandis said the Australian government would work with companies such as Apple to facilitate greater access to secure communications, but warned that "we'll also ensure that the appropriate legal powers, if need be, as a last resort, coercive powers of the kind that recently were introduced into the United Kingdom under the Investigatory Powers Act... are available to Australian intelligence and law enforcement authorities as well".

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues 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.

An opera based on the life of late Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs is set to open in Santa Fe, New Mexico this Saturday. Called The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, the opera will have its world premiere showing on July 22 at 8:30 p.m on the Santa Fe Opera's open-air summer stage.

The opera has been in development since 2015, created by electronica DJ Mason Bates and librettist Mark Campbell. It tells the story of the Jobs and his struggle to balance life, family, and work, and is set to a live orchestra accompaniment, guitar, natural sounds, and expressive electronics, including Apple's own devices.

Bates described one of the scenes to ABC News in an interview last week, highlighting the moment where Steve Jobs introduces the first iPhone before being exhausted by illness.

At this moment in Mason Bates' opera "The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs," a harrowing sound emerges from the orchestra pit, a crushing downward progression that's described in the score as an "electronic shutdown."

"It's a combination of a stand-alone synthesizer with the actual sound on the old Macs of hard drives turning off -- and one in reverse booting up," Bates explained in an interview last week at the Santa Fe Opera, where his work will have its world premiere on Saturday.

"That moment is the realization of his mortality, so I wanted to have that kind of shutdown sound," Bates said. "Even if you can't recognize it, it adds a little authenticity that the guy who is the subject of this opera is the creator of some of the devices we're hearing."

The opera, which is approximately 90 minutes long, kicks off with a prologue in the garage of the Jobs family home in Los Altos, California, with Jobs father, Paul Jobs, gifting him a workbench.

From there, it jumps to 2007, where Jobs unveils the first iPhone, and then shifts back and forth between 2007 and Jobs' early years developing Apple. Campbell and Bates, who say the opera does not vilify or glorify Jobs, aimed for a non-chronological timeline dictated by emotion and memory. It will feature Jobs and several supporting characters like Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Laurene Powell Jobs, and Chrisann Brennan, with each character highlighted through a unique series of sounds.

Since his death in 2011, Steve Jobs' life has been the subject of myriad books, movies, and documentaries, including an Aaron Sorkin-penned Danny Boyle-directed feature film that debuted in 2015.

Former DreamWorks Animation CEO and founder Jeffrey Katzenberg is working on a new mobile-focused TV service, tentatively named New TV, and has met with Apple executives to discuss a possible investment, reports Variety and CNBC.

Katzenberg was in attendance at this year's Allen & Co. media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, along with dozens of other tech and media moguls, including Apple CEO Tim Cook. According to Variety, he was aiming to coax one of several tech companies into a $2B investment in his new project. Katzenberg was seen meeting with Apple CEO Tim Cook and Eddy Cue at the event, and CNBC says he has previously held meetings with Apple, Google, AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Snapchat, and Spotify.

For example, imagine a drama akin to "Empire" or "Scandal" but shrunk to 10-minute episodes made for mobile consumption. Or a five-minute talk show, or a two-minute newscast -- all with high-profile talent attached.

In addition to seeking a distribution partner, Katzenberg is also pursuing potential content partners, with CBS and Disney CEO Bob Iger considering producing shows for the service. "The explosion of short-form video is obvious to all of us, but a lot of what we've seen is the production of amateurs -- user-generated content," Iger told Variety.

Katzenberg's goal is not to shrink longer-form media into a shorter format, but to create "new and different" programming that's native to mobile devices. No episode will last longer than 10 minutes, and there will be no ad breaks, with monetization coming via title sponsorships and brand integrations.

New TV will be shaped by whichever partner joins the project, says Katzenberg. It could work as a subscription service offered by a single video provider for a monthly fee, or it could be entirely free and integrated into an existing brand.

Apple has been aggressively pursuing original content in recent months, but in a more traditional format with standard episode lengths. Planet of the Apps, the company's first original show, launched in June, and its second show, Carpool Karaoke: The Series is set to be released on August 8.

A United States House panel this morning unanimously approved a proposal that would allow car manufacturers to deploy tens of thousands of autonomous vehicles without adhering to existing auto safety standards, reports Reuters. The legislation would also ban states from implementing and enforcing some driverless car rules as regulators work to create improved federal safety standards for autonomous driving.

Under the terms of the proposal, automakers would be required to submit safety assessment reports to United States regulators, but pre-market approval of autonomous vehicles would not be required.

Automakers would have to show self-driving cars "function as intended and contain fail safe features" but the Transportation Department could not "condition deployment or testing of highly automated vehicles on review of safety assessment certifications," the draft measure unveiled late Monday said.

Companies working on autonomous vehicles, including General Motors, Alphabet, Ford, and Tesla, have been lobbying Congress to pass a federal measure that would pre-empt rules being considered in California and other states that would limit the deployment of self-driving vehicles. The measure preliminarily approved today would let manufacturers subvert the rule requiring autonomous cars to have driver controls, and it would prevent states from setting self-driving car standards for software and safety systems.

Apple has its own autonomous driving software in development and would benefit from the relaxed regulations should the bill be passed. Apple has previously asked the California DMV to re-evaluate some of its rules, including those requiring companies to provide detailed public reports about testing variables and results.

Apple CEO Tim Cook in June said Apple considers its work on autonomous driving systems as "the mother of all AI projects." Apple is currently testing its software in several Lexus RX450h vehicles that are equipped with a host of sensors and cameras.

The full committee could vote on the measure as soon as next week, but the U.S. House of Representatives will not consider the bill until it reconvenes in September after the summer recess. Representative Robert Latta, who leads the Energy and Commerce Committee subcomittee overseeing consumer protection, plans to continue considering changes ahead of the full committee vote.

Apple today released macOS Sierra 10.12.6, the sixth update to the macOS Sierra operating system that launched in September of 2016. macOS Sierra 10.12.6 comes two months after the release of macOS Sierra 10.12.5, an update that introduced a headphones audio fix, enhanced Mac App Store compatibility, and more.

macOS Sierra 10.12.6 is a free update for all customers who have a compatible machine. The update can be downloaded using the Software Update function in the Mac App Store.

There were no bug fixes, feature additions, or other changes found in macOS Sierra 10.12.6 during the beta testing process, suggesting the update focuses on security improvements and other small enhancements.

macOS Sierra 10.12.6 is likely to be one of the last updates to the macOS Sierra operating system, as Apple is preparing to shift focus to macOS High Sierra, the next version of macOS. Apple introduced macOS High Sierra at the Worldwide Developers Conference on June 5.

Apple today released iOS 10.3.3 to the public following several weeks of beta testing with six betas provided to developers and public beta testers. iOS 10.3.3 comes more than two months after the launch of iOS 10.3.2, a minor bug fix update.

iOS 10.3.3 is a free over-the-air update available to all users with a compatible iOS device. It can also be downloaded and installed on iOS devices using iTunes on a Mac or PC.

No outward-facing changes or features were discovered during the short beta testing period, so it appears iOS 10.3.3 focuses on bug fixes, security enhancements, and other minor improvements, much like iOS 10.3.2.

Apple's work on iOS 10 is winding down as the company prepares to launch the next-generation version of iOS, iOS 11, which first debuted at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June. iOS 11 will see a release in the fall following a summer of beta testing. With work shifting to iOS 11, iOS 10.3.3 is likely to be one of the final updates we see to iOS 10.

Update: Apple has shared detailed notes covering the bug fixes that were introduced in iOS 10.3.3. Among the fixes is an update for a major vulnerability that would have allowed hackers to execute code on the Broadcom Wi-Fi chip built into many iOS devices. This issue was also previously addressed in iOS 10.3.1.

A questionable rumor has surfaced today suggesting Apple could unveil a new iPhone SE next month, but it might just be more noise in iPhone silly season.

The rumor comes from French-language blog iGeneration, which cited an unnamed source claiming Apple will hold a product event in late August to introduce an updated version of the 4-inch smartphone.

Mickaël Bazoge, the author of the article, told MacRumors that he received the info from a "new source" with an unproven track record. He expressed some skepticism, but added that the source "seems reliable."

The timeline is immediately questionable given Apple has never introduced any new iPhone model in August. Beyond the current iPhone SE and iPhone 4s in March 2016 and October 2011 respectively, Apple has officially debuted all other iPhone models at events in June or September each year.

Moreover, given the current iPhone SE essentially has iPhone 6s tech specs, the next model's tech specs would likely be closer to the iPhone 7. And if that happens in August, then the new iPhone SE would be nearly as powerful as the iPhone 7 with a much cheaper price tag, potentially cannibalizing Apple's sales.

There have also been few if any rumors about a new iPhone SE. Back in November 2016, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said it was unlikely that Apple would release a new iPhone SE in the first half of this year. That claim proved to be accurate, but Kuo hasn't outlined any new predictions since then.

When introducing the iPhone SE, Apple acknowledged that some people simply love smaller phones, and revealed that it sold 30 million 4-inch iPhones in 2015. The device looks like an iPhone 5s, but it has newer tech specs, including a twice-as-fast A9 chip and a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera.

iPhone SE remains Apple's cheapest smartphone, starting at $399 in the United States. Today's rumor claims the next-generation model could start at €399 in Europe, down from €489 currently. The rumor also says Apple will hold a second event in October to introduce the supposedly delayed "iPhone 8."

Apple doubled the current iPhone SE's storage capacities to 32GB and 128GB, up from 16GB and 64GB, in March.

Apple today debuted a new blog called the "Apple Machine Learning Journal," with a welcome message for readers and an in-depth look at the blog's first topic: "Improving the Realism of Synthetic Images." Apple describes the Machine Learning Journal as a place where users can read posts written by the company's engineers, related to all of the work and progress they've made for technologies in Apple's products.

In the welcome message, Apple encourages those interested in machine learning to contact the company at an email address for its new blog, machine-learning@apple.com.

Welcome to the Apple Machine Learning Journal. Here, you can read posts written by Apple engineers about their work using machine learning technologies to help build innovative products for millions of people around the world. If you’re a machine learning researcher or student, an engineer or developer, we’d love to hear your questions and feedback. Write us at machine-learning@apple.com

In the first post -- described as Vol. 1, Issue 1 -- Apple's engineers delve into machine learning related to neural nets that can create a program to intelligently refine synthetic images in order to make them more realistic. Using synthetic images reduces cost, Apple's engineers pointed out, but "may not be realistic enough" and could result in "poor generalization" on real test images. Because of this, Apple set out to find a way to enhance synthetic images using machine learning.

Most successful examples of neural nets today are trained with supervision. However, to achieve high accuracy, the training sets need to be large, diverse, and accurately annotated, which is costly. An alternative to labelling huge amounts of data is to use synthetic images from a simulator. This is cheap as there is no labeling cost, but the synthetic images may not be realistic enough, resulting in poor generalization on real test images. To help close this performance gap, we’ve developed a method for refining synthetic images to make them look more realistic. We show that training models on these refined images leads to significant improvements in accuracy on various machine learning tasks.

In December 2016, Apple's artificial intelligence team released its first research paper, which had the same focus on advanced image recognition as the first volume of the Apple Machine Learning Journal does today.

The new blog represents Apple's latest step in its progress surrounding AI and machine learning. During an AI conference in Barcelona last year, the company's head of machine learning Russ Salakhutdinov provided a peek behind the scenes of some of Apple's initiatives in these fields, including health and vital signs, volumetric detection of LiDAR, prediction with structured outputs, image processing and colorization, intelligent assistant and language modeling, and activity recognition, all of which could be potential subjects for research papers and blog posts in the future.

Check out the full first post in the Apple Machine Learning Journal right here.

Apple today resumed carrying Nokia's digital health products on its online store in the United States and Canada, nearly two months after the two companies announced they settled all litigation related to their intellectual property dispute.

The products available to purchase again include Nokia's Body Cardio Scale, Body+ Scale, BPM+ Blood Pressure Monitor, and Thermo Thermometer. Each of the accessories were previously sold under the Withings brand, which Nokia retired last month after acquiring that company for around $192 million last year.

Apple's website indicates the products are also available for pickup at Apple's retail stores between Friday, July 21 and Monday, July 24.

Apple had removed all Withings accessories from its online and retail stores around the world in December due to a legal dispute with Nokia. On May 23, however, Apple and Nokia announced they settled all litigation and agreed to a business cooperation agreement with a multi-year patent license.

The legal dispute began last December, when Nokia filed dozens of patent infringement lawsuits against Apple in the United States and other countries. Apple countersued Nokia, accusing the former phone giant of transferring patents to patent holding entities to squeeze additional royalties from the iPhone maker.

As part of the settlement, Nokia will receive an up-front cash payment from Apple, with additional revenues during the term of the agreement. Nokia will also be providing "certain network infrastructure product and services" to Apple.