MacRumors

Apple continues to slowly expand the transit functionality of Apple Maps, today adding Prague, Czech Republic as the third city in Europe behind London and Berlin to be supported.

Apple Maps transit data in Prague includes the Prague Metro and Esko Prague commuter rail, as well as local trams and buses and even Czech Railways' seasonal Cyklohráček "excursion train" targeting cyclists and families.

Prior to today's expansion to Prague, Apple last week added transit information for San Diego, California and areas of British Columbia, Canada including Vancouver and Victoria. Apple Maps transit data is now available in roughly two dozen metropolitan areas scattered around the world, with an additional concentration of cities in China visible to users only when in the country.

(Thanks, Ram!)

The newest story set in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter universe, called Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, has launched worldwide on Apple's iBooks platform. Referred to as "the eighth story," Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a script of the play of the same name, which has been in previews at the Palace Theatre in London over the last few weeks, and made its official world premiere tonight.

The play is based on an original story from Rowling, along with collaboration from director John Tiffany and writer Jack Thorne, and picks up the story of Harry, Ron, and Hermione nineteen years after the events of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in line with that novel's epilogue. The plot is said to not only be focused on the three heroes, but their various offspring and their own time at Hogwarts.

It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children.

While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.

Told in two parts with an intermission in between, the script released today contains both halves of the story and is referred to as "The Special Rehearsal Edition." Scholastic -- Rowling's longtime publisher in the U.S. and Canada -- plans to release a "Definitive Edition" of the story in early 2017, which will contain fine-tuned tweaks made through Cursed Child's preview run, including the play's "perfected, definitive" script and final stage directions.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will be available in all markets supported by iBooks beginning on July 31, coinciding with the birthday of Harry Potter himself. Within the United States and United Kingdom, users will be able to choose from iBooks [Direct Link], Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, Google, Kobo, and WHSmith (exclusively in the U.K.) as e-book options. The e-book is priced at $14.99, while the retail version of the book will cost fans $17.99, and will be available at most brick-and-mortar booksellers.

An update to Pokémon Go rolled out to iOS and Android devices today, bringing new features to the game along with a few slight shifts in the user interface. One of the biggest new additions is the opportunity for players to customize their avatar (which was previously only allowed when starting the game), giving the chance for added personalization in Pokémon Go.

One of the longest-running gripes surrounding Niantic and The Pokémon Company's new mobile game was a glitch that suggested all "nearby" Pokémon were three steps away from the player. The intended game mechanic was meant to vaguely point players in the direction of an elusive character, with the steps shrinking to two, one, and eventually none when the Pokémon was nearby. Niantic doesn't seem to have an exact fix for the three-step glitch as of yet, and has simply removed the footstep counter from the nearby menu altogether.

The developer also took some constructive criticism from gamers and moved the transfer button from the very bottom of a Pokémon's profile, and it now resides in a circular hamburger menu at the bottom right of the screen. When tapped on, players can choose to favorite the character, or transfer it to receive the candy of that Pokémon. Favorited Pokémon are also now protected from being transferred accidentally.

Once inside of the new update for Pokémon Go, users will notice a few other minor tweaks as well. Niantic has changed the font inside some of the game's menus, making character combat power and names slightly easier to read. The company also tweaked a few of the game's medals, adjusted the battle damage of some Pokémon, improved the app's memory issues so it loads quicker, and a handful of other things.

Check out Pokémon Go on the App Store [Direct Link] for the full list of updates in version 1.1.0 of the app.

Previous Coverage: Pokémon Go Set App Store Record for Most Ever Downloads During its First Week of Availability

While I have long used the Twelve South Forté on my bedside table to dock my Apple Watch each night, I lacked a convenient alternative for on the go until last week. Enter the Standzout Helix Dock, a compact and convenient charging solution for the Apple Watch.

Helix is an Apple Watch dock made from injection molded polycarbonate plastic. It stores between a 0.3-meter and two-meter Apple Watch charging cable and Apple's official USB wall charger in a compact and convenient housing, available in clear, black, white, and a phosphorescent glow-in-the-dark color options.

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A week after launching a new emoji-predicting keyboard, SwiftKey is now facing some pushback after a few users noticed that the main SwiftKey app was propagating suggestions related to the email accounts, phone numbers, and names of complete strangers (via The Telegraph). The Microsoft-owned app, available on iOS and Android, is widely known for its artificial intelligence and machine learning tools, which create custom word predictions based on what each user has previously typed.

In order to fully take advantage of these features, SwiftKey accesses various personal bits of information -- previous texts, emails, and regularly used names and phrases -- to bolster its database, with a synchronization feature that keeps all of a user's data updated across various devices. Now, one SwiftKey user has discovered that someone unknown to them was given access to this data thanks to the app's predictive features. Thankfully, the stranger was helpful in informing the compromised user about their privacy slip.

"A few days ago, I received an email from a complete stranger asking if I had recently purchased and returned a particular model of mobile phone, adding that not one but two of my email addresses (one personal and one work address) were saved on the phone she had just bought as brand-new," said the user. "It also suggested, when she typed a zero, the telephone number for someone I had phoned recently."

According to the anonymous source, the stranger went through every letter in the alphabet and got predictive suggestions of the affected user's contact list and even the address of private servers used to connect to the internet at their workplace. A similar occurrence happened for one Redditor recently, but this time it crossed a language barrier as well, with German predictions of private information suggested for a user in the United Kingdom.

According to SwiftKey, the problem stems from a bug in that synchronization feature, so the company has deactivated syncing information across devices until it can get to the root of the problem. A spokesperson for the company said, "Recently, a limited number of our customers noticed unexpected words pre-populating when typing on their mobile phone," but promised users that the app is "okay to use" in the meantime given the low number of users affected and that their personal data will not be lost while the sync ability is down.

Popular third-party chat app WhatsApp is leaving a "forensic trace" of every supposedly deleted chat log, meaning anyone with access to your smartphone -- or another device connected through the cloud -- could potentially access data from the app. The discovery comes from iOS researcher Jonathan Zdziarski, who shared the information in a blog post after discovering the potential security flaw in the latest version of WhatsApp (via The Verge).

Zdziarski tested out his theory by beginning a few chat threads, then archiving, clearing, and deleting them, but found that none of the app's deletion methods, even Clear All Chats, "made any difference in how deleted records were preserved." The central flaw appeared to be in the app's SQLite records, which retained the deleted chats in its database that could be accessed by a harmful individual with the right "popular forensics tools."

In his post, Zdziarski mentioned that the problem isn't unique to WhatsApp, and has even gone into detail about "forensic trace leakage" in Messages on iOS and OS X, and ways Apple could address such privacy issues, in a separate blog post. He explained succinctly that short-lived chats between friends and family using these apps are "not ephemeral on disk," which not only could be a cause for concern with users, but could allow law enforcement legal access to thought-to-be-deleted WhatsApp messages thanks to the lack of encrypted communication between WhatsApp and iCloud.

The core issue here is that ephemeral communication is not ephemeral on disk. This is a problem that Apple has struggled with as well, which I’ve explained and made design recommendations recently in this blog post.

Apple’s iMessage has this problem and it’s just as bad, if not worse. Your SMS.db is stored in an iCloud backup, but copies of it also exist on your iPad, your desktop, and anywhere else you receive iMessages. Deleted content also suffers the same fate.

All the same, Zdziarski caps his post by mentioning there's no reason for widespread panic to ignite because of the WhatsApp security flaw, mainly due to the fact that someone with malicious intent would need to jump through so many hoops to finally access the deleted messages. The iOS researcher stated that his purpose was for users to simply "be aware of WhatsApp’s footprint." He also gives a few options for users looking to mitigate the issue, including periodically deleting WhatsApp "to flush out the database," disabling iCloud backups, and avoiding the storage of backup passwords in Apple's keychain.

Earlier in the year, Apple reiterated its intent to double down on user privacy and safety within its iCloud platform. Currently, encrypted data saved in iCloud is accessible by Apple with a key, which grants it access to accounts for assistive purposes, like if someone forgets their password. However, with the steadily growing data amassing in users' iCloud accounts -- from texts to pictures and personal health data -- Apple is looking to provide end-to-end encryption in its cloud-based storage platform, meaning not even the company itself could gain access to the accounts of its users even if it wanted to.

Check out Zdziarski's blog post for more details on the issue.

Hinted at by the company earlier in the month, Nest recently debuted a minor, but notable, update for its iOS app, introducing a few user interface tweaks and ways to share live videos from the company's indoor and outdoor cameras. For those users with a Nest Thermostat and an Apple Watch, the 5.6.0 update should be of particular interest, since it brings with it the ability to let you adjust the temperature of your home, right from your wrist, without needing to open the iOS app (via The Verge).

Additionally, there's a new "Spaces" grouping feature that provides an organized way to place Nest products by which room of the house they're in, and lets users view all of their live camera feeds at once, if on Wi-Fi. Additional viewers can be added into these live streams now, as well, thanks to a new web-based site, video.nest.com (which doesn't appear to be up-and-running at the time of writing), where a password can be shared to a trusted third party who might need to check in on the cameras.

We have several new features for you.

- Spaces groups your Nest products by room and lets you see all your cameras at once. And if you’re connected to Wi-Fi, shows you all of their live views.

- Share a password protected live view of your camera. Now grandma can see what the kids are up to at video.nest.com.

- 1080p support for Dropcam Pro.

- Automatic video quality adjustment helps make sure you get a continuous, clear picture.

- We’ve also added support for Apple Watch. You can now control your Nest Thermostat from your wrist.

Nest has faced a few public-facing appearance issues in the past, centered around the lengthy gaps between product releases, and some software issues with the Nest Protect line of smoke detectors that ultimately led to a product-wide recall. In June, Nest co-founder Tony Fadell announced that he was leaving the company to "create and disrupt other industries," while speculation from workers inside the company suggested many Nest employees "complained publicly about Fadell's management, while claiming the business had missed sales targets, botched upgrades and delayed future products."

The Nest iOS app can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Apple today updated iMovie for iOS, its consumer-oriented video editing app designed for iPhones and iPads. iMovie version 2.2.3 makes it easier to start and share projects and it includes unspecified stability and performance improvements.

iMovie users are now able to start projects more quickly by selecting multiple photos and videos to insert into a project, and there are options for sharing to Facebook or Vimeo using the iOS share interface. Today’s update also brings support for Shared iPad, an educational feature that debuted as part of iOS 9.3.

With Shared iPad functionality, iMovie will now work for each student who accesses the app on a shared iPad.

What’s New
- Start projects quickly by selecting multiple photos and videos
- Share to Facebook and Vimeo using the standard iOS share interface
- Support for Shared iPad in iOS 9.3 or later
- Stability and performance improvements

Prior to today’s update, iMovie last saw an update in April of 2016, bringing minor improvements. The last major update to the software came in September of 2015 when iMovie 2.2 was introduced, bringing support for 4K video and 3D Touch.

iMovie for iOS can be downloaded from the App Store for $4.99. [Direct Link]

Every time you visit a website on your iPhone or iPad, you are sharing information about yourself with the outside world. This guide runs through a number of methods you can use to gain more control over what gets shared, and who it gets shared with, whenever you use Apple's Safari browser to access the web on an iOS device.

It also covers some methods you can use to prevent traces of your browsing history from showing up on your iOS devices. While you may trust friends and family not to go searching through your web history, it's possible for them to unintentionally discover what you've been looking at, just by using Safari or performing a simple Spotlight search on your iPhone or iPad. If you're interested in a similar overview covering Safari on OS X, check out this guide.

The guide assumes you are using the latest public release of iOS 9.3 (9.3.3 as of initial writing). If your device is running an older version, a message should have appeared on the screen that an update is available. Connect your device to a power source and then tap "Install Now" on the message to download the update over the air, or open the Settings app and tap General -> Software Update, and then tap "Download and Install".

Alternatively, connect your device to a computer with an internet connection and with the latest version of iTunes 12 installed. Open iTunes, select your device (a device icon should appear just below the playback controls), click "Summary" in the sidebar, and then click "Check for Update" in the Summary screen. Click "Download and Update" if an update dialog appears.

Cookies, Location Services, and Tracking

Many websites attempt to store cookies and other web page data on iOS devices. Cookies are small data files that can include things like your IP address, device type, web browser version, the date you last visited the site, as well as any personal information you have provided, such as your name, email address, and any relevant preferences. This information is used to identify you when you revisit a site, so that it can offer tailored services, provide specific content, or display targeted ads.

Websites are increasingly upfront about their use of cookies – you've probably seen notices on popular sites requesting that you acknowledge their use. That's largely because EU law requires sites based within its borders to get consent from visitors to store or retrieve cookie data, and as of September 2015, Google requires that any website using its advertising products comply with the law if any of its users are inside the EU, regardless of where the site itself is based.

By default, Safari accepts cookies and website data only from websites you visit, and attempts to block third-party cookies that try to target you with ads or create a profile of your online activities. If you don't like the idea of being tracked at all, you can selectively block the use of cookies by following the numbered steps below. Note however that some pages might not work unless you allow the use of cookies, so if you run into login problems or other issues on familiar sites after adjusting these settings, then you might want to dial back the changes.

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