MacRumors

Social media app Instagram is planning to launch a new feature that allows its users personalized control over the comments shared on each of their posts.

The company has long had blanket rules for what constitutes appropriate speech on its network, but the new comment filter ability will let each user tweak specific rules to their own liking, since "different words or phrases are offensive to different people" (via The Washington Post).

Some businesses have already gotten a look at the new feature, letting them automatically weed out comments and posters with specific triggering phrases. In the next few weeks, more "high-profile accounts" will get their hands on comment moderation, with the ability to also switch comments off completely on a post-by-post basis.

“Our goal is to make Instagram a friendly, fun and, most importantly, safe place for self expression," said Instagram's head of public policy, Nicky Jackson Colaco, in a statement to The Post. "We have slowly begun to offer accounts with high volume comment threads the option to moderate their comment experience. As we learn, we look forward to improving the comment experience for our broader community.”

Normal users will have to wait a while longer to moderate their own posts, since Instagram said it will launch the feature to all its users "in the coming months." The company is planning on using feedback from higher-volume accounts to fine tune the new feature before handing it out to its more than 300 million daily active users.

Instagram is available for free on the App Store. [Direct Link]

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.

Earlier this weekend, Apple began promoting book-related content with a new Instagram account centered around its iBooks digital platform. The launch of the iBooks Instagram page coincided with the release of the script for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which the account posted about yesterday.

Apple also wished author J.K. Rowling a happy birthday through its new verified Instagram page, but otherwise the content appears to largely be focused on introducing followers to fresh and notable stories through quotes, author spotlights, and unique, short videos.

Some of the novels referenced so far on the new page include Blake Crouch's Dark Matter, Emma Cline's The Girls, and Wendy Walker's All Is Not Forgotten. All of the mentioned books released between June and July, so it seems iBooks will keep its promotions aimed at recently launched novels while it gains more Instagram followers in its early stages.

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.

➜ Click here to read more...

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]