MacRumors

A California appeals court has ruled that a driver cannot be convicted of distracted driving for using a smartphone mapping application under current state law that prohibits the use of talking and texting while driving.

Because the law is so narrowly tailored -- it prohibits "listening" and talking on a phone without a hands-free device, as well as sending and receiving text-based messages -- it does not specifically apply to using smartphones in other ways.

The 5th District Court of Appeal reversed the case of a Fresno man who was ticketed in January 2012 for looking at a map on his iPhone 4 while stuck in traffic. The driver, Steven Spriggs, challenged the $165 fine and won.

Spriggs was caught up by road work and grabbed his cellphone to find an alternate route when a California Highway Patrol officer on a motorcycle spotted him and stopped him to write the ticket.

It is possible that the California state legislature will address the issue in a future session as the law was likely intended to ban drivers from playing Angry Birds or making changes in a smartphone mapping app while driving, though a strict reading of the law doesn't explicitly make those activities illegal.

The decision reversed the ruling of a lower appeals court from last year.

Laws in other states may or may not cover the use of smartphone mapping apps, and this ruling will have no impact in states other than California. In addition, California drivers can still be cited for distracted driving, but could point to this case when fighting their ticket in court.

Amazon may be planning to introduce a streaming music product that could be bundled into its Amazon Prime service, competing with existing streaming music services from companies like Spotify, Pandora, Apple, and Google reports Re/code.

Amazon is reportedly in talks with major music labels with the aim of releasing a music service in the future, hoping for low rates much as Apple did when negotiating for iTunes Radio.

One label source reports that Amazon isn’t close to getting a deal done, because its executives are asking for a substantial discount on the pricing the labels have given to other services, like Spotify, Rhapsody and Beats.

Still, label talks have been going on for the past few months, sources say.

Amazon already offers its Amazon Prime subscribers a Netflix-style movie and television streaming service – Amazon Instant Video – but music could entice customers to pay more. Earlier this year, Amazon said that it may be raising the price of Prime by up to $40, increasing the cost of the service from $79.99 to $120. Amazon already offers a Cloud Player service for playing music purchased or stored using its Cloud Drive, which is similar to iTunes Match.

Last year, Apple released its own streaming music service, iTunes Radio, which is built into the Music app of iOS 7. The service is radio-based, allowing users to discover new music through stations based on specific artists and songs, much like Pandora. It is unclear whether Amazon's service would mirror Apple's, or if it will more closely resemble services like Spotify, which allow users to search for and play specific songs.

Like Amazon, Apple was originally aiming to pay lower prices than the industry standard at six cents per 100 songs streamed, or half of Pandora's royalty rate, but the company was unable to reach deals with music labels at such low rates. Apple ended up agreeing to pay labels 0.13 cents for each song played, along with 15 percent of net advertising revenue, and it is likely that Amazon may have to make similar pricing concessions to bring a music service to fruition.

Though it has been three weeks since Dong Nguyen pulled his hit game Flappy Bird from the App Store, Flappy clones are continuing to flood the App Store.

Over a 24-hour period beginning yesterday, approximately 293 new iOS games have been released into the App Store. 95 of those games are either Flappy Bird clones or heavily inspired by the original Flappy Bird title, according to data gathered by The Guardian.

The Flappy Bird clones run the gamut of themes and main characters, and while a large number feature birds, there are also unicorns, floppy disks, cats, sponges, bricks, worms, pigs, and more. Flappy Beard Hipster Quest lets gamers guide a bearded hipster through cans of beer, while Buffalo Wings, from well-known developer Tapity, asks players to navigate a flying buffalo through brick pillars.

Flappy Bird clones have been appearing in the App Store since shortly after the original game ceased to be available. Mere hours after Flappy Bird's removal, Flappy Bee, a clone game that utilized stolen artwork, shot up the App Store charts, reaching the top five most popular free apps.

Apple began rejecting some Flappy Bird clones in mid-February, and even cracked down on Flappy Bee, insisting on a name change, but it appears the company has given up trying to filter out the slew of games attempting to capitalize on Flappy Bird's success. Many of the games released today even include Flappy in the title, a term that Apple was previously attempting to filter out.

At the height of its popularity, Flappy Bird was reportedly earning $50,000 per day, leading the developer to remove it from the App Store because it was an "addictive product," leaving a void that other developers have been attempting to fill, sometimes successfully.

According to the unscrupulous developer behind Flappy Bee, Apple's aforementioned forced name change caused the app to fall 300 places in the App Store charts, depriving him of 99 percent of the downloads and income he received by copying the Flappy Bird concept. In an interview, the developer hinted Flappy Bee may have been earning somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000 to $15,000 dollars a day. The developer behind Flappy Bee has since restored the app to its original name and removed the stolen artwork, but the app has failed to make its way back up the charts.

Given Flappy Bird's incredible popularity and its lucrativeness during the time it was on the App Store, Flappy Bird clones and games inspired by the concept are unlikely to disappear from the App Store anytime soon. As for the original game, developer Dong Nguyen has no plans to return it to the App Store, though he will continue to release new titles.

Just hours after Apple began taking orders for the new Mac Pro back in December, shipping estimates slipped to "February". However, Apple will not meet that deadline for a number of customers.

One customer told MacRumors that an Apple representative told him earlier today that his 6-core unit, originally ordered on January 7, "will not ship in February as originally stated" and instead "will be shipping in 5-7 business days and will be reflected in the on-line shipping status early next week." Some Mac Pro buyers on the MacRumors forums have been notified of similar delays. The delay puts deliveries in the first or second week of March.

The reader told us that he received two emails at the beginning and middle of the month promising delivery by the end of February, however, both those emails turned out to be incorrect. Here's the text of one from February 17:

We'd like to give you another update on the status of your Mac Pro order.

Your Mac Pro is still scheduled to ship in February. We'll send you an email notification with the delivery date and tracking information once its on its way.

For the most up-to-date delivery information, visit Order Status on the Apple Online store. If you have an iOS device, you can check your order status using the Apple Store app for iPad or iPhone.

We appreciate your patience and look forward to getting the new Mac Pro to you as soon as possible.

Current U.S. Apple Online Store orders for the Mac Pro have an expected ship date of April.

A Bitcoin-stealing trojan has been detected in downloads claiming to be cracked versions of popular Mac applications, reports security firm ESET through its We Live Security blog. The OSX/CoinThief.A malware was discovered in popular Bitcoin software earlier this month by SecureMac, but is now being used to target users of more mainstream apps.

The trojan initially surfaced on open source software hosting site GitHub, and it was quickly bundled into several Bitcoin apps available through multiple download sites. Further investigation by ESET has now uncovered the trojan masquerading as cracked versions of popular Mac apps such as BBEdit, Pixelmator, Angry Birds, and Delicious Library.

OSX/CoinThief.A involves a malicious browser add-on used to intercept logins for Bitcoin wallet sites and related exchanges such as MtGox, BTC-e, and blockchain.info. Stolen login credentials are then forwarded to the malware's developer.

There is clearly strong evidence that the trojan was specifically designed to profit from the current Bitcoin craze and fluctuating exchange rates.

According to detection statistics gathered by the ESET LiveGrid, the threat is mostly active amongst Mac users based in the United States.

The websites where these files are being distributed from have not been revealed, but Mac owners can prevent infection by avoiding pirated software and downloading titles directly from the developer's website or the Mac App Store. Users can find instructions on how to check for and remove the malware on SecureMac's blog post.

Apple again topped Fortune's annual list of the "World's Most Admired Companies", claiming the title for the seventh year in a row. Apple's ranking on the list was followed by Amazon, Google, Berkshire Hathaway, and Starbucks.

The ranking was based on a survey taken by corporate peers including executives, directors, and industry analysts who graded each company based on key attributes such as innovation, people management, social responsibility and more. Apple earned an overall score of 7.94, beating out Amazon which scored a 7.09.

The iconic tech company known for the iPhone and other stylish and user-friendly products is back in the top spot on this year's list, for the seventh year in a row. Apple, the most valuable brand on the planet according to Interbrand, brought in $171 billion in revenues in FY2013 and is flush with cash, but fan boys and girls (not to mention the market) are getting antsy to see its next big product. Bets are on a smartwatch or AppleTV, but the company is also reportedly turning its attention to cars and medical devices. -- Erika Fry

Apple was also ranked number one in seven of the nine key attributes of reputation listed in the poll. It ranked number five in social responsibility and number two in global competitiveness, following rival Google in the latter category.

Apple today posted an updated security document [PDF] on its iPhone in Business site, offering details on the inner workings of both Touch ID and the "Secure Enclave" built into Apple's A7 processor (via TechCrunch).

Since its 2013 release, Touch ID has faced scrutiny over privacy concerns from both users and government officials, and while Apple has previously offered few details on how Secure Enclave works, it has assured users that the system stores only fingerprint data rather than images.

According to the updated security document, Secure Enclave is a coprocessor within the A7 chip that uses a secure boot process to ensure that its separate software is both verified and signed by Apple. All Secure Enclaves can function independently even if a kernel is compromised and each one contains a unique ID inaccessible to other parts of the system and unknown to Apple, preventing the company or any other third parties from accessing data contained within.

Each Secure Enclave is provisioned during fabrication with its own UID (Unique ID) that is not accessible to other parts of the system and is not known to Apple. When the device starts up, an ephemeral key is created, tangled with its UID, and used to encrypt the Secure Enclave's portion of the device's memory space.

Additionally, data that is saved to the file system by the Secure Enclave is encrypted with a key tangled with the UID and an anti-replay counter.

Fingerprint data collected from Touch ID is stored within the Secure Enclave, which is used to determine a match and then enable a purchase. While the A7 processor collects data from the Touch ID sensor, it is unable to read it because it is encrypted and authenticated with a session key built into Touch ID and the Secure Enclave.

It's encrypted and authenticated with a session key that is negotiated using the device's shared key that is built into the Touch ID sensor and the Secure Enclave. The session key exchange uses AES key wrap- ping with both sides providing a random key that establishes the session key and uses AES-CCM transport encryption.

Along with details on the function and security of the Secure Enclave, the document contains details on Touch ID, most of which have been previously published by Apple in other documents and literature on the feature. It also offers some specifics on the security of fingerprint capturing and a reminder that fingerprint data is accessible only to the Secure Enclave and never sent to Apple or backed up to iTunes or iCloud.

The document's section on Touch ID and the Secure Enclave ends with a detailed description of how both Secure Enclave and Touch ID work together to unlock an iPhone 5s, which is well worth a read for users interested in how the technology functions.

Apple's updated security document has been added as part of a larger redesign of the IT section of its iPhone in Business site, which now features a cleaner design with navigation icons at the top of the page.

Apple on Friday released iOS 7.0.6, fixing a then unknown SSL verification bug that turned out to be a glaring security issue that also affected OS X 10.9.

Following the extensive amount of media coverage on the SSL vulnerability that left users open to having sensitive information like login credentials and passwords stolen, iOS users exposed to the news rushed to upgrade their devices.

On Sunday, iOS 7.0.6 adoption was at 13.3 percent, according to analytics firm Chitika. Yesterday, four days after iOS 7.0.6's release and following a slew of stories that were released over the past few days, iOS 7.0.6 adoption rates have climbed to a total of 25.9 percent, based on ad impressions from tens of millions of iOS-based devices in the U.S. and Canada.

The security update for iOS 7.0.6 appears to be propagating to iOS 7 users much more quickly than a similar 2012 iOS 5.1.1 update that also included a notable security fix. iOS 5.1.1 was installed on just 12 percent of devices after the first week, indicating iOS 7.0.6 adoption is roughly twice as fast.

MacRumors readers have been particularly quick to upgrade to iOS 7.0.6 in order to patch the SSL vulnerability. According to our data, 61.1 percent of iOS visitors to the main site were running iOS 7.0.6 as of yesterday, while 43.6 percent of forum users had updated to iOS 7.0.6.

iOS 7 users who have not yet upgraded should do so immediately in order to keep their devices and data secure. Apple yesterday released a 10.9.2 update for OS X Mavericks that patches the vulnerability on desktops, which Mavericks users should also download as soon as possible.