MacRumors

"Evad3rs", a new team including some of the top iOS jailbreak authors, has just released Evasi0n, a brand-new jailbreak for iOS 6.x. The release marks the first time users have been able to deploy an untethered jailbreak on the iPhone 5.

Evasi0n is available for OS X, Windows, and Linux and provides a quick method for users to jailbreak their devices to make use of unauthorized like themes, tweaks, and apps from sources other than the App Store.

As an untethered jailbreak, users only need to apply the Evasi0n jailbreak once, making for a seamless user experience. Tethered jailbreaks requires users to have their devices connected to a computer each time they restart.

One of the fastest-spreading stories of the weekend has been a strange OS X Mountain Lion bug that can crash almost any Mac app running any version of OS X 10.8, reported on Open Radar.

The initial bug report stated that typing 'File:///' (without the quotes) into almost any app causes the app to crash.

Follow-up testing has shown that the final character needn't be a forward-slash, with almost any character after 'File://' triggering the bug. The issue is also speed-dependent: leaving a brief pause between typing // and the next character will prevent the crash from occurring.

More embarrassingly still for Apple, filing a crash report causes both Crash Reporter and the Console apps to crash. The Console crash can only be cured by running a terminal command:

sudo sed -i -e 's@File:///@F i l e : / / /@g' /var/log/system.log

The Next Web has a detailed analysis of the issue, noting that it is related to Apple's Data Detectors feature for automatically recognizing dates, locations and other information in text for addition to Address Book or Calendar entries.

While it is rather surprising that the issue took so long to receive publicity, Apple is now likely to include a fix for the problem sooner rather than later. It is, however, unknown whether Apple will squeeze a fix into the upcoming OS X 10.8.3 that has been in developer testing for over two months.

Several clues surfacing in recent days have hinted that Apple's iWork and iLife suites may be undergoing substantial redevelopment.

Late last week, Apple Bitch noticed two new job listings for senior software engineers for the company's iLife team, with the descriptions emphasizing a desire to "re-imagine how user interfaces should be built and work". MacNN followed up with its own reporting pointing to a number of other job postings for both the iLife and iWork teams suggesting that Apple is making significant additions to its teams.

Apple has recently added several job postings that explicitly reference the iLife team or the suite itself, including requests for an engineer in the iLife Frameworks QA department; a QA engineer to help test new features in iPhoto (that requires a "passion" for digital photography); a Senior User Interface Designer for iWork, and two Senior Software Engineer positions that explicitly reference working on the user interface of iLife.

Apple's iWork productivity suite, which includes Pages, Numbers and Keynote, last received minor updates in December, while the last major update came over four years ago. iLife represents Apple's consumer apps (iPhoto, GarageBand and iMovie) and saw its last major update in October 2010.

Apple has also been active in the area of document management and the cloud, acquiring 18 patents addressing information management from Maya-Systems.

a file sorting system that can reorganize according to time, category, or a common theme -- such as a work project -- and sync with cloud servers and other users

New senior hires and patent acquisition may point to a major redevelopment of the software, but as new hires are typically done early in the development cycle, it may be some time before the fruits of such work are released to the public.

It is also likely that the new versions of iLife and iWork would lose the skeuomorphisms - emulation of real-life objects and materials like desk calendars, leather and wood. There have long been tensions within Apple over this approach, but with skeuomorphism proponent Scott Forstall being forced out of Apple and Jonathan Ive having now assumed responsibility for Human Interface aspects of software as well as hardware design, a new design direction for Apple's software may be in progress.

Less than two days after Apple once again blocked Java 7 web plug-ins on OS X, Oracle has released an updated version of Java 7 to address certain security vulnerabilities.

The new Java 7 arrives as Update 13 and carries a version number of 1.7.0_13-b20, meeting Apple's requirement for a minimum of 1.7.0_11-b22. Oracle has also released an updated version of Java 6, although Apple was not blocking the previous version of the plug-in.

Oracle notes that the new update contains fixes for over 50 issues and that the launch was accelerated by several weeks in order to address a vulnerability that was being exploited in the wild.

The original Critical Patch Update for Java SE – February 2013 was scheduled to be released on February 19th, but Oracle decided to accelerate the release of this Critical Patch Update because active exploitation “in the wild” of one of the vulnerabilities affecting the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) in desktop browsers, was addressed with this Critical Patch Update. [...]

Due to the threat posed by a successful attack, Oracle strongly recommends that customers apply CPU fixes as soon as possible. This Critical Patch Update contains 50 new security fixes across Java SE products.

The latest versions of all Java SE packages are available through Oracle's support site.

(Thanks, Flemming!)

Early last year, the popular iOS app Path came under fire for uploading users' entire address books to company servers without alerting users or asking for authorization.

The scandal resulted in Apple locking down user data in iOS 6, requiring explicit permission before apps could access a users location, contacts, calendars, photos, and reminders.

Today, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission announced that it has reached a settlement with Path. The agreement requires Path to establish a new privacy program, obtain independent privacy assessments for 20 years, and pay an $800,000 fine.

"Over the years the FTC has been vigilant in responding to a long list of threats to consumer privacy, whether it’s mortgage applications thrown into open trash dumpsters, kids information culled by music fan websites, or unencrypted credit card information left vulnerable to hackers," said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz. “This settlement with Path shows that no matter what new technologies emerge, the agency will continue to safeguard the privacy of Americans."

The FTC alleged that Path's app was misleading and failed to offer the consumer any choice in whether his data was uploaded, and that Path violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting personal information from children without getting parents' consent.

Path has posted a response to the settlement on its blog.

Apple overtook Samsung as the market leader in mobile phones in the United States for the final quarter of 2012, reports Strategy Analytics, though Samsung still led for the year as a whole. The development marks the first time Apple has held the top spot in overall mobile phone shipments.

The technology analysts estimate that a total of 52 million mobile phones were shipped in the U.S. last quarter, with Apple accounting for 17.7 million of them, Samsung for 16.8 million and LG a distant third with 4.7 million. Samsung had held the top spot since 2008 before being dethroned by Apple.

Strategy Analytics Executive Director Neil Mawston said:

We estimate Apple shipped 17.7 million mobile phones for a record 34 percent share of the United States market in the fourth quarter of 2012. This was up sharply from 12.8 million units shipped and 25 percent share in Q4 2011. Apple has become the number one mobile phone vendor by volume in the United States for the first time ever. Apple’s success has been driven by its popular ecosystem of iPhones and App Store, generous carrier subsidies, and extensive marketing around the new iPhone 5 model.

The firm believes, however, that Samsung may retake the title when it launches its rumored Galaxy S4.

Meantime, The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit yesterday rejected Apple's renewed attempt to ban sales of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, as noted by AllThingsD. Apple was initially awarded an injunction which prohibited sales of the Nexus in the long-running patent battle between the two companies, but this was overturned in October. This now exhausts Apple's appeal options, making the latest decision final.