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Opening
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News
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Apple Watch still tops, but slips
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The latest data out from Counterpoint Research on global smartwatch sales shows that the Apple Watch still is on top, but they did lose some ground to Samsung.
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Globally smartwatch shipments in the third quarter were up 16 percent over 2020
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Apple still had the largest slice of the pie at about 22 percent of the market, but that was down from 28 percent in the same quarter last year.
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Part of the reason though might be the later release of the updated Apple Watch Series 7
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The Series 6 released in September 2020 while the Series 7 released in October 2021
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Drivers License in Apple Wallet delayed
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MacRumors noticed an update to Apple’s website that shows an exciting upcoming feature in iOS 15 will be delayed until at least next year.
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The ability to add your Drivers license to Apple Wallet was announced at WWDC 2021 and even then the rollout was going to be limited by State in the US. Still Apple originally said the feature would start to roll out later this year.
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Now it seems like that is not the case.
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Arizona and Georgia were supposed to be first followed by Connecticut, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Utah.
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Now Apple’s website is saying the feature will be coming in “Early 2022”
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Earlier reports had stated that Apple is imposing stringent terms and conditions on states wanting to implement the feature
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The reports also said that many state have to add staff or marketing resources to meet these requirements without financial support from Apple
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Obviously Apple just updating the launch date on their website doesn’t tell us much, but it’s probably not too much of a stretch to imagine that the requirements are giving states some issues and they just need more time for the roll out.
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Apple goes on the offensive against state sponsored hacking
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Apple has filed a lawsuit against the Israeli company the NSO Group and it’s parent organization over their spyware and surveillance software that they sell to State-sponsored actors.
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Specifically Apple is upset over the companies “Pegasus” spyware which uses zero-day exploits purchased by NSO to target iPhones
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The software has allegedly been used by state-sponsored hackers to target the iPhones of journalists, lawyers, and human rights activists.
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One of the most effective exploits was a zero-click one called FORCEDENTRY hat targeted the Messages app.
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Just receiving and viewing a message sent to the device allowed the Pegasus software in inject itself giving remote access and control of the camera, microphone, text messages, phone calls, emails, and more.
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Fixes for the exploit have been included in iOS 15
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Still the NSO group is believed to have a stockpile of zero days.
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Apple says that it has not found evidence of successful remote attacks against users running ‌iOS 15
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But the company is now actively watching for evidence of these types of attacks including for devices infiltrated by FORCEDENTRY and actively notifying customers who have had their devices breached.
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There are reports of Apple already sent one such text to a prosecutor in Poland who was running an investigation looking into a failed presidential election where funds were supposedly used on a postal vote that did not take place.
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Seems odd that Apple would use a text message as the notification mechanism though?
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Ivan Krstić, head of Apple Security Engineering and Architecture, said in a statement "At Apple, we are always working to defend our users against even the most complex cyberattacks. The steps we're taking today will send a clear message: In a free society, it is unacceptable to weaponize powerful state-sponsored spyware against those who seek to make the world a better place"
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Apple also announced plans to contribute $10 million to organizations pursuing cybersurveillance research and advocacy and will donate the settlements from any lawsuits to the same causes. They also will continue to provide pro-bono technical, threat intelligence, and engineering assistance to researchers at the Citizen Lab.
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Temporary Apple Sales halt in Turkey
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There were reports this week that Apple temporarily halted sales of their product both online and at retail locations in Turkey
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The original reports came from the site macReports and alleged the stop was due to rapid price fluctuations in the Turkish lira
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Still other sources claimed that Apple had not completely halted sales but was limiting sales of some products or not able to sell some products due to ongoing shipping and supply chain issues
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Still according to the macReports article retail staff at the Apple Store were reportedly telling customers that once sales did resume, price hikes could be expected due to the weakening of the Turkish lira.
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It looks like that last part did turn out to be true since later this past week sales resumed in the online store with about a 25 percent price increase across the board.
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It is fairly common for Apple to adjust prices to compensate for differences in exchange rates
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What will replace iPhone
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If Ming-Chi Kuo is correct then it will happen in about 10 years.
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What will we dump our iPhone’s for? AR
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Of course a lot of things will need to happen in those 10 years.
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Specifically Kuo notes that an Apple AR product will need to operate independently from an iPhone or Mac and “have its own ecosystem and provide the most complete and flexible user experience”
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He also says Apple will (need) sell at least one billion AR devices in ten years if the product is intended to replace the iPhone
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To kick things off Kuo is expecting Apple to launch it’s first AR product by the end of 2022.
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He says it will carry a “pair” of processors. The main processor being similar to Apple’s M1 processor.
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Then there will also be a co-processor to manage the array of sensors on the device.
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Meeting with the future requirements to be able to eventually supplant the iPhone Kuo says this product will be able to operate independently without relying on a Mac or an iPhone.
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he also claims it will “supports a comprehensive range of applications”
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The headset will also reportedly support VR with a pair of Sony 4K micro OLED displays with at least 6-8 optical modules.
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Even if the product is announced in 2022 it may or may not be something we can buy in 2022.
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Mark Gurman at Bloomberg claims in his newsletter that it could end up like the announcement of the original Apple Watch
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That took 227 days to actually launch.
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Feedback, commentary, opinions
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Finding Battery Draining apps
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Last time were were discussing battery drain issues on the Mac
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I mentioned that something had been causing my Mac to drain while it has been sleeping
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I guess Dave over at Mac Geek Gab has also been having this issue (thanks to listener Russ for the heads up).
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He found a Terminal command that can be helpful in troubleshooting
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`pmset -g log | grep 'Wake Requests’`
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pmset = “manipulate power management settings”. “-g” is the “getting” option. the “log” option returns history of sleeps, wakes, and other power management events.
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By “grepping” it for “Wake Requests” you can see which apps are requesting that the machine wake.
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Dave had an app that was making the requests every few seconds and causing his battery drain.
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In my case the only apps making a number of requests is Carbon Copy Cloner or ChronoSync, but they are every few minutes not seconds, but could be an issue?
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I might try disabling CCC for a day and see if that helps the battery
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Regardless this might be a good troubleshooting tip for you as well.
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Home Sharing issues
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Tim uses “Home Sharing” (now Media Sharing) on his Mac to share music, ripped movies, home movies with his other devices and Apple TV
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The issue he was having is that he uses and external drive for storage of his media and found that even though Media Sharing was turned on the content was not showing up in the TV app on iOS or the Computer app on Apple TV.
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If he moved the content to the Mac and updated the location settings in the App then the media would show up.
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He was wondering if the content needed to be on the local drive to work with Media Sharing.
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It shouldn’t need to be. I have my content on my external drive as well and when I tested on my Apple TV my content was not showing up either.
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I was able to fix it by turning off Media Sharing and turning it back on again on my Mac.
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Go to System Preferences
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Click on Sharing and uncheck the Media Sharing checkbox.
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Check the box again and log into the Apple ID you want to use for sharing. Make sure to use the exact same email address on ALL devices your are access sharing with.
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This resolved the issue for me.
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One other issue I had was that my “Home Videos” were not displaying.
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I noticed with these I had to start playing them on my Mac before they would appear in the Computers App on my Apple TV
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For good measure I also reset my Home Sharing on my iOS devices as well
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To see a music library, go to Settings > Music. To see a video library, go to Settings > TV > iTunes Videos.
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Tap your email address and tab sign out. The tap Sign In.
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Sign in with your Apple ID. Use the same Apple ID for every computer or device on your Home Sharing network.
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Note that on iOS you use the TV and the Music apps to access shared media. You should see the Media Sharing name show up in the sidecar under the Library in each app.
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Closing
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