It seems that Apple has been working on the FaceTime bug over the last few days - other Apple news-related web sites are reporting that they are seeing a new iOS version appear in their analytics.
The version should fix the FaceTime bug that we've reported on earlier in the week.
“Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman… reports that Apple is currently testing iPhones with USB-C charging ports instead of Lightning ports,” Ben Sin writes for Forbes. “This isn’t too surprising for anyone who follows industry trends. USB-C is a charging and data transferring tech that’s been hailed by tech insiders as the “next big thing” years ago, and outside of the iPhone world, that has come true. Almost all new Android handsets charge via USB-C, as do premium laptops released in the last year or so.”
“There’s almost no good argument against using USB-C on mobile devices: it can deliver more power, more data, more efficiently than older USB or Lightning ports,” Sin reports. “In fact, even Apple made the switch to USB-C on its laptops and iPads in recent years.”
“The Swatch watch is unwinding,” Andrea Felsted and Alex Webb report for Bloomberg. “The Swiss manufacturer of its namesake brand and higher-end timepieces such as Harry Winston is facing twin pressures.”
“The company on Thursday reported worse-than-expected 2018 sales and profits. It was hurt by a slowdown in China in the final three months of the year,” Felsted and Webb report. “While some luxury players, including LVMH, have said that China is holding up, or even improving, that doesn’t seem to be the case in watches. Swiss exports to China fell 10 percent in December, a worrying sign for the industry. Swatch is particularly vulnerable – some 35 percent of revenue was generated from Greater China in 2017, according to Bloomberg data.”
“But there is another threat,” Felsted and Webb report. “In 2018, the annual volume of the devices sold by Apple Inc. might have matched or even exceeded that of the entire Swiss watch industry. The competition has already eaten into the nation’s exports of lower-priced timepieces.”
“The situation is about to get worse,” Felsted and Webb report. “Revenue from [Apple’s] Wearables, Home and Accessories vertical, which also includes the HomePod smartspeaker and AirPod earphones, jumped 33 percent in the three months through December… Three years ago, Swiss manufacturers mocked the Apple watch. Now, they are no longer laughing.”
“Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 recently discovered malware that we believe has been developed from OSX.DarthMiner, a malware known to target the Mac platform,” Palo Alto Networks reports. “This malware is capable of stealing browser cookies associated with mainstream cryptocurrency exchanges and wallet service websites visited by the victims. It also steals saved passwords in Chrome. Finally, it seeks to steal iPhone text messages from iTunes backups on the tethered Mac.”
“By leveraging the combination of stolen login credentials, web cookies, and SMS data, based on past attacks like this, we believe the bad actors could bypass multi-factor authentication for these sites,” Palo Alto Networks reports. “If successful, the attackers would have full access to the victim’s exchange account and/or wallet and be able to use those funds as if they were the user themselves.”
“The malware also configures the system to load coinmining software on the system. This software is made to look like an XMRig-type coinminer, which is used to mine Monero. In fact, though, it loads a coinminer that mines Koto, a lesser-known cryptocurrency that is associated with Japan,” Palo Alto Networks reports. “Because of the way this malware attacks the cookies associated with exchanges, we have named this malware ‘CookieMiner.'”
