If you’ve enabled iCloud Drive, be leery of using Settings > General > Reset > Reset All Settings to reset an iOS device, as doing so could erase at least some of your iCloud data. MacRumors has confirmed that activating that option after upgrading to iCloud Drive deletes all iWork documents stored in iCloud. However, iCloud documents that cannot be accessed by iOS, like those in Preview and TextEdit, appear to not be affected. Just another reason to hold off on upgrading to iCloud Drive until Apple works out the kinks.
Andrew Cunningham of Ars Technica was challenged by his coworkers to use Mac OS 9 for a few days. Armed with a 2002 PowerBook G4, Cunningham set out to do his job with the now 12-year-old Mac OS 9.2.2… and found that he could get nothing done. However, he discovered that it was a nice setup for classic games that no longer run on modern Apple devices.
After the botched iOS 8.0.1 update, questions are being asked about how Apple tests its software before release. An internal Bug Review Board ranks different known bugs in order of importance, which also determines how quickly they are addressed. One challenge for Apple is internal divisions that cause engineers to not be able to test software on unreleased hardware and cause departments to sign off on updates that could break features not under their purview.
Old security vulnerabilities never seem to go away. Our own Glenn Fleishman, writing for Boing Boing, explores the reasons why, which boil down to companies not deactivating old software and there being no money in maintaining it.
While it’s more of a technology demo than a game, Epic Zen Garden is a great way to show off a new iPhone.
In response to claims that the iPhone 6 bends in pants pockets, Apple gave The Verge a rare look at the facility where it stress tests new iPhone models. Apple tested 30,000 iPhones before release, including a special test that simulates pressure inside a pants pocket. Apple claims that out of over 10 million iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models sold so far, there have only been nine complaints about bent phones.
The second try is the charm as Apple releases an iOS 8.0.2 update that offers the fixes in iOS 8.0.1 without disabling cellular service or Touch ID.
Apple has released 8.0.1, but many users are reporting that it breaks cellular connectivity and Touch ID.
When is a gift not really a gift? Who really owns your phone? What makes music so important to us? Josh Centers ponders the backlash against Apple’s free gift of a U2 album and concludes that it could have been handled far better, though perhaps that wouldn’t have served the promotional needs of either U2 or Apple.
Microsoft just paid $2.5 billion to acquire a single game. Read on to find out what makes Minecraft sufficiently special to warrant such a high price, along with a “brief” primer on how to survive your first day in Minecraft.
Bloomberg Businessweek has published an exhaustive profile of Apple CEO Tim Cook (be sure to check out the astonishingly ugly cover shot). The article focuses on how Cook handled taking over from Steve Jobs, and the challenges he faced. It also includes a brief digression with SVP of Design Jony Ive to discuss the process of creating the Apple Watch.
The third-generation Apple TV has been updated with a sleek new look and the introduction of Apple’s recently acquired Beats Music service.
The second part of Charlie Rose’s interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook is now online. Cook discusses Apple’s views on privacy in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations, his personal heroes, and what Apple values. “We want to leave the world better than we found it,” Cook said.
If you were hoping to tinker with the new near-field communication (NFC) hardware in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, we have bad news: it can be used only for Apple Pay, at least for now. Security Editor Rich Mogull suspects this was a limitation demanded by the banks. On other manufacturers’ devices, the NFC chip can be used to read signals from NFC tags and invoke a variety of actions.
Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down for an interview with Charlie Rose, and the first hour is now available to watch. It’s chock full of interesting tidbits, such as Steve Jobs still having an office at Apple, who Apple’s biggest competitor is, things Apple wouldn’t have done under Jobs, and the state of the TV industry.