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TidBITS#1191/16-Sep-2013

We’re sending our summer out in style with a giant-sized issue of TidBITS! Apple has unveiled the latest iPhones — the colorful iPhone 5c and the powerful iPhone 5s, and we have all the details. Note that Apple has lowercased the trailing letters in those iPhone names, and retroactively demoted the S in iPhone 4S as well. Adam Engst fulminates about Apple’s use and abuse of capitalization. The big news about the iPhone 5s is that it includes a fingerprint scanner, called Touch ID, and Security Editor Rich Mogull explains how the technology works. In other Apple news, purchasers of new iOS devices will receive a bevy of free apps from Apple, and OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion has been updated to version 10.8.5 to fix some major security holes. Finally, bibliophile Michael Cohen helps you figure out what to read next with a look at book recommendation engines in our latest FunBITS piece. Notable software releases this week include Microsoft Office 2011 14.3.7, SpamSieve 2.9.8, Security Update 2013-004 for Lion and Snow Leopard, Safari 5.1.10 for Snow Leopard, and Nisus Writer Pro 2.0.5 and Express 3.4.4.

Rich Mogull 42 comments

Q&A about Fingerprint Scanning

The most significant feature of Apple’s new iPhone 5s is a built-in fingerprint scanner. TidBITS Security Editor Rich Mogull takes a look behind the scenes on how fingerprint scans compare to passcodes when it comes to security.

Adam Engst 34 comments

Ruminating about Apple’s Lowercase Letters

Perturbed by Apple’s inexplicable shift to lowercase trailing letters for the iPhone 5s and 5c, and the retroactive renaming of the iPhone 4S to 4s, Adam Engst expresses his ire in this behind-the-scenes exposé of how professional editors and publishers think about such minutiae.

TidBITS Staff No comments

ExtraBITS for 16 September 2013

The TidBITS staff joined Chuck Joiner on his MacJury podcast to render judgment on the new iPhones. What new iPhones? If you missed Apple’s announcement, you can now watch the video on the company’s Web site. Will the Touch ID fingerprint scanner on the iPhone 5s make security more available to the disabled? Accessibility expert Steven Aquino thinks so. While Apple was announcing new products, it quietly shuttered the Cards app and service for sending custom greeting cards from an iPhone or iPad. Finally, find out how Facebook can make you depressed (or not), 1Password’s developers respond to the NSA revelations, and a wistful John Sculley laments the firing of Steve Jobs.