Apple's latest macOS 15 "Sequoia" update, released earlier this week, has disrupted security tools from major providers including CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, and Microsoft, according to reports. The extent and cause of the disruption remain unclear.

"Apple has begun manufacturing its A16 SoC at the newly-opened TSCM Fab 21 in Arizona," writes Slashdot reader NoMoreACs. AppleInsider reports: According to sources of Tim Culpan, Phase 1 of TSMC's Fab 21 in Arizona is making the A16 SoC of the iPhone 14 Pro in "small, but significant, numbers. The production is largely a test for the facility at this stage, but more production is expected in the coming months. The volume will ramp up massively once the second stage of the Phase 1 fab actually concludes. If everything stays on schedule, the Arizona plant will hit a target for production sometime in the first half of 2025.

Sources say TSMC is achieving yields that are marginally behind those of Taiwan-based factories. Yield parity is expected to happen within months. TSMC has also raised its investment and moved to build additional plants in Arizona, with three set to be constructed in total. The U.S. Commerce Department previously claimed this will create 6,000 direct manufacturing jobs, on top of an estimated 20,000 construction jobs.

Apple's VP of camera software engineering Jon McCormack has affirmed the company's commitment to traditional photography in an interview, contrasting with Google's "memories" approach for Pixel cameras. (A Google executive said last month of the AI usage in the pictures Pixel smartphone owners take: "What some of these edits do is help you create the moment that is the way you remember it, that's authentic to your memory and to the greater context, but maybe isn't authentic to a particular millisecond.") The Verge: I asked Apple's VP of camera software engineering Jon McCormack about Google's view that the Pixel camera now captures "memories" instead of photos, and he told me that Apple has a strong point of view about what a photograph is -- that it's something that actually happened. It was a long and thoughtful answer, so I'm just going to print the whole thing:

"Here's our view of what a photograph is. The way we like to think of it is that it's a personal celebration of something that really, actually happened.

"Whether that's a simple thing like a fancy cup of coffee that's got some cool design on it, all the way through to my kid's first steps, or my parents' last breath, It's something that really happened. It's something that is a marker in my life, and it's something that deserves to be celebrated.

"And that is why when we think about evolving in the camera, we also rooted it very heavily in tradition. Photography is not a new thing. It's been around for 198 years. People seem to like it. There's a lot to learn from that. There's a lot to rely on from that.

"Think about stylization, the first example of stylization that we can find is Roger Fenton in 1854 -- that's 170 years ago. It's a durable, long-term, lasting thing. We stand proudly on the shoulders of photographic history." Further reading: 'There is No Such Thing as a Real Picture,' Says Samsung Exec.

The FDA has approved sleep apnea detection on the Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, and Watch Ultra 2. "The green light comes four days ahead of the Series 10's September 20 release date," notes TechCrunch. From the report: The feature, announced at last week's iPhone 16 event, will arrive as part of the imminent watchOS 11 release. Once enabled, it requires 10 nights of sleep tracking data spread out over a 30-day span to determine whether a user may have the condition. During that time, it also offers insights into nightly sleeping disturbances, utilizing the on-board accelerometer.

The FDA classes the feature as an "over-the-counter device to assess risk of sleep apnea." Apple is quick to note that the addition is not a diagnostic tool. Rather, it will prompt users to seek a formal diagnosis from a healthcare provider. The condition, which causes breathing to become shallower or repeatedly stop during the night, is associated with a variety of different symptoms. The Mayo Clinic notes that it can cause insomnia, headaches, daytime sleepiness, and other longer-term conditions.

Apple today is rolling out iOS 18, introducing support for Rich Communications Services (RCS) to enhance messaging between iPhone and Android devices with features like typing indicators, read receipts, and higher resolution media. "However, there continues to be no end-to-end encryption (E2EE), with work towards that between Android and iOS continuing," notes 9to5Google. The feature will be enabled by default on iPhones with major U.S. carriers supported, but smaller MVNOs are not yet included.

Apple has increased its out-of-warranty battery replacement fee for iPhone 16 Pro models. From a report: Apple Stores can replace the battery inside an iPhone 16 Pro or iPhone 16 Pro Max for $119 in the U.S., which is up from $99 for the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max. This is a 20% increase to the fee, which includes the cost of a new battery and service by an Apple Store. The fee may vary at third-party Apple Authorized Service Providers. The fee remains $99 for the standard iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus. Customers with AppleCare+ can still get an iPhone 16 Pro battery replaced for free, but only if the battery retains less than 80% of its original capacity.

Apple says all four iPhone 16 models are equipped with larger batteries, and all of the devices received an internal redesign for improved heat dissipation, according to the company. A metal enclosure was rumored for at least some iPhone 16 batteries, but we are still waiting for teardowns to get a proper look inside of the devices.

Ming-Chi Kuo, a high-profile and reliable Apple analyst, says the demand for the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max has been "lower than expected" since the devices became available to pre-order in the U.S. and dozens of other countries on Friday. From a report: Kuo said his data is based on a "supply chain survey" and shipping estimates listed on Apple's online store. Kuo estimated that sales of all four iPhone 16 models reached about 37 million units in the first weekend after Apple began accepting pre-orders, which is down nearly 13% compared to first-weekend sales of the iPhone 15 series last year. The analyst said a key factor for the decline is the lower demand for the Pro models, with first-weekend sales of the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max estimated to be down 27% and 16%, respectively, compared to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max sales during the equivalent period last year.

Google's describes their new Gemini-powered foldable phone as "an epic display of Google AI" (also calling it "unfoldgettable").

The Android Authority blog says the phone is "impressive," "incredibly thin" — and, at $1,800, expensive.

But long-time Slashdot reader mprindle notes some complaints from the YouTube channel JerryRigEverything ("known for in-depth testing of phones and other devices".) The blog 9to5Google summarizes some of the video's findings: - When exposed to dirt and sand, we hear the hinge start grinding since there's no dust protection...

- A closed bend test reveals no problems for the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, but the issues arise when it's open and bent from the back. Despite the left/right back panels meeting and covering the spine of the hinge, "there doesn't appear to be a whole lot of resistance."
"Not sure why Google thought it was a good idea to put an antenna line right here at the weakest point in an already thin frame," the video notes (arguing it's "like putting an exhaust port in the Death Star...")

But they also tell their 8.8 million subscribers that "One cool thing that Google has done is that they've made every single part of this metal frame from recycled aluminum." And "Out of the box, I'm already a huge fan of how it looks," the video begins. "It feels amazing, and folds completely shut and appears like the hardware has finally caught up to the folding form factor to where it looks just natural."

One thing to note... "Moving to the inner display, I start to get the vibe that when Google says 'super durable', they mean 'regular durable', since the inner display is made from the same soft flexible plastic that we've seen on every folding phone so far, which scratches at level two. Even fingernails can leave very permanent marks on the center screen. This is absolutely normal for a folding phone, though, and really not too big of a deal if you take care it, making sure there are no bits of dust or dirt in the screen when you close it will go a long way to keeping things pristine, since there's not a lot of room between the two halves."

iFixit makes an interesting observation: "Over half of the phone's internal area is occupied by the lithium polymer battery cells!" (They've also created another teardown video available on YouTube.)

"There's no denying that the inner screens are delicate and prone to damage," according to an accompanying iFixit blog post, "and the mechanical nature of the hinge mechanism provides additional avenues for dust and liquid ingress that may eventually become a problem."

But it also applauds "the less obvious repairability wins, from repair guides and a detailed Bill of Materials to spare parts that are available without malicious restrictions... [T]he Pixel team has gone to great lengths to support your right to repair the device you paid for and own" — and from Day One. There's really only a single criticism I'd direct at the Pixel 9 Fold from my own disassembly experience: the battery removal tabs. These tabs simply do not work, with or without the application of heat. They are flimsy and break often, require a second pair of hands to secure the device, and they fail to cut through adhesive reliably. Whether they should even try to cut through adhesive is debatable. Stretch release adhesive might age and break over time but at least they give you a chance at removing the adhesive. Pull tabs don't even work when the adhesive is brand new, they literally have no redeeming qualities when compared to other battery release mechanisms. Even the more robust pull tabs Samsung uses in its phones work better than this, though they aren't necessarily the easiest to use either.

As for the device itself, it prompted one of my colleagues — an iPhone user since forever — to say "this is nice, I'd switch to Android for this"... Setting aside the downsides of owning a foldable smartphone, I am excited to see Google and the Pixel team devoting so much time and energy towards improving the overall repairability of the device. The effort is seen and appreciated by device owners and as a technician, I look forward to seeing how manufacturers will continue to innovate for repairability.
Slashdot reader mprindle reminds us that when it comes to waterproofing, the JerryRigEverything video "noted that the footnotes say the device is rated IP68 yet the Sim tray is rated at IPx8."

Apple unveiled a multitrack recording feature for Voice Memos at its recent iPhone event, exclusive to the iPhone 16 Pro. The feature allows users to layer vocals over guitar tracks without headphones, utilizing advanced microphone technology and machine learning algorithms to reduce ambient noise.

Engadget argues the feature's exclusivity to the new $1,000+ model is unnecessary, given modern smartphones' processing power far exceeds that of early digital audio workstations. They contend that basic multitrack recording functionality could be implemented on older iPhone models. Apple's decision to limit this feature contradicts its inclusion of GarageBand on all iPhones and the availability of Audio Mix on base iPhone 16 models, which offers similar noise reduction capabilities. The story adds: Why is this particular feature walled behind the iPhone 16 Pro? It's a simple multitrack recording function. From the ad, it looks like the app can't even layer more than two tracks at a time. This can't exactly be taxing that A18 Pro chip, especially when the phone can also handle 4K/120 FPS video recording in Dolby Vision.

Apple asked a court Friday to dismiss its three-year-old hacking lawsuit against spyware pioneer NSO Group, arguing that it might never be able to get the most critical files about NSO's Pegasus surveillance tool and that its own disclosures could aid NSO and its increasing number of rivals. From a report: A redacted version of the filing in San Francisco federal court cited a July article in the Guardian, which reported that Israeli officials had taken files from NSO's headquarters. The newspaper said the officials asked an Israeli court to keep the action secret even from those involved in an earlier, still pending hacking suit against NSO filed by Meta's WhatsApp. Israeli ministry of justice communications that were hacked showed that officials were concerned about sensitive information reaching Americans, the newspaper said.

"While Apple takes no position on the truth or falsity of the Guardian Story described above, its existence presents cause for concern about the potential for Apple to obtain the discovery it needs," the iPhone maker wrote in its filing Friday. Israeli officials have not disputed the authenticity of the documents but have denied interfering in the U.S. litigation.

Google is adding some new features to Chrome that aim to help users organize and keep track of their browser tabs across both desktop and mobile devices. From a report: The search giant announced in a new blog post that tab groups -- which enable Android and desktop Chrome users to keep related pages together in custom-labeled groups -- will start rolling out to Chrome for iOS starting today. Once Chrome is updated, iPhone and iPad users can access the feature by opening the tab grid, long-pressing on a tab, and selecting "Add Tab to New Group." Custom names and colors can then be assigned to the created tab groups to help keep them organized and easily identifiable. Another feature that's rolling out across Android and desktop Chrome apps is the ability to sync those saved tab groups across multiple devices.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Over successive administrations, the U.S. government has used stiff trade restrictions to try to stifle the Chinese telecom giant Huawei. In turn, the company never misses an opportunity to show that it is still standing. Last year, at the tail end of a visit to China by Gina Raimondo, the U.S. commerce secretary, Huawei unveiled a smartphone that was powered by an advanced semiconductor made in China. The chip was exactly the kind of technology that the United States, in an effort led by Ms. Raimondo, had tried to prevent China from developing.

The Huawei phone, called the Mate 60 Pro, was heralded in China as the triumph of a national champion over American constraints. It sold out within minutes on Chinese e-commerce platforms. Many shoppers chose to pair their purchase with a phone case emblazoned with a photo of Ms. Raimondo's face. In the Chinese tech hub of Shenzhen on Tuesday, Huawei again made a bid for the spotlight with the announcement of a new device just hours after Apple introduced its iPhone 16 in California. Huawei's latest phone, the Mate XT, is heavy on novelty: It can be folded, twice [non-paywalled source].

The tablet-size device folds along two vertical seams to become the size of a typical phone. It is the first commercially available trifold smartphone. It comes in two colors, red and black, and will go on sale on Sept. 20. "It's a piece of work that everyone has thought of but never managed to create," said Richard Yu, Huawei's consumer group chairman. "I have always had a dream to put our tablet in my pocket, and we did it." The Mate XT, with a screen that measures 10.2 inches diagonally, is equipped with artificial intelligence-enabled translation, messaging and photo editing features. Mr. Yu also unveiled a thin keyboard that folds in half to the same size as the phone. He showed the audience how he carried both together in the pocket of his suit jacket. Starting at $2,800, the Mate XT is priced like a luxury product.

Apple says AirPods Pro 2 will receive a software feature "soon" that will turn the wireless earbuds into "clinical-grade" hearing aids. "This includes a hearing protection mode being enabled by default, offering passive noise cancellation in loud environments," adds 9to5Mac. From the report: Firstly, users can take a clinically-validated hearing test. The hearing test uses your AirPods and iPhone, and can be conducted by a user in under five times. The result of your hearing test can be viewed securely in the Health app. If hearing loss is detected, the hearing aid mode is then available to use. The AirPods will make it easier to hear sounds from the world around you. A custom hearing profile is automatically applied when listening to audio, like music or podcasts.

The hearing aid feature is currently making its way through the FDA and other regulatory bodies. Apple said the functionality will be available in more than 100 countries. The feature will be enabled through a free software update coming later this year to AirPods Pro 2.

An anonymous reader shares a report: It seems like Apple is already moving on from FineWoven. After introducing the FineWoven brand with a series of very bad cases and accessories last year, it appears as though Apple opted not to release new cases featuring the material for the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro. Apple has stopped offering FineWoven cases for the iPhone 15 lineup on its website, too. Apple launched FineWoven, which had a microtwill material, as a replacement for its leather cases. But the cases quickly accumulated visible wear and tear and picked up bits of lint, which could make them look dirty relatively quickly.

Apple plans to release the next versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and watchOS to the general public on September 16, the company announced via its website following its iPhone-centric product event earlier today. From a report: We should also see updates for tvOS and the HomePod operating system on the same date. The new releases bring a number of new features and refinements to Apple's platforms: better texting with Android devices thanks to support for the RCS standard, iPhone Mirroring that allows you to interact with your iPhone via your Mac, more UI customization options for iPhones and iPads, and other improvements besides. What won't be included in these initial releases is any hint of Apple Intelligence, the batch of generative AI and machine learning features that Apple announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June. Apple is testing some of the Apple Intelligence features in betas of iOS 18.1, iPadOS 18.1, and macOS 15.1, updates that will be released later this fall.

Apple announced the iPhone 16 Pro lineup at Monday's product event. The company's new flagship smartphones have slightly bigger screens across both models: 6.3 inches on the iPhone 16 Pro and 6.9 inches on the iPhone 16 Pro Max (up from 6.1 inches and 6.7 inches, respectively, on the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max). The Verge: The bodies of the phones are once again made from titanium. It comes in four colors: black, white, natural, and a new "desert titanium." Apple also claims that the iPhone 16 Pro Max has "the best iPhone battery life ever." The iPhone 16 Pro lineup comes with the A18 Pro chip, with a 16-core Neural Engine that it says will offer "amazing performance" for Apple Intelligence features, including 15 percent faster performance than the iPhone 15 Pro. It also has improved graphics performance thanks to a 6-core GPU that's 20 percent faster than the iPhone 15 Pro's A17 Pro.

The iPhone 16 Pro starts at $999, whereas the iPhone 16 Pro Max starts at $1,199.

Slashdot reader echo123 shared a new article from Wired titled "Signal Is More Than Encrypted Messaging. Under Meredith Whittaker, It's Out to Prove Surveillance Capitalism Wrong." ("On its 10th anniversary, Signal's president wants to remind you that the world's most secure communications platform is a nonprofit. It's free. It doesn't track you or serve you ads. It pays its engineers very well. And it's a go-to app for hundreds of millions of people.") Ten years ago, WIRED published a news story about how two little-known, slightly ramshackle encryption apps called RedPhone and TextSecure were merging to form something called Signal. Since that July in 2014, Signal has transformed from a cypherpunk curiosity — created by an anarchist coder, run by a scrappy team working in a single room in San Francisco, spread word-of-mouth by hackers competing for paranoia points — into a full-blown, mainstream, encrypted communications phenomenon... Billions more use Signal's encryption protocols integrated into platforms like WhatsApp...

But Signal is, in many ways, the exact opposite of the Silicon Valley model. It's a nonprofit funded by donations. It has never taken investment, makes its product available for free, has no advertisements, and collects virtually no information on its users — while competing with tech giants and winning... Signal stands as a counterfactual: evidence that venture capitalism and surveillance capitalism — hell, capitalism, period — are not the only paths forward for the future of technology.

Over its past decade, no leader of Signal has embodied that iconoclasm as visibly as Meredith Whittaker. Signal's president since 2022 is one of the world's most prominent tech critics: When she worked at Google, she led walkouts to protest its discriminatory practices and spoke out against its military contracts. She cofounded the AI Now Institute to address ethical implications of artificial intelligence and has become a leading voice for the notion that AI and surveillance are inherently intertwined. Since she took on the presidency at the Signal Foundation, she has come to see her central task as working to find a long-term taproot of funding to keep Signal alive for decades to come — with zero compromises or corporate entanglements — so it can serve as a model for an entirely new kind of tech ecosystem...

Meredith Whittaker: "The Signal model is going to keep growing, and thriving and providing, if we're successful. We're already seeing Proton [a startup that offers end-to-end encrypted email, calendars, note-taking apps, and the like] becoming a nonprofit. It's the paradigm shift that's going to involve a lot of different forces pointing in a similar direction."
Key quotes from the interview:

• "Given that governments in the U.S. and elsewhere have not always been uncritical of encryption, a future where we have jurisdictional flexibility is something we're looking at."

• "It's not by accident that WhatsApp and Apple are spending billions of dollars defining themselves as private. Because privacy is incredibly valuable. And who's the gold standard for privacy? It's Signal."

• "We also see growth in response to things like what we call a Big Tech Fuckup, like when WhatsApp changed its terms of service. We saw a boost in desktop after Zoom announced that they were going to scan everyone's calls for AI. And we anticipate more of those."

• "AI is a product of the mass surveillance business model in its current form. It is not a separate technological phenomenon."

• "...alternative models have not received the capital they need, the support they need. And they've been swimming upstream against a business model that opposes their success. It's not for lack of ideas or possibilities. It's that we actually have to start taking seriously the shifts that are going to be required to do this thing — to build tech that rejects surveillance and centralized control — whose necessity is now obvious to everyone."

Apple announced it is planning to bring its Find My service to South Korea in early 2025. Originally released in 2010, the Find My service has been unavailable in South Korea, making it the last country without access to Apple's tracking feature. AppleInsider reports: In July 2024, complaints from users in South Korea reached a point where they were finally petitioning the government to allow Apple's Find My feature to work. Any iPhone made for sale in South Korea had Find My permanently disabled, so it wouldn't work even when the owner was in a different country. Now in a statement on its Korean website, Apple has announced that it plans to bring Find My to the country shortly.

"Apple plans to introduce the 'Find My' network in Korea in the spring of 2025," says a brief statement (in translation). "Users in Korea will soon be able to use the Find My app to find their Apple devices and personal belongings with their personal information protected, and check the location of friends and family." [...] According to the user petition submitted to the National Assembly Petition website of South Korea, Apple has said that Find My is disabled "because of internal policy."

According to Mark Gurman, Apple's upcoming M4 Mac mini will undergo a major redesign, dropping USB-A ports entirely in favor of five USB-C ports. The new design will also feature front ports for the first time, an internal power supply, and retain Ethernet, HDMI, and the headphone jack.

"As I've been reporting for several months now, the Mac is in for a big transition to M4 chips -- starting around the end of this year and extending into the first half or so of 2025," writes Gurman in a newsletter for Bloomberg. "Apple plans to kick things off soon with a new Mac mini, iMac and MacBook Pro. Of those models, the Mac mini will get the most dramatic new design, its first major overhaul since 2010. Just to put that in perspective: The last time there was a Mac mini redesign, preorders of the iPhone 4 had just began."

TechCrunch's Sarah Perez reports: Apple is standing by its decision to terminate the Apple Developer Account of Appstun, a mobile app company created by one of Apple's own Worldwide Developer Conference 2021 student winners. According to an announcement published on Appstun's website, Apple moved to terminate the developer's account after multiple rejections of its app that Apple says violates its App Store guidelines. Apple's decision to shut down the developer's account was recently highlighted on X by Apple critic and 37signals co-owner and CTO David Heinemeier Hansson, where he celebrated how much better web developers had it, noting they could run their businesses without the involvement of big tech gatekeepers. "No fear on [sic] capricious rejections that might suddenly kill the business overnight," he remarked.

Appstun co-founder Batuhan Karababa says that he and the other co-founder had been trying to work with Apple over the App Store rejections. (Karababa tells us that he's only the formal founder on paper.) "We responded transparently and collaborated with Apple to ensure our app doesn't violate any guidelines. However, as the process continued, we began to face rejection for the issue that we thought we had already resolved in previous submissions. Apple didn't find our solution good enough," according to the announcement on Appstun's website. The company went back and forth with App Review, receiving multiple rejections over an app for designing Apple Watch faces. In addition to a more standard watch face, Appstun also came up with a workaround that would allow it to offer more highly customizable watch faces. But these weren't actually watch faces in the traditional sense, but rather custom images and animations that run independently of the App Watch face system. Essentially, the app would take over the screen showing an image that was similar to a watch face, allowing Appstun to offer more customization. Of course, running a custom animation in this way could drain the Apple Watch battery faster.

Apple was also concerned that customers wouldn't understand that they weren't running a normal watch face, and that Appstun deceived them by suggesting that's what it was offering. Though Appstun added notifications to its app that these were not real watch faces, in an attempt to placate App Review, Apple instead decided to terminate the company's developer account after repeated back-and-forth. The company pleaded on its website for any help in getting its developer account restored. According to Apple, there's more to this story, and it thinks it made the correct decision. The iPhone maker said Appstun's app repeatedly tried to mislead users into thinking that it offered features and functionality that it didn't support and also marketed the app with deceptive ads, leading to negative app ratings and reviews. [...] Apple pointed to its guideline 5.6 -- a developer code of conduct -- that warns developers that "repeated manipulative or misleading behavior or other fraudulent conduct will lead to your removal from the Apple Developer Program."