schwit1 shares a report from Apple Insider: A woman from Schenectady, N.Y. accused of being the driver in a shooting used Apple's remote wipe feature to destroy evidence on her iPhone X that might have been related to the event. The iPhone was seized as evidence in the case, but police say that shortly after she triggered the remote wipe, an option available via Find My iPhone in iCloud. Normally the tool is intended for people with lost or stolen devices. The suspected driver, Juelle Grant, was arrested on November 2nd and charged with two counts of tampering with physical evidence, and one count of hindering prosecution. As Apple Insider notes, only one of the tampering counts is connected to the iPhone.

An anonymous reader shares a report from The Verge about Apple's new security-focused T2 chip found in the newest Mac computers. The introduction of the chip "has renewed concerns that Apple is trying to further lock down its devices from third-party repair services," The Verge reports. From the report: The T2 is "a guillotine that [Apple is] holding over" product owners, iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens told The Verge over email. That's because it's the key to locking down Mac products by only allowing select replacement parts into the machine when they've come from an authorized source -- a process that the T2 chip now checks for during post-repair reboot. "It's very possible the goal is to exert more control over who can perform repairs by limiting access to parts," Wiens said. "This could be an attempt to grab more market share from the independent repair providers. Or it could be a threat to keep their authorized network in line. We just don't know." Apple confirmed to The Verge that this is the case for repairs involving certain components on newer Macs, like the logic board and Touch ID sensor, which is the first time the company has publicly acknowledged the tool's use. But Apple could not provide a list of repairs that required this or what devices were affected. It also couldn't say whether it began this protocol with the iMac Pro's introduction last year or if it's a new policy instituted recently.

First revealed last month by MacRumors and Motherboard, both of which got their hands on an internal Apple document, the T2 chip could render a computer inoperable if, say, the logic board is replaced, unless the chip recognizes a special piece of diagnostic software has been run. That means if you wanted to repair certain key parts of your MacBook, iMac, or Mac mini, you would need to go to an official Apple Store or a repair shop that's part of the company's Authorized Service Provider (ASP) network. If you want to repair or rebuild portions of those devices on your own, you simply can't -- at least, according to this document. The parts affected, according to the document, are the display assembly, logic board, top case, and Touch ID board for the MacBook Pro, and the logic board and flash storage on the iMac Pro. It is also likely that logic board repairs on the new MacBook Air and Mac mini are affected, as well as the Mac mini's flash storage. Yet, the document, which is believed to have been distributed earlier this year, does not mention those products because they were unannounced at the time. Regardless, to replace those parts, a technician would need to run what's known as the AST 2 System Configuration suite, which Apple only distributes to Apple Stores and certified ASPs. So DIY shops and those out of the Apple network would be out of luck.

AmiMoJo writes: Apple's new-generation Macs come with a new so-called Apple T2 security chip that's supposed to provide a secure enclave co-processor responsible for powering a series of security features, including Touch ID. At the same time, this security chip enables the secure boot feature on Apple's computers, and by the looks of things, it's also responsible for a series of new restrictions that Linux users aren't going to like.

The issue seems to be that Apple has included security certificates for its own and Microsoft's operating systems (to allow running Windows via Bootcamp), but not for the certificate that was provided for systems such as Linux. Disabling Secure Boot can overcome this, but also disables access to the machine's internal storage, making installation of Linux impossible.

iFixit has released their teardown of the new Mac mini, providing a look inside the portable desktop computer. Some of the notable findings include user-upgradable RAM and soldered CPU and SSD. Mac Rumors reports: While the RAM in the previous-gen Mac mini from 2014 was soldered to the logic board, the new Mac mini has user-upgradeable RAM, as discovered earlier this week. As seen in older iMacs, the RAM is protected by a perforated shield that allows the memory modules to operate at a high frequency of 2666 MHz without interfering with other device functions, according to iFixit. To upgrade the RAM, the shield can be removed by unfastening four Torx screws.

Other silicon on the logic board of this particular Mac mini includes the Apple T2 security chip, a 3.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i3 processor, Intel UHD Graphics 630, 128GB of flash storage from Toshiba, an Intel JHL7540 Thunderbolt 3 controller, and a Gigabit Ethernet controller from Broadcom. Despite the good news about the RAM, the CPU and SSD are soldered to the logic board, as are many ports, so this isn't a truly modular Mac mini. iFixit awarded the new Mac mini a repairability score of 6/10, with 10 being the easiest to repair, topping the latest MacBook Air, MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac, and iMac Pro, and trailing only the 2013 Mac Pro.

In a new agreement between tech giants Amazon and Apple, shoppers will soon see a selection of the latest Apple products on Amazon.com. This is not good news for everyone. Motherboard: John Bumstead is a computer refurbisher who, every year, saves thousands of laptops from the shredder. He buys MacBooks en masse from electronics recyclers, fixes them, then sells them on Amazon Marketplace or wholesales them to vendors who do the same. Friday morning, Bumstead got an email from Amazon informing him that he'd no longer be allowed to sell Apple computers on the platform, thanks to a new agreement between Apple and Amazon that will only allow "authorized resellers" to sell Apple products.

"As part of a new agreement with Apple, we are working with a select group of authorized resellers to offer an expanded selection of Apple and Beats products, including new releases, in Amazon's stores," the email says. "You are receiving this message because you are currently selling, or have previously sold, Apple or Beats products. Your existing offers for those products will soon be removed from Amazon's online store in the United States. Please contact Apple if you would like to apply to become an authorized reseller on Amazon." As the email notes, this is part of a new agreement between two of the largest companies in the world that will allow Amazon to sell new Apple products around the world; in exchange, Amazon agreed to let Apple pick-and-choose who is allowed to sell Apple products on the site.

Apple is not in talks "at any level" to settle its wide-ranging legal dispute with mobile chip maker Qualcomm, Reuters reported Wednesday, citing a source familiar with the matter. From the report: In the past, Apple used Qualcomm's modem chips in its flagship iPhone models to help them connect to wireless data networks. But early last year, Apple sued Qualcomm in federal court in San Diego, alleging that the chip company's practice of taking a cut of the selling price of phones as a patent license fee was illegal. The case is to go to trial early next year and has spawned related legal actions in other courts around the world. In July, Qualcomm's chief executive, Steve Mollenkopf, told investors on the company's quarterly earnings call that the two companies were in talks to resolve the litigation.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Washington Post: For the last few weeks, I've been performing the same battery test over and over again on 13 phones. With a few notable exceptions, this year's top models underperformed last year's. The new iPhone XS died 21 minutes earlier than last year's iPhone X. Google's Pixel 3 lasted nearly an hour and a half less than its Pixel 2. Phone makers tout all sorts of tricks to boost battery life, including more-efficient processors, low-power modes and artificial intelligence to manage app drain. Yet my results, and tests by other reviewers I spoke with, reveal an open secret in the industry: the lithium-ion batteries in smartphones are hitting an inflection point where they simply can't keep up.

"Batteries improve at a very slow pace, about 5 percent per year," says Nadim Maluf, the CEO of a Silicon Valley firm called Qnovo that helps optimize batteries. "But phone power consumption is growing up faster than 5 percent." Blame it on the demands of high-resolution screens, more complicated apps and, most of all, our seeming inability to put the darn phone down. Lithium-ion batteries, for all their rechargeable wonder, also have some physical limitations, including capacity that declines over time -- and the risk of explosion if they're damaged or improperly disposed. And the phone power situation is likely about to get worse. New ultrafast wireless technology called 5G, coming to the U.S. neighborhoods soon, will make even greater demands on our beleaguered batteries. If you want a smartphone that excels in battery life, you pretty much have two options: Samsung's Galaxy Note 9 and Apple's iPhone XR. According to The Washington Post's tests, the iPhone XR and Note 9 topped the list with times of 12:25 and 12:00, respectively.

The tablet market has now declined year-over-year for 16 quarters straight. According to new estimates from IDC, "Q3 2018 saw an 8.6 percent year-over-year decline: 36.4 million units shipped worldwide, compared to 39.9 million units in the same quarter last year," reports VentureBeat. From the report: The only silver lining is that the Q3 2018 decline wasn't double digits again. While 2017 quarters only saw single-digit declines, Q1 2018 and Q2 2018 were in the double digits. The estimates come from IDC, which counts both slate form factors and detachables, meaning tablets with keyboards included. Apple maintained its top spot for the quarter, with Samsung and Amazon rounding out the top three. Huawei was the only company in the top five to ship more tablets than the year before. The top five vendors accounted for 68.4 percent of the market, up from 67.1 percent last year.

Fast Company reports that Apple is working on a 5G iPhone that will come to market in 2020, according to a source familiar with the matter. From the report: Apple plans to use Intel's 8161 5G modem chip in its 2020 phones. Intel hopes to fabricate the 8161 using its 10-nanometer process, which increases transistor density for more speed and efficiency. If everything goes as planned, Intel will be the sole provider of iPhone modems. Intel has been working on a precursor to the 8161 called the 8060, which will be used for prototyping and testing the 5G iPhone.

Apple, our source says, has been unhappy with Intel lately. The most likely reason relates to the challenge of solving heat dissipation issues caused by the 8060 modem chip. Many wireless carriers, including Verizon and AT&T in the U.S., will initially rely on millimeter-wave spectrum (between 28 gigahertz and 39 Ghz) to connect the first 5G phones. But millimeter-wave signal requires some heavy lifting from the modem chips and RF chains, our source explains. This causes the release of higher-than-normal levels of thermal energy inside the phone -- so much so that the heat can be felt on the outside of the phone. The problem also affects battery life. The alternative is for Apple to source its modems from Qualcomm, but Fast Company's source "says Apple's current issues with Intel are not serious enough to cause Apple to reopen conversations with Qualcomm." Also, Qualcomm's X50 modem has heat dissipation issues of its own. MediaTek is reportedly a distant "Plan B."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: For years, analysts and journalists watching Apple have talked up the growing importance of services, as opposed to hardware sales, to the company's top line. But it's only now that Apple's business model truly appears to be shifting toward collecting rent from the company's ecosystem and increasingly relying on gadget sales to perpetuate this rent rather than drive growth. Apple's decision to stop reporting iPhone unit sales underscores the shift. Services have been steadily growing in importance for Apple since 2016, while the share of revenue provided by the flagship gadget, the iPhone, has gone up and down depending on the popularity of different models.

There's a lot of potential for Apple to squeeze a higher rent directly out of its captive user base. Goldman Sachs estimates that only 10 percent of Apple's user base pay for iCloud Storage; in terms of price and service quality, iCloud has been a poor competitor to services provided by Google and some smaller companies such as Dropbox, but that only means Apple can increase revenue from it exponentially if it bothered to compete more aggressively, as it does with another key service, Apple Music. Even that streaming service has relatively low penetration, though, with only about 35 million users last year. Goldman Sachs predicts that number will grow to 83 million by 2020. Goldman's proposal for Apple is to create a services bundle similar to Amazon Prime; for $30 a month or so, subscribers would get access to music, video, 200 GB of storage and phone repair. The investment bank calculates that with just 50 million subscribers, such a bundle could add $18 billion in services revenue in 2019. "Rent extraction from a user base that finds it hard to go away may sound a bit like extortion," Leonid Bershidsky writes in closing. "But it's more honest and upfront than extracting data from users in ways they often don't understand and then making money off the data, as Facebook does. That honesty is in itself a competitive advantage for Apple as it gradually reimagines itself as more of a services company."

The challenge, Bershidsky writes, "is to grow the services offering fast enough to make up for potential iPhone revenue losses; gadget prices cannot keep going up forever without hurting the top line, and in the end, a phone is just a phone. We only need it to gain access to all the nice digital stuff out there."

Yesterday, during the company's Q4 earnings call, Apple's chief financial officer Luca Maestri said the company will no longer report unit sales of its main hardware divisions, including iPhones, iPad, and Mac. "This is the same as protocols Apple already follows for its smaller devices, such as the Apple Watch, AirPods, and HomePod, which are bundled under the 'Other Products' category," The Verge reports. From the report: The announcement comes after iPhone unit sales percentage was unchanged year over year, despite a revenue bump of 29 percent. The decision to stop disclosing unit sales is because that figure is "not representative of underlying strength of our business," Maestri said. "A unit of sale is less relevant today than it was in our past," he says, adding that unit sales increase are still a clear part of Apple's goals. While unit sales may not accurately represent Apple's business performance, it's a figure that analysts and journalists have used to calculate a product's average selling price. For example, that number can provide insight into how well different iPhone models are selling, as newer iPhones like the XS, XS Max, and XR are priced higher than older models like the now-discontinued SE, 6S, and 6.

An anonymous reader shares a report: iOS 12 began the rollout of Apple Maps' long-awaited redesign, which will deliver maps with far more detail using data collected by Apple directly. The updated maps currently only cover around 3.1 percent of the USA, focused around Northern California, but already some interesting differences are starting to emerge between Apple's maps and those that Google uses for its own navigation software. The differences are documented in excruciatingly fine detail in a post by digital cartography blogger Justin O'Beirne. The good news for Apple is that the sheer amount of natural cartographical detail its map contains far outstrips what Google currently offers. Vegetation detail is a particular highlight, with Apple's maps even showing grass between two lanes of a highway, or around the borders of individual houses.

Apple is introducing a new "Repair Vintage Apple Products Pilot" program that will extend the period of time customers can receive repairs for older devices. "The new program at first will include the iPhone 5 and other Apple products that are about to become obsolete, and in the coming weeks will add more products to the list for devices that previously lost repair support," reports 9to5Mac. Some of the devices that will be included on the list include the iPhone 4s and MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2012). From the report: Apple has long had a 5-7 year lifespan for repairing its products, meaning that owners of an iPhone, iPad or Mac can have repairs performed through Apple or an authorized service provider even when not under warranty. Usually after 5-7 years, products are then classified as "vintage" or "obsolete" (depending on the country and local laws) and Apple staff no longer offers parts or repairs. The company maintains a list of products that are classified as vintage and obsolete on its website.

For the new Pilot program, Apple will only be offering repairs for vintage devices based on part availability. Otherwise customers will be told that inventory isn't available because the product is considered vintage. So the new program doesn't guarantee you a repair, but it's a nice change from Apple's previous policy where it stopped offering repairs entirely after classifying devices as vintage.

A series of benchmark results have shown up on Geekbench for the new iPad Pro, and its new eight-core A12X Bionic chip is truly a powerhouse. From a report: The new iPad Pro achieved single-core and multi-core scores of 5,025 and 18,106 respectively based on an average of two benchmark results, making it by far the fastest iPad ever and comparable even to the performance of the latest 15-inch MacBook Pro models with Intel's six-core Core i7 chips. We've put together a chart that compares Geekbench scores of the new iPad Pro and various other iPad, Mac, and iPhone models.

That the new iPad Pro rivals the performance of the latest 15-inch MacBook Pro with a 2.6GHz six-core Core i7 processor is impressive, but even more so when you consider that the tablet starts at $799. The aforementioned MacBook Pro configuration is priced at $2,799, although with 512GB of storage. Even the new 11-inch iPad Pro with 512GB of storage is only $1,149, less than half that of the Core i7-equipped MacBook Pro.

Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google, and dozens of other tech companies have come together to condemn discrimination against transgender people in the face of actions President Donald Trump is reportedly considering to reduce their legal protections. From a report: The move is a response to an Oct. 21 New York Times report that the Trump administration is considering limiting the definition of gender to birth genitalia. "Sex means a person's status as male or female based on immutable biological traits identifiable by or before birth," the Department of Health and Human Services proposed in a memo obtained by the Times. If legislation were to move forward, it would jeopardize legal protections for an estimated 1.4 million Americans who identify as a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth, the Times said.

The statement from the companies, which have nearly 4.8 million employees, said diversity and inclusion are good for business. "Transgender people are our beloved family members and friends, and our valued team members," the statement said. "What harms transgender people harms our companies."

With iOS 12.1, Apple introduced a bunch of new features like Group FaceTime and dozens of new emoji. But the company also elected to add a controversial new performance management feature to the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X. From a report: For the uninitiated, back in December 2017, Apple confirmed that it would sometimes slow down older iPhones through a software update in order to prevent unexpected shutdowns. The result was that certain models -- iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, 6S Plus, 7, and 7 Plus -- would often perform poorly after being updated to the newest version of iOS. Users had long suspected Apple was throttling older iPhones, but it wasn't until Geekbench published an expose that the company publicly admitted it was, indeed, slowing down older iPhones -- albeit, for a good reason. Apple said in its explanation of the throttling issue that its goal was "to deliver the best experience for customers" and essentially argued the practice of throttling was a feature -- not a bug as it had been reported. Apple's solution was to give iPhone owners some extra control over the feature and offer a reduced cost for battery replacements.

Apple has pulled an update for its smartwatches after some owners complained the software -- watchOS 5.1 -- had caused their devices to stop working. From a report: The problem appears to have baffled the firm's repair staff, and there appears to be no way at present for owners to restore the products themselves. Several have said they have been told they need to send in the devices for a fix. Apple said it intended to release a revised update soon. Those affected reported that their watches had become stuck in a state showing the Apple logo -- but nothing else -- on their screens. One owner of a newly released Series 4 model said he had been told it would take the firm's repair staff up to a week to decide whether his device needed to be repaired or replaced.

dmoberhaus writes: In one of the strangest system admin tales of all time, one IT guy details how a new MRI machine managed to disable every single iPhone, Apple watch and iPad in a medical facility while leaving the rest of the devices untouched. Eric Woolridge, a system administrator at Morris Hospital in Illinois, said in a detailed post on the r/sysadmin subreddit that helium was to blame for the malfunctioning iPhones. "[T]he MRI installation involves supercooling the giant magnet in the machine by boiling off liquid helium," reports Motherboard. "This evaporated helium is usually pumped out of the facility through a vent, but this vent was leaking the helium into the rest of the facility. In all, about 120 liters of helium (or about 90,000 cubic meters in its gaseous state) was pumped out of the MRI room and an untold amount leaked into the rest of the hospital."

In a blog post, iFixit notes that helium atoms can wreak havoc on MEMS silicon chips. "MEMS are microelectromechanical systems that are used for gyroscopes and accelerometers in phones, and helium atoms are small enough to mess up the way these systems function," reports Motherboard. What's odd is that Android phones were not affected. Apparently, the reason "is because Apple recently defected from traditional quartz-based clocks in its phones in favor of clocks that are also made of MEMS silicon," reports Motherboard. "Given that clocks are the most critical device in any computer and are necessary to make the CPU function, their disruption with helium atoms is enough to crash the device."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Buried in Apple's latest range of MacBooks -- including the MacBook Pro out earlier this year and the just-announced MacBook Air -- is the new T2 security chip, which helps protect the device's encryption keys, storage, fingerprint data and secure boot features. Little was known about the chip until today. According to its newest published security guide, the chip comes with a hardware microphone disconnect feature that physically cuts the device's microphone from the rest of the hardware whenever the lid is closed. "This disconnect is implemented in hardware alone, and therefore prevents any software, even with root or kernel privileges in macOS, and even the software on the T2 chip, from engaging the microphone when the lid is closed," said the support guide. The camera isn't disconnected, however, because its "field of view is completely obstructed with the lid closed." Apple said the new feature adds a "never before seen" level of security for its Macs, without being quite so blunt as to say: Macs get malware too.

According to a recent study by Hyla Mobile as reported by the Wall Street Journal, a mobile-device trade-in company, the average age of an iPhone at trade-in is now 2.92 years. That's up from 2.38 years in 2016, and 2.59 in 2017, according to the company. From a report: Part of this, according to Biju Nair, chief executive of Hyla Mobile, is because phone plan carriers moved from a subsidized payment model for new phones, to payment plans, as smartphones got more expensive over the years. Now, if you purchase it from a big carrier like Verizon or T-Mobile as part of a plan package, your phone is basically on loan to you from the carrier, while you make smaller monthly payments until it's paid off and you own it outright.

It can take years to pay off a new smartphone (the iPhone XS Max costs almost $1,100), and once you've done it, there's not much incentive to give up that investment -- especially when the newest models aren't much different in terms of specs and performance than the one you already have. Add to this the efforts by right-to-repair groups to raise awareness about the fact that your phone actually doesn't need to go in the garbage every time you crack the screen, and you've got people keeping their phones longer. The way we view new technology has also changed in recent years.