Celebrity nude photo hacks being investigated by Apple.

Unless you’re living under a rock, or some other no-media penetrated secluded villa in the south of France, you will have heard about the hundreds of photos leaked onto the internet. Naked photos, specifically, of celebrities purportedly taken from their iCloud accounts and posted on the dark website Tor, before landing on 4Chan and leaking alll over the internet, as something as viral as naked celebrity photos was always destined to do.

Some of the celebrities involved have claimed that the photos are fake, whilst others have been confirmed to be legitimate.

Bad news.

Apple gave a statement to the guys over at Re/code advising that they will be undertaking a full investigation into the matter, which is great. “We take user privacy very seriously and are actively investigating this report,” said Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris.

Apple has since today come out with confirmation that the iCloud feature was not breached, instead the hackers were able to access and steal the photos using a targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions.

From the sauce:

“We wanted to provide an update to our investigation into the theft of photos of certain celebrities. When we learned of the theft, we were outraged and immediately mobilized Apple’s engineers to discover the source. Our customers’ privacy and security are of utmost importance to us. After more than 40 hours of investigation, we have discovered that certain celebrity accounts were compromised by a very targeted attack on user names, passwords and security questions, a practice that has become all too common on the Internet. None of the cases we have investigated has resulted from any breach in any of Apple’s systems including iCloud(R) or Find my iPhone. We are continuing to work with law enforcement to help identify the criminals involved.”

This validates what security experts suggested yesterday – that the hackers were able to get ahold of the photos because of a combination of weak passwords and the lack of two-step verification. Two-step verification is a feature Apple introduced in March last year which requires a security code and a trusted device to log into your iCloud account as well as a password.

Although originally suspected of being used in the hack, it appears that a tool shared a few days ago on Github, a code-sharing website, was not used by the Hackers. This tool would have allowed hackers to repeatedly guess passwords without being locked out of an iCloud or Apple account but was fixed by Apple as of Monday morning. Attempting to use the tool now locks an Apple ID after five attempts to guess a password.

As always, if you’re concerned about your privacy we recommend using strong passwords and making use of the two-step verification.  

Strong passwords will include numbers, symbols and a mixture of capitals and lower case letters, and will not create a word or sequence of numbers that can be related to any of your biographical information by anyone but yourself.

To find out more about how to set up two-step verification, visit the Apple support page here. 

Image courtesy of Apple.

Apple might replace your iPhone 5 battery?

Have you found that your iPhone 5 isn’t running as well as you thought it would? Getting sctick at the playground/water cooler for your phone battery always dying? Have you become one of those people who always has to ask for chargers? Well, we could have some good news for you.

If you purchased your iPhone 5 between September 2012 and January 2013, you may be part of the very small percentage of people who who were sold devices with faulty batteries and who are now eligible for a free battery replacement from Apple.

If your phone is experiencing battery problems and is otherwise in working order, go on over to Apple’s eligibility website here, fill in your device’s serial number and WHAMMO you can see if you’re eligible for battery replacement.

To find your serial number, tap Settings > General > About.

If you are eligible, there are a number of options for replacing the battery listed so you can find the best option for you.

Congratulations! You might not be that guy anymore! Hooray!

Low Battery by Paul Swansen is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Tim Cook does the Ice Bucket challenge. BTW, if you haven’t heard, there’s an ice bucket challenge.

So if you haven’t heard, there’s a social media ‘challenge’ making the rounds where you pour a bucket of ice on yourself, film it, and put the evidence on social media. Um… fun? Well, yeah, duh it’s fun, but the actual reason behind the challenge is to raise both awareness & funds for Amyotrophic Lateral  Sclerosis, more well known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Sweet! But, is this like those other times when you do the thing and put the thing on social media and then everyone makes fun of you for doing the thing and no one actually benefits? Well, the good news is – not so much with this one.

The Ice Bucket challenge has garnered some high profile challengees such as Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake to name but two, and it has a caveat – if you refuse to do the ice bucket challenge once you have been challenged – you must make a donation towards ALS charities. What is awesome is that many people who have participated in the challenge have poured ice over themselves and  made a donation.

So far, since August 12th, the challenge is said to have raised over $4 million dollars. Now that’s some seriously helpful cash.

Today, Apple CEO Tim Cook took part in the challenge after being challenged by Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller.  He did it at the company’s bi-weekly beer bash with Vanilla Ice playing in the background. ICE ICE BABY MR COOK SiR.

He then went along with the rules and challenged three others – Apple board member Bob Iger, musician Michael Franti, and Beats co-founder Dr Dre.

So we learnt two things today – The ice bucket challenge is good and fun and we should do it if we get challenged, and Apple has a BI-WEEKLY BEER BASH WHAT

Bucket of Ice by Nautical9 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Exciting tool revealed in iOS 8 Beta 5 released today!

This morning, Apple released the Beta 5 update to iOS 8 as well as OS X 10.10 Yosemite Developer preview 5 to developers. Aside from being good news indicating that things appear to be moving along relatively smoothly with the new iOS, there is something we think is particularly exciting being reported about the updates in iOS 8 Beta 5.

What’s so exciting iPhone Antidote? Well, kids, Healthkit now includes the addition of Spirometry.

Uh…. wha?

Spirometry! Apart from being an excellent word to say, (c’mon, say it aloud, you know it’ll make you feel good..) spirometry is the most common of the pulmonary function tests measuring lung function. It’s an important tool used for generating pneumotachographs, which are helpful in assessing conditions such as asthma, pulmonary fibrosis, cystic fibrosis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

We hate ALL those stupid things, so spirometry is a tool we’re excited to hear will be included in iOS 8.

The Health app was also updated with new icons for Body data, Data Exporting, and a new option for showing Medical ID on Emergency Lock screen. Those things are cool too, we guess.

Image from page 569 of “The science and practice of medicine” (1866) by Internet Book Archive Images is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

OS X Yosemite Available on Beta today!

OS X Yosemite is Apple’s new update to their Mac operating system, and as per usual it will be released in the Fall of this year. What is not as per usual is that this year, Apple will be giving the public the opportunity to be a part of the OS X Beta program and try out Yosemite before the Fall. 

That’s right Kiddies! All that exciting stuff we talked about here, will be available at some of your very lovely fingertips as of… um.. when was that again…. oh yeah…today!

This is the first time a major version of OS X will be available to you guys, members of the public, before it’s actually released, so a lot of people are awfully excited.

So here’s the deal –  Beta means that the software is working, but needs some more testing before it’s formal release. It could just be in need of some polishing, or it could need a little more than that. There will most definitely be bugs and although almost all of the features will be there, some of them will not have full or even some functionality.  The idea behind releasing it to the public is basicallly to give us a sneak peak, make us feel special, and then use us as free testers so we can tell Apple any of the glitches that we encounter. Then, they fix all the problems, and OS X Yosemite is PERFECT come release day.

The number of people that are being accepted to take part in the Beta program is limited to 1 Million. To sign up and be 1 in 1 million, go to the OS X Beta sign up page  and follow the steps. It’s really easy. You will need a valid Apple ID and you will, of course, have to agree to the terms and conditions. (Duh.) Oh, and it’s free.

You will be able to find out automatically if you’ve been accepted as one of the million. Go! Go now! And…. congratulations!

Now here’s the slammer. We are part of the Beta program, but as such, we cannot talk about anything we see there that’s awesome and not yet publicly disclosed unless the person we’re talking to is part of the program also. So.. uh, you guys? Go join. But make sure if you do, you actually test it. We want Yosemite to be as good as it can be, so, therefore, we want the testers to be as good as they can be.

Yay for Yosemite! Oh! And also? Talking of slammers reminds us, Happy Tequila Day! Our tip for all of you over 21’ers out there today ( drinking responsibly of course) – if you’re doing shots of tequila, try orange and cinnamon instead of lemon and salt. You’re welcome.

New iOS 8 Features discovered

There’s by now been some time since the features of iOS 8 were announced at WWDC 2014. Developers have had access to the new operating system since then and some more details have arisen from that. Hooray for developers!

Here’s some of what they’ve discovered:

* You can send your iPhone or iPad’s last location to Apple before it’s battery dies.

* The magical miracle of Shazam will not be integrated into Siri, and you will have the option to buy or find out more about the song playing once it’s identified. Um, Awesome.

* Using Safari, you will be able to use the device’s camera to scan in credit card numbers when you make online purchases, rather than typing the number in. Because those numbers are soooo long, you guys.

* You know how sometimes you hand your phone or iPad to a friend so they can see a photo? And then they just start rolling on through all the rest of your photos? And sometimes we have photos that should not be seen by others, are we right? Well, in iOS 8 you will have the option to hide certain photos from the Moments, Collections and Years view within the app. The photos will still be visible in the albums view, but in a sneaky new ‘Hidden’ album.

* The Photos app will have two new albums; “Recently Added” and “Recently Deleted.” The Recently Deleted album will temporarily show photos that have been recently deleted. (d’uh).

* The Camera app will have a sweet new Time Lapse feature, manual exposure controls and a self timer mode for 3 or 10 seconds.

* The new Weather app will take it’s information from The Weather Channel in iOS 8 and will feature a bucket load more details about the weather- UV Index, sunset/sunrise times, humidity, pressure and that all important ‘feels like’ option.

* Photos will be able to be inserted into notes in iOS 8, so that instead of trying to describe that amazing thing you saw that one night that meant that you were actually supposed to be an astronaut, you can take a photo. Cos that’s a thousand words right there.

*There will be new options for calendars in iOS 8, including Islamic, Chinese and Hebrew. Meanwhile, keyboards will be available in Filipino, Marathi, Slovenian, and Urdu. Sladko!

* There will be location based apps displayed on your screen depending on where you are – the example given is the Apple App store App will display automatically if you’re in an Apple store. So many Apples.

* Peer-to-peer Airplay will give users the option to stream content via Apple TV without having to share a network connection.

So there you have it, some more details surfacing about iOS 8! Pretty neat ones too. Although we really can’t wait until the developers tell everyone about the iOS 8 line of sight transportation feature. Now that’s a rad feature.

Apple’s annual ‘back to school’ promotion begins tomorrow!

Apple will begin it’s annual ‘Back To School’ Promotion tomorrow,  Tuesday, July 1st, with a likely offer of an iTunes Store/App Store gift card to students that purchase a Mac, iPad, or iPhone.

If similar to last’s year’s promotion, the offer will be a $100 App Store gift card for the purchase of a new Mac or a $50 App Store gift card with the purchase of an iPad or iPhone.

So if you’ve been waiting for a good time to make that Apple purchase, now might just be the right time! Tomorrow in fact! The same exact right time that the US is going to beat Belgium in the World cup!

What a good day, tomorrow. We like you.

$585 for a brand new MacBook Air? Here’s how.

Right now you can get a brand spanking new MacBook Air for as little as $585. We know, it’s the best deal we’ve ever seen, AND it’s from a triple stacked discount, which is all kinds of extra fun.

So here’s how you get it:

Best Buy currently has a $100 discount on all of the newest 2014 MacBook Air

This is awesome, but it only gets better once you combine that deal with the second deal that Best Buy is offering – if you have a valid .edu email address, you get an extra $150 off. 

This is what this means, broken down:

– 11.6″ MacBook Air, 4GB, 128GB SSD: $899. With the $100 Discount –  $799. With the extra $150 discount, the final price is $649

– 11.6″ MacBook Air, 4GB, 256GB SSD: $1099. With the $100 Discount – $999. With the extra $150 discount, the final price is $849

– 13.3″ MacBook Air, 4GB, 128GB SSD: $999. With the $100 Discount – $899. With the extra $150 discount, the final price is $749.

– 13.3″ MacBook Air, 4GB, 256GB SSD: $1199. With the $100 Discount – $1099. With the extra $150 discount, the final price is $949.

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!

Would you like an extra 10% off that already heavily discounted price? Yeah?

Ok, here’s what you do. Go to your local post office. You’re looking for the Movers Coupon book. They’ll usually have them lying around, but if they don’t, you can ask them for one. They’re free, and inside you’ll find a coupon for 10% off any single purchase at Best Buy.

And yes, this further discount can be combined with the two discounts above. The only caveat is that in order to use the Movers Coupon you need to go in-store to make your purchase.

If you choose to take up the first two deals without the 10% Movers Coupon, you can make your purchase from the online Best Buy Store and shipping is free. The combined Best Buy deals will last until June 21, 2014. The $150 off deal for students lasts until July 12, 2014.

You’re welcome.

New iwatch rumours

The iWatch rumors have ramped up recently, with sources claiming October will be when the new wearable Apple product will be announced.

Excited much?

Both Re/code‘s John Paczkowski and the Nikkei Asian Review Newspaper both have sources who both claim that come october there will be a special event to announce the watch, and that we can expect to see the new technology tie in closely with the Health App which Apple announced at WWDC and which will be available to the public with iOS 8 a month earlier.

Nikkei added that the wearable tech will have a curved OLED touchscreen and that Apple is expecting to sell up to 5 million units per month. Because it’s going to be an awesome product, obviously ( hopefully)!

Other rumors doing the rounds is that the iWatch will be a product of an Apple/Nike collaboration, that the iWatch face will be round and that  it will come in two or more sizes.  See our previous article on the iWatch to see the people Apple has hired to purportedly work on the product.

We know there’s a lot of anticipation and skepticism surrounding the idea of this product, so it will be interesting to see what happens when ( if?) it launches. We personally think it will surprise many of the doubters, that it will sell by the bucketload, that it’ll be rad, and that it will be announced in October and be available before Christmas.

We also like putting it all on black, so there you have it.

OS X 10.10 Banner features what at WWDC?

Beginning last year, Apple started a new and ongoing naming theme for their computer operating systems, naming them after Californian landmarks. Last year’s OS X was named ‘Mavericks’ after a famous surfing location on the Californian coast.

This year, we can begin to guess at what the new OS X 10.10 will be named by looking at the banner that has just been hung at the Moscone centre in preparation for Monday’s Worldwide Developers Conference.

The banner appears to feature ‘El Capitan’ which is a famous rock formation in Yosemite National park in Northern California. Apple has trademarked the name ‘El Cap’ but we won’t know for sure if that will be the name bestowed on the updated OS X until Monday morning!

Trademark filings by Apple that have just come to light reveal a list of other potential OS X names for the future –  including Sequoia, Mojave, Sonoma, Ventura. Other possibilities discovered in previous trademark applications also include Yosemite, Redwood, Mammoth, California, Big Sur, and Pacific, Diablo, Miramar, Rincon, El Cap, Redtail, Condor, Grizzly, Monterey, Tiburon, Farallon, Skyline, Shasta, and Sierra.