Juli Clover:
Law enforcement officials in Detroit, Michigan are warning other police officers about an alleged iPhone change that causes Apple devices stored for forensic examination to spontaneously restart, reports 404 Media.
iPhones that are undergoing examination have apparently been rebooting, which makes them harder to unlock with brute force methods, and Michigan police think that it’s due to a security feature that Apple added in iOS 18. A document found by 404 Media speculates that iPhones running iOS 18 are causing other iPhones to restart when those iPhones have been disconnected from a cellular network.
[…]
Matthew Green, a cryptographer and Johns Hopkins professor told 404 Media that the law enforcement officials’ hypothesis about iOS 18 devices is “deeply suspect,” but he was impressed with the concept.
[…]
Apple added an “inactivity reboot” feature in the iOS 18.1 update, but it does not relate to phone/wireless network state.
Update (2024-11-11): Jiska:
Apple indeed added a feature called “inactivity reboot” in iOS 18.1. This is implemented in keybagd and the AppleSEPKeyStore kernel extension. It seems to have nothing to do with phone/wireless network state. Keystore is used when unlocking the device.
Joseph Cox (post):
We’ve confirmed that Apple quietly introduced code that automatically reboots an iPhone if it hasn’t been unlocked after a period of time. This is why cops are being mysteriously locked out of iPhones they’re trying to search.
Adam Engst:
By restarting iPhones that remain locked for four days, Apple increases overall security, particularly for individuals at risk of having their iPhones confiscated by repressive regimes, with little or no inconvenience to regular users.
Does this affect background processes that you may have wanted to keep running?
Nick Heer:
It seems the cops believed iPhones were secretly communicating with each other because some of them were running older iOS versions, forgetting the explanation that satisfies Hanlon’s razor: iOS is kind of buggy.
Update (2024-11-15): Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai (Hacker News, MacRumors):
On Wednesday, Jiska Classen, a researcher at the Hasso Plattner Institute and one of the first security experts to spot this new feature, published a video demonstrating the “inactivity reboot” feature. The video shows that an iPhone left alone without being unlocked reboots itself after 72 hours.
Magnet Forensics, a company that provides digital forensic products including the iPhone and Android data extraction tool Graykey, also confirmed that the timer for the feature is 72 hours.
Update (2024-11-18): JISKA (via Hacker News):
What does it protect from and how does it work? This blog post covers all the details down to a kernel extension and the Secure Enclave Processor.
[…]
Security-wise, this is a very powerful mitigation. An attacker must have kernel code execution to prevent an inactivity reboot. This means that a forensic analyst might be able to delay the reboot for the actual data extraction, but the initial exploit must be run within the first three days.
Inactivity reboot will change the threat landscape for both thieves and forensic analysts, but asymmetrically so: while law enforcement is under more time pressure, it likely completely locks out criminals from accessing your data to get into your bank accounts and other valuable information stored on your iPhone.
iOS iOS 18 iOS Multitasking Law Enforcement Privacy Secure Enclave Security
Benjamin Mayo:
Some iPhone users are reporting a scary bug with the Notes app on iPhone. After agreeing to new iCloud terms and conditions as prompted by the system, the Notes app appears to disconnect from iCloud and instead presents users with a screen of zero notes, as if all the user’s notes have been deleted.
[…]
For some people, it seems to be a temporary glitch that sorts itself out, and the notes appear quickly thereafter. For others, including myself, it did not fix itself. Thankfully, the proactive steps to fix it is simple and straightforward.
[…]
If this fix does not work for you, and the toggle was already on when you checked the iCloud Settings screen, you can also try turning the toggle off, turning it back on again and then rebooting the phone.
This seems to be an iCloud issue, not an iOS 18 issue.
Pepe Waters:
My notes were all deleted yesterday and so far have not been retrievable after trying absolutely everything recommended on the forums/this article/via customer support. Very upset at the lack of information as to how it’s going to be fixed. It’s been a long wasted day with no progress made. Glad to hear some people could get their notes back but hope it’s not going to be washed over for the rest of us. Feeling extremely cautious and frustrated that it happened with no fix in sight.
Previously:
Update (2024-11-18): Joe Rossignol:
Apple has now indirectly acknowledged this issue in a new support document that outlines steps to follow if your iCloud notes are not appearing on your iPhone, iPad, or Vision Pro.
Fortunately, the notes can be re-synced from iCloud. Apple’s steps are pretty much identical to the ones we shared earlier this month[…]
Jesse Squires:
The biggest problem with Apple is that they pretend like widely reported bugs simply don’t exist.
Maybe they should try not gaslighting their users and proactively acknowledge issues and provide workarounds or timelines for bug fixes?
Eric Schwarz:
I’m somewhat surprised Apple can’t automate this in a iOS point release (check and see if Notes aren’t appearing and force a re-sync), although part of me wonders if that could potentially cause more problems.
Datacide iCloud iOS iOS 16 iOS 17 iOS 18 Notes Syncing
Andrew Cunningham:
Last year’s M3 Pro chip was a departure from the M1 Pro and M2 Pro. Compared to the M2 Pro, it came with more E-cores but fewer P-cores, as well as fewer GPU cores and less memory bandwidth. As we wrote at the time, this meant that the architectural improvements to M3 mostly ended up being canceled out, making for a chip that was more efficient but often not meaningfully faster than its predecessor.
[…]
The extra computing resources do increase the M4 Pro’s power usage relative to the M3 Pro, with higher power consumption for our heavily multithreaded Handbrake video encoding test (an average of 43.1 W, up from 33.1 W). But the extra speed does help improve the chip’s power efficiency overall, completing the same amount of work using a little less power overall (both the M3 Pro and M4 Pro use around two-thirds as much power to do the same work as the M2 Pro.
[…]
Apple has added a High Power performance mode for the M4 Pro both in the Mac mini and in the new MacBook Pros. This feature was previously reserved for Max and Ultra chips and allows the chip to run at elevated speeds and temperatures for more extended periods of time; Apple says this should benefit GPU performance in particular at the expense of extra fan noise.
Joe Rossignol:
Apple says High Power Mode allows a Mac’s fans to run at higher speeds, and this additional cooling allows the system to deliver higher performance for graphics-intensive sustained workloads, such as 8K video color grading. On supported Macs, the feature can be used when the computer is running on battery power or connected to a power source.
[…]
On recent macOS versions, High Power Mode can be enabled in the System Settings app under “Battery” or “Energy” by clicking on the dropdown menus next to “On battery” or “On power adapter” and selecting the “High Power” option.
Previously:
Update (2024-11-11): See also: Hacker News.
Apple M4 Max Apple M4 Pro Battery Life Mac Mac mini MacBook Pro macOS 14 Sonoma
Hartley Charlton (Ming-Chi Kuo):
Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro models will feature an upgraded main rear camera with a variable aperture for the first time, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
[…]
The iPhone 14 Pro, 15 Pro, and 16 Pro’s main cameras feature a fixed aperture of ƒ/1.78. A variable aperture on future iPhone models would allow the main camera to control the amount of light entering the lens, allowing it to adjust to different lighting conditions. It also would provide more control over depth of field, enabling sharper focus on subjects or smoother background blur.
I continue to find the iPhone 15 Pro camera to be a regression for certain types of photos, and I think it’s because of the shallower depth of field. I often photograph a person sitting at a table with something in front of them. With previous iPhones, I didn’t have to think about it. I could just take a photo and it would be OK: the person’s face reasonably in focus and the document/cake/game also easily visible. Now, I get a lot of photos where either the object or the person—it does not always prioritize the face—is blurry. It’s not really evident in the view finder that this is going to happen. If I remember, I can use manual focus to prioritize one or the other, and whichever I pick will look much better than with previous iPhones, but it’s still not really what I want because the secondary subject still ends up blurry.
Previously:
Camera iPhone iPhone 15 Pro iPhone 18 Pro Photography Rumor
