Jason Snell:
Last December I complained that Apple was withholding iOS 18 security updates from iPhones capable of running iOS 26, leaving users who didn’t want to upgrade to Apple’s latest OS version yet in some security peril.
[…]
The good news: As of Wednesday April 1, Apple is pushing out iOS 18.7.7 to all devices running iOS 18. This update, released last month for devices that were not capable of running iOS 26, is now available even for compatible devices.
[…]
Now the bad news: This is happening because of some really bad security breaches like DarkSword and Coruna.
Meek Geek:
My iPhone was stuck on 18.7.2 since early December and was deprived of FOUR point updates!
I considered this an unprecedented user-hostile move to coerce users to upgrade to iOS 26 when they don’t want to or can’t, and was determined to never buy another iPhone.
Mr. Macintosh:
What a crazy #Apple50 birthday present! 🎁
[…]
Who else is still holding the iOS 18 line like me?😅
Pieter Arntz:
DarkSword is a full‑chain iOS exploit kit that strings together six vulnerabilities in WebKit, Safari, the dynamic loader, and the kernel to go from a browser visiting a malicious website to full device compromise. The chain has been observed in the wild since at least November 2025 in campaigns set up by commercial spyware vendors and state‑sponsored actors.
There is no need to tap a link in Messages or approve an install prompt. Just loading a compromised site or even a malicious advertisement inside Safari is enough to trigger the exploit chain if your device is still missing the relevant patches.
Adam Engst:
After I wrote “DarkSword Exploit Threatens iPhones Still Running iOS 18” (23 March 2026), Apple published the tech note page “Update iOS to protect your iPhone from web attacks,” emphasizing the importance of staying current. It also addresses what those with older versions of iOS should do, noting that Apple released updates for iOS 15 and iOS 16 (to protect against Coruna—see “Older iPhones and iPads Receive Critical Security Updates for Coruna Exploits,” 13 March 2026).
Previously:
iOS iOS 18 iOS Release iPadOS iPadOS 18 iPadOS Release Security
MacRumors (9to5Mac):
In a new support document, Apple said new purchases, in-app purchases, and subscription renewals are no longer available in Russia unless a user already has funds in their Apple Account balance, which can continue to be used.
[…]
Apple reportedly took this action in response to an order from the Russian government, which allegedly hopes that the lost services revenue from Russian users will pressure the company to add some popular Russian apps back to the App Store, after those apps were removed due to sanctions arising from Russia’s war with Ukraine. The order would presumably end if Apple were to make those apps available again.
That reasoning doesn’t make sense to me.
Will Shanklin:
Why is Russia doing this? Well, the (state-aligned) Russian news outlet RBC reported that government officials said it was to prevent users from paying for VPN apps. Earlier this week, Reuters reported that the country has stepped up its attack on the services as part of its “great crackdown” on online information and speech. By mid-January, it had reportedly blocked 70 percent more VPN apps than late last year.
Valerie Hopkins et al.:
The Russian authorities have deepened their crackdown on popular foreign apps and have begun periodically turning off mobile internet across the country, after spending hundreds of millions of dollars to build up censorship technology that they plan to expand.
Anastasiia Iurshina:
What follows is the testimony of an IT specialist living and working in Russia, describing what internet control looks like in practice in early 2026. They have worked in IT both for Russian and international companies for over 20 years, including software development, machine learning, and information security.
Matthew Luxmoore and Milàn Czerny:
The Kremlin has struggled for years to curb internet freedoms and curtail the reach of Western tech platforms that have amassed huge user bases inside Russia. A new Russian super-app is now making that goal possible.
Max is a messaging and e-commerce platform run by tech giant VK that is expanding to offer everything from taxi-hailing services to electronic passport wallets, modeled on China’s WeChat.
With full-throated government backing, Max is being pushed by pro-Kremlin celebrities as a safer equivalent to Telegram and WhatsApp, the popular messaging platforms now being throttled by Russian censors.
Previously:
App Store App Store Takedown In-App Purchase iOS iOS 26 Payments Russia
Eric Seckler (MacRumors):
Today, we are proud to celebrate a major milestone: Android is now the fastest mobile platform for web browsing.
Through deep vertical integration across hardware, the Android OS, and the Chrome engine, the latest flagship Android devices are setting new performance records, outperforming all other mobile competitors in the key web performance benchmarks Speedometer and LoadLine and providing a level of responsiveness previously unseen on mobile.
[…]
Where traditional benchmarks often focus on synthetic tasks, LoadLine uses recorded, stable versions of select real-world websites. This includes simpler and more complex sites with varied characteristics, reflecting the most important types of mobile web content, such as shopping, search, and news portals.
LoadLine has proven that Android’s page load performance is world-class: Top tier Android phones score up to 47% higher than non-Android competitors. And this matters: LoadLine scores also correlate well (-0.8) with median and high-percentile page load latency in the field.
John Gruber:
Speedometer is a benchmark anyone can run just by visiting the benchmark’s website. Running LoadLine, especially on an iOS device, is an enormous hassle that involves two USB-C-to-Ethernet adapters, enabling Remote Automation and the Web Inspector in Safari, installing custom certificates on the iOS device, and installing custom software on an attached Mac.
You will be shocked to learn that the three unnamed Android phones outscored the “competing mobile phone” by significantly larger margins on LoadLine than Speedometer.
Matt Birchler:
Likely due to corporate lameness, they didn’t put specific labels on their bar chart, they just identified that 3 Android OEMs have devices that performed better on the Speedometer 3.1 benchmark than some “competing mobile phone platform”.
[…]
I happen to be someone who has the fastest iPhone and the fastest Android phone from the most popular Android maker in the US: the iPhone 17 Pro and Galaxy S26 Ultra.
I guess today is a day of benchmarks for me, because I literally just posted a bunch of benchmarks, including GeekBench scores which showed the Galaxy matching the iPhone in single-core, and beating it in multi-core.
But yeah, I get the same results as Google did, although the iPhone scored a bit lower on my device for some reason[…]
Previously:
Android Geekbench Google Chrome iOS iOS 26 MobileSafari Processors
