Warning: iOS 10 is reportedly screwing up people’s phones

from thenextweb.com

After releasing iOS 10 earlier today, some users are reporting ‘bricked’ devices after attempting to update to the new operating system. Most of the issues seem to come from over-the-air (OTA) updates, meaning a device that attempts to download and install the update without plugging it in — something Apple used to require.

The issues seem fairly widespread. The OTA update begins and leaves users staring at a ‘Connect to iTunes’ screen that forces a complete firmware re-install. If you forego the wiping and re-installation of iOS from your iPhone or iPad, you’re left with a bricked and completely useless device.

Not all users are having the issue though. I updated from the last beta version of iOS 10 to the launch version this morning without incident.

A Twitter search for iOS 10-related keywords show the problem could be affecting a significant portion of those upgrading. In fact, nearly all of the iOS 10-related update problems appear to be the same issue, a bricked device after a prompt to connect to iTunes.

For what it’s worth, Apple claims the problem has since been fixed, according to a 9to5 Mac tweet.

Users, however, are still reporting the problem, so maybe Apple isn’t quite done remedying the issue just yet. Still, if you absolutely have to have iOS 10 today, it’s never a bad idea to do a fresh backup before you make the upgrade.

Long Island Man Spends 10 Days in Hospital After iPhone Explodes in His Pocket

from patch.com "Best of 2015"
A Lindenhurst man recently spent more than a week in the hospital after his iPhone spontaneously exploded in his pocket.

Erik Johnson had reportedly just arrived at his cousin’s wake on Valentine’s Day when his iPhone 5c exploded as he bent down to pick up a set of keys he had dropped.

“I felt the burn instantly and a cloud of smoke instantly,” the 29-year-old told News 12 Long Island. “I couldn’t get the phone out of my pocket, so I had to rip my pants off to get the phone away from me.”

Johnson suffered a third-degree burn the size of a football to to his upper left thigh and spent 10 days in a hospital burn unit. He returned home on Tuesday.

The story was first reported by ABC 7. Johnson told the TV station that he heard a pop and then saw smoke coming from his pocket when he reached down to pick up the keys.

Johnson says his leg caught fire and the intensity of the heat melted his pocket shut.

“A couple of people actually said they could smell my body burning,” Johnson told ABC 7.

Apple says it is investigating the incident. Johnson is planning legal action against the electronics giant.

“Even if this only happened this one time, that’s one time too many,” Johnson’s lawyer, Mike Della, said according to the Daily News. “What if this happened to a child?”

There have been other recent reports of exploding iPhones. In October, an Arizona man claimed his iPhone 6 burst into flames in his pocket following a minor rickshaw accident. Last February, a middle school student in Maine suffered minor injuries after her iPhone 5c exploded in her pocket.

iOS8 Update Recalled Following Rampant Problems

from billboard.com

Apple has stopped providing an update to its new iOS 8 mobile operating software, following complaints that the update interferes with users' ability to make phone calls.

The iOS 8.0.1 update released Wednesday morning was intended to fix some earlier glitches in the new software for iPhones and iPads that Apple released last week.

But along with blocking calls, some users have also complained the update interferes with Apple's Touch ID system, which lets people unlock their phones with their fingerprint.

Apple says it's pulling back the update as it investigates the reports. The company says it plans to issue advice to users "as quickly as we can."

Meantime, users are still able to the upgrade older phones to last week's version of iOS 8.

Bendgate puts Apple in awkward position

from 3news.co.nz

Apple pitched its new iPhone range as its "thinnest-ever", but some users have found that to be a serious drawback.

The iPhone 6 Plus is not only thin, but its body is made of aluminium, which bends quite easily compared to plastic and glass.

The controversy has been labelled 'Bend-Gate', and it's not limited to people deliberately mistreating their pricey new devices. 
Some have reported their phones curving after merely being left in a jean pocket for a while.

"In one example, a new 6 Plus was bent during a day of 'dancing, dining, and driving to a wedding'," reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

Others have found their phones developing kinks after barely even bumping them.

"I've had significantly harder impacts to my 4s and never had any type of breakage or bending problems," one user told Apple fansite MacRumors.

The iPhone 6 Plus' screen is 5.5 inches across diagonally, and only 7mm thick. Most previous iPhones have been made of glass and/or plastic.

It's not the first phone with a tendency to bend however – MacRumors says owners of the Samsung Galaxy S4, Sony Xperia Z1 and the Blackberry Q10 have had similar problems.

"Any phone made of metal is still subject to the laws of physics," the site claimed.

Apple sold more than 10 million iPhone 6 and 6 Plus devices in its first weekend on sale.

Apple security flaw could allow hackers to beat encryption

from reuters.com
A major flaw in Apple Inc software for mobile devices could allow hackers to intercept email and other communications that are meant to be encrypted, the company said on Friday, and experts said Mac computers were even more exposed.

If attackers have access to a mobile user's network, such as by sharing the same unsecured wireless service offered by a restaurant, they could see or alter exchanges between the user and protected sites such as Gmail and Facebook. Governments with access to telecom carrier data could do the same.

"It's as bad as you could imagine, that's all I can say," said Johns Hopkins University cryptography professor Matthew Green.

Apple did not say when or how it learned about the flaw in the way iOS handles sessions in what are known as secure sockets layer or transport layer security, nor did it say whether the flaw was being exploited.

But a statement on its support website was blunt: The software "failed to validate the authenticity of the connection."

Apple released software patches and an update for the current version of iOS for iPhone 4 and later, 5th-generation iPod touches, and iPad 2 and later.

Without the fix, a hacker could impersonate a protected site and sit in the middle as email or financial data goes between the user and the real site, Green said.

After analyzing the patch, several security researchers said the same flaw existed in current versions of Mac OSX, running Apple laptop and desktop computers. No patch is available yet for that operating system, though one is expected soon.

Because spies and hackers will also be studying the patch, they could develop programs to take advantage of the flaw within days or even hours.

The issue is a "fundamental bug in Apple's SSL implementation," said Dmitri Alperovich, chief technology officer at security firm CrowdStrike Inc. Adam Langley, a senior engineer at Google, agreed with CrowdStrike that OS X was at risk.

Apple did not reply to requests for comment. The flaw appears to be in the way that well-understood protocols were implemented, an embarrassing lapse for a company of Apple's stature and technical prowess.

The company was recently stung by leaked intelligence documents claiming that authorities had 100 percent success rate in breaking into iPhones.

Friday's news suggests that enterprising hackers could have had great success as well if they knew of the flaw.

Flaming iPhone 5c Battery Sets 13-Year-Old’s Pants On Fire

from cultofmac.com

Batteries are potentially volatile things, stuffed with electrochemical cells practically humming with electrolytes. Every once and a while, then, they’re sure to break down, and companies like Apple do literally everything in their power to make sure it doesn't happen.

Here’s why. An iPhone 5c that exploded in the pocket of a 13-year-old girl resulted in a fire so severe that she was rushed to the hospital with second-degree burns.

The iPhone was in the girl’s back pocket at the time, so it appears that the failure of the two-month iPhone might have been due to stress. She may have cracked it sitting down.

As a bigger guy who stuffs his iPhone in his own back pocket, I should probably pay attention to this girl’s misfortune before I set my ass on fire.

'Blue screen of death' attacks some iPhone 5S owners

from cnet.com
Users on Apple's support forums say their iPhone 5S units are turning a mean shade of blue and then rebooting.

The infamous "blue screen of death" seems to have expanded from Windows PCs to iPhones.
Several iPhone 5S owners report that their phones are turning a mean shade of blue and then restarting. Users chiming in on the Apple Support Communities and MacRumors forums said the problem occurs when they use the Numbers app in Apple's iWork suite, which comes free with the new iPhones. But a couple of people report that it also happens when using the ESPN ScoreCenter app.
The bug apparently has been present since the phone launched. One of the forum messages is dated September 21, the day after the 5S went on sale. One possible remedy, at least for users running into BSODs with iWork, is to disable iCloud syncing for the iWork suite, according to The Verge.

CNET contacted Apple for comment and will update the story with any further details.

Security holes unearthed in Apple's iOS7

from bbc.co.uk
Two security vulnerabilities have been discovered in Apple's new mobile operating system, less than 24
hours after its launch.

One flaw concerns a user's ability to recover their data if a device has been stolen. The much-vaunted "Find my iPhone" feature can be disabled be a thief simply by putting the iPhone or iPad into airplane mode, preventing the device from communicating.

In iOS7 this can be done even when the phone is locked with a passcode, as the voice-activated assistant Siri can be instructed to carry out the task.

The other flaw is potentially even more serious - allowing users' email and social networking accounts to be hijacked even when the user has locked and password-protected their phone,

In this video the BBC's North America technology correspondent Richard Taylor explains the security glitch and a way to prevent it.

Apple has said it takes security "very seriously" and will issue a fix in a future software update.
   -  Yeah right.

IPhones Mysteriously Explode, Spark Safety Concerns

from Forbes.com

Apple’s iPhones are literally hot devices, as two spontaneously combusted this month, sparking concerns about the devices’ safety.

Officials report an iPhone 4 glowed red and began smoking after it caught on fire during a flight in Australia, and another user in Brazil reported his Apple phone also combusted as it was charging overnight. An iPhone 3GS caught fire earlier in November in Brazil.

Apple Australia’s Fiona Martin said the company investigating the Brazilian iPhone fire, but hasn’t commented yet on the Australian incident.

Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority spokesman Peter Gibson said his agency, along with the Australian Transport Safety Board and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority are investigating the latest incident. He said the ATSB plans to strip down the iPhone 4 “to try and understand just why it would start heating up,” noting the phone is no longer working.

The Brazilian fire occurred after owner Ayla Mota left his 8GB iPhone 4 plugged in while he slept, awaking in the middle of the night to see “a lot of sparks and black smoke out of the cell.” He switched off the power and unplugged the device.

The fires aren’t the only problems iPhone owners are reporting. There have been complaints about battery life, the phone screens having a yellow tinge, and even about the new iPhone 4S’ signature Siri program. The fires, though, could pose a safety concern that Apple may need to address to retain the public’s trust in the device.

Apple’s devices have had overheating problems in the past. In 2009, some 3GS owners said their handsets were overheating, burning the white models into brown and pink colors. Faulty batteries were eventually blamed, which may be the case in the latest iPhone fires as well.

Apple also had a replacement program in place for a while for first-generation iPod Nanos because they overheated, with three Nanos catching fire in Japan before that country recalled the devices.