Apple

It can be hard to decide what to name smart home devices. Should an internet-connected lamp be called something utilitarian like "Kitchen Lamp" or be given a unique name like "The Bringer of Light to That Place We Make Food" to make it easier to identify? It may not seem like a critical decision, but a new vulnerability shows that HomeKit device names are pretty important.

Security researcher Trevor Spiniolas revealed this "doorLock" vulnerability on Jan. 1.

Apple has addressed a macOS vulnerability that unsigned and unnotarized script-based apps could exploit to bypass all macOS security protection mechanisms even on fully patched systems.

If they circumvent automated notarization security checks (which scans for malicious components and code-signing issues), the applications are allowed to launch by Gatekeeper, a macOS security feature designed to verify if downloaded apps are notarized and developer-signed.

2021 might have been the calm before the storm.

Except for the introduction of a few new Apple Silicon Macs, 2021 has been a quiet year for Apple. The new iPhones offered improved cameras and battery life but were otherwise nearly identical to 2020's models. And apart from a slight bump in screen size, the new Apple Watch is barely distinguishable from its predecessors.

As 2021 draws to a close and we look ahead to 2022, it's a safe bet that next year is going to be a lot more interesting. So we have some predictions to share.

Few large companies have had a more contentious internal argument over remote work amid the pandemic than Apple, but it is moving ahead with bringing many employees back into physical offices starting in February.

As previously reported by CNBC, Apple CEO Tim Cook, in an email to employees, announced both a new return-to-office date and a revised work-from-home policy for the people who make iPhones, macOS, and many other products.

Your Mac has probably alerted you that a new software update is ready. That's MacOS Monterey (also known as MacOS 12), the next version of Apple’s desktop operating system. It adds many of the same upgrades you'll find on your iPhone or iPad running iOS or iPadOS 15, which is one of the benefits of Apple switching to its own custom silicon to power its desktop computers. That includes improvements to FaceTime, a Focus mode, and the ability to group tabs in Safari.

The newly announced 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models have HDMI ports, but they have a limitation that could be frustrating for many users over the long term, according to Apple's specs page for both machines and as noted by Paul Haddad on Twitter.

The seventh beta of macOS Monterey contains what appear to be references to new screen resolutions suitable for the MacBook Pro line, as discovered by MacRumors.

In a list of supported graphics resolutions within macOS, there are two new resolutions: 3,456 x 2,234 and 3,024 x 1,964. Each carries a "Retina" marker, which Apple typically only applies to its own devices' screens.

The new iPad mini—whether you want to call it the 2021 iPad mini, iPad mini 6, or iPad mini (6th generation)—is easily the best one Apple has ever made. That’s true whether you’re comparing this iPad mini to the last one, or if you’re comparing it to the other iPads Apple sells.

One day in the spring, all links to Apple's Shortcuts suddenly stopped working, which attracted the attention of several news sites. The cause was thought to be a bug or an internal mistake, but now it turns out that it was Swedish hacker and security researcher Frans Rosén who accidentally deleted all the content in a database.

Rosén explains in a blog post how he discovered several security flaws in iCloud's database management. Among other things, Apple had made it possible for anyone to add and delete content in a number of databases belonging to various iCloud services.

The next major release of the operating system for iPhones, iOS 15, will arrive on September 20, Apple announced at its product event on Tuesday. iPadOS 15 will hit compatible tablets the same day, and watchOS 8 will be available for the Apple Watch as well.