As reported Tuesday by Motherboard, hackers that go under the code-name “Turkish Crime Family” have allegedly obtained, through unknown means, access to hundreds of millions of Apple email accounts, including iCloud inboxes with email addresses on @icloud and @me domains.
They're threatening to remotely wipe iOS devices unless Apple pays a laughable ransom. It's notable that iCloud has never been hacked into directly and other reasons make this story hard to swallow.
In the past, you could check the Activation Lock on a dedicated official iCloud page by entering the IMEI number. However, Apple removed it a few years back. Now the only reliable option to check a device's Activation Lock is by having physical access to that iPhone or iPad.
But, there is a workaround that might work for some. So the tutorial below talks about that trick which involves using the Apple Support page to check the Activation Lock. If it works for you, great! If it doesn't, you can follow these tips to check Activation Lock before buying a used iPhone.
A Russian forensics firm named Elcomsoft has discovered that Apple was storing users' Safari browsing histories in iCloud going back more than a year, possibly much longer. This was happening even after users had asked for any deleted records to be wiped from their iCloud-connected devices. Soon after Elcomsoft announced a way to extract deleted browsing histories from iCloud, Apple applied a server-side fix to stop the retrievals and apparently purged all records older than two weeks.
As we reported, Apple recently took down its tremendously useful Activation Lock webpage for reasons unknown. The theft-deterrent tool allowed legitimate iOS device owners and just about anyone else to check the status of the Activation Lock feature by entering a serial number. Apple provided no explanation for the removal, but all checks point to it being a precautionary measure meant to prevent hacks relying on stolen serial numbers, as a reader pointed out in comments.
Apple recently took down its web tool for checking if a used iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Apple Watch was stolen. The firm gave no explanation for the move.
The link to the Activation Lock webpage no longer works and the support document detailing the feature does not contain any reference to the web tool as of January 24. It was unclear at post time if a new version of the tool might be returning in the future in one form or another.
U.S. wireless carriers like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile have supported Wi-Fi Calling for some time now, with AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile also supporting Wi-Fi Calling on other iCloud-connected devices like iPad, iPod touch, Apple Watch and Mac. According to user reports on MacRumors' forums, iOS 10.3 beta 1 supports Integrated Calling on Verizon.
With this handy feature, compatible iCloud-signed devices can make and receive calls using your carrier's account even when your iPhone isn't nearby.
Travel Time is a nifty addition to Apple’s Calendar app, capable of precisely estimating the duration of your upcoming trip based on parameters such as milage and traffic. Used properly, it can notably ease some of your daily scheduling woes, but paradoxically, a large contingent of regular Calendar users still routinely overlook the feature.
Formerly introduced as frequent locations and traffic conditions widgets, the service has only slowly gained traction amongst users. Travel Time today however has come of age and is now neatly integrated into one of the most popular productivity applications both on iOS and macOS. So if you didn’t get the memo on the virtues of Travel Time in Calendar, here’s what you need to know.
In this tutorial, we will show you how to use the Find My app or iCloud on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac to locate your lost AirPods. We will also show you how to have your AirPods play a high-pitched sound or use AirTag-like nearby precision tracking to find the AirPods and their charging case.
The Mail app in macOS is a multi-email handler and supports a wide variety of email platforms. That said, it you wanted to move some of your emails from one of your email account inboxes to another, you could.
This is a handy feature to know if you sent or received an email via the wrong account and wanted to keep your emails organized under the correct email inbox, so we’ll show you how it can be done in this tutorial.
Apple today launched a redesigned Photos web app at iCloud.com/#photos following a period of testing when the software was available to beta testers via beta.icloud.com. The app runs in a web browser and sports several improvements to make it behave more like its desktop counterpart, such as a brand new sidebar on the left and a handy thumbnail scrubber when viewing an image.
Try these solutions if iCloud Notes are not syncing across your iPhone, iPad, Mac, and the web.
Some owners of iPhone and iPad devices may experience difficulty purchasing apps and media from Apple's digital content stores because they've been experiencing issues since about 12:30pm Pacific / 3:30pm Eastern Time. According to Apple's iCloud Status Page, some folks may be unable to make purchases in the iTunes Store, Mac App Store and App Store. We'll update the post as soon as these problems have been resolved.
Update 3.15pm PT: everything is working again, according to Apple.