Apple's week: El Capitan crashes Outlook, YiSpecter malware, AI startup purchased
All the big news from Cupertino last week
In a busy week for Apple, the firm suffered problems with malware and El Capitan, and acquired an AI startup called Perceptio. Meanwhile, V3 compiled a specs comparison of rival handsets the Nexus 6P and iPhone 6S Plus.
Apple YiSpecter malware targets non-jailbroken iOS devices
Security researchers at Palo Alto Networks uncovered a unique form of Apple malware, coined YiSpecter, that can infect non-jailbroken devices by abusing private APIs in iOS to install malicious applications.
Once injected into a victim's device, YiSpecter is able to download, install and launch arbitrary iOS applications, replace existing apps, display adware, change Safari's default search engine and upload device information to a command-and-control server.
Furthermore, the research indicates that the malware can spread regardless of whether the Apple device is jailbroken, a process that opens the iOS system to allow third-party applications and software to run on the operating system.
El Capitan crashes Outlook 2011 and 2016, no Microsoft or Apple fix in sight
Apple rolled out the latest official version of its Mac operating system, but the update crashes Microsoft Outlook.
OS X El Capitan was made available to download for free for current Mac users on 30 September. El Capitan supports Macs introduced in 2009 and later, and some models introduced in 2007 and 2008, running OS X 10.6.8 and above.
However, it quickly became apparent that getting Outlook 2011 and 2016 emails or calendar updates on Macs running the latest OS is going to be an ongoing problem. The Outlook client opens as normal but when it tries to sync with the mail server, it just displays the spinning wheel and totally freezes. This will be a major problem for business users, as Outlook is still widely used in the corporate market.
Apple buys AI startup Perceptio to boost iPhone deep learning tech
Apple has bought artificial intelligence (AI) firm Perceptio, a startup that specialises in image-recognition systems using deep learning, which could see its technology integrated into future iPhones.
Apple confirmed the acquisition to Bloomberg, but shed no more light on the deal.
Perceptio's systems allow images to be identified using AI-powered classification systems run on smartphones, without requiring large amounts of consumer data to do calculations against.
The iPhone 6S Plus and Nexus 6P are effectively launchpads for rival operating systems, iOS 9 and Android 6.0 Marshmallow respectively. Still, that's only one aspect of these competing plus-sized smartphones, so to find out which is more worthy of buyers' attentions, we've compared and contrasted all of their most important specs.
Apple removes apps from App Store after root certificate security concerns
Apple removed a number of applications from the App Store after fears that developers could snoop on user traffic by installing their own root certificates.
The removed applications, which include an ad blocker known as Been Choice, are able to route a user's traffic through third-party sources to obtain private information.
Apple security exploits will grow as businesses embrace iOS
The recent discovery of mobile vulnerabilities targeting Apple devices, from XcodeGhost to YiSpecter, is altering the perspective that iOS devices are immune to security attacks.