The Antitrust Case Against Apple Argues It Has a Stranglehold on the Future

The US Department of Justice had long been expected to file an antitrust lawsuit against Apple. But when the suit arrived Thursday, it came with surprising ferocity. In a press conference, attorney general Merrick Garland noted that Apple controlled more than 70 percent of the country’s smartphone market, saying the company used that outsize power … Read more

Apple’s iMessage Encryption Puts Its Security Practices in the DOJ’s Crosshairs

The argument is one that some Apple critics have made for years, as spelled out in an essay in January by Cory Doctorow, the science fiction writer, tech critic, and coauthor of Chokepoint Capitalism. “The instant an Android user is added to a chat or group chat, the entire conversation flips to SMS, an insecure, … Read more

Fortnite Boss Defeats a Bad Apple, Clears Path for Epic Games Store

Some apples are sweet, some not so much. Apple reversed its ban on Epic Games’ developer account on Friday afternoon, according to an updated blog post, clearing a path again for an Epic Games Store on iOS devices in Europe. The decision comes just two days after Apple terminated Epic’s account over some tweets from … Read more

Apple Updates iMessage With a New ‘Post-Quantum’ Encryption Protocol

Apple has rolled out an update to iMessage encryption, the likes of which includes post-quantum protections that the company calls the “most significant cryptographic security upgrade” in the messenger’s history. The M3 MacBook Pro: Made Dark for Halloween In a blog post published Wednesday, Apple announced the arrival of PQ3, a new encryption protocol designed to … Read more

iMessage is exempt from new EU regulations. Here’s why.

Apple just received some rare good news from the EU. The European Commission announced on Tuesday that it closed its market investigation into four services – Apple’s iMessage and Microsoft’s Bing, Edge, and online advertising service (i.e., Microsoft Advertising) – to determine whether they’re “gatekeeper services.” Under the EU’s new Digital Markets Act (DMA), core … Read more

Apple iOS 17.4: iMessage Gets Post-Quantum Encryption in New Update

Apple is launching its first post-quantum protections, one of the biggest deployments of the future-resistant encryption technology to date. Billions of medical records, financial transactions, and messages we send to each other are protected by encryption. It’s fundamental to keeping modern life and the global economy running relatively smoothly. However, the decades-long race to create … Read more

Apple won’t be forced to open up iMessage by EU

Apple’s iMessage is not being designated as a “core platform service” under the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), the European Commission announced today. The decision means the service won’t be hit with tough new obligations, including a requirement to offer interoperability with other messaging services. The Commission also opted against designating Microsoft’s Edge browser, Bing … Read more

Researchers Uncover the ‘Most Sophisticated’ iPhone Exploit Ever

What happens when you hack a cybersecurity researcher? Kaspersky, a Moscow-based security firm, presented new details regarding zero-day vulnerabilities in Apple products on Wednesday. Kaspersky researchers are calling this the most sophisticated attack they’ve ever seen, exposing a previously unknown hardware feature. The attack has been front of mind for Kaspersky researchers because it’s been … Read more

Apple’s Tight Grip on iMessage Spurs Fresh Calls for an Antitrust Probe

The US Department of Justice has got mail: A coalition of more than a dozen tech advocacy groups wrote to the agency today calling on it to launch an investigation into allegedly anticompetitive behavior by Apple. The letter says that Apple’s recent blocking of Beeper, which reverse engineered iMessage to allow compatibility with Android phones, … Read more

Beeper’s iMessage Fight With Apple Has Blown Up Into a Debate Over Regulating Big Tech

Beeper, a YCombinator-backed startup, initially came up with an expensive and inherently insecure method to make a beta version of its app work. This method sent every message through a relay server before arriving at the recipient’s messaging client. Then, late this summer, the company landed on a breakthrough technique, originally drafted as a proof … Read more