What’s New in iTunes 12.3.3

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Kirk McElhearn walks you through the tweaks and more major changes in the just released iTunes 12.3.3.

Bipartisan encryption back-door legislation proposal starts circulating in the Senate

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The rumored back-door legislation from the Senate Intelligence Committee has now surfaced. From Reuters:

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has begun circulating long-awaited draft legislation that would give federal judges clear authority to order technology companies like Apple to help law enforcement officials access encrypted data, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

Om Malik reflects on ten years of Twitter

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Two solid reads from Om Malik, one an article he wrote to introduce the world to Twitter, back in July 1996, and another present tense piece looking at his love for Twitter.

On the FBI’s “alternative” method

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Speculation from iOS security expert Jonathan Zdziarski on the nature of the third party the FBI is calling on to crack the San Bernardino iPhone.

Legendary former Intel CEO Andy Grove is dead at 79

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The Verge:

Grove was the first hire at Intel, which was founded in 1968 by former employees of Fairchild Semiconductor. Grove joined on day one as the company’s director of engineering, became Intel’s president in 1979, and its CEO in 1987.

Grove was one of the great CEOs.

Apple’s online store closed for today’s event

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Apple has a message up on their site (image in the main post) in preparation for today’s event. The main post also has a link to Apple’s event page if you haven’t already tucked that away.

Johns Hopkins researchers poke a hole in Apple’s encryption

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Matthew D. Green, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University who led the research team:

“Even Apple, with all their skills — and they have terrific cryptographers — wasn’t able to quite get this right,” said Green, whose team of graduate students will publish a paper describing the attack as soon as Apple issues a patch. “So it scares me that we’re having this conversation about adding back doors to encryption when we can’t even get basic encryption right.”

Using the correct charger or power adapter (and what happens if you don’t)

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Most of the charging you do will be with a lightning cable or MacBook power adaptor. Maybe you’ve got a few gadgets with a mini or micro-USB adapter. But this is for all your non-mainstream gadgets. Those bricks you plug in the wall with one of about 100 different types of tips on the other end.

Got one of those? Then read on.

The law is clear: The FBI cannot make Apple rewrite its OS

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Susan Crawford is a Harvard Law Professor and was President Barack Obama’s Special Assistant for Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy. She lays out exactly why the FBI is wrong in its full court press against Apple.

A nice trick to quickly flip between two iPhone brightness settings

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There are other ways to change your iPhone screen brightness, but this one uses a triple-tap on the home button (via Settings > General > Accessibility > Zoom) to toggle between day and night brightness settings.

Even if you have no need for this particular tweak, worth watching, since you can use this approach to tie other settings to the triple click.

The rules for Tuesday’s Apple, FBI court hearing are posted

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To address the limited space available in the Riverside federal courthouse, as well as other logistical issues, the court has posted a set of what they call Order Setting Procedures.

The main rules are listed in the post, including the one about recording devices.