Latest news with #iOS18.3.1
Forbes
5 days ago
- Forbes
New Warning issued To All iPhone users—You Have 20 Days To Update
The U.S. government has issued a new warning to update your iPhone by July 7. A new iOS 18 update warning has been issued by the U.S. government after an iPhone vulnerability was found to have been used in real-life attacks. Tracked as CVE-2025-43200, the flaw was fixed in iOS 18.3.1 back in Feb. alongside another already-exploited issue. At the time, this flaw was not listed on Apple's support page, which only included one known fix. A closer inspection shows that Apple added the second vulnerability on June 11. The newly-revealed iPhone vulnerability is deemed so serious that the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has issued a warning, giving government agencies until July 7 to apply the iOS 18.3.1 update. CISA has also added the flaw to its known exploited vulnerabilities catalog. The CISA warning came as security researchers at Citizen Lab revealed Paragon spyware was targeting iPhone users including journalists. The attacks mentioned in their alert took advantage of the same vulnerability to plant spyware on targets' devices. The issue was patched in iOS 18.3.1, as well as watchOS 11.3.1, macOS Ventura 13.7.4, iOS 15.8.4 and iPadOS 15.8.4, iOS 16.7.11 and iPadOS 16.7.11, iPadOS 17.7.5, visionOS 2.3.1, macOS Sequoia 15.3.1 and macOS Sonoma 14.7.4. 'A logic issue existed when processing a maliciously crafted photo or video shared via an iCloud Link,' Apple said on its support page. 'Apple is aware of a report that this issue may have been exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals.' The flaw fixed in iOS 18.3.1 is certainly serious, so much so that Apple didn't even mention it in Feb. when it first released the iPhone update. It's therefore important that all iPhone users apply it now. The CISA warning requires Federal Civilian Executive Branch agencies to remediate identified vulnerabilities by the due date to protect networks against active threats. Although BOD 22-01 only applies to FCEB agencies, CISA 'strongly urges all organizations to reduce their exposure to cyberattacks by prioritizing timely remediation of KEV Catalog vulnerabilities as part of their vulnerability management practice.' The current iPhone update iOS 18.5 will cover this vulnerability and others that have been discovered in the time after it. But at the very least, you should update to iOS 18.3.1 to keep your iPhone safe from this attack using spyware. Spyware is very targeted, typically affecting some business users, political figures, dissidents and journalists. It's particularly dangerous because once it's on your device, attackers can potentially see and hear everything you do, including reading encrypted messages on Signal and WhatsApp. You can use apps such as iVerify to spot spyware — and look out for signs such as your iPhone running slowly or getting very hot. If you do suspect you've been affected by spyware, turning it on and off again can temporarily disrupt it. With spyware increasingly being used in attacks, it's a good idea to heed CISA's warning. Update your iPhone to iOS 18.3.1 or the latest version as soon as possible and certainly before July 7. Go to Settings > General > Software Update and upgrade to the latest version of iOS now.
Yahoo
11-03-2025
- Yahoo
Download iOS 18.3.2 Right Now to Patch This Security Issue
Apple is preparing to release iOS 18.4 to all users in April, but before that the tech giant is telling everyone to download iOS 18.3.2 now. The company released iOS 18.3.2 on Tuesday and said it fixes a streaming playback bug, but more importantly it patches a security issue that might have been actively exploited in an "extremely sophisticated attack." You can download the update by going to Settings > General > Software Update, tapping Update Now and following the prompts on your screen. Read more: An Expert's Guide to iOS 18 According to Apple's release notes, iOS 18.3.2 patches a security issue in WebKit, the company's in-house-developed internet browser engine used in Safari. Apple wrote that maliciously crafted content could break out of the Web Content sandbox. A sandbox is an isolated virtual environment where programs, code and other files can be run and tested to see how they behave. According to the cybersecurity company Proofpoint, "Browsers have their own sandboxes to separate malicious applications that run on the web from accessing local machine resources." It provides an extra security layer on your device, and if web content can break out of the sandbox, that content could access your device's data. Apple said this issue might have been used against specific individuals running a version of iOS prior to iOS 17.2, and that the latest update is a "supplementary fix." While you might not have iOS 17.2 or be the intended target, you should still download the update now to ensure you have the most protection available for you and your data. While it's not unusual for Apple to release security updates like this between other, more feature-heavy updates, it is unusual for the company to release two security updates about a month apart. Apple released iOS 18.3.1 on Feb. 10, and that update also patched a security issue that the company said might have been actively exploited and used against targeted individuals. The main difference between these two updates is iOS 18.3.1 patched a flaw that could have allowed someone to physically connect to your iPhone and access your data. So a person would have to be near you to exploit that vulnerability before the update. But the latest update patches a flaw that could be exploited over the internet, potentially from thousands of miles away. Downloading iOS 18.3.2 should protect you from the this latest threat. For more on iOS 18, here's what you need to know about iOS 18.3 and iOS 18.2. You can also check out our iOS 18 cheat sheet.
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Yahoo
How to Make Your iPhone Messages Bold, Shake With Excitement and More
Apple released iOS 18.3 in January, and that update brought a few bug fixes to your iPhone. But when Apple released iOS 18 in September, the update made texting a little more fun by introducing new text effects and formatting options to your messages. Read more: iOS 18 Brings These New Features to Your iPhone Text effects range from bolding your text or making the letters explode across the message. You can also use these effects on a single word or phrase in a message to emphasize what you're saying. Before these effects, all you could do was use all caps on a word or phrase, which is fine in some instances, but sometimes I want to make my words dance on screen because I'm dancing -- poorly -- as I type them. Here's how you can make your texts as expressive as you are. 1. Open Messages.2. Tap into a chat.3. Tap the text box.4. Tap the A with dashes on its left side, which can be found above the P on the keyboard. This opens the text effects menu. Across the top of the menu are the formatting options bold, italics, underline and strike-through. Beneath that are eight different effects: Big, Small, Shake, Nod, Explode, Ripple, Bloom and Jitter. You can select and use any combination of the formatting options at once, including all together. You can only use one text effect at a time. Text effects also clear any formatting options you may have selected. So you can't bold your message and then use the effect Big -- which causes the message to momentarily balloon in size. Most of the effects feel like they could be used in a lot of situations, but a few feel well-suited for certain emotions or contexts. Ripple, for example, feels tailor-made for sarcasm, especially when used on a word like "really." Be aware that if you select formatting options, you have to tap the text box again for your keyboard to return. If you pick a text effect, your keyboard will automatically come back after you tap your desired effect. You can use multiple effects in a single message, but you can't apply multiple effects to the same word. So you can't use the Big and Shake effects on your entire message, but you can apply Big to part of the message and Shake to the other part of the message. Here's how. 1. Open Messages.2. Tap into a chat.3. Tap the text box.4. Write your message in full.5. Highlight the word or words you want to add an effect to.6. Tap the A with dashes on its left side, which can be found above the P on the keyboard.7. Tap the formatting options or text effect you want to use. The formatting or text effect will be applied to whatever you highlighted. You can then highlight and apply further formatting or effects to other words in the message. That means you could use all the text effects in a single message if you try hard enough -- I believe in you. For more on iOS 18, here's what you need to know about iOS 18.3.1 and iOS 18.3. You can also check out our iOS 18 cheat sheet.
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Yahoo
I Changed These 8 iPhone Settings First After Installing iOS 18.3
I've covered the iPhone since the beginning, so believe me when I say that there is a lot to its system software -- especially with the features and settings added in iOS 18.3. You may be feeling overwhelmed, as I was at first, and that's OK. Part of the joy of using an iPhone is exploring what it can do, and there's plenty here to choose from. But where to begin? I've put together this collection of eight settings and features that flex what the new system and your iPhone are capable of. Stay safe: Make sure you install the latest iOS 18.3.1 update that fixes bugs related to an "extremely sophisticated attack." If you have an iPhone that runs Apple Intelligence, be sure to check out the features you're going to use most. Or if you have no interest in the AI features -- which are now enabled automatically -- learn how to turn off Apple Intelligence. For more on what's new in iOS 18, learn about improvements to the overhauled Calculator app and the Mail app. And don't forget to consult our iOS 18 upgrade checklist, which includes making sure you have a proper backup before upgrading. In real estate, location is everything, and the bottom corners of the iPhone lock screen are the prime spots, each an easy thumb press away when your device is still locked. Before iOS 18, those posts were held by the flashlight and camera buttons, with no way to change them. In iOS 18, you can finally replace them with other buttons -- or remove them entirely, a balm for folks who unknowingly activate the flashlight (believe me, there's a better way to turn it on). You can add buttons to recognize music via Shazam, enable Dark Mode, set an alarm/timer, enable Airplane Mode, open your Wallet, send money via Tap to Cash and more. Here's how: 1. On the iPhone's lock screen, touch and hold anywhere on the display until you see the Customize button. You'll need to unlock the phone using Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode. If it opens the home screen, swipe down from the center-top of the screen (not the right edge, which brings up Control Center. 2. Tap Customize and then choose Lock Screen. 3. Remove one of the buttons by tapping the – (minus) button on the icon. 4. To replace the button with another function, tap its space (now with a + icon) and then choose the one you want on the next screen. (You can also opt to leave that space empty with no button.) 5. Repeat those steps for the other button if you want to change it. 6. Tap Done when you're finished. 7. Tap the lock screen again to exit the customize mode. The Action button on the iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro replaced the dedicated mute switch found on every earlier iPhone model with a configurable control. By default it serves the same purpose -- hold it to turn Silent Mode on or off -- but you can configure it for other actions like opening the Camera app, performing multiple actions at once or even ordering coffee. In iOS 18, the Action button gets new capabilities. You can bypass Control Center and choose a control of your choice, such as opening the Remote interface for navigating Apple TV or using Shazam to identify a song. To choose a different action for the Action button, go to Settings > Action Button. Swipe sideways to select and activate one of the available actions. For the Controls, Shortcut and Accessibility options, tap the Choose button to pick which specific action to run. You wouldn't think that putting icons where you want is a radical new feature, but that's because iOS has always had a locked arrangement. Apps get added from top to bottom, left to right. You could rearrange the order in which icons appear and move them to other screens, but that was about it. In iOS 18, apps can be positioned nearly anywhere. You no longer need to deal with a wallpaper image of your kids or pets being obscured by icons. They still adhere to a grid -- Apple isn't about to sanction anarchy -- but can be placed freely. Also, Dark mode finally applies to all of the iPhone's home screen, with options for coloring icons and affecting the brightness of the wallpaper image. Here's how to customize the looks. Arrange apps: Touch and hold the home screen to enter "jiggle mode," and then drag the icons to new positions. It will still slide them around to fill spaces, but with patience, you can move them into the spots you want. You can also quickly turn compatible apps into widgets that display more information. Maps, for instance, can be a map of your current location with shortcut buttons to search for places or bring up a list of nearby places (such as dinner spots). Touch and hold the app icon and look for a row of resize buttons in the menu that appears. Once expanded beyond the standard icon size, you can drag the handle in the bottom-right corner of the new icon. To get it back to its single icon size you need to touch and hold again and choose the single-icon button Set Dark mode: If you've ever subjected yourself to the retina blast of black text on a white background late at night in a darkened room, you will appreciate the new Dark mode option for the home and lock screens. iOS has previously included a Dark mode, where light backgrounds switch to black or dark gray, text switches to white or light gray and other interface elements are dimmed to coexist in a dark environment. That's never been applied to the home and lock screens in any significant way -- only the dock and some widgets -- until iOS 18. First, touch and hold the home screen to enter jiggle mode. Tap the Edit button in the top-left corner and choose Customize from the menu. At the bottom of the screen, choose a mode for the icons and background: Automatic, Dark or Light (I'll get to Tinted in a moment). In Dark mode, the icons gain black backgrounds, and folders and the Dock become dark gray. (Developers have the option of making Dark mode icons for their apps. In the meantime, apps not yet optimized get a generally darker appearance.) In Dark mode, the background image also changes. Apple's default iOS 18 wallpaper dynamically changes from light to dark as the day progresses, or you can choose colors that offer both a light and dark option. If you use a photo, its overall exposure is reduced to dim the light output. If you want dark icons but aren't a fan of the dimmed photo treatment, tap the sun icon in the corner of the options sheet at the bottom of the screen to toggle back to Light mode just for the background. Tinted icons: A new and different option is to tint all of the app icons so they share the same color. In the Customize options at the bottom of the screen, choose Tinted as the icon style. You can then adjust the Hue (the slider with the color spectrum) and Luminosity (the slider with the dark to light range) to choose the color tint you prefer. What if you want to match a color from a background image? Tap the eyedropper button and then drag the reticle to pinpoint the color you want -- the border indicates the selected color. The tint is applied not only to icons but to widgets as well. For a widget such as Photos, the images it displays show up as duotones to match the theme. Large icons: Do the labels below each app icon seem redundant to you? Now you can remove the labels and increase the size of the icons with one setting. Open the Customize options as described above and tap the Large button. After making any of these changes, tap anywhere on the screen to apply them and exit the Customize interface. Control Center was once a convenient place to quickly access controls such as playback volume and Airplane mode, but under iOS 18 it's a configurable playground. You can position controls where you want, resize many to reveal more information and add new controls on multiple screens. Swipe down from the top-right corner to reveal the Control Center (or swipe up from the bottom on the iPhone SE). To enter edit mode, touch and hold or press the + button at the top-left corner. Just as with moving apps, drag a control to another slot on the screen to reposition it. Many of the controls also include a bottom-right handle that can resize the control -- in most cases, it reveals the name of the control and its current status (such as Flashlight Off). Control Center also now spans multiple screens. Swipe up to view controls for media currently playing, Home controls for smart lights and appliances and a page dedicated to the communication options that appear when you long-press the Connectivity block containing Airplane Mode, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Cellular and others. Look closely and you'll see that those screens are actually individual controls expanded to occupy the entire Control Center area. You can rearrange the order of those screens by moving their controls. Suppose you want Home controls to be the first swipe instead of Now Playing: In the editing mode, drag the large Home control up to the previous screen (Now Playing will shift to the right to make room). To remove controls, tap the – (minus) button that appears. You can also add other controls: Tap Add a Control and scroll through the available options ranging from starting a Screen Recording to a host of accessibility options. Read more: Best iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro cases Our phones carry some of our most sensitive data, and yet it's not uncommon to hand a phone to a friend to view photos or look up something online. That doesn't mean they're going to snoop, but it doesn't not mean they might be more curious than you're comfortable with. For data you want to ensure stays out of sight or to add a layer of protection in front of sensitive information, iOS 18 adds the ability to lock and hide apps. For example, let's say you keep an ongoing set of lists of gift ideas for family members in the Notes app. You can lock individual notes, but that requires a separate step. Maybe a few ideas were made as individual quick notes or drawings. Instead of micromanaging access, you can lock the entire Notes app by doing the following: Touch and hold the app icon you want to lock and choose Require Face ID or Require Touch ID (or Require Passcode if Face ID or Touch ID are not enabled) from the menu that appears. Confirm your choice by tapping Require Face ID (or similar) in the next dialog. To remove the authentication step, touch and hold the app and choose Don't Require Face ID (or similar). Nothing outwardly indicates that an app is locked -- you'll find out when you try to open it. There's one more level of app security available, which is to hide apps in a special locked folder. Touch and hold the app and choose Require Face ID and then tap Hide and Require Face ID in the dialog. Confirm the action by tapping Hide App on the next screen. The app disappears from the home screen and gets slotted into a Hidden folder at the bottom of the App Library (swipe left beyond your last home screen to view the App Library). To access apps there, tap the Hidden folder and authenticate with Face ID. iOS 18 imposes some limitations on hidden apps. Some, such as many of the built-in ones like Notes or Reminders, can only be locked and cannot be hidden at all. Also, the Hidden folder locks itself when you launch an app or swipe away from the App Library. Many apps have implemented a small but annoying (to me) feature, and now Photos under iOS 18.2 has it too: Videos automatically replay when you watch them until you tap the Pause button. That can be fun once or twice, or when viewing short clips. I'm not a fan of having to take action to make them stop each time. Now I can take action once. Go to Settings > Photos, scroll down until you see Loop Videos and turn the option off. A video will play on its own but then stop at the end as it should. If you'd rather the video didn't play at all until you tap the Play button, also turn off Auto-Play Motion in the same Settings screen. Big new features like locking and hiding apps are great additions but so are the tiny changes that you encounter every day. The Calendar app includes two new ways to view your schedule. In iOS 18, when you're in the Month view in portrait orientation, pinch with two fingers to view more or fewer details. As you "zoom in," individual events appear as colored bars and then as labeled events with times, all while keeping the monthly grid of days and weeks. The Day view, which breaks down your day hour by hour, now has a new Multi Day view that shows two consecutive days to give you context for what's coming without turning the phone into landscape orientation and viewing the Week view. Tap the View button at the top of the Single Day view and choose Multi Day from the popup menu. Trouble hearing dialogue in movies and television shows isn't a new problem -- for example, the Apple TV has had a feature for a while where you can ask Siri, "What did she say?" and it will automatically back up a few seconds, turn on subtitles and replay that section of the video. You can even buy soundbars that can overcome muffled TV speech. There are a lot of reasons it's harder to hear dialogue, but the TV app in iOS 18 includes a high-tech workaround to make dialog easier to discern. While you're watching a video in the TV app, tap the More (…) button and then expand the Audio heading in the menu that appears; if the phone is in horizontal orientation, tap the Audio Adjustments button. Tap Enhance Dialogue and choose Enhance or Boost. They each dampen background noise and raise the dialogue's audio. These are just a few new features and changes in iOS 18. Check out our broader coverage of Apple Intelligence, more impressions of the system after using it for months and how these all work together with the iPhone 16 models.
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Yahoo
The latest iOS update might have reactivated Apple Intelligence features
Some iPhone users have reported that yesterday's update to iOS 18.3.1 reactivated once-disabled Apple Intelligence features on specific devices. Certain features, like Notification Summaries, had been shut off over concerns about accuracy. Now users are reporting that these features have been re-enabled following the update. Devices that displayed a welcome screen after updating seem to have a higher chance of these features being re-activated. Reddit user u/Hanthunius reported the bug on their iPhone 15 Pro Max, while others saw the features make a comeback on Mac devices. MacRumors tested this theory, and while Apple Intelligence remained disabled on iPadOS and iOS in their tests, the Mac Mini was a different story. The team saw the Welcome screen appear on the Mac Mini, but on none of the other devices. They also pointed out that unlike typical Welcome screen, this one lacked the option to set it up later and forced users to enable the feature to continue. Aside from the fact that this is not a user-friendly approach, re-enabling Apple Intelligence poses other problems. It requires roughly 7GB of memory per device, so users with limited storage might disable Apple Intelligence to make room for applications they use more often. When iOS 18.3 rolled out, it made Apple Intelligence an opt-out feature. That means that it's turned on by default on any compatible device, and if you don't wish to use the feature, you need to turn it off. If you previously had Apple Intelligence disabled, check to make sure your settings haven't changed. This particular bug seems to be sporadic, but if you've updated to the latest version of iOS — and especially if you received a Welcome screen upon turning your device back on — then it's worth taking a look.
