JuneCloud Prepares ‘Deliveries’ 9 With a Subscription

JuneCloud is preparing to deliver the ninth update to its Deliveries app, and like many developers it will move to a subscription model. Pricing will be announced in the future. Major features coming with Deliveries 9 include Dark Mode, full tracking history, faster ways to add shipments, archive/share multiple deliveries at once, drag a delivery to Files to save a copy of it, and more.

If you previously purchased Deliveries, you can continue using most features without a subscription. You’ll be able to add new Deliveries and sync with iCloud. You will need a subscription to sync with Junecloud, and we may add other features in the future that require a subscription. However, you’ll also receive a complimentary subscription based on your purchase date […]

26,800mAh 5-USB Port Power Bank: $89.99

We have a deal on the Zendure A8PD, a 26,800mAh 5-USB port power bank. This device allows you to power up to 5 devices including your MacBook and Nintendo Switch, and it has a built-in LED readout for seeing how much capacity is left. The ports include 4 USB ports, with the 5th being a USB-C port that is reversible and acts both as input and output. And, it supports passthrough charging so you can charge four devices even while charging up the power bank at the same time. It’s $89.99 through our deal.

Apple Watch Notes App ‘Watch Notes’ Goes Free

Watch Notes by Flicktype is an Apple Watch notes app and it recently went on sale. It used to be US$2.99 and now it’s free, although for an unknown time. The app lets you compose and manage your notes directly on your Apple Watch. Notes are stored in your iCloud and sync between your Apple Watch and iPhone. You can change the note color by long-pressing on the plus button. The popular FlickType Keyboard is built into the app and doesn’t require a separate purchase.

Amazon Prime Air Delivery Drones One Step Closer to Reality

The Federal Aviation Administration gave Amazon approval to operate a fleet of Prime Air Delivery drones on Monday, NBC News reported. It brings the company a step closer to its aim of providing 30-minute deliveries.

The approval will give Amazon broad privileges to “safely and efficiently deliver packages to customers,” the agency said. The certification comes under Part 135 of FAA regulations, which gives Amazon the ability to carry property on small drones “beyond the visual line of sight” of the operator. Amazon said it will use the FAA’s certification to begin testing customer deliveries. The company said it went through rigorous training and submitted detailed evidence that its drone delivery operations are safe, including demonstrating the technology for FAA inspectors.

ProtonDrive’s End-to-End Encryption Security Revealed

ProtonDrive (from the makers of ProtonMail and ProtonVPN) is in the final stages of development before it gets a beta launch later in 2020. The team revealed its end-to-end encryption security in a blog post.

Files and folders are arranged in a tree structure. Therefore, there is a recurring pattern where a file or folder’s asymmetric key is locked with a passphrase, which in turn is encrypted with the asymmetric key of their parent folder. All passphrases are signed with the address key of the user, without which a malicious server could forge the contents of the tree.

Researchers Find Critical Slack Bug

A critical bug found in Slack could allow an attacker access to users’ private channels and conversations. Threatpost broke down the details of the flaw in the popular messaging and collaboration app.

To exploit the bug, attackers would need to upload a file to their own HTTPS-enabled server with a payload; then, they could prepare a Slack post with an HTML injection containing the attack URL pointing to that payload (hidden in an image). After that, they need only to share that post with a public Slack channel or user. If a user clicks on the booby-trapped image, the code will be executed on the victim’s machine. As for accomplishing the HTML injection, the issue lies in the way Slack posts are created, according to the researcher. “[Creating a post] creates a new file on https://files.slack.com with [a specific] JSON structure,” according to the writeup. “It’s possible to directly edit this JSON structure, which can contain arbitrary HTML.”

Apple Silicon Might Mean Major Mac Mini Improvements

The first Apple Silicon devices are imminent, but we’re still waiting to really see what it all means in reality. Rene Ritchie at iMore thinks the Mac mini could benefit from the shift away from Intel. I certainly hope so!

My biggest hope with Apple Silicon is that we start getting Mac mini updates every 12-18 months, just like iPad Pro updates. Whatever the next-generation equivalent to the AX-Series for iPads is, put it in the Mac version of that. 14X, 15X, 16, and on. Other than that, I expect we’ll see the same type of improvements from Apple Silicon in the Mac mini they we’d see from Apple Silicon in the MacBook Air — way better performance, especially for graphics, and especially for anything and everything Apple includes custom accelerators for, like 4K and above video rendering, H.265 encode and decode, hypervisor acceleration for virtual machines, and a few other things to make developers and power users alike just smile just a little or a lot wider.

Files is One of The Most Relied Upon iOS Apps Around

For many of us organizing documents and the like on our iPhones is dull and something we’d rather the device did. As Bradley Chambers noted on 9to5Mac, the often overlooked Files app makes that possible.

Before the release of the Files app, I had my documents in separate buckets. I kept personal documents in iCloud Drive, shared folders in Dropbox, and work files in Google Drive since my school uses G Suite. After the Files app’s release with iOS 11, it became the app I used 99% of the time to search for and open files regardless of which cloud provider they were stored in. For people who live and breathe technology every day, I could generally tell you where my files are stored, but for people who see technology as a path to getting something done, trying to locate files is a chore. Thanks to Apple’s Document Provider API, the Files app becomes a centralized place to search for, manage, and open files.

Networking Fun and Naughty Macs — Mac Geek Gab 831

It’s time to get your geek on, and John and Dave are right there with you. Today your two favorite geeks dig into some networking issues, aiming to solve your problems, and help make sense of them so you understand even if you’re not a networking geek!

Of course, there’s plenty of time left for your Apple/Mac/iPhone questions, too. Press play and enjoy! And send your questions in to [email protected].

Glenn Fleishmann Introduces Free Book ‘Take Control of Zoom Essentials’

Glenn Fleishman has released a free version of his book called “Take Control of Zoom Essentials” as well as updated the paid version called “Take Control of Zoom”. Take Control shared the news in a blog post:

Yesterday, we released two Zoom-related books by Glenn Fleishman: a new, free book called Take Control of Zoom Essentials and a gigantic version 1.1 update to the comprehensive Take Control of Zoom. We know a lot of people are using Zoom for work and school, and we hope you find these books helpful.

Zoom usage has skyrocketed now that more people have been working and learning from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Consider these books to know everything you want to know about using the video sharing platform.

How Scribble and Smart Selection Improve Apple Pencil

Two of the features I’m really looking forward to with iPadOS 14 are Scribble and Smart Selection. They are designed for the Apple Pencil, but the Logitech Crayon (which I have,) will support Scribble too. Cult of Mac has a good rundown of how they help improve productivity.

With iPad, Scribble allows you to write with the Apple Pencil in text-entry fields all over iPad. Whether it’s in the search bar of Safari, an iMessage conversation or the Spotlight search box, Scribble lets you enter text with your handwriting… The second huge improvement to Apple Pencil is Smart Selection in the Notes app. This feature allows you to take fully handwritten notes, and keep them in their original handwritten form, but easily share them as text by highlighting and sharing the “text.”

Apple Silicon : Power PC to Intel Transition Gives us Timeline Hints

We’re at the start of the Intel to Apple Silicon transition. William Gallagher at AppleInsider has an editorial on how previous Apple processor transitions can give us some indication release dates.

That new Intel Mac was released 43 days after Apple Silicon was announced. For comparison, the first PowerPC Mac to come out after the Intel announcement was the Power Mac G5 dual core 135 days later. You can argue that this is one measure of how different Apple is today, that it’s got the resources to move quicker. What you can’t argue, though, is what happened next. “We’ve got some great PowerPC products still to come,” repeated Jobs during the 2005 transition announcement. But they hadn’t. That Power Mac G5 dual core was the last PowerPC Mac to be released and the sole one to come out during that transition. We’re not saying Jobs lied and we’re definitely not saying Cook did, but both men unquestionably knew what they needed to say — because of the Osbourne effect. Apple today isn’t going to fall over if everyone stops buying Macs while they wait for Apple Silicon, but it was different in 2005.