Android

AirGuard Lets You Detect AirTags on Android Smartphones
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AirGuard Lets You Detect AirTags on Android Smartphones

Andrew Orr ·

Android owners, this one is for you. AirGuard lets you detect AirTags on Android so you won’t get secretly tracked like we’ve been hearing about in the news. You can download it from Google Play, F-Droid, or straight from the GitHub page linked below. From the page: “With AirGuard you get the anti-tracking protection you deserve! The app periodically scans your surroundings for potential tracking devices, like AirTags or other Find My devices. If a devices follows you, you will get a notification in less than an hour. With the app you can play a sound on AirTags and find it easily. Afterward, you can view at which locations the device has tracked you. If no one is trying to track you, the app will never bother you.“

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Support For BlackBerry Comes to an End

Charlotte Henry ·

Blackberry ended support for its smartphone on Tuesday. It was the first smartphone I ever had, so I confess to feeling a little nostalgic about it all! Reuters looked back on the life of the previously indispensable device.

Former U.S. President Barack Obama, one of its most celebrated users, made headlines in 2016 when he was asked to give up his BlackBerry and replace it with an unnamed smartphone. Blackberry lost favor with users with the advent of Apple’s touchscreen iPhones and rival Android devices. In recent years, the company pivoted to making cybersecurity software and embedded operating systems for cars. Social media was alight with tributes. One Twitter user reminisced it was a “fabulous machine” and hoped the company’s phones would be resurrected. In a document published in 2020, the company said it would take steps to decommission legacy services for BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry OS operating systems and added devices running on them would no longer be supported and may not be able to receive or send data, make phone calls or send messages reliably.

[Image credit: Hafez Husin / Shutterstock.com]

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Apple Exec Says Users Who Want ‘Sideloading’ Move to Android

Andrew Orr ·

Apple released a whitepaper [PDF] about the safety of the App Store, and the company’s head of user privacy, Erik Neuenschwander, spoke to Fast Company about it.

Without iOS, users wouldn’t have a mobile operating system platform they could choose from that is impossible to be targeted by malicious sideloading. In Apple’s view, in other words: Do you want the best privacy and security possible? Your choice is iOS. Do you want sideloading? Your choice is Android.

First, “if you want X move to Android” is a bad argument. I like Cory Doctorow’s text on the subject. Second, it’s not “sideloading” it’s downloading your software from the internet like desktop users have enjoyed for decades. Apple has smart people and I’m sure they can figure out a way to bring Gatekeeper to iOS.

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Samsung’s ‘iTest’ Puts Android on Your iPhone

Andrew Orr ·

Samsung has created a web app called iTest that puts a simulation of Android on your iPhone to convince you to switch.

When you’re in the Samsung iTest app on your iPhone, you’ll even receive a variety of simulated text notifications and phone calls highlighting different things to try out and different ways of communicating with friends. And of course, Samsung is also using this as an opportunity to promote its other Galaxy products, such as Galaxy Buds Pro, Galaxy Watch3, and Galaxy Buds Live.

I think it’s really cool and creative.

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Google Bravely Blocks Apps From Scanning Your Other Apps

Andrew Orr ·

Google announced that it will stop Android apps from scanning the list of your other apps in Android 11. Why this behavior was accepted before is beyond me.

Google has another page that lists allowable use cases for Play Store apps querying your app list, including “device search, antivirus apps, file managers, and browsers.” The page adds that “apps that must discover any and all installed apps on the device, for awareness or interoperability purposes may have eligibility for the permission.”

Time to make a fake antivirus app which queries your list of apps to sell to other companies.

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Google Moves to Create Android Version of Apple Digital CarKey

Andrew Orr ·

Apple introduced digital car keys with iOS 13.6, and it looks like Google wants to do the same for Android.

With this new SE standardization effort, Google wants to support “digital keys” for your car, home, and office; mobile driver’s licenses; national IDs; ePassports; and the usual tap-and-go payments. Google notes that this initiative isn’t just for phones and tablets; Wear OS, Android Automotive, and Android TV are also supported.

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47,000 iOS Apps Have Misconfigured Cloud Servers

Andrew Orr ·

Researchers at Zimperium analyzed 1.3 million Android and iOS apps to detect common cloud misconfigurations. They found that nearly 84,000 Android apps and 47,000 iOS apps have errors.

The researchers found almost 84,000 Android apps and nearly 47,000 iOS apps using public cloud services—like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure—in their backend as opposed to running their own servers. Of those, the researchers found misconfigurations in 14 percent of those totals—11,877 Android apps and 6,608 iOS apps—exposing users’ personal information, passwords, and even medical information.

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Android Could Mimic iOS 14 App Tracking Transparency

Andrew Orr ·

A report from Mark Gurman suggests that Google could add the App Tracking Transparency privacy feature to Android. But it wouldn’t be as private since Google is ultimately an advertising company.

A Google solution is likely to be less strict and won’t require a prompt to opt in to data tracking like Apple’s, the people said […] To keep advertisers happy while improving privacy, the discussions around Google’s Android solution indicate that it could be similar to its planned Chrome web browser changes.

In other words, why even bother?