(credit: Getty Images)

Apple has always had a strong preference that only its own parts be used in repairs, but only if they're brand-new. Now, soon after Oregon passed a repair bill forbidding devices from rejecting parts with software locks, or " parts pairing ," Apple says it will allow for used Apple parts in future iPhone repairs.

While noting that "pairing" is "critical to preserving the privacy, security, and safety of an iPhone," Apple states that it has worked for two years to allow for reusing Face ID and Touch ID sensors (i.e., biometric sensors) as well as moving part calibration from its remote repair certification tools onto the iPhone itself. As a result, "select iPhone models" this fall will allow for reusing biometric sensors and other parts, and anyone ordering parts from Apple can skip sending a device's serial number, so long as the repair doesn't involve a new main logic board.

The new policy "is designed to maintain an iPhone user's privacy, security, and safety, while offering consumers more options, increasing product longevity, and minimizing the environmental impact of a repair," according to Apple's release.

There's an app for the keyboard promising new features, but it's not mandatory for the keyboard to work. (credit: Clicks Technology)

I used to be a speed demon on phone keyboards. Similar to when I use a mechanical keyboard , I could type with so much ease that during their early days of text messaging, people in my household would ask me to write out their longer messages. Those days of carefree cell phone typing hit a rut when I got my first iPhone.

Now, I can't start without first looking at my touchscreen keyboard. And I almost always make at least one typo when writing long texts, emails, or documents. That's why I'm intrigued by the latest attempt to bring old-school physical keyboards to iPhones.

A snap-on keyboard for the iPhone

On Thursday, Clicks Technology unveiled Clicks, a keyboard available for the iPhone 14 Pro , iPhone 15 Pro , and iPhone 15 Pro Max that snaps to the phone like a case. But instead of adding protection, it adds a physical keyboard. Each key boasts 0.22 mm of travel, Jeff Gadway, SVP of product marketing at Clicks, told Ars via email. That seems like miles compared to the flat nature of touchscreens.

Enlarge (credit: Tero Vesalainen )

Researchers on Wednesday presented intriguing new findings surrounding an attack that over four years backdoored dozens if not thousands of iPhones, many of which belonged to employees of Moscow-based security firm Kaspersky. Chief among the discoveries: the unknown attackers were able to achieve an unprecedented level of access by exploiting a vulnerability in an undocumented hardware feature that few if anyone outside of Apple and chip suppliers such as ARM Holdings knew of.

“The exploit's sophistication and the feature's obscurity suggest the attackers had advanced technical capabilities,” Kaspersky researcher Boris Larin wrote in an email. “Our analysis hasn't revealed how they became aware of this feature, but we're exploring all possibilities, including accidental disclosure in past firmware or source code releases. They may also have stumbled upon it through hardware reverse engineering.”

Four zero-days exploited for years

Other questions remain unanswered, wrote Larin, even after about 12 months of intensive investigation. Besides how the attackers learned of the hardware feature, the researchers still don’t know what, precisely, its purpose is. Also unknown is if the feature is a native part of the iPhone or enabled by a third-party hardware component such as ARM’s CoreSight

Enlarge / The auction ran from June 30 to July 16. (credit: Getty )

If you shopped for a new smartphone today and were offered a model with 4GB of storage, you'd probably laugh. That's what most shoppers did when seeing the original iPhone, considering that the 8GB model was only $100 more. Nowadays, you can get an iPhone with a whopping 1TB of storage. But that didn't stop a collector from shelling out $ 190,372.80 for an original 4GB iPhone at an auction that closed yesterday.

Before yesterday, the highest a 2007 iPhone ever sold for was $63,356.40 . The sale occurred through LCG Auctions and was for an 8GB model, which originally went for $599.

The smaller-storage model just beat the first-generation iPhone's auction record by 200.48 percent, selling for an astounding 38,050.86 percent more than its original $499 MSRP. After 28 bids, the outrageous final selling price includes a $158,644 final bid, plus administration costs. LCG Auctions thought the phone would sell for $50,000 to $100,000, but the collectible surpassed expectations.

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Moscow-based security firm Kaspersky has been hit by an advanced cyberattack that used clickless exploits to infect the iPhones of several dozen employees with malware that collects microphone recordings, photos, geolocation, and other data, company officials said.

“We are quite confident that Kaspersky was not the main target of this cyberattack,” Eugene Kaspersky, founder of the company, wrote in a post published on Thursday. “The coming days will bring more clarity and further details on the worldwide proliferation of the spyware.”

According to officials inside the Russian National Coordination Centre for Computer Incidents, the attacks were part of a broader campaign by the US National Security Agency that infected several thousand iPhones belonging to people inside diplomatic missions and embassies in Russia, specifically from those located in NATO countries, post-Soviet nations, Israel, and China. A separate alert from the FSB, Russia's Federal Security Service, alleged Apple cooperated with the NSA in the campaign.

Enlarge / Tim Cook posing for selfie at an Apple Store opening in New Delhi, India. Cook is optimistic about "switcher and first-time buyer metrics" in that country. (credit: Bloomberg/Getty)

Apple reported its earnings for Q2 2023 today, beating both Wall Street's and its own dour revenue estimates just a bit but continuing to show marked declines in new hardware sales.

Overall sales revenue was $94.8 billion for Apple's financial quarter ending April 1 (PDF), down 3 percent year over year, short of the 5 percent Apple's data had suggested in January. CEO Tim Cook emphasized Apple's "all-time record in Services" and a record iPhone month in March, despite a "challenging macroeconomic environment, in a press release . Services, which includes the App Store, AppleCare, iCloud, and Apple's subscription products, increased to $20.9 billion in Q2, up about 5.5 percent.

iPhone sales increased 1.5 percent to $51.03 billion. Cook told CNBC's Steve Kovach that "It was quite a good quarter from an iPhone point of view, particularly relative to the market when you look at the market stats."

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

Federal authorities, tech pundits, and news outlets want you to be on the lookout for a scary cyberattack that can hack your phone when you do nothing more than plug it into a public charging station. These warnings of “juice jacking,” as the threat has come to be known, have been circulating for more than a decade.

Earlier this month, though, juice jacking fears hit a new high when the FBI and Federal Communications Commission issued new, baseless warnings that generated ominous-sounding news reports from hundreds of outlets. NPR reported that the crime is "becoming more prevalent, possibly due to the increase in travel." The Washington Post said it's a “significant privacy hazard” that can identify loaded webpages in less than 10 seconds. CNN warned that just by plugging into a malicious charger, "your device is now infected." And a Fortune headline admonished readers: "Don’t let a free USB charge drain your bank account."

The Halley’s Comet of cybersecurity scares

The scenario for juice jacking looks something like this: A hacker sets up equipment at an airport, shopping mall, or hotel. The equipment mimics the look and functions of normal charging stations, which allow people to recharge their mobile phones when they're low on power. Unbeknownst to the users, the charging station surreptitiously sends commands over the charging cord’s USB or Lightning connector and steals contacts and emails, installs malware, and does all kinds of other nefarious things.

Enlarge / Apple will pay you less for this iPhone 13 Pro Max than it used to. (credit: Samuel Axon)

As spotted by MacRumors on Wednesday, Apple has cut the trade-in values of iPhones by up to $80, with the biggest cuts coming to the iPhone 13 Pro Max ($570 trade-in value versus $650 before) and the iPhone 13 Pro ($470 versus $550).

And while trade-in values for many base models (iPhone 7, 8, X, and 11) and some of their sibling releases (iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max) remain unchanged, nine out of the 20 iPhones listed now have a reduced trade-in value. According to MacRumors, most Android smartphones also saw a reduction in trade-in value.

Apple has cut trade-in values as recently as November and has done so over the years without explaining why. The devices naturally losing value could be one factor, and the most recent change to Apple's trade-in values follows an abysmal year for smartphone sales . According to market intelligence firm IDC, sales dropped 11.3 percent from 2021 to 2022. The year saw the lowest number of phones shipped (1.21 billion) since 2013. Apple saw a 4 percent drop (226.4 million versus 235.8 million).

Enlarge / The Lightning connector's reign on Apple devices looks like it's coming to an end. (credit: Getty )

USB-C has won the war on charging in the European Union (EU). As of December 28, 2024, smartphones, tablets, and numerous other consumer devices that charge over a cable will have to support USB-C charging in order to be sold in the region. That means the clock is ticking on Apple's Lightning, the most prominent company resistant to the USB-C takeover.

As announced by the European Parliament Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection and the Official Journal of the EU's Twitter accounts today and spotted by The Verge , the EU's USB-C legislation is published in the Official Journal. The law goes into effect on December 27 and requires compliance by 2024.

The legislation will first affect smartphones, tablets, digital cameras, headphones, headsets, earbuds, portable speakers, handheld video game consoles, e-readers, keyboards, mice, and portable navigation systems. In April 2026 it will apply to laptops.