It's a shame that clickbait means dollars, but I guess it makes sense that it does. Here's "Security Flaw in iOS 9.3.1 Allows Access to iPhone Photos and Contacts" at MacRumors:

The procedure starts by invoking Siri on the locked phone by holding the home button or using the "Hey, Siri" function, and then asking the personal assistant to initiate a Twitter search. When the returned results include contact details such as an email address, a 3D Touch gesture is used on the contact information to bring up a Quick Actions menu. Tapping "Add to Existing Contact" then brings up the iPhone's Contacts list. By selecting a contact and opting to add a photo to the entry, the phone's photo library can also be freely accessed.

The flaw is only applicable if the iPhone owner has previously granted Siri permission to access Twitter account information as well as to Contacts or Photos, operations which require establishing ownership of the device with the passcode or Touch ID. Additionally, if the iPhone has exited a Touch ID grace period, a passcode is still required before using Siri. [emph mine]

That's so close to "working as expected", I'd have a hard time arguing against QA closing this bug with that explanation. I might still fight to reopen it, but nobody's getting weird looks. I'd admit that it's not a good thing to have photos accessible, but if Siri can access Twitter & Contacts, and adding photots is a feature of Contacts, well, again, that's not great, but it's also not a priori obviously wrong.

Can you grant Siri access to photos? Apparently so. From the description in the post (and from what I see on my phone), it looks like Siri only gets added to some of these settings pages after it has its first reason to. Weird. I don't mind "discovery", but this is a little convoluted. Hard to tell what Siri could ask permission to view.

Still, that you need to have 3D Touch and be in "a Touch ID grace period" -- and that someone has to be holding your phone -- means I can give Apple a pass on this one. There are probably more nefarious "ins" on the iPhone than this. You know, like seeing someone type in their passcode.

The other reasonably interesting article I've read recently is "iPhone SE Component Costs Estimated to Start at $160" (again, that's the MacRumors version). They include Cook's quote, "There are cost breakdowns around our products that are much different than the reality," he said. "I've never seen one that is anywhere close to being accurate." I wonder. Perhaps they're off by 10% or more for each component, and to a details guy like Cook, that's a huge deal. But let's pretend this is close to the right range... Even if all this tells us is that it's $130-$200 per phone to get it into a US customer's hands, that's interesting. And I can certainly believe this part:

When it comes to the 64GB iPhone SE, IHS estimates that Apple is making an additional $89 per device over the 16GB iPhone SE, due to the relatively low cost of memory upgrades. [emph mine]

Honestly, I'd be surprised if moving from 16 to 64 runs Apple $11. But, man, that extra 48 gigs is all the difference, even when you're streaming your music. So far, I'm very happy with that portion of my iPhone 5S >>> SE upgrade. It's the worst deal going if you look at the raw components, and the best going for what you can now do with your phone.

I never once worried about space on my HTC 8XT which had 40 gigs with the SD card, and I had a sizeable music library there. It's really a shame Apple's so stingy with entry-level phone storage. It's got to hurt "cust sat" considerably. Having the extra space on an iPhone is kind of like the "first eyeglasses" effect. If you've had to get eyeglasses, it's amazing how much better the world looks the first time you put them on and can see outside. It's not like you absolutely couldn't see before, but wow, look at what you were missing!

PS -- I notice having an app that makes italics insanely easy to add has enabled me to use too many italics tags. It's a true story.

Labels: apple, business, iphone, security