Hide My Email will let you use a “dummy” email address without giving away your real email address.
Apple is getting even more serious about privacy, and with its new iCloud+ service, it will offer a new feature called Hide My Email.
Hide My Email lets you create dummy email accounts that automatically forward to an email account of your choosing, meaning you can email people using that dummy email so they don’t see your real email address. That means if you want to correspond with a business, subscribe to some service, or don’t want a particular person to know your real email address, you can hide it from them in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15.
How to create a new email address for Hide My Email
Once you have iCloud+, you’ll need to head into the iCloud settings in the Settings app.
Launch Settings from your Home screen.
Tap your Apple ID banner at the top of your screen.
Tap iCloud.
Tap Hide My Email.
Tap Create new address.
Tap Label your address to enter a label.
Tap make a note and write a note if you want.
Tap Next.
Tap Done.
There you have it, a new dummy email address you can use when you send emails, so you don’t have to use your real address.
How to deactivate an email address for Hide My Email
You can deactivate an email address you’ve created at any time.
Launch Settings from your Home screen.
Tap your Apple ID banner at the top of your screen.
Tap iCloud.
Tap Hide My Email.
Tap the email address you want to deactivate.
Tap Deactivate email address.
Tap Deactivate.
Now you won’t receive emails from that dummy account anymore, so make sure you don’t deactivate it if you’re still actively communicating with someone using that dummy account.
How to change your forwarding address for Hide My Email
If you ever want to change your forwarding address so you can start forwarding all your dummy email account to a different inbox, you can do so in the Hide My Mail settings.
Launch Settings from your Home screen.
Tap your Apple ID banner at the top of your screen.
Ever wonder how much of your personal data your favorite iPhone apps use or give away? Thanks to a new study, you can quickly find out — and it may not be a surprise that Instagram and Facebook are among the “worst.”
Among the other “most invasive” apps (we’ll get back to that designation in a bit) are LinkedIn, GrubHub, Uber, Uber Eats, a Swedish shopping app called Klarna and a British train-ticket app called Trainline.
Among the “least” invasive were Microsoft Teams, Netflix, Signal, Telegram, Zoom and app-of-the-moment Clubhouse. None of them collected any data for marketing or advertising purposes for use by themselves or by third parties.
Swiss cloud-storage service pCloud generated these lists by checking out the App Privacy disclosures in the App Store, which Apple began to require in December 2020.
Specifically, pCloud counted how many times an app used personal data for in-house advertising or marketing, or for third-party advertising.
Apple lists the types of data disclosed by apps into 14 categories: Browsing History, Contact Info, Contacts, Diagnostics, Financial Info, Health and Fitness, Identifiers, Location, Purchases, Search History, Sensitive Info, Usage Data, User Content and Other Data.
The worst offenders
The Instagram app, said pCloud, shares 11 out of these 14 categories, or 79%, with third parties for purposes of selling ads. It uses 12 out of 14, or 86%, for its own advertising and marketing.
Instagram’s corporate stablemate Facebook matches that 86% score with its own app regarding in-house advertising and marketing, and comes in at No. 2 in the third-party sharing rankings with a 57% (8 out of 14) score.
(Image credit: pCloud)
The specific categories pCloud listed didn’t quite match up with what we can see in the U.S. version of the App Store — perhaps European privacy rules are creating different results on the other side of the Atlantic.
LinkedIn and Uber Eats shared third place among the apps that shared the most personal data with third parties, scoring 50% each. Just behind them were Trainline, YouTube and YouTube Music with 43% (6 out of 14) apiece.
Even pCloud’s own iPhone app was not blameless. The service didn’t analyze it, but we looked it up in the App Store. The Pcloud app uses four categories of personal data — purchases, contact info, identifiers and usage data — for its own purposes.
That results in an invasiveness scores of 29% for in-house marketing and advertising, enough to place among Lyft, ESPN, Grindr and others. (The pCloud app shared no data with third parties.)
The pCloud blog post also contained a third ranking called “How much data each app is tracking overall.” Instagram and Facebook topped that as well, followed by Uber Eats, Trainline and eBay.
(Image credit: pCloud)
However, pCloud didn’t explain how it got the numbers for that chart, and we couldn’t figure out how. (Instagram scores 67%, less than the average of its other two scores.) We’ve asked pCloud about this, as well as how it determined which apps to analyze, and will update this story when we receive a reply.
How bad is this, and what can I do about it?
Now back to the designation of “invasive.” It’s hard to put clear definitions on privacy issues, because what seems invasive to one person might be completely fine to another person.
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For example, I don’t really mind if third parties see what else I may have purchased on Instagram, but it does bother me that Instagram shared my financial information, contact info, contacts and search and browsing histories. You may feel differently.
You also have to bear in mind that these rankings are based entirely on what app developers have chosen to share with Apple. Apps that don’t fully disclose such information may be kicked out of the App Store, but that doesn’t mean they’re all being honest.
We already know that thousands of iPhone apps leak personal information from their back-end cloud servers. It’s a safe bet that many iPhone apps have privacy-leaking errors in their code that they’re not aware of.
Unfortunately, we’ll likely never know how many do because unlike Android, Apple doesn’t let you take apart and check any app’s code for errors or suspicious behavior.
The silver lining is that you can control much of what apps collect and share about you. When you first open an app, it will ask you for several permissions, which you can grant, deny, or grant only while the app is in use. (The third option is probably best.)
You can also go into your iPhone’s Settings app to fine-tune what an app collects about you, but the process isn’t as clear as it is when you first open an app.
A new survey suggests that Apple iPhone brand loyalty increased as Android users became less loyal to their device makers and more willing to switch to another brand.
The survey, carried out by SellCell earlier in March 2021, involved more than 5,000 smartphone users who owned various models of the most popular handset brands. The results suggest that iPhone users are more loyal and less willing to switch to another brand than their Android-using counterparts.
Brand loyalty for Apple reached an all-time high of 92%, up from 90.5% in a SellCell survey the same time in 2019. During that same period, Samsung brand loyalty dipped from 85.7% to 74% in 2019. The SellCell results also indicate that iPhone users are about 18% “more loyal” to the Apple ecosystem than Samsung owners.
While only 8.1% of iPhone users said they planned to switch to another brand, about 26% of Samsung users indicated that they would jump ship with their next smartphone upgrade. Among those potential switchers, 53% said they’d buy an iPhone. Privacy is the primary reason for 31.5% of those switchers, the results indicate.
It isn’t just Samsung that lost loyalty in the survey results. Brand loyalty among Google Pixel, LG, and Motorola users all dipped. For the Google Pixel lineup, brand loyalty dropped 18.8% in two years.
A slim majority of respondents, 46.6%, also said that the iPhone 12 is the current best flagship smartphone range. That’s compared to 30.4% who said the Samsung Galaxy S21 was the best flagship series on the market.
When it came to survey participants explaining why they were sticking to the iPhone, 45% said they liked their current brand, 24% said they’re too tied into the ecosystem, and 16% said they didn’t have a reason to move.
Those who did say they would choose another brand cited better technology (38%) and a preference for the design of other manufacturers (26.4%) as the primary reasons for a switch.
When asked to choose their favorite model of current smartphones, 17% of respondents chose the iPhone 12 and 12.7% chose the iPhone 12 Pro Max. The Galaxy S21 came in third with 11.4%, while the iPhone 12 Pro ranked fourth with 10.6%. In fifth place was the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra with 10%.
SellCell conducted the study via online survey between March 3 and March 10, 2021. It involved more than 5,000 smartphone users aged 18 and up in the U.S., and included 2,000 iPhone users, 2,000 Samsung users, 400 Google Pixel users, and 600 Motorola or LG users.
Starting with iOS 14, Apple requires developers to reveal all of the personal data an app can collect. These App Privacy labels may be shocking to users who will be made aware that their iPhone is being used to mine data for advertising and other purposes. Not surprisingly, Google is a principal offender.
When Apple unveiled its new App Privacy labels, Facebook took a swipe at Apple, accusing the company of squashing small companies and putting the free internet at risk. The social network even took full-page advertisements in print newspapers to attack Apple.
After Facebook released its updated Messenger app, Apple’s privacy labels revealed the reasons behind Facebook’s brutal attack.
The company’s Messenger app siphons off a ton of personal data, including search history, browsing history, usage data, and more.
It has four-times more privacy labels than WhatsApp and 30 times more than iMessage.
Now it is Google’s turn to come under the spotlight. After a short hiatus, the company finally updated its YouTube and Gmail applications.
Just like Facebook, the amount of information being collected by Google is staggering as noted by BGR. The tech giant mines personal data for third-party advertising, app functionality, analytics, and more.
The most troubling category is the “Other Data,” a catch-all for usages that Google is not ready to disclose.
YouTube gathers more personal information than Gmail, which isn’t surprising. Most of the revenue that YouTube generates comes from advertisements. The company then uses your data for targeted advertising.
Google isn’t providing your data directly to advertisers. Instead, it is organizing your data into categories and allowing advertisers to target specific categories.
Apple isn’t banning Google or even Facebook for mining your data. These new privacy labels are designed to inform you of how your data is being used. You then can decide for yourself if you want to use Google or Facebook, knowing what type of data you are allowing them to access.
Your iPhone has trouble keeping secrets. Thankfully, there’s something you can do about it.
What you do on the internet, what apps you download, and, often, where you go are all data points that can be linked to an iPhone’s so-called advertising identifier (Android phones have a similar Advertising ID). Combined with commercially available databases, this unique alphanumeric string can be enough for third parties to tie an iPhone’s actions back to the real name of its owner.
We were reminded of the real-world consequences of this Friday, when the New York Timespublished an article exposing the movements of individuals involved in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. The newspaper obtained a data set that linked phone location data to advertising identifiers, which, combined with other available databases, allowed the paper to link that location data to real people.
Assuming they’re playing by Apple’s rules, app developers get access to a phone’s advertising identifier by simply requesting it from the phone. Think of an ad identifier like the more familiar web cookie which follows you around the internet, remembering what you do and exchanging information with websites along the way. Your phone has something like a cookie, too — that’s the ad identifier.
While you may not have much sympathy for those described in the Times article — who, after all, may have taken part in the attack on the Capitol — the point remains. Your phone’s advertising identifier is yet another digital breadcrumb leading straight back to you.
If you want privacy when, say, going to the doctor, church, an AA meeting, this should concern you. Many of the apps on your phone that have access to your ad identifier are tracking your location. While the apps may promise to store this data anonymously — linked only to your ad identifier — the Times article provides an example of just how easy to it to tie those identifiers (and all the data associated with them) back to real names.
“Several companies offer tools to allow anyone with data to match the IDs with other databases,” the paper explains. And those databases might contain your real name and address.
But there’s a way to fight back.
Apple offers users the option, albeit buried deep in an iPhone’s settings, to deny apps access to your advertising identifier. Turning off apps’ access to location data is also an important step, but there are other ways for apps to estimate your phone’s location — like connections to WiFi networks. You should also not give apps access to your location data unless they absolutely need it to function, like, for example, a map app.
To deny apps access to your phone’s advertising identifier:
Go to “Settings”
Tap “Privacy”
Select “Tracking”
Disable the option that says “Allow Apps to Request to Track”
Limit how you can be tracked on your iPhone.
Image: screenshot: iphone
That’s it.
Interestingly, the menu page doesn’t make it immediately clear that this action will have the intended effect. But it does. Clicking “Learn More” takes the curious to a long page of text which explains what’s going on behind the scenes.
“When you decline to give permission for the app to track you, the app is prevented from accessing your device’s advertising identifier (previously controlled through the Limit Ad Tracking setting on your device).”
As widely rumoured, the email indicates that iPhone 12 models will support faster 5G cellular networks. The email also suggests that pre-orders will end on Tuesday, October 20, and while it does look like iPhone 12 models won’t be announced until next month, carriers are unlikely to be privy to any specific dates this far in advance.
Apple is expected to introduce four new smartphones, including the iPhone 12 in 5.4-inch and 6.1-inch sizes and the iPhone 12 Pro in 6.1-inch and 6.7-inch sizes. Rumors suggest that all of the devices will feature OLED displays, 5G support, and a new flat-edged design, while the Pro models are said to feature a LiDAR Scanner and a new dark blue colour option.
IF you’ve ever panicked that an app might be watching through your iPhone’s camera, Apple has got you covered.
The latest iPhone update adds a new “warning dot” that alerts you whenever your microphone or camera is activated.
A green dot signifies that your camera is activeCredit: Apple
That means if any app is surreptitiously recording you, you’ll know about it.
It’s all part of the new iPhone update – find out how to download iOS 14 right now.
In iOS 14, a green dot will appear in the upper right corner of the screen when the cameras activated.
And it’s orange if the microphone was activated.
Look for this dot in the top corner to see if an app is using your camera or microphoneCredit: Apple
By swiping into your Control Centre, you’ll be able to see details about which app is using the microphone.
If you suspect something is up, you should check the app’s permissions in Settings.
You can deny specific apps access to your microphone or camera, for instance.
And if you’re really worried, you could just delete the app altogether.
“Privacy is a fundamental human right and at the core of everything we do,” Apple explained.
“That’s why with iOS 14, we’re giving you more control over the data you share and more transparency into how it’s used.
“An indicator appears at the top of your screen whenever an app is using your microphone or camera. And in Control Center, you can see if an app has used them recently.”
That’s not the only privacy change added in iOS 14.
For instance, you can now share a rough location with an app – rather than your exact details.
The new iOS 14 update adds fresh privacy features – and gives you a redesigned home screenCredit: Apple
That means an app could show you nearby stores, for instance, without knowing exactly where you live.
Fears that apps are snooping on you have been around for years.
Many Facebook users say they’ve spoken about something out loud, only for related adverts to appear on the app soon after.
These users claim they’ve never searched for this sort of content before, and the only possible explanation is snooping.
Users reckon Facebook is using your phone’s microphone to listen in on real-world conversations – to help target ads. But is it true?
Facebook has been very clear about the matter, and says it isn’t using microphone recordings to target ads better.
Why does it feel like Facebook is snooping on you?
Here’s what you need to know…
The magic of targeted advertising is that it should feel relevant to you – even if you can’t figure out why.
Facebook doesn’t need to spy on your real-life conversations, because you hand over so much information anyway.
Follow this link and you’ll be able to download everything Facebook knows about you. Most of you will quickly realise it’s a staggering amount of information.
Advertisers can use information gleaned from your activity all across the web, on multiple devices, even if you’re not logged into Facebook or other services.
They’ll likely know where you live, what you like, who your friends are, how much money you make, your political beliefs and much more.
So when you get ads for something you’ve talked about out loud, it’s almost certainly just advertisers being very good at predicting your interests.
It’s also possible that there’s an advertising campaign running, and you’ve seen an ad and not noticed. You’ve then spoken about it, never realising you’ve been advertised to, and only then notice future ads – which suddenly seem suspicious.
Let’s say you talked about a holiday to Scotland, and then all of a sudden you’re being advertised holidays to Scotland.
You may never have searched for anything to do with that before.
But Facebook could use info about your level of wealth, your past holiday interests, the time of year (ads for wintry Scottish retreats are common in the colder months), and your location.
What seems like snooping is actually just clever advertising.
“Facebook does not use your phone’s microphone to inform ads or to change what you see in News Feed,” a company spokesperson said.
“Some recent articles have suggested that we must be listening to people’s conversations in order to show them relevant ads. This is not true.
“We show ads based on people’s interests and other profile information – not what you’re talking out loud about.
“We only access your microphone if you have given our app permission and if you are actively using a specific feature that requires audio.
“This might include recording a video or using an optional feature we introduced two years ago to include music or other audio in your status updates.”
There’s a new App Library in iOS 14 to help declutter your home screenCredit: Apple
There’s never been any solid evidence – beyond hearsay and anecdotes – that Facebook is recording your real-life conversations.
However, it’s entirely possible that other rogue apps could listen in on what you’re doing.
So Apple’s new feature is the perfect defence for dodgy apps who play fast and loose with your privacy.
The latest rumors surrounding Apple’s new over-ear headphones give a whole new meaning to, well, meaning.
One of the stranger opinions about Apple products is that they’re all marketing.
For many years, soberly technical types insisted that Cupertino’s wares are actually inferior. It’s just that they’re brilliantly marketed.
That’s largely been balderdash, with a helping of nonsense.
The products themselves — iMac, iPhone, iPad — have been more powerful marketing tools than any ad could ever be.
You see them out in the world and they speak with a different tone, a different style.
Even today, look at AirPods and you know that the things themselves make more of a statement than any ad for them has. In fact, most AirPods ads have made the statement: “Oh, dear. The creative team’s out of ideas again.”
And now Apple is rumored to be releasing over-ear headphones. No, not the Beats varietal, but your actual Apple-branded over-ear rivals.
I, though, am more moved by their alleged name. Serial rumorist Jon Prosser insists they’ll be called AirPods Studio.
I sense your misgivings. AirPods, in your eyes and ears, are cute little things that hang discreetly. Like little pea-pods.
How can they possibly have anything in common with hulking great over-ear phones that scream: “Look at me! I’m just like LeBron James!”?
Ah, but you’re not looking closely enough at Apple’s deep, meaningful approach to product naming.
Yes, the word AirPods does make them sound like tiny cute things. But where does that leave HomePod? I happen to think HomePods are cute, but tiny they certainly aren’t. Unless you compare them to the size of your house, perhaps.
And then, somewhere in the past, there was the iPod. Now that was small, but it wasn’t entirely tiny. Though, in its day, humans marveled at how something of its size could house so many songs.
Perhaps, then, you’ll conclude that, in Apple’s Nomenclature Orchard, Pod just means Music. Loosely.
Well, perhaps. But then how do you explain the existence of Apple podcasts? Those tend to enjoy a little bit of music at the beginning and end, and a lot of talking in the middle. Why, I was on one only last week and talked far too much.
So, you see, this Pod word isn’t quite what you think. Apple is clearly using its deeper neuropsychological bent to simply find names that make you feel good, even if they don’t make a grote’s worth of rational sense.
That’s the beauty of marketing, you see. Look at it rationally and all you see is gossamer. But examine your feelings — in the company of your friendly psychologist, perhaps — and you’ll see just how much it’s affected you.
The feeling of AirPods Studio isn’t hard, then, to discern. Regular old AirPods look great — they really don’t — on the street or in Zoom meetings. Over-ear headphones just look cooler in studios, right? And who isn’t a music producer at heart these days?
The alleged AirPods Studio are said to be $349, so they have to look really cool — whichever way you look at them while you’re recording your new demo.
There, now do you get it? These naming rituals are deep, truly deep.
Or perhaps you’re already au fait with these things. Perhaps you were one of the first to grasp what the R in iPhone XR stood for, long before Apple’s EVP of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller made the great revelation: Nothing.
iOS 13 (and iPadOS) fixed the frustrating text-selection tools on the iPhone and iPad, but only if you know how to use them. Selecting a single word or sentence is still way easier on a Mac, because you have a mouse and keyboard permanently attached. On the iPad, though, you can still find the text selection slipping and jumping like an oiled fish.
Use these iPhone and iPad text-selection tips to highlight words and paragraphs the easy way in iOS.
iOS text limitations
Seriously, Apple?
Photo: Cult of Mac
There are a few text-selection oddities in iOS 13. The most annoying is that, when you tap in the middle of a word, the text-selection cursor appears at either the end or the beginning of the word. On the Mac, if you click the cursor between the letters M and A of “Mac,” that’s where it goes. On iOS, you must tap the word first, then grab the cursor to place it where you actually want it.
This happens even when you hook up a mouse to your iPad. And worse, the initial cursor placement can end up either at the beginning or the end of the word you tap, depending where on the word you tap. This means you must assess the position before acting. All this, for a simple text insertion!
However, there are some excellent shortcuts that will make selecting text a lot easier on iPhone or iPad. Note, these shortcuts and gestures work in actual text fields, where you can edit text yourself. They don’t work on non-editable text — in an email or on a web page, for example.
Quick-Select
When you are in a text field, i.e., when you are typing text yourself, in something like Notes or Pages, you can use the following tap gestures to select whole blocks of text:
Double-tap a word to select the whole word/
Triple-tap a word to select the sentence containing that word. This includes the trailing period.
Quadruple-tap does the same as a double, only it selects the entire paragraph.
Smart-select taps
One of the most annoying text-selection tasks in iOS is trying to copy a URL, a phone number or an email address. If those strings are on a webpage, good luck. You can continue to struggle with them. Have fun as you try to copy them, and instead they all open a new email message, or launch Safari, or cause your iPhone to call the person whose number you’re trying to copy.
However, if this text is all included in an editable text field, you can just double-tap on any email address, phone number or URL. iOS is smart enough to recognize these strings, and to select them automatically. You can then safely copy them, or share them. It even works with phone numbers including spaces, brackets and + characters.
Get Drafts
From this…
Photo: Cult of Mac
Given that text is much easier to work with in a text editor, it makes sense to move text into an editor as soon as you realize you need to do more than just read it.
Drafts is a fantastic iOS (and Mac) app designed for just that. The idea is that you either start typing in Drafts, or you send text to it from elsewhere. Then, you can work on that text, and send it out to another app.
… to this.
Photo: Cult of Mac
In our case, Drafts is ideal as a way to quickly capture text from an email or web page, and open it in a text editor. This means you can highlight some non-editable text, send it to Drafts, and then work on it in peace. Better still, Drafts has a share-sheet extension.
Imagine you’re looking at a web page covered in email addresses, phone numbers and so on. You need to copy those to use somewhere else. Just highlight everything on that page, tap the share arrow, and pick Drafts in the list of apps. Your selection will open in a Drafts window, right there in the current app! If you want, you can capture it to Drafts for later, but you can actually use all of the above tricks and shortcuts in this floating Drafts panel.
Hopefully you’ll now find text-wrangling on iOS 13 a little less annoying. You still wouldn’t want to edit an entire book on an iPad, but at least you won’t want to throw your expensive device across the room next time you just want to copy an email address.
Feature Image Credit: Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac
2020 is set to be a landmark year for Apple. Jaws have already hit the floor on the back of reports the company will release up to six new iPhones with the iPhone 12 set for some particularly notable upgrades. And now yet another new iPhone has been revealed.
“The latest news coming from the supply chain is that Apple is likely to add yet another LCD-based model to its iPhone lineup for 2020m” DigiTimes explains. “This new member will be an upgraded version of the widely speculated iPhone SE2 featuring a [larger] 5.5- or 6.1-inch LCD display and available at the end of 2020 or in earlier 2021, said the sources.”
Gordon’s Top Apple Daily Deals:
AirPods with Charging Case – (typically $159.99) – Amazon: $139 / B&H: $144.99 ($10 price increase) / Best Buy: $144.99 / Staples: $144 / Target: $144.99 / Walmart: $139
AirPods with Wireless Charging Case – (typically $199.99) – Amazon: $169 / Target: $169.99 / Walmart: $169 (back in stock)
iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max – save up to $700 with second purchase + free year of Apple TV+ – Verizon – shop deal now
A lot of this makes sense. Acclaimed industry insider Ming-Chi Kuo has touted a circa 5.4-inch iPhone for several months. This ‘iPhone SE3’ appears to be based on the iPhone 11 while ‘iPhone SE2’ is based on the older 4.7-inch iPhone 8 and sports a Touch ID home button alongside 3GB RAM and (remarkably) the same A13 chip inside the iPhone 11 range.
A circa 5.5-inch budget iPhone has been rumored for some time. Here is a proportional representation … [+]
MAX RUDBERG
Apple iPhone 12: Everything We Know So Far [Updated]
So, big or smaller, premium or affordable, 2020 looks like the year Apple’s iPhones may just offer it all. Not bad when one iPhone, in particular, is already my favourite smartphone of 2019.
Feature Image Credit: 2020 iPhone 12 concept, Ben Geskin
I am an experienced freelance technology journalist. I have written for Wired, The Next Web, TrustedReviews, The Guardian and the BBC in addition to Forbes. I began in b2b print journalism covering tech companies at the height of the dot com boom and switched to covering consumer technology as the iPod began to take off. A career highlight for me was being a founding member of TrustedReviews. It started in 2003 and we were repeatedly told websites could not compete with print! Within four years we were purchased by IPC Media (Time Warner’s publishing division) to become its flagship tech title. What fascinates me are the machinations of technology’s biggest companies. Got a pitch, tip or leak? Contact me on my professional Facebook page. I don’t bite.
