Apple confirms that governments were using push notification statistics to surveil users

After a letter to DOJ by senator Ron Wyden Apple confirmed that governments were requesting push notification data to surveil users.

"In this case, the federal government prohibited us from sharing any information," the company said in a statement. "Now that this method has become public we are updating our transparency reporting to detail these kinds of requests."

MacRumors

Push notification statistics was used to match Apple ID with patterns of notifications for specific apps (for example, messaging apps). If app uses end-to-end encryption, contents of the messages could not be read by governments, but it is still possible to identify specific users by usage patterns.

Both Apple and Google were providing this data to governments.

References:

Apple adds notification delivery metrics to Push Notification Console

Apple adds additional information on notification delivery metrics to Push Notification Console.

The Push Notifications Console now includes metrics for notifications sent in production through the Apple Push Notification service (APNs). With the console’s intuitive interface, you’ll get an aggregated view of delivery statuses and insights into various statistics for notifications, including a detailed breakdown based on push type and priority.

Apple Developer

Apple Developer: New delivery metrics now available in the Push Notifications Console

Reference: Apple launches push notification delivery metrics monitoring for developers

Weekend good reads for Apple developers #2023/29

Heat waves are attacking California, so probably more time to be spent under AC or at the beach. Anyway, we still have good list of nice reads for developers.

And just one site to bookmark collection – Laws of UX is a collection of best practices that designers can consider when building user interfaces. by Jon Yablonski. Site brings a lot of user experience hints with examples. Definitely recommend to keep an eye on it.

And with this – let's start this weekend! Come back next Friday for more good reads!

Weekend good reads for Apple developers #2023/26

July is approaching (and we hope to see news on Developer Labs and Developer Kits for Apple Vision Pro), but so far, here is a fresh list of great articles to read over the weekend.

And that is it for this weekend. Have some rest, stay hydrated (especially, if you're in the areas with heat waves) and come back for next portion of great reads next week!

Weekend good reads for Apple developers #2023/21

We're almost there for WWDC23. Just a little bit over a week. And we've got good collection of articles for this long weekend.

And while you're still here, we'd like to invite you to our pre-WWDC Apple Treats episode – join us live on May 30 at 9:00am PDT. See you there! :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhXiDJTzQps
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhXiDJTzQps

Weekend good reads for Apple developers #2023/16

Summer closer and closer here in California. Days become longer, so there is slightly more time to spend reading interesting articles.

This is it for today. Have a great weekend and come back next week for new pack of awesome reads!

New round of beta for Apple platforms has started

Apple publishes first beta for iOS/iPadOS 16.4, macOS Ventura 13.3, watchOS 9.4, tvOS 16.4. This time operating systems are accompanied by Xcode 14.3 beta.

Developers will now be able to enable developer beta from Software Update on iPhones and iPads.

Apart from that new beta versions add support for more emojis.

iOS 16.4 brings support for Web Push to Apple's mobile devices.

A web app that has been added to the Home Screen can request permission to receive push notifications as long as that request is in response to direct user interaction -- such as tapping on a 'subscribe' button provided by the web app. iOS or iPadOS will prompt the user to give the web app permission to send notifications. The user can then manage those permissions per web app in Notifications Settings -- just like any other app on iPhone and iPad.

WebKit team

Also this beta works on Matter support for Apple platforms including Apple TV.

Beta download: Operating Systems

Release notes:

WebKit Blog: Web Push for Web Apps on iOS and iPadOS

Reference:

Weekend good reads for Apple developers #2023/4

Weekend is coming with several great reads this time. Let's dive in!

This is a lot for a weekend, so choose wisely. :)