Hello and greetings from IvanExpert! Here’s a bit of news from the world of Apple:
Email Scam
There seems to be a never-ending variety of new internet scams. Lately we’ve seen one that looks just like an email from Apple, suggesting that you need to re-verify your information to prevent your iCloud account from being locked or deleted. If you click the link in the email, you get taken to a web page carefully crafted to resemble one of Apple’s own. The page requests personal information, possibly including your social security number.
As always, be very careful before clicking on links in an email or notification on your screen.
Apple will NEVER ask you for your full social security number, and will not suddenly lock or delete your account. If you’re not sure, please forward the email to us first and we can take a look.
macOS High Sierra
We’re finally confident that the latest version of Apple’s operating system, OS 10.13 High Sierra, is reliable. High Sierra has useful security updates, as well as improvements to the Photos app and somewhat better performance on Macs with solid state drives.
If you want to go ahead and update to High Sierra, make sure you have a full Time Machine backup first, then open the Mac App Store, and look for “macOS High Sierra” in the links on the right hand side.
One consideration: If you are upgrading from a pre-Sierra system, and have a computer with a hard drive rather than a solid state drive, you may experience slower performance.
iOS 11.3
Apple just released the latest version of their mobile operating system. We haven’t heard any serious reports of problems. Its most anticipated “feature” is the ability to report on the health of the phone’s battery. It also lets you disable Apple’s intentional slowing down of phones with older batteries. (As a reminder, you can still get a battery replaced by Apple for $29 through the rest of the year, before the price returns to $79.) iOS 11.3 has many small improvements throughout, such as better search and sorting in the App Store.
One interesting detail is a new icon that appears whenever Apple asks for your personal information. Included is the following text: “Apple believes privacy is a fundamental human right.” It is the only instance I know of a major company making a political statement during a software upgrade.
iPad
Apple’s traditional 9.7″ iPad, which is now their cheapest model at $329, got a nice upgrade: it now supports the Apple Pencil, like the pricier iPad Pro models do. At $99, the Pencil is still a bit ouch, but if you draw, or like to take notes longhand, this might be an appealing new capability.
(April 2018)