
iOS 26
Watch this video on YouTube. Release Timeline: Key Milestones
The development of iOS 26 has followed Apple's well-established process, with the software currently in its beta phase. During this stage, developers and public testers work to identify bugs and refine features to ensure the final version is polished and ready for widespread use. The Release Candidate (RC) version, which is typically the last step before the official release, is expected to coincide with Apple's iPhone event in early September. The iPhone event is projected to take place on September 8 or 9, with the RC version likely launching the same day.
If the event is scheduled for September 15 or 16, the final release of iOS 26 may shift to September 22.
Apple traditionally releases the final iOS version about a week after the iPhone event, making sure a seamless integration with its latest hardware.
This timeline reflects Apple's strategy of synchronizing software and hardware launches, providing users with a cohesive and optimized experience when upgrading to the newest iPhone models. Performance and Battery Life: What's New?
iOS 26 introduces a range of enhancements designed to improve both performance and battery efficiency. These updates address common user concerns such as slow app launches and rapid battery drain, making the operating system more reliable for everyday use. Performance Enhancements: Expect faster app launches, smoother multitasking, and improved responsiveness across all supported devices. These improvements are particularly noticeable on older models, extending their usability.
Expect faster app launches, smoother multitasking, and improved responsiveness across all supported devices. These improvements are particularly noticeable on older models, extending their usability. Battery Optimization: Smarter power management algorithms and refined background processes are set to extend battery life, helping users get through the day without frequent charging interruptions.
These advancements are especially beneficial for users who rely on their devices for work, entertainment, or communication, making sure a smoother and more efficient experience. Stable Version: What to Look Forward To
The transition from the beta phase to the stable version of iOS 26 brings significant improvements in reliability and functionality. While beta versions are essential for testing new features, they often come with bugs and compatibility issues. The final release addresses these problems, offering a more polished and dependable experience.
Key benefits of the stable version include: Enhanced System Stability: The final version reduces crashes and glitches, making sure a smoother user experience.
The final version reduces crashes and glitches, making sure a smoother user experience. Improved App Compatibility: Third-party apps are better integrated, minimizing issues and enhancing usability.
Third-party apps are better integrated, minimizing issues and enhancing usability. Refined Features: Feedback from beta testers has been incorporated to fine-tune new features, making sure they meet user expectations.
Apple's commitment to real-world testing and user feedback ensures that the stable version of iOS 26 is optimized for a wide range of devices and use cases. Event Timing and Update Rollout
The timing of Apple's iPhone event plays a crucial role in determining the release date of iOS 26. Historically, the event is held in early September, with the software update following shortly after. If the event occurs on September 8 or 9, the final release is expected around September 15. A later event date, such as September 15 or 16, could push the release to September 22.
Apple typically rolls out updates in stages to ensure a smooth transition and prevent server overload. This staggered approach means that users may receive the update notification within hours or days of the official release, depending on their region and device. To prepare for the update, ensure your device is compatible with iOS 26 and has sufficient storage space for the installation. What iOS 26 Means for Users
iOS 26 represents a significant step forward in Apple's ongoing efforts to refine its operating system. By focusing on performance, battery efficiency, and system stability, this update addresses key user concerns while introducing meaningful improvements. Whether you're a beta tester or waiting for the stable version, iOS 26 promises to enhance your daily experience with your device.
As Apple's iPhone event approaches, keep an eye out for the official announcement and prepare to upgrade shortly after. With iOS 26, Apple continues to demonstrate its commitment to delivering a seamless and reliable user experience, making sure its operating system evolves to meet the needs of its diverse user base.
Advance your skills in iOS 26 by reading more of our detailed content.
Source & Image Credit: iReviews Filed Under: Apple, Apple iPhone, Top News
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Daily Mail
31 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
FBI warns travelers of Scattered Spider cybercriminal group hacking into major airlines' systems
A sophisticated hacker group known as Scattered Spider is targeting major airline systems in a series of cyberattacks - putting passengers' personal information at serious risk, the has FBI warned. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued an urgent alert on X last month, warning travelers that a cybercriminal group - previously focused on retail and insurance - has now expanded its attacks to include the aviation industry. Nicknamed Scattered Spider, the dangerous hacker group uses slick 'social engineering' tricks, like pretending to be airline employees, to sneak their way into highly protected internal systems. Once they're in, they swipe sensitive data - then hold it hostage, demanding a payout to keep it from being leaked or sold, the agency explained. According to the FBI, the hackers often go a step further - locking up entire systems with ransomware, leaving them completely unusable until the hefty ransom is paid. 'They target large corporations and their third-party IT providers, which means anyone in the airline ecosystem, including trusted vendors and contractors, could be at risk,' the warning read. On June 27, the FBI warned the millions of daily air travelers that the notorious hacker group Scattered Spider started infiltrating the transportation industry, and often gain access by impersonating employees or contractors. Using what the FBI referred to as 'social engineering techniques' - Scattered Spider is known to trick company's IT help desks into letting them inside the secure internal systems. One of their go-to tactics is tricking IT desks into adding fake devices - disguised as routine 'help' - which then allow the hackers to slip past key security measures like multi-factor authentication. 'Once inside, Scattered Spider actors steal sensitive data for extortion and often deploy ransomware,' the FBI wrote. 'The FBI is actively working with aviation and industry partners to address this activity and assist victims,' they added. 'Early reporting allows the FBI to engage promptly, share intelligence across the industry, and prevent further compromise.' Brett Winterford, vice president of threat intelligence at Okta, described Scattered Spider as a loosely connected group of young hackers - mostly from Western countries - who collaborate and share techniques in an online forum called TheCom, as reported by Forbes. While money is their main motivation, Winterford said that they're also driven by 'the desire to score a big win that impresses their peers,' according to the outlet. They don't stick to one type of target - if they succeed in attacking one company in an industry, they will try the same trick on similar companies again and again. 'If they enjoy success against a target in any given industry, they'll rinse and repeat against similar organizations,' Winterford added. This is just the latest troubling news in the aviation world - the same tactics seem to be behind the recent cyberattack on Qantas. On Monday, Qantas - Australia's largest airline - confirmed a major data breach that could have impacted up to six million customers. In a statement on its website, Qantas said it detected unusual activity on a third-party customer service platform used by one of its call centers. A cybercriminal reportedly targeted the call center, breaking into the customer service platform - but Qantas said they locked down the breach shortly afterward. 'There are six million customers that have service records in this platform,' the statement said. 'We are continuing to investigate the proportion of the data that has been stolen, though we expect it will be significant.' 'An initial review has confirmed the data includes some customers' names, email addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and frequent flyer numbers,' it added. However, the airline also assured customers that credit card details, personal financial information and passport data were not stored in the compromised system. In an update on Friday, Qantas said the group believed responsible for the incident remained unclear and that it had not received a ransom request. Now, the biggest danger is that the stolen data could be used for fraud or even identity theft. Airlines have since been urged to strengthen their security after the massive hack left the aviation giant vulnerable to potential legal consequences. Last month, in a strikingly similar case, Delta Air Lines locked access to some frequent flyer accounts due to cybersecurity concerns discovered earlier that week - but didn't immediately inform the affected customers, The Hill reported. The issue came to light when a customer - who happened to be a TV reporter in Pennsylvania, according to The Hill - was unable to access his Delta account or change his password. When the reporter dug deeper, a Delta reservations agent revealed that the airline was dealing with 'concerns about a potential security breach' affecting 'a large number of customers' - possibly up to 68,000. Although customers were asked to verify their identity by uploading a photo of a valid government ID, a Delta spokesperson insisted that SkyMiles accounts remained secure and said the credential resets were carried out 'out of an abundance of caution,' according to the outlet.


The Guardian
9 hours ago
- The Guardian
If the US president threatens to take away freedoms, are we no longer free?
Threats of retribution from Donald Trump are hardly a novelty, but even by his standards, the US president's warnings of wrathful vengeance in recent days have represented a dramatic escalation. In the past week, Trump has threatened deportation, loss of US citizenship or arrest against, respectively, the world's richest person, the prospective future mayor of New York and Joe Biden's former homeland security secretary. The head-spinning catalogue of warnings may have been aimed at distracting from the increasing unpopularity, according to opinion surveys, of Trump's agenda, some analysts say. But they also served as further alarm bells for the state of US democracy five-and-a-half months into a presidency that has seen a relentless assault on constitutional norms, institutions and freedom of speech. On Tuesday, Trump turned his sights on none other than Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who, before a recent spectacular fallout, had been his closest ally in ramming through a radical agenda of upending and remaking the US government. But when the Tesla and SpaceX founder vowed to form a new party if Congress passed Trump's signature 'one big beautiful bill' into law, Trump swung into the retribution mode that is now familiar to his Democratic opponents. 'Without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa,' Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, menacing both the billions of dollars in federal subsidies received by Musk's companies, and – it seemed – his US citizenship, which the entrepreneur received in 2002 but which supporters like Steve Bannon have questioned. 'No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE.' Trump twisted the knife further the following morning talking to reporters before boarding a flight to Florida. 'We might have to put Doge on Elon,' he said, referring to the unofficial 'department of government efficiency' that has gutted several government agencies and which Musk spearheaded before stepping back from his ad hoc role in late May. 'Doge is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon. Wouldn't that be terrible.' Musk's many critics may have found sympathy hard to come by given his earlier job-slashing endeavors on Trump's behalf and the $275m he spent last year in helping to elect him. But the wider political implications are worrying, say US democracy campaigners. 'Trump is making clear that if he can do that to the world's richest man, he could certainly do it to you,' said Ian Bassin, co-founder and executive director of Protect Democracy. 'It's important, if we believe in the rule of law, that we believe in it whether it is being weaponized against someone that we have sympathy for or someone that we have lost sympathy for.' Musk was not the only target of Trump's capricious vengeance. He also threatened to investigate the US citizenship of Zohran Mamdani, the Democrats' prospective candidate for mayor of New York who triumphed in a multicandidate primary election, and publicly called on officials to explore the possibility of arresting Alejandro Mayorkas, the former head of homeland security in the Biden administration. Both scenarios were raised during a highly stage-managed visit to 'Alligator Alcatraz', a forbidding new facility built to house undocumented people rounded up as part of Trump's flagship mass-deportation policy. After gleefully conjuring images of imprisoned immigrants being forced to flee from alligators and snakes presumed to reside in the neighbouring marshlands, Trump seized on obliging questions from friendly journalists working for rightwing fringe outlets that have been accredited by the administration for White House news events, often at the expense of established media. 'Why hasn't he been arrested yet?' asked Julio Rosas from Blaze Media, referring to Mayorkas, who was widely vilified – and subsequently impeached – by Republicans who blamed him for a record number of immigrant crossings at the southern US border. 'Was he given a pardon, Mayorkas?' Trump replied. On being told no, he continued: 'I'll take a look at that one because what he did is beyond incompetence … Somebody told Mayorkas to do that and he followed orders, but that doesn't necessarily hold him harmless.' Asked by Benny Johnson, a rightwing social media influencer, for his message to 'communist' Mamdani – a self-proclaimed democratic socialist – over his pledge not to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) roundups of undocumented people if he is elected mayor, Trump said: 'Then we will have to arrest him. We don't need a communist in this country. I'm going to be watching over him very carefully on behalf of the nation.' He also falsely suggested that Mamdani, 33 – who became a naturalized US citizen in 2018 after emigrating from Uganda with his ethnic Indian parents when he was a child – was in the country 'illegally', an assertion stemming from a demand by a Republican representative for a justice department investigation into his citizenship application. The representative, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, alleged that Mamdani, who has vocally campaigned for Palestinian rights, gained it through 'willful misrepresentation or concealment of material support for terrorism'. The threat to Mamdani echoed a threat Trump's border 'czar' Tom Homan made to arrest Gavin Newsom, the California governor, last month amid a row over Trump's deployment of national guard forces in Los Angeles to confront demonstrators protesting against Ice's arrests of immigrants. Omar Noureldin, senior vice-president with Common Cause, a pro-democracy watchdog, said the animus against Mamdani, who is Muslim, was partly fueled by Islamophobia and racism. 'Part of the rhetoric we've heard around Mamdani, whether from the president or other political leaders, goes toward his religion, his national origin, race, ethnicity,' he said. 'Mamdani has called himself a democratic socialist. There are others, including Bernie Sanders, who call themselves that, but folks aren't questioning whether or not Bernie Sanders should be a citizen.' Retribution promised to be a theme of Trump's second presidency even before he returned to the Oval Office in January. On the campaign trail last year, he branded some political opponents – including Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, and Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House of Representatives – as 'the enemy within'. Since his inauguration in January, he has made petty acts of revenge against both Democrats and Republicans who have crossed him. Biden; Kamala Harris, the former vice-president and last year's defeated Democratic presidential nominee; and Hillary Clinton, Trump's 2016 opponent, have all had their security clearances revoked. Secret Service protection details have been removed from Mike Pompeo and John Bolton, who served in Trump's first administration, despite both being the subject of death threats from Iran because of the 2020 assassination of Qassem Suleimani, a senior Revolutionary Guards commander. Similar fates have befallen Anthony Fauci, the infectious diseases specialist who angered Trump over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as Biden's adult children, Hunter and Ashley. Trump has also targeted law firms whose lawyers previously acted against him, prompting some to strike deals that will see them perform pro bono services for the administration. For now, widely anticipated acts of retribution against figures like Gen Mark Milley, the former chair of the joint chiefs of staff of the armed forces – whom Trump previously suggested deserved to be executed for 'treason' and who expressed fears of being recalled to active duty and then court-martialed – have not materialised. 'I [and] people in my world expected that Trump would come up with investigations of any number of people, whether they were involved in the Russia investigation way back when, or the election investigation, or the January 6 insurrection, but by and large he hasn't done that,' said one veteran Washington insider, who requested anonymity, citing his proximity to people previously identified as potential Trump targets. 'There are all kinds of lists floating around … with names of people that might be under investigation, but you'll never know you're under investigation until police turn up on your doorstep – and these people are just getting on with their lives.' Yet pro-democracy campaigners say Trump's latest threats should be taken seriously – especially after several recent detentions of several elected Democratic officials at protests near immigration jails or courts. In the most notorious episode, Alex Padilla, a senator from California, was forced to the floor and handcuffed after trying to question Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, at a press conference. 'When the president of the United States, the most powerful person in the world, threatens to arrest you, that's as serious as it gets,' said Bassin, a former White House counsel in Barack Obama's administration. 'Whether the DoJ [Department of Justice] opens an investigation or seeks an indictment, either tomorrow, next year or never is beside the point. The threat itself is the attack on our freedoms, because it's designed to make us all fear that if any one of us opposes or even just criticises the president, we risk being prosecuted.' While some doubt the legal basis of Trump's threats to Musk, Mayorkas and Mamdani, Noureldin cautioned that they should be taken literally. 'Trump is verbose and grandiose, but I think he also backs up his promises with action,' he said. 'When the president of the United States says something, we have to take it as serious and literal. I wouldn't be surprised if at the justice department, there is a group of folks who are trying to figure out a way to [open prosecutions].' But the bigger danger was to the time-honored American notion of freedom, Bassin warned. 'One definition of freedom is that you are able to speak your mind, associate with who you want, lead the life that you choose to lead, and that so long as you conduct yourself in accordance with the law, the government will not retaliate against you or punish you for doing those things,' he said. 'When the president of the United States makes clear that actually that is not the case, that if you say things he doesn't like, you will be singled out, and the full force of the state could be brought down on your head, then you're no longer free. 'And if he's making clear that that's true for people who have the resources of Elon Musk or the political capital of a Mayorkas or a Mamdani, imagine what it means for people who lack those positions or resources.'


Scottish Sun
9 hours ago
- Scottish Sun
The five shockingly common objects in your home that are tanking your Wi-Fi – and you can fix it in seconds
There's a bonus problem to watch out for too INTER-NOT! The five shockingly common objects in your home that are tanking your Wi-Fi – and you can fix it in seconds Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) YOUR dodgy Wi-Fi might be your own fault – and not your internet provider's. It turns out that there are a few mistakes linked to common household objects that can cause Wi-Fi troubles at home. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 3 Even if you're got a great router and a top package with rapid speeds, you won't necessarily get brilliant Wi-Fi Credit: Sky So much of what we do depends on having decent internet. That's why it's important to make sure you're not making simply errors that are silently killing your connection. SURPRISING WI-FI KILLERS Microwave ovens are great for fast cooking – but not fast Wi-Fi. For instance., Sky recommends keeping your router away from microwave ovens in an official Wi-Fi memo. Aside from being a large metal object, microwave ovens operate a similar frequency range to common 2.4GHz WiFi (but with much greater power). So you'll want to keep your router far away from the microwave if you've got it set up in the kitchen. On that note, that second thing to watch out for is metal of any kind. You'll definitely want to avoid having your router on or in a metal cabinet or shelving unit. And avoid having any large metal objects nearby, like a washing machine. Thirdly, watch out for mirrors, which can reflect and distort your Wi-Fi signal. Genius Apple trick lets you send iPhone texts with no signal or Wi-Fi It's fine to have mirrors in your home, but you might not want to have one sitting right behind your router. Fourth, be mindful of other devices that operate on the same 2.4GHz frequency as your Wi-Fi. Common offending gadgets include bluetooth speakers and cordless home phones. And fifth, beware water. Drink it, obviously – but don't put it near your router. 3 Having electronics right next to your router is a bad idea Credit: Sky Aside from the obvious risk of water damage, large amounts of water can affect signals. So don't put your router on top of – or next to – a fish tank, or right by a giant vase filled with water. As a bonus tip, keep your router off the floor too. It can be tempting to dump it down there to get it out of the way, but routers generally work better when raised up. YOUR DEVICES MIGHT BE SLOWING WI-FI TOO Here's the official advice from Sky... "Everything you connect to your hub uses bandwidth, and the more you connect the more it can slow you down," Sky explained. "Even when you aren't using them, app updates, device backups and your smart home devices can still be using your bandwidth in the background. "Try disconnecting anything that doesn't need to be connected so they're not hogging your bandwidth when you're trying to browse, work or play. "And try avoiding activities that need a lot of speed, like online gaming or streaming in HD." Picture Credit: Unsplash You'll want it about head height, so find a nice shelf (preferably not metal) to stick it on. WHY ELSE MIGHT YOUR SPEEDS BE SLOW? Of course, there are plenty of other reasons that your Wi-Fi might be struggling. Your first port of call should be the speed that you're paying for. If you've got a cheaper broadband package then your internet speeds simply might not be very good. 3 You can check your internet speeds easily in seconds – it doesn't cost a penny and will reveal if you're having a Wi-Fi nightmare Credit: FAST / The Sun It's easy enough to check your speeds: try or See if that matches up with the speeds on the package that you paid for. If it's miles off – like you're getting an eighth of the promised speed – then something is probably up. You'll experience worse speeds the further you are from the router, so consider connecting gadgets via an ethernet cable if they're very far away. If you've got a big home, you might need several connection points around the home to get the best speeds in the most distant parts of your house. And sometimes internet speeds can drop in an area temporarily due to a technical issue that has nothing to do with you – and is out of your control. Also, if your household is making heavy use of the internet – multiple devices uploading and downloading – then you may experience Wi-Fi trouble too.