MacRumors

United States Federal Bureau of Investigations Director James Comey today gave some hints on how much the agency paid to access the iPhone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook, suggesting a sum upwards of $1.3 million.

According to Reuters, Comey said the FBI paid an amount exceeding what he will make in the next seven years and four months as director of the FBI. Comey's annual salary is at $183,300, and without raises or bonuses, will result in earnings of $1.34 million.

Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in London, Comey was asked by a moderator how much the FBI paid for the software that eventually broke into the iPhone.

"A lot. More than I will make in the remainder of this job, which is seven years and four months for sure," Comey said. "But it was, in my view, worth it."

According to anonymous law enforcement officials, Farook's iPhone did not contain contacts or messages resulting in new leads in the investigation, but it did clarify that Farook did not make contact with a third-party following the attack, suggesting he and his wife did not have assistance from friends or family members.

The FBI reportedly paid the sum in question to "professional hackers," at least one of which is a "gray hat" researcher that sells security flaws to governments, black market groups, and companies creating surveillance tools.

The method used to gain entry to the iPhone 5c owned by Farook does not work on the iPhone 5s or newer, but the FBI can continue to use it to access iPhone 5c devices running iOS 9.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Following the launch of the new 12-inch Retina MacBook earlier this week, Apple Stores in the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, U.K. and other countries have begun receiving limited stock of the notebook to set up as display models and to fulfill in-store purchases.

Apple today reenabled its web-based Personal Pickup tool for the 12-inch MacBook, and the availability checker shows that select models are currently in stock at select Apple Stores in or near major U.S. cities, including Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.

Outside of the U.S., the 12-inch MacBook is also available in or within the surrounding metropolitan area of a number of major international cities, including Adelaide, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Brisbane, Hamburg, Ottawa, London, Madrid, Milan, Montréal, Munich, Naples, Paris, Perth, Rome, Sydney, Toronto, and Vancouver. Many other locations offer the notebook on a ship-to-store basis.

Due to limited per-store availability of the 12-inch MacBook during launch week, it is highly recommended that prospective buyers call their local store ahead of time to confirm in-store stock. A crowdsourced list of Apple Stores with new 12-inch MacBook stock is also available in the MacRumors discussion forums.

The new 12-inch MacBook is also coming to Apple Authorized Resellers like Adorama, Amazon, Best Buy, B&H Photo, MacMall, and others.

Apple CEO Tim Cook was once again named one of "the 100 most influential people" by TIME magazine in its annual list recognizing individuals who have made a major impact on the world. Tim Cook is recognized as a "Titan" alongside people like Yuri Milner, Binny and Sachin Bansal, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Wang Jianlin, and Pope Francis.

Each person included on TIME's list is featured alongside an essay written by an associate, with Cook's 2016 note penned by Disney CEO Bob Iger.

Apple is known for elegant, innovative products that change the world by transforming how we connect, create and communicate, as well as how we work, think and act. Its continued success requires a leader of great courage and character who demands excellence, upholds the highest ethical standards and routinely challenges the status quo, including encouraging vital conversations about who we are as a culture and a community.

Tim Cook is that kind of leader.

Behind his soft-spoken demeanor and Southern manners is a focused fearlessness that comes from deep personal conviction. Tim is committed to doing the right thing, in the right way, at the right time and for the right reasons. As CEO, he's led Apple to new heights, and he continues to build a global brand that is universally recognized as an industry leader and widely respected for its values.

Tim Cook has been included on the list of most influential people several times, and in 2014, Cook was nominated for the TIME person of the year after making the bold move of publicly announcing his sexual orientation despite being a notoriously private person.

Other notable people included on TIME's 2016 list include actors, world leaders, scientists, and notable people from the tech world. Priscilla and Mark Zuckerberg, YouTuber Pewdiepie, Aziz Ansari, Sundar Pichai, Stephen Curry, Adele, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Barack Obama were some of this year's most influential people.

Apple today released the second beta of an upcoming iOS 9.3.2 update to public beta testers, just a day after seeding the second iOS 9.3.2 beta to developers. iOS 9.3.2 beta 2 comes just over a month after the public release of iOS 9.3 and three weeks after the release of iOS 9.3.1, a followup bug fix update. iOS 9.3.2 has been in testing since April 6.

Beta testers who have signed up for Apple's beta testing program will receive the iOS 9.3.2 update over-the-air after installing the proper certificate on their iOS device.

Those who want to be a part of Apple's beta testing program can sign up to participate through the beta testing website, which gives users access to both iOS and OS X betas.

iOS 9.3.2, as a minor 9.x.x update, focuses primarily on performance improvements and under-the-hood bug fixes to address issues that have been discovered since the release of iOS 9.3. We don't know all of the fixes that will be included, but significant Game Center bug appears to have been fixed in the first beta, while iOS 9.3.2 beta 2 added the ability to use Low Power Mode and Night Shift simultaneously. No other outward-facing changes or immediately apparent bug fixes have been discovered in the first two developer betas.

Apple's efforts to move its cloud infrastructure in-house for its web services are being slowed by "political infighting" between the company's iCloud and Siri engineering teams, according to The Information.

The paywalled report claims that the fighting is holding back Apple from fixing "technical problems that have plagued iCloud and iTunes," while at least one key engineering manager is said to have departed the company over the ongoing conflict.

Steve D’Aurora, an engineering manager in a team led by Patrick Gates, resigned last week. That’s raised the possibility that Mr. D’Aurora’s superior, Darren Haas, a “head of cloud engineering,” would leave as well. Both Mr. D’Aurora and Mr. Haas joined Apple through its 2010 acquisition of Siri, the voice-activated assistant on the iPhone.

Multiple sources claim that Apple is working on building its own internal cloud infrastructure, known as "Project McQueen" internally, to reduce its dependence on services like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. Apple spends an estimated $1 billion or more on cloud services each year.

Apple reportedly inked a $400 to $600 million deal with Google last year to "significantly" cut down on its reliance on Amazon Web Services, but its reliance on third-party providers should decrease as it builds or expands new data centers in Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Ireland, and Denmark.

The new infrastructure is meant to help improve the reliability of iCloud and Apple’s other apps. The infrastructure work has taken on added significance this year. Apple CEO Tim Cook has publicly played up the company’s intention to generate more Internet-services revenue from existing iPhone owners, including from the App Store and things like Apple Music.

In June 2015, it was reported that Apple is building a high-speed content delivery network and planning to upgrade its data centers with more of its own equipment. The foundation of the high-speed data network was reported to be long-haul pipes connecting Apple data centers in California, Nevada, North Carolina, and Oregon.

Apple may be enlisting Chinese server vendor Inspur to help migrate its cloud services in house. Inspur already has employees and facilities close to Apple's headquarters in California, including an R&D team and production center, and it has previously agreed to partnerships with Microsoft, Intel, IBM, and other technology companies.

Qualcomm shares are currently trading lower after the chip maker suggested during an earnings call Wednesday that it will be losing orders from one of its major customers to one of its leading competitors.

Analysts believe that customer will be Apple, according to Bloomberg, following rumors that the Cupertino-based company will rely on Intel to supply the majority of LTE modems for the iPhone 7, which is expected to be announced at a media event this September.

Qualcomm Chief Executive Officer Steve Mollenkopf told analysts he is “assuming” that a major customer will give orders to a rival, indicating a potential loss of business for the company. […] Samsung already uses multiple suppliers, leaving only Apple to make this change.

In early March, CLSA Securities analyst Srini Pajjuri issued a research note claiming that Intel has secured a "significant portion" of LTE chip orders from Apple, likely in the range of 30 to 40 percent of production. Pajjuri believes Qualcomm will likely be tasked with at least a portion of the remaining orders.

Intel reportedly has 1,000 or more employees working on preparing its 7360 LTE modem for the next-generation iPhone. Intel's 7360 LTE modem chip [PDF] features faster theoretical downlink speeds up to 450 Mbps, uplink speeds up to 100 Mbps, and support for LTE category 10 and 29 LTE bands overall.

The switch to Intel LTE chips means the iPhone 7 could have even faster LTE speeds for browsing the web, downloading apps, streaming video, and other data-related tasks. Apple already improved LTE speeds on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus by adopting LTE-Advanced, which pushed downlink speeds up to a theoretical max of 300 Mbps.

Apple currently sources all of its LTE modems for iPhones from Qualcomm, including the MDM9635 chipset in the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, which provides theoretical downlink speeds up to 300 Mbps and uplink speeds up to 50 Mbps. Qualcomm has been Apple's exclusive supplier of LTE modems for over three years.

Rumors suggest that Apple may eventually create an all-in-one system-on-a-chip that includes both an A-series processor and an LTE modem chip for improved speed and power management. Intel could play a key role in licensing and fabricating the chipset based on its advanced 14-nanometer process.