Microsoft tested a Windows XP theme that closely resembled Mac OS X’s Aqua GUI, reports The Verge.
A recent Windows XP source code leak has revealed various unreleased themes that Microsoft developed in 2000, at a time when Microsoft was in heated competition with Apple regarding desktop operating systems.
One of the themes, codenamed “Candy,” mirrors the design of Apple’s Aqua interface, which was first introduced at the Macworld Conference & Expo in 2000. Aqua was an iconic Apple design and gave a sense of depth through the use of shadow and translucency, metallic textures, and rounded liquid-like assets.
The theme was described as a “Whistler skin with eye candy,” with “Whistler” being the codename for Windows XP, and was marked as “for internal use only.” Though the theme was never finished, fundamental aspects such as the Windows Start button and various UI elements were a close match for Aqua.
Most striking is the replication of Mac OS X’s rounded water-like buttons. Windows developers reportedly used the theme as a placeholder to build the theme engine for Windows XP.
The theme was ultimately rejected in favor of the blue and green Luna theme for the final version of Windows XP released in 2001. The source code leak reveals another instance of the influence of the Mac on Windows behind the scenes.
Earlier this week, Apple released updates for iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS—but nothing for macOS. Usually, Cupertino updates all its operating systems at once, but we’re in an odd place right now with new annual releases of the former three making their way to users’ devices while macOS Big Sur still sits an indeterminate amount of days away.
However, Apple nonetheless followed up today with an update for macOS Catalina labeled 10.15.7. It’s likely the last update to Catalina before Big Sur is released. The company also released new versions of Final Cut Pro X and iMovie for the Mac.
The Catalina update is a modest one that fixes three bugs: a graphics-related problem on new iMacs with Radeon Pro 5700 XT graphics cards, a bug that prevented automatic connection to Wi-Fi networks, and an iCloud Drive syncing issue.
Want it straight from the source? Here are Apple’s release notes for macOS Catalina 10.15.7:
macOS Catalina 10.15.7 provides important security updates and bug fixes for your Mac.
Resolves an issue where macOS would not automatically connect to Wi-Fi networks
Fixes an issue that could prevent files syncing through iCloud Drive
Addresses a graphic issue that may occur on iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020) with Radeon Pro 5700 XT
Some features may not be available for all regions, or on all Apple devices. For detailed information about the security content of this update, please visit: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT201222
The updates to Final Cut Pro X and iMovie are also about fixing bugs. Here are the Final Cut notes:
Fixes an issue in which XAVC media from the Sony PXW-FX9 camera is not recognized
Fixes an issue where brightness levels shift when switching between Better Quality and Better Performance in the viewer
Fixes an issue in which effect keyframes are not added correctly when using onscreen controls
Improves stability when using the transform tool with multiple clips in the timeline
Improves reliability when exporting an FCPXML that contains Compound clips
Addresses an issue which could prevent sharing at certain resolutions
Fixes an issue in which sharing a Compound or Multicam clip from the timeline was disabled
The iMovie update improved stability and fixed an export bug. Yesterday, Apple also released an update for Xcode that fixed a problem that could “cause Xcode to crash while viewing documentation.”
Apple has released another supplemental update for macOS 10.15.6 today with performance improvements and bug fixes. Specifically, this update solves WiFi and iCloud issues that some users were seeing.
Apple released the new macOS 10.15.6 supplemental update today after the last one arrived back in August. Today’s update includes fixes for an iCloud Drive issue that prevented files from syncing properly as well as squashing a bug that prevented Macs from automatically connecting to WiFi networks.
You can check to see if the update has hit your Mac by heading to System Preferences > Software Update.
Today’s macOS 10.15.6 supplemental update is build number 19G2531. Notably, it is showing up in the release channel on Apple’s Developer website, but does have “Beta” at the end of the update in System Preferences for users on the Catalina beta.
It’s unclear if Apple accidentally labeled it as a public release or if it is just rolling out slowly to non-beta users.
These minor tweaks come ahead of Big Sur landing this fall which will bring an overhaul to the macOS design, lots of Safari changes, new widgets, Control Center, improvements to Messages, and much more.
Check out all the major changes coming with macOS Big Sur below:
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For decades, Mac users had to worry less about malware than their Windows-using counterparts, but over the last few years that’s begun to change. In an attempt to crack down on growing threats like adware and ransomware, in February Apple began “notarizing” all macOS applications, a vetting process designed to weed out illegitimate or malicious apps. Even software distributed outside of the Mac App Store now needs notarization, or users wouldn’t be able to run them without special workarounds. Seven months later, though, researchers have found an active adware campaign attacking Mac users with the same old payloads—and the malware has been fully notarized by Apple.
The campaign is distributing the ubiquitous “Shlayer” adware, which by some counts has affected as many as one in 10 macOS devices in recent years. The malware exhibits standard adware behavior, like injecting ads into search results. It’s not clear how Shlayer slipped past Apple’s automated scans and checks to get notarized, especially given that it’s virtually identical to past versions. But it’s the first known example of malware being notarized for macOS.
College student Peter Dantini discovered the notarized version of Shlayer while navigating to the homepage of the popular open source Mac development tool Homebrew. Dantini accidentally typed something slightly different than brew.sh, the correct URL. The page he landed on redirected a number of times to a fake Adobe Flash update page. Curious about what malware he might find, Dantini downloaded it on purpose. To his surprise, macOS popped up its standard warning about programs downloaded from the internet, but didn’t block him from running the program. When Dantini confirmed that it was notarized, he sent the information on to longtime macOS security researcher Patrick Wardle.
“I had been expecting that if someone were to abuse the notarization system it would be something more sophisticated or complex,” says Wardle, principal security researcher at the Mac management firm Jamf. “But in a way I’m not surprised that it was adware that did it first. Adware developers are very innovative and constantly evolving, because they stand to lose a ton of money if they can’t get around new defenses. And notarization is a death knell for a lot of these standard ad campaigns, because even if the users are tricked into clicking and trying to run the software, macOS will block it now.”
Wardle notified Apple about the rogue software on August 28 and the company revoked the Shlayer notarization certificates that same day, neutering the malware anywhere that it was installed and for future downloads. On August 30, though, Wardle noticed that the adware campaign was still active and distributing the same Shlayer downloads. They had simply been notarized using a different Apple Developer ID, just a few hours after the company began working on revoking the original certificates. On August 30, Wardle notified Apple about these new versions.
“Malicious software constantly changes, and Apple’s notarization system helps us keep malware off the Mac and allow us to respond quickly when it’s discovered,” the company said in a statement. “Upon learning of this adware, we revoked the identified variant, disabled the developer account, and revoked the associated certificates. We thank the researchers for their assistance in keeping our users safe.”
Apple also makes a distinction in its notarization materials between its more thorough iOS “App Review” and this check for macOS applications.
“Notarization is not App Review,” the company wrote. “The Apple notary service is an automated system that scans your software for malicious content, checks for code-signing issues, and returns the results to you quickly.”
Before Apple introduced notarization, malware developers simply needed to pay $99 a year for an Apple Developer ID so they could sign their software as legitimate. Any application not downloaded from the Mac App Store would trigger a warning when users tried to run it about making sure programs downloaded from the internet were safe to use, but users could easily click through them. Notarization makes it much more difficult to deploy malware—or at least that’s the idea. Wardle says that in his experience submitting his own security tools for review, Apple’s initial, automated check only takes a few minutes to issue an approval. Still, bad actors are clearly slipping through.
Security researchers have discovered this week a new ransomware strain targeting macOS users.
Named OSX.EvilQuest, this ransomware is different from previous macOS ransomware threats because besides encrypting the victim’s files, EvilQuest also installs a keylogger, a reverse shell, and steals cryptocurrency wallet-related files from infected hosts.
“Armed with these capabilities, the attacker can main full control over an infected host,” said Patrick Wardle, Principal Security Researcher at Jamf. This means that even if victims paid, the attacker would still have access to their computer and continue to steal files and keyboard strokes.
Wardle is currently one of the many macOS security researchers who are analyzing this new threat.
Others who are also investigating EvilQuest include Thomas Reed, Director of Mac & Mobile at Malwarebytes, and Phil Stokes, macOS security researcher at SentinelOne.
Reed and Stokes are currently looking for a weakness or bug in the ransomware’s encryption scheme that could be exploited to create a decryptor and help infected victims recover their files without paying the ransom.
EvilQuest is distributed via pirated software
But the researcher who first spotted the new EvilQuest ransomware is K7 Lab security researcher Dinesh Devadoss.
Devadoss tweeted about his finding yesterday, June 29. However, new evidence surfaced in the meantime has revealed that EvilQuest has been, in reality, distributed in the wild since the start of June 2020.
Reed told ZDNet in a phone call today that Malwarebytes has found EvilQuest hidden inside pirated macOS software uploaded on torrent portals and online forums.
Devadoos has spotted EvilQuest hidden in a software package called Google Software Update, Wardle has found samples of EvilQuest inside a pirated version of popular DJ software Mixed In Key, and Reed has spotted it hidden inside the macOS security tool called Little Snitch.
Russian forum spreading pirated macOS app infected with OSX.EvilQuest
Image: ZDNet via Malwarebytes
However, Reed told us he believes the ransomware is most likely more broadly distributed, leveraging many more other apps, and not just these three.
Wardle, who published an in-depth technical analysis of EvilQuest earlier today, said the malware is pretty straightforward, as it moves to encrypt the user’s files as soon as it’s executed.
Once the file encryption scheme ends, a popup is shown to the user, letting the victim know they’ve been infected and their files encrypted.
Image: Dinesh Devadoss
The victim is directed to open a ransom note in the form of a text file that has been placed on their desktop, which looks like the one below:
Image: Patrick Wardle
Stokes told ZDNet the ransomware will encrypt any files with the following file extensions:
After the encryption process ends, the ransomware installs a keylogger to record all the user’s keystrokes, a reverse shell so the attacker can connect to the infected host and run custom commands, and will also look to steal the following types of files, usually employed by cryptocurrency wallet applications.
“wallet.pdf”
“wallet.png”
“key.png”
“*.p12”
In his own analysis of EvilQuest, Reed also noted that the ransomware also attempts to modify files specific to Google Chrome’s update mechanism, and use the files as a form of persistence on infected hosts.
“These [Chrome update] files had the content of the patch file prepended to them, which of course would mean that the malicious code would run when any of these files is executed,” Reed said. “However, Chrome will see that the files have been modified, and will replace the modified files with clean copies as soon as it runs, so it’s unclear what the purpose here is.”
Wardle, who has created several open-source macOS security tools, said that a tool he released in 2016, named RansomWhere, can detect and stop EvilQuest from running. Reed also said that Malwarebytes for Mac was also updated to detect and stop this ransomware before it does any damage.
EvilQuest is the third ransomware strain that has exclusively targeted macOS users after KeRanger and Patcher. Another macOS ransomware strain called Mabouia only existed at a theoretical level and was never released in the real world.
FILE – In this Thursday, Oct. 27, 2016, file photo, a guest looks at the Touch Bar on a MacBook … [+]computer shown in a demo room following the announcement of new products at Apple headquarters, in Cupertino, Calif. Higher-end models of Apple’s MacBook Pro now come with a narrow touch screen above the regular keyboard for quick access to common settings and tasks. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)
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June 28 update: As has long been suspected, this will see the iPad and Mac platforms converge in terms of look and functionality. WWDC shows the direction Apple would prefer to happen, and its a bias towards the iPad. Charles Tumiotto Jackson for MacO’Clock takes a closer look at the moves to bring the interfaces together, which would make apps more portable:
“Pretty much everything new about the macOS redesign looks like a version of iOS to me. The rounded corners everywhere, especially on the dock, the new icons, the control center… Pretty much everything now looks like the interface of an iPad.”
One of the biggest differences remains Apple’s control over the iPad platform compared to Mac. But as we’re about to see, that is starting to change.
June 29 update: Apple already has significant experience with ARM hardware, both in designing the silicon and integrating it with operating systems, thanks to the iPhone and iPad. The latter, especially the iPad Pro, will have given management the confidence that the Mac platform would retain the power of Intel alongside the potential of a tighter design.
That’s already on show, withthe team at MSPowerUser highlighting the differencebetween Apple’s Developer Transition kit (a Mac Mini running MacOS on an A12Z ARM processor previously used in the iPad Pro) and Microsoft’s ARM powered Surface Pro X:
“The first thing developers did when they received it was run some benchmarks, and the results are rather embarrassing for Microsoft and Qualcomm.
“Multiple Geekbench results have indicated that the Developer Transition Kit features average single-core and multi-core scores of 811 and 2,871, respectively. This compares rather favourably to a single-core score of 726 and a multi-core score of 2,831 for Microsoft’s Surface Pro X power by the Microsoft-tweaked 3.0GHz SQ1 system-on-a-chip (SoC).”
Remember this is an early public build of the OS, and a Mac Mini running a repurposed processor. Expect more gains to be found over the next year .
People try the Microsoft Surface Pro X, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2019 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark … [+]Lennihan)
We’ve seen this recently with Basecamp’s Hey email app and the problems it has navigating Apple’s App Store policies, especially around the functionality of the app that Apple wanted to see and Basecamp’s use of an external payment service that was not Apple’s (where Apple collects thirty percent of the revenue).
This was a high-profile case, but not a unique case. Apple has set its own rules for entry into the App Store, from earning income through the functionality, to the look and style of your apps. And the App Store is the only way to reach and interact with Apple’s customer base (something that is under antitrust investigation by the EU Commission),
That stands in contrast to the Mac platform.
Yes there is a Mac App Store where developers can submit their apps into Apple’s ecosystem… but the Mac platform is far more open to loading in applications from other sources, it’s far more open to different payment systems, and it’s far more open to making different decisions than Apple would make.
As Tim Cook continues to redefine what it means to be a Mac, one of the most noticeable influences is the iPad. Not only has the iPad Pro moved towards the ethos of a MacBook with the release of a Magic Keyboard and touchpad for the tablet, the user interface of both MacOS and iPadOS have a growing similarity.
An iPad Pro is reviewed after an event announcing new products Tuesday Oct. 30, 2018, in the … [+]Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)
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Apple may never complete that journey, but it has already taken steps down that route, with the latest happening during last week’s WWDC. Apple has confirmed that Boot Camp will not be available on Mac ARM machines. When these computers arrive, they will not support Bootcamp. This is the software that allows alternative operating systems to run on the Mac hardware. Instead the only route will be to use virtual machines that run inside MacOS. Tom Warren for The Verge:
“ Apple later confirmed it’s not planning to support Boot Camp on ARM-based Macs in a Daring Fireball podcast. “We’re not direct booting an alternate operating system,” says Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering. “Purely virtualization is the route. These hypervisors can be very efficient, so the need to direct boot shouldn’t really be the concern.” “
Boot Camp is a vital tool for many, and Apple’s reassurances of ‘shouldn’t really be the concern’ will be welcome if you are explicitly using your Mac in the way that Apple intended. But that is not everyone. The Mac platform – especially but not limited to those in the ‘Pro’ class – are workhorse machines with specific needs. Apple’s push towards its future could easily push those users away from the platform, just as the move from 32-bit to 64-bit was smooth for most but a business critical mistake for others.
The confirmation of MacOS for ARM is not yet a week old but Apple is already removing a key feature. The change clearly benefits Apple, and gives Apple more control over the platform.
Is this the only move that Apple will make? The mood music from MacOS is that ‘things are changing’ and in the case of Apple’s software policies over Hey, ‘these app store rules are fixed.’ How far Apple will ‘lock down’ MacOS remains to be seen. Will it remain much as it is, or will Tim Cook and his team push forwards to the business model that has proven successful on the iPhone and iPad?
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Apple recently announced that it would be eventually transitioning the entire product lineup to ARM right from the iPhone all the way to the Mac Pro. Since then, the internet has been abuzz with the kind of interoperability benefits that this unified architecture model would entail. Apple has been able to somewhat bridge the gap between iPad OS and Mac via Catalyst, but what if there is just a single codebase that can adapt according to the usage scenario?
According to known leaker Mauri QHD, Apple is working on a prototype iPhone running macOS that will offer Project Linda/Samsung Dex-like functionality. Mauri QHD seems to be pretty confident about this insider info and is sure that Apple would choose either of the implementation for the final product, which apparently is not too far away.
While we have no way of verifying this particular info, come to think of it, an iPhone running full-fledged macOS is not a far-fetched concept anymore assuming that Apple is also trying to make macOS touch-friendly. That being said, this is not be first of its kind. There have been several attempts to provide a seamless transition between mobile and laptop/desktop experiences but none have been really successful so far.
Windows 10 Mobile offered the Continuum feature wherein a compatible phone such as the HP Elite x3 can connect wirelessly or via USB-C to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse and run supported UWP apps on a larger canvas. However, Continuum was just a glorified phone screen and though the desktop looked familiar, it’s functionality was far from it. Eventually, Microsoft pulled the plug on Windows 10 Mobile and shifted focus to porting Windows 10 for ARM processors.
Samsung has been offering DeX Mode on Galaxy devices for quite some time now, and it has become quite feature-rich over time including the ability to now run as an app within Windows or macOS. DeX, though very useful, does suffer from several limitations such as not all apps scaling properly to bigger screens, no real multi-tasking, and the inability to run heavier apps.
Samsung DeX does support VMware and also briefly offered Linux on DeX, which allowed users to download and run a full Ubuntu distro from within DeX. Though Linux on DeX seemed fairly capable, Samsung terminated its development citing incompatibility with One UI 2.0 and a general lack of developer interest.
Razer too showed off its Project Linda prototype at CES 2018 that essentially allowed users to dock-in a Razer Phone into a Blade Stealth-like laptop chassis and enjoy a bigger screen Android experience.
Apple is known for letting technologies mature and the company takes its own time to perfect things. If Apple is indeed working on porting macOS to the iPhone, we may see, for perhaps the first time, a seamless transition between mobile and desktop. Just dock the iPhone to a display and behold, a fully functional macOS desktop without too much of a compromise.
Of course, this feature may not appear on the upcoming iPhone 12 or even the one after that. That being said, Apple’s SoCs are among the fastest out there and by the time this project comes to fruition, we would be seeing very capable Apple Silicon that can easily take on some of the 15W processors of today. Apple would also have to develop frameworks that allow apps to utilize the capabilities of both macOS and iOS/iPad OS in a way that would efficiently blur the line between devices.
While it is only natural that Apple would look towards eventually developing this synergy between mobile and desktop, this particular news still needs to be taken with a pinch of the proverbial salt.
If you’ve never heard of neumorphism, you’re not alone.
One of the visual changes in macOS Big Sur to have attracted a lot of comment is what some have suggested is a partial return to skeuomorphism: icons designed to look like real-world objects. It is, some have argued, Apple coming full circle: from 3D to flat and now back to 3D.
But Jack Koloskus, lead designer for Input and The Outline, says that Apple is moving forwards, not backward…
In an interesting piece, Koloskus says that what Apple is doing in the upcoming version of macOS is not skeuomorphism, but rather ‘the next wave’ in UI design: neumorphism.
macOS 11 (known as Big Sur) boasts loads of new features that bring it closer to parity with its iOS counterparts on iPhones and iPads, but one area where there seems to be a divergent path is… its icon and user interface design. You can blame that on a little something called Neumorphism, and like or hate it, it’s the next wave in UI design […]
When you boil it down, neumorphism is a focus on how light moves in three-dimensional space. Its predecessor, skeumorphism, created realism in digital interfaces by simulating textures on surfaces like felt on a poker table or the brushed metal of a tape recorder. An ancillary — though under-developed — aspect of this design style was lighting that interacted realistically with the materials that were being represented; this is why shadows and darkness were so prevalent in those early interfaces.
But the lighting and texture simulations being done for those designs were still relatively simple: which objects are shiny and which are rough? Which objects are transparent and which opaque? These were ultimately utilitarian and somewhat arbitrary choices. What sets neumorphism apart from its progenitor is that the focus is on the light itself and how it interacts with a variety of objects in a purely digital space. The light simulations in neumorphism are more complex, and are focused on how light from one object could affect another, or the function of the object itself.
There are, he suggests, two key differences between skeuomorphism and neumorphism.
First, neumorphic elements don’t have to represent real-world objects. They are simply three-dimensional shapes which can have arbitrary designs.
Second, while a skeuomorphic icon exists in isolation – the shadow patterns might vary from its neighbouring icons – neumorphism is all about a consistent light pattern across the entire screen. If the light is coming from top left for one icon, it must be coming from top left for all the other icons on the screen.
Some criticize change for change’s sake, but Koloskus disagrees.
There is one undeniable feature to neumorphism that makes it so appealing. It looks new. Flat design’s core “digitally native” look, and its implementation of ideas like stacks, pages, and layers have become familiar to the point of ubiquity over the last 8+ years. Neumorphism is far enough away from what users have become accustomed to that it genuinely does feel like a new language. That differentiation is valuable, especially to a company like Apple trying to move its operating system to a new numbered version for the first time in 19 years.
Personally, I’m with him on this. I do generally like change to have a purpose, and I am a minimalist who was a great enthusiast of flat design back in 2017, but I’m bored with it now. It’s time for a change.
Not all designers have been impressed by what we see in the macOS Big Sur beta, however. Koloskus says that’s partly just the shock of the new. It’s human nature to dislike change until we have a chance to get used to it. And it’s partly that Apple has to deal with usability as well as aesthetic appeal.
So why does Apple’s take on it look… kinda bad? As mentioned earlier, the conceptual framework of neumorphism is relatively new, and there has been a resistance to it in much of the design world. UI design has been plagued for the longest time by designers who love to create hypothetical designs untethered to actual usability or user experience needs as a purely formal exercise, and this has led to infighting […]
Experimentation with form will always be difficult to balance with usability in the field of interface design, but it doesn’t mean it should be dismissed outright.
Apple is still feeling its way with this new design language.
