Actually of course yes, every capacitive touchscreen has basic hover capabilities in some form, it’s just a fairly narrow range (a few mm at most) and not exposed as a public API.
edit: Is this actual "hover without touching screen", which is what I was shocked about, or is this more like "finger passes over the icon while swiping between pages"?
It seems we all learned to stop worrying and love the cameras.
Here's one vendor https://noncam.com/
But the sticker seem generic, so i bet someone can prepare it before hand if they really want.
It’s also hilarious how many people worry about covering up their camera on the laptop not thinking that the microphone can pick up much more information in the surrounding area - again worrying about the wrong thing.
Also see, not using biometric security because in the US, police can’t legally make you give up your password - even though police are not above rubber hose decryption, judges hold people in contempt indefinitely and iPhone and Android phones are laughable insecure after first unlock after rebooting your phone.
Or they worry about the right thing, its just not what you worry about.
On laptops, the LED is not powered with the camera, but controlled by it. And on smartphones, if it's a green dot on the display it can obviously be bypassed in different ways given the right vulnerabilities.
Also, aside from that, your condescending attitude is frustrating.
So you think it's fine if someone accidentally activates the camera, as long as they know about it?
All it takes is an accidental click on "Video" during a teams call in the bathroom, and you will quickly discover the utility of a cover.
Same concern of many I have with laptops and theoretical webcam recording. Theres far worse things they could be stealthily doing.
Many phone cases do. Under the idea that you're protecting the camera, but it blocks it none the less.
I’m happy to see them being so open about it in the privacy report. It shows that it’s a real priority for them: It would’ve been easier to hide this as an implementation detail and not have people wonder about it. Another big reason to own an iPhone.
However, it is yet another example of them making full use of owning the platform in ways I assume other players can’t. The Apple camera app will always start faster than others, which is a loss for customization and competition.
Like others I can't get this replicated either.
And even if I did not sure I'd care. My iphone has so much information on me already an extra 500ms of camera on seems pretty immaterial compared to other risks (like tracker in your pocket 24/7, constantly leaking info to god knows what app's servers etc)
i.e. I think it's sending my message to the server continuously, and updating the GPU state with each token (chunk of text) that comes in.
Or maybe their set up is just that good and doesn't actually need any tricks or optimizations? Either way that's very impressive.
It is, at least I see it for the first message when starting a new chat. If you open the network tools and type, you can see the text being sent to the servers on every character.
Source, from spending too much time analysing the network calls in ChatGPT to keep using mini models in a free account.
Then of course the damage control started --and those always turning a blind eye to the state's wrongdoings are surely going to still damage control this--: "oh but Jack is the nephew of the cousin of that engineer at this company and historically they helped us write one of the first app using the camera".
Or whatever bullshit nonsense explanation they came up with.
If you ask me: Jack's Petrolhead Garage (name I made up) was a NSA front and you can shove your excuses where the light doesn't shine.
My 16 has a light for camera and anther for mic. No idea if it’s an LED.
You got a source for that? Or a clarification about which iphone version you are talking about? Because on my iphone 15 the green indicator light next to the camera is not an LED but a UI element on the screen. Source: I put my phone under a microscope just now and can see the individual pixels in this supposed "LED". Happy to provide the image if interested.
Compromising the camera dot on modern iOS requires compromising SPTM, which is equivalent to a full jailbreak. Most modern iOS spyware doesn't actually go as far as that, it just does enough exploitation to get the data they want.
None of this applies to macOS, which doesn't use SPTM, because the whole point of SPTM is to enforce iOS code signing and lockdown rules.
Also I never use the camera app icon, I swipe left from the lock screen 99% of the time, and the remaining 1% is from things like auth apps opening it to scan QR codes for new accounts, etc.
Apple’s new Secure Indicator Light (SIL) mechanism. When using the microphone or camera, the corresponding indicator dot is effectively rendered in hardware, making it a lot less likely that any malware or user space app would be able to access those sensors without the user’s knowledge.
If you use your phone and take photos with it, then what difference does it make that it uses the camera when you unlock it? If your phone is compromised, you're already cooked.
It's a signal that I eventually got used to and the fact that it makes me alert for even a couple of seconds, I consider that a plus.
Also, while we are at it, why can't I disable network access entirely for some apps? If I have a game that doesn't need the internet then it doesn't need the internet and I don't want it to have access to the internet, ever. I have been putting my phone in airplane mode just to use some of the apps and not have them phone home. This is a clearly missing (intentionally not added?) privacy feature.
Agreed, the only reason we don’t have a streamlined version of Little Snitch (very flexible network monitor) built in to the OS is that it’d destroy billions of revenue for the advertising industry.
Excellent.
What hidden consequences am I missing? I don’t see a downside.
I spent too much time fortifying devices and blocking their shit from getting in.
If it damages the the OS, that’s a problem for me on a Mac/ios but not so much with Ubuntu.
It’s not that long ago that I was paying for OS updates (that seems wild, I had to go and check). If it went back to that and I had no ads, it would be a straight win.
You don't, Apple does :)
I've heard that native apps are more secure than webapps, but in my experience Firefox is a more reliable steward of security, and App permissions are too obscure to really understand: it is harder to make a malicious webapp than it is to make a malicious native app. Is that a fair statement?
NetGuard can do this via "local VPN" on GrapheneOS/Android, https://netguard.me/
iOS Lockdown app provides device-wide adblock by destination host, but not per-app outbound rules.
https://support.1blocker.com/en/articles/9720640-how-to-enab...
Does the user need to add endpoints manually for each app, after identification by Charles Proxy?
I’m in the EU on holiday. It’s amazing how quickly you get used to the damn cookie popup that appears on every single site. Having it for apps wouldn’t seem likely to be more intrusive.
This is possible in GrapheneOS and is super nice. I use a keyboard app that I like but disable network access to ensure that it doesn't send private data anywhere.
But it's not very useful in practice: if an application doesn't need networking for its core functionality, then there usually is an open-source equivalent that does not use the network in the first place. The few applications that lack a good open-source equivalent (public transportation, proprietary messaging protocols, banking) don't do anything useful without network access.
What would be more useful, however, would be the ability to selectively block network connections: for example, to allow the public transportation app to access its API endpoint, but not the advertising and tracking endpoints. I don't think LineageOS allows that, and I don't know if Graphene does.
Apple kind of do this in China. Each app on Chinese iPhone needs to ask for permission when they access WiFi for the first time. Combine with cellular blocking, you can effectively block internet access for an app.
From a phone getting taken from your hand perspective, this is the first thing they will change.
I don't have the camera app in my app grid, but sometimes I see the green dot and have no idea what is triggering it. I even disabled the camera permission for all apps and started to turn it on from scratch only for apps I find necessary, but didn't know what was triggering it.
I am not why this logging thingy isn't enabled by default, but I am very happy it's possible to turn it on.
Putting your finger there while swiping up triggers the camera.
So for me I get this green dot every time I unlock my phone which is very annoying and feels like a privacy issue.
Maybe that's the reason I sometimes get a green dot when I am unlocking my phone.
Tyvm for sharing this. IIRC, it's possible to change the camera icon in the lock screen to something else. Since I never use this button (I am one of those weirdos that use the camera control button instead), I think I'll change to something else.
Of course, a hardware switch is always more secure.
I just use the side button or the pulldown screen.
That's looks like pre-warming being used to speed up camera launch.
It has been available since iOS 15 if you're curious.
- https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/about-the-ap...
Now, when I open my phone, I get a peaceful empty screen. If I scroll right, I can see the ocean of alerts (if that's what I'm ready to tackle) or I can swipe left to a screen with a few shortcuts for phone or browser (Orion).
In short, I put the chaos in a box that I only open when I want to. Might sound trite but it's made a big difference. I also turned off the thing that opens the phone as soon as I pick it up. Now, half the time I pick it up, I look at, decide I can live without all the chaos and put it back in my pocket.
I guess my orig post triggered because with a blank home screen, I can't accidentally activate the phone camera.
I also do not allow most apps to put banners on the screen (locked or unlocked), or beep, or buzz the phone. Almost all my apps have notifications turned off completely. If I want to know the status of my email, I open the email app. If I want to see what's new in Instagram, I open Instagram. Etc.
But the point is, those checks happen on my schedule, not when I'm prompted.
I did this so that using the Camera only takes one swipe (down) no matter what screen I'm on.
I just confirmed that the Control Center icon also lights up the green dot at first touch. However, incidental touches are probably more rare and unlikely in this menu.
Pre-loading at an precursor to user interaction.
pirates•1mo ago
Edit: actually there is a timing sweet spot on the swiping that I can get to do it, but still nothing with just pure hovering
myrandomcomment•1mo ago
arachnid92•1mo ago
EDIT: it also only seems to happen if the camera icon is on one of your Home Screen pages. I haven’t been able to reproduce the behavior when swiping across the icon while in the App Library. Wonder why they decided to do it that way? Do most people keep a camera icon on their Home Screen? That would be baffling to me. Why clutter your Home Screen when you can so easily access the camera from the lock screen or by using the physical camera button on newer iPhones?
supermatt•1mo ago
Because if using the phone then you need to access the lock screen to use the camera?
That means hitting the power button twice (slowly so you don’t trigger the wallet) and then a long press on the camera.
Alternatively it’s just a swipe and a tap if it’s on the home screen.
arachnid92•1mo ago
Anyhow, this is all just personal preference, of course. Anyone is free to put a camera icon anywhere they please. I just personally can’t stand clutter in my home or lock screens, so I tend to keep the number of apps there to a minimum and access everything else either via Spotlight or Control Center widgets.
supermatt•1mo ago
fnoff•1mo ago
supermatt•1mo ago
BugsJustFindMe•1mo ago
Half the time since updating to iOS 26 on my 13 mini, if I try to activate the camera from the lock screen the app opens but the camera fails to start and the view just stays black, and then I have to exit and try again. It's quite annoying. This does not happen with the camera app after unlocking the phone.
DHPersonal•1mo ago
BugsJustFindMe•1mo ago
snailmailman•1mo ago
Rooms with these lights give me migraines. I can always tell when lights in a room are like that, and I use the 240hz slow motion on my phone to double check or figure out which specific lights are the issue.
I hate these lights and I don’t understand why places use them.
swiftcoder•1mo ago
They are, but the camera stack should be detecting and compensating for that - it's pretty easy to detect, since it should be a fixed 50/60Hz depending on geographic location. You typically have to implement this filtering on all manner of light sensors.
withinboredom•1mo ago
isoprophlex•1mo ago
swiftcoder•1mo ago
dagmx•1mo ago
This is easier when your lights are all in phase and also in a single frequency, but you might also have bulbs that are at different frequencies (120 vs 60) or electric hookups that go out of phase.
It’s a very tricky problem to solve and to the best of my knowledge, nobody truly has. Film lights do clever and expensive tricks to match phase but that’s not feasible in a domestic setup.
BugsJustFindMe•1mo ago
I didn't say it wasn't. I said I bet that Apple, the company that can zero-shot high resolution synthetic 3D views from flat photos, could make the flicker not show in the video if they tried so that slow motion videos shot indoors aren't completely ruined by AC flicker.
SoftTalker•1mo ago
azinman2•1mo ago
gruez•1mo ago
SoftTalker•1mo ago
Edit: I discovered that in iOS 26 you can disable the "swipe" activation of the camera on the lock screen. I've done that and it should remove one of my major annoyances with the phone.
saagarjha•1mo ago
niij•1mo ago
I keep opening my phone "favorites" section and it erroneously reports no favorites. They either eventually load after seconds+ or I have to force close to get them to show.
ComputerGuru•1mo ago
drawfloat•1mo ago
kgen•1mo ago
snorbleck•1mo ago
probably. it is a TikTok world after all. or, pretty sure it's on the home screen by default and no one probably bothers to move it.
crazygringo•1mo ago
It only exists with a pointer, when you're using some kind of mouse or trackpad.
So it's ambiguous and confusing language. They should have said "when you hold your finger down on".