AppleInsider Staff
A report on Friday claims Apple is nearing release of an iOS update that looks to address an email attachment encryption issue, a lock screen vulnerability and enhanced iBeacon support, among other minor bug fixes.
Citing a source familiar with the upcoming update, MacRumors claims Apple has distributed iOS 7.1.2 to carrier partners for testing ahead of a release sometime within the next two weeks.
The minor point update supposedly contains a number of bug fixes and security patches, including a resolution to an email encryption issue discovered in April. Security researchers proved the flaw, which prevents email attachments to be saved with proper encryption protection, exists in recent iOS releases as far back as iOS 7.0.4.
Following the release of iOS 7.1.1 two months ago, Apple said it was aware of the issue and would soon issue an update to patch the flaw.
In addition to email encryption, the upcoming iOS 7.1.2 is also said to address a problem in which the Mail app fails to download email messages.
Sources also claim the upcoming iOS version will include a fix for an unspecified Lock Screen vulnerability that could allow access to "limited apps." A final minor bug fix deals with data transfer from third-party accessories.
Finally, the purported iOS 7.1.2 update will include enhancements to iBeacon connectivity, but again the report is unclear on specifics.
It can also be speculated that Apple will fix a long-standing problem with iMessage that occurs when a user switches from an iPhone to a non-iOS device without properly disassociating their phone number from Apple's service. In some cases, iMessage will continue to intercept incoming texts and will not forward them to a user's new device. Apple promised to fix the issue in May.
Malcolm Owen
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13 Comments
The last sentence should read "In May Apple promised to fix the issue." As written it could easily be misunderstood to mean that Apple promised to have the fix out in May (and therefore a broken promise in mid-June) which isn't the case at all.
Great that Apple is fixing this.
I am hoping that Mail will be able to search emails.
And by that I mean, not just search subject heading and addresses, but rather, text within the body of emails.
"In addition to email encryption, the upcoming iOS 7.1.2 is also said to address a problem in which the Mail app fails to download email messages." Does this mean an end to e-mails saying "This message has no content" instead of being downloaded? That would make me very happy indeed!
It would be great if the new version of iMail could sort messages by date sent instead of date downloaded to the phone.
On a regular basis my yahoo account will receive a new unread message and show that there is 1 unread message, but then when I actually open up the inbox it's not there. I have to force quit the Mail app and then reopen it and then it actually downloads. I have to do this ALL the time. I really hope this is a bug Apple can fix. My other icloud inboxes work just fine. It's just Yahoo.