AWT News Update: September 6, 2017

Apple’s developer portal appears to have been hacked, self-driving cars get a legislative boost, we know what you’ll be doing a week from Friday, and another beta is delivered by Apple:

• developer.apple.com has been down for a while today, and many think it’s due to a hacker attack. Many accounts had profile information changed to a Russian address
• The US House of Representatives unanimously voted in approval of a proposal to accelerate autonomous vehicle testing and research
• September 15 at midnight Pacific Time appears to be when pre-orders for new Apple products will be available
• iOS 11 beta 10 makes it to developer devices less than a week before the golden master may be released

The text version of the podcast can be read below. To listen to the podcast here, click the play button on the player below. Apple News readers need to visit Apple World Today in order to listen to the podcast.

Text Version

This is Steve Sande for Apple World Today, and you’re listening to the AWT News Update podcast for September 6, 2017. 

Developers who have needed access to Apple’s developer portal online are concerned right now, as they’re unable to get onto the site. Now it’s pretty much commonplace for developer.apple.com to go down before a big event like WWDC or even a product announcement, but there are some well known developers are pointing out that everyone’s developer accounts are showing a Russian address in the mis-spelled “St. Petesburg, Leningrad”. What sad about this is that many developers using Xcode are finding they can’t build apps in Xcode because the development servers are showing that they’re “undergoing maintenance”. 

If you’ve been waiting anxiously for your self-driving Apple car…or any other self-driving car for that matter, we’ve got good news for you. The US House of Representatives today voted unanimously in approval of a proposal to accelerate the testing and development of autonomous vehicles. Now this bill still needs to go to the Senate, which of course is working on its own legislation. What the House bill does is let automakers deploy up to 25,000 vehicles that bypass the usual safety standards, climbing to 100,000 vehicles by the third year of the law being in effect. This legislation is backed by companies like GM, Volkswagen and Waymo, all of which want to bypass existing safety regulations that were written for cars with drivers and get autonomous vehicles on the road where they can really be tested — in every state. Companies will still need to make sure that their cars are as safe as current models, will have to meet certain standards for headlights and other safety lighting, and even include a way for people to check the rear seats of vehicle so they don’t leave children behind. But if the automakers and tech firms can meet those regulations, the bill will eliminate pre-market federal approval for technologies.

What are you doing the morning of September 15th? If rumors are correct, you’ll be up at midnight PT to put in your pre-order for a new iPhone! The timing is correct when compared to other iPhone releases, and German website

Macerkopf says it has sources at two German mobile phone providers who have provided confirmation of the pre-order time and date. I’m personally hoping that I can get an iPhone 8 — or whatever it’s called — ordered through the iPhone Upgrade Plan.

And guess what? A tenth developer beta of iOS 11 was released this morning, with unspecified changes. That’s hopefully the last build we’ll see for Apple’s mobile operating system prior to the release event on September 12th. 

That’s all for today; I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon with another edition of the AWT News Update.