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Apple wants to turn your mom into a 2-factor key
Trusted contacts will make getting back into iCloud easier, but potentially embarrassing
Getting locked out of any account is annoying. Getting locked out of your iCloud account can be downright infuriating. Apple makes resetting your password rigorous if you've enabled its more robust account protections, but today, it announced a new way to avoid a potentially catastrophic loss of digital access to your data.
Google adds status updates to emergency sharing in Personal Safety app
Share info about calls and low battery updates as well as your location
The changelog for the last version of Google's Personal Safety app — available exclusively for Pixel phones — mentioned that emergency sharing "now includes information about your phone call status and battery levels" but we didn't find these features in the app itself. As a new version of the app rolls out, these new status updates are becoming available, even to those still on older versions.
Google kills another app — say goodbye to Trusted Contacts
Google can always be trusted to add to its graveyard
Google introduced the Trusted Contacts app back in 2016 as a way to share location info with people who are close to you. The app gained a few more features over the years, but now it looks like Google has decided to cut off access to Trusted Contacts. If the app is already installed on your device, you'll be able to keep using it — but not for long.
In the age of the smartphone, we've become accustomed to knowing where our loved ones are at all times. This can be seen as positive and negative, depending on how you look at it. One negative could be that a loss of contact for any period of time can lead to paranoia. Of course, there's an app (or several) for that. Trusted Contacts was launched late last year, and it allows you to share locations with chosen contacts, as well as request their whereabouts. The app has now been updated to version 1.5, bringing customizable request timeouts and integration with Google Maps.