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Russian authorities have begun to ban government employees from using Apple devices for official state use, according to the Financial Times. As of Monday, the country’s trade ministry will prohibit the use of iPhones for all “work purposes.” Other agencies, including Russia’s telecommunications and mass media ministry, either have similar mandates already in place or plan to begin enforcing ones soon. The Times reports the ban covers all Apple products. In some cases, however, officials can continue using those devices for personal use, provided they don’t open work correspondence on them.

Apple did not immediately respond to Engadget’s comment request. Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February, the company cut off access to Apple Pay. It later halted all product sales in Russia. At the time, Apple made clear the decision was in response to the invasion, noting it stood “with all of the people” hurt by the incursion.

The ban comes after Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed at the start of June that it had uncovered a “spying operation by US intelligence agencies” involving Apple devices. The FSB said thousands of iPhones, including those in use by the country’s diplomatic missions in NATO countries, had been “infected” with monitoring software. The FSB went on to claim — without showing evidence — that Apple had worked closely with US signal intelligence to provide agents “with a wide range of control tools.” The tech giant denied those allegations, stating it had “never worked with any government to build a backdoor into any Apple product, and never will.”

More broadly, the move is reflective of a desire by Russia’s government to lessen its dependence on foreign-made technology. As The Times notes, President Vladimir Putin signed a decree last year ordering institutions involved in “critical information infrastructure” to migrate to domestically developed software by 2025. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/russia-bans-state-officials-from-using-apple-devices-over-us-spying-concerns-183732151.html?src=rss 

The first batch of Apple’s M3-equipped Macs could arrive as early October, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Writing in his latest Power On newsletter, Gurman reports there “should be another launch” after the company’s annual iPhone event in September, with a new slate of Macs likely the focus of whatever Apple has planned. “October is too early for new high-end MacBook Pros or desktops, so the first beneficiaries of the new chip should be the next iMac, 13-inch MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro,” he notes.

At the start of March, Gurman reported that Apple was at “a late stage” of development on two new iMac models that would feature its next-generation M3 silicon. The new chipset likely won’t feature many more CPU and GPU cores than Apple’s current M2 SoCs, but it is expected to offer significant performance and power efficiency gains thanks to TSMC’s 3nm process. At the time, Gurman predicted the new iMac could arrive as early as the second half of 2023, and that it would feature the same colorful design of the 2021 model. Last week, he wrote that Apple is also working on a new 32-inch iMac, but warned that model won’t arrive until late 2024 at the earliest.

In the past, Apple has typically announced new iPad models alongside its latest Macs, but it sounds like that won’t be the case this time around. “I wouldn’t expect any major upgrades until the M3 iPad Pros with OLED screens arrive next year,” Gurman writes. However, he notes Apple is working on a new iPad Air with refreshed internals. The current model features the company’s aging M1 chipset.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apples-first-m3-macs-could-arrive-in-october-163204526.html?src=rss