Utah will officially launch a COVID-19 contact tracing system based on Apple and Google's exposure notification API on Wednesday, according to a press release by the State's health department.
The system will utilize Apple and Google's exposure notification system, which notifies users with the feature enabled if they've come in contact with an individual who has tested positive for COVID-19. Utah is notably one of the few states that initially rejected using the system, and instead opted to use its own system based on less accurate and private GPS and Bluetooth tracking.
Utah's director for the Department of Health Center for Health and Informatics says that contact tracing will enable the state to better manage the pandemic and the outbreak of the virus.
"Contact tracing is an important part of how public health responds and stops disease outbreaks. People who have been in close contact with someone who has COVID-19 are more at risk of getting infected and making others sick,"
Unlike other states which are offering standalone apps, Utah's approach will work without an app and only require{s} users with the latest version of iOS and Android to enable exposure notification within the settings app. In practice, when two individuals with the system enabled come in "close proximity" to one another, they exchange "anonymized 'tokens' that log that close interaction for 14 days."
If someone logs a positive test result for COVID-19 into the system, other individuals who were logged to have come in close contact with them within the last 14 days are alerted to get tested and go into self-quarantine. The system will officially launch on Wednesday, February 17, and Utah residents will receive notification alerts over the course of the week encouraging them to enable the system.
Saturday October 18, 2025 11:00 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
iOS 26 was released last month, but the software train never stops, and iOS 26.1 beta testing is already underway. So far, iOS 26.1 makes both Apple Intelligence and Live Translation on compatible AirPods available in additional languages, and it includes some other minor changes across the Apple Music, Calendar, Photos, Clock, and Safari apps.
More features and changes will follow in future ...
Monday October 20, 2025 10:57 am PDT by Juli Clover
With the fourth betas of iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS 26.1, Apple has introduced a new setting that's designed to allow users to customize the look of Liquid Glass.
The toggle lets users select from a clear look for Liquid Glass, or a tinted look. Clear is the current Liquid Glass design, which is more transparent and shows the background underneath buttons, bars, and menus, while tinted ...
Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air amid underwhelming sales performance, Japan's Mizuho Securities believes (via The Elec).
The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing...
Friday October 17, 2025 7:35 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple's software engineers continue to internally test iOS 26.0.2, according to MacRumors logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions.
iOS 26.0.2 will be a minor update that addresses bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, but we do not know any specific details yet.
The update will likely be released by the end of next week.
Last month, Apple released iOS 26.0.1,...
Saturday October 18, 2025 10:57 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
While the new iPad Pro's headline feature is the M5 chip, the device has some other changes, including N1 and C1X chips, faster storage speeds, and more.
With the M5 chip, the new iPad Pro has up to a 20% faster CPU and up to a 40% faster GPU compared to the previous model with the M4 chip, according to Geekbench 6 results. Keep in mind that 256GB and 512GB configurations have a 9-core CPU,...
Sunday October 19, 2025 7:39 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
iOS 26.4 is expected to introduce a revamped version of Siri powered by Apple Intelligence, but not everyone is satisfied with how well it works.
In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said some of Apple's software engineers have "concerns" about the overhauled Siri's performance. However, he did not provide any specific details about the shortcomings.
iOS 26.4 will...
Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year.
The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
Monday October 20, 2025 1:55 pm PDT by Juli Clover
With the fourth beta of iOS 26.1, Apple added a toggle that makes Liquid Glass more opaque and reduces transparency. We tested the beta to see where the toggle works and what it looks like.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
If you have the latest iOS 26.1 beta, you can go to Settings > Display and Brightness to get to the new option. Tap on Liquid Glass, then...
Thursday October 16, 2025 3:57 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple plans to launch MacBook Air models equipped with the new M5 chip in spring 2026, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple is also working on M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro models that will come early in the year.
Neither the MacBook Pro models nor the MacBook Air models are expected to get design changes, with Apple focusing on simple chip upgrades. In the case of the MacBook Pro, a m...
Ahhh. Okay. Reading back through our comments I must have misunderstood your initial fear. You’re saying an app would be able to see which location you go to frequently (your home) and if you suddenly stay at said location (your home) for a week or two or three, it would guess you’re in quarantine. And then serve you ads. That does make sense, and it does seem easy to do! As long as the user enabled always allow on location. Which I don’t think much do anymore now that iOS reminds you that an app has been using it in the background.
If Facebook were to do it though, people are on that app enough multiples times throughout the day that even if “when using” was on it would have enough time to grab that data. And knowing Facebook, I definitely wouldn’t put it past them.
I think we got off on the wrong page because the article is talking about the covid contact tracing API and you’re talking about an individual app being able to do nefarious things if people quarantine and it notices.
Yeah. My point was the notification encourages behavior changes (which is good) but it could use behavior changes of others to estimate a risk. So it’s using it’s changes to its own location tracking to indirectly identify if you received an exposure notifications. So even if you don’t follow isolation guidelines it could figure out if you were recommended to do so and calculate a risk of infection based on others.
Really? Hmm. I don't see it available when I try to turn on Exposure Notifications here in Georgia... I get this message (attached).
I also have "Availability Alerts" turned on, and haven't gotten one... Is there not an indication like these when the Express version is available?
Availability alert isn't very immediate. As for Georgia, the article says it will be rolled out this week. My iPhone shows Georgia, but I am running iOS 14.5 beta.
My point was that the information provided by the COVID service would likely influence behavior enough, across enough people, to make it easy to use GPS logs to identify individuals who received the notification. If your app justifies location information and has a large enough user base then responding to the alert (by isolating) will increase the likelihood you will be identified. Google and Facebook apps would easily be able to perform this and use it to sell targeted ad space for the duration of your recommended quarantine.
Apple's Exposure Notification API does not log GPS information.
It gathers anonymized Bluetooth device IDs, which is changed every 15 minutes. Device IDs are shared with nearby iPhones and Android phones, which is retained on the device for about 2 weeks. Every day, iPhone and Android phones retrieve device IDs from state government's website, of patients who logged positive test results (which is done manually by the patient with positive test case ID number). If there's a match and the threshold is met (e.g., 15 minutes within 6 feet), you will be notified.
If you are using Exposure Notification Express app, it is not possible for third party to link Bluetooth device ID to you in anyway.
