I usually wear a shirt that has a pocket, and that is where my iPhone typically lives when I am out and about, so when my iPhone alerts me (such as when I receive a new text) it is easy for me to feel my iPhone vibrating even if my ringer is turned off. But what about women who have a different wardrobe and keep their iPhone in a purse? Susie Ochs of TechHive reviews a new piece of jewelry called Ringly, a ring that vibrates when your iPhone needs to get your attention (and which Ochs considers stylish; I'm not a good judge of that). I link to that article not so much because of the Ringly itself, but instead because it makes me wonder what features might be included in the iWatch that Apple is rumored to be working on right now for a possible debut later this year. And now, here are the news items of note from the past week.
- The U.S. Fifth Circuit has gone almost completely digital, and many judges use iPads to read briefs that are full of hyperlinks thanks to the Fifth Circuit's custom software. Texas attorney David Coale discusses this on his Fifth Circuit-centric blog called 600 Camp.
- Rene Ritchie of iMore wrote an interesting analysis of Apple's recent WWDC announcement in an article that he calls Timing. Another good one that he wrote about WWDC is called A Love Letter From Apple.
- David Pierce of The Verge explains why the iPhone 5s is the best smartphone on the market today.
- The iPhone 5s might be the best, but what if you wanted to use the most expensive smartphone on the market? Tim Moynihan of Wired reviews the Vertu Signature Touch, which starts at $10,300.
- Allyson Kazmucha of iMore explains how to use Siri to create, view, update and cancel Calendar events.
- Chris Welch of The Verge reports that Amtrak has plans to improve Wi-Fi on trains in the Northeast Corridor.
- iOS 8 adds a time lapse feature to the Camera app. Dave Mark of The Loop shares a video that shows off this feature, and it looks great.
This has nothing to do with the iPhone, but FYI, today is Friday the 13th and we have a full moon, which won't happen again until August 13, 2049.
- Twenty years ago, Apple debuted eWorld, a competitor to the other services that you accessed with a dial-up modem such as America Online, Prodigy and CompuServe. I was a member of eWorld from the beginning to the end in 1996, and it was an interesting service in the days before the Internet became popular. Benj Edwards wrote an article about eWorld for Macworld.
- Time magazine made a list of what it calls the 50 Best iPhone Apps.
- And finally, what do you do if you are stuck overnight in an airport by yourself? If you are Richard Dunn, you take your iPhone and film yourself in a fun and deliberately cheesy music video. He posted it to Vimeo earlier this week and it went viral, and has now been viewed over 11 million times. When I first saw this video, I assumed that Dunn had help making it, but as Dunn explains in an interview on CNN's HLN and an interview on USA Today, he really did film the video all by himself using items located in the virtually empty airport (tape, a ruler, a wheelchair, etc.) and then he later edited it on a Mac using Final Cut Pro. Jon Blisten of Rolling Stone even has a video response from Celine Dion.