Month: July 2015

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, who used to practice law in Spain and is now journalist in New York covering security and hacking, explains in an article for Motherboard that even though in general he far prefers Android to the iPhone, he has decided to switch to the iPhone because of all of the security problems with Android.  One of his complaints is that even when Google patches the security exploits that are perhaps inevitable on any operating system, it then takes forever for manufacturers and carriers to pass them along to users.  Apple has often been much faster in pushing out any necessary security patches, and doesn’t have to wait on anyone else to get the patches to its users.  Truth be told, there have been several security concerns on the iPhone that Apple didn’t fix as fast as many would have liked.  Nevertheless, because Apple controls the phone and the operating system, it has all of the incentive and the ability to push out necessary fixes quickly, and is typically good at doing so.  For this reason and others, I have always felt that I am more secure on an iPhone than on an Android phone.  And now, the rest of the news of note from the past week:

• Do you have one or more law-related blogs that you love to read?  If so, nominate them for this year’s ABA Journal Blawg 100 by clicking here to submit your Blawg 100 Amici.  iPhone J.D. was added last year to the Blawg 100 Hall of Fame and thus is no longer eligible for the annual list, but there are lots of other great blogs out there, and I know that the blog authors would appreciate it if you share the love.
• Massachusetts attorney Heidi Alexander, a Law Practice Management Advisor at the Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program, explains what she likes about the Apple Watch in an article on Law Technology Today.
• California attorney David Sparks explains why he is a big fan of Apple Music, and so is his family.
• Serenity Caldwell of iMore is not a lawyer, but she wrote an interesting article about music licensing for songs on Apple Music, explaining why some songs played on Beats 1 or available for sale on iTunes cannot be streamed on Apple Music.
• Abdel Ibrahim of Watch Aware writes that, according to a new study by Wristly, Apple Watch users are becoming more healthy.
• Jason Snell explains why the Apple Watch will get a lot better this Fall, when watchOS 2 is released, in this week’s More Color column on Macworld.  As he notes:  “Apple needed the Apple Watch hardware to be rock solid on the launch date, because once that watch hardware is out in the world, it’s never going to get any better. But the software, that’s a continuing story.” 
• Which reminds me, I’ve been asked by several readers to write an updated review of my Apple Watch, now that I’ve been using it for three months.  What has held me back from writing something like that is that I know that the watch will change substantially once watchOS 2 comes out in just a few months.  The new software for the watch will not only itself include huge improvements, but will also open the door for developers to release much more useful native apps and handy plug-in “complications” for the watch face.  I love my Apple Watch today, but I also know that what I love most about it is likely to change substantially in just a few months.
• T-Mobile announced two changes this week that make it much more appealing to use T-Mobile if you use an iPhone, as Jeff Byrnes of AppAdvice explains.  First, you can now stream music from Apple Music (and other music services) without using up your monthly data allowance.  Second, if you buy an iPhone 6 from T-Mobile now, once Apple comes out with new iPhone models later this year you can swap the iPhone 6 for the newer iPhone at no cost.  It’s a neat idea, giving you the ability to get a new iPhone without worrying about buyer’s remorse when a new model comes up in six weeks or so.
• Right now, you can only buy an Apple Watch at an Apple Store, but as Rene Ritchie of iMore notes, starting a week from today, you’ll be able to buy an Apple Watch at over 300 Best Buy stores in the U.S.  And as Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports, the following week it will come to Best Buy in Canada.  It is good to see that Apple has finally been able to keep up with demand enough to make the watch available in more locations.
• James Stewart wrote an interesting article in the New York Times analyzing Microsoft’s disastrous decision to purchase Nokia’s phone unit.
• Bradley Chambers of The Sweet Setup shares a useful tip about using Dropbox to take documents that you run across while using your iPhone in a place where you can deal with them on your desktop computer.
• And finally, there is a new trailer for an upcoming documentary about Steve Jobs called Steve Jobs:  The Man in the Machine.  The trailer makes the film look pretty interesting to me.  However, when an early cut of the documentary was shown at South by Southwest earlier this year, Apple VP Eddy Cue complained on Twitter:  “Very disappointed in SJ:Man in the Machine. An inaccurate and mean-spirited view of my friend. It’s not a reflection of the Steve I knew.”  We can all judge for ourselves on September 4, when the documentary will debut in select theaters and on demand.  Here is the new trailer:

I suspect that many of you are using Apple Music right now, as am I.  Whether or not we stick with it once it becomes necessary to pay a monthly fee, we all get lots of great free music for three months.  But today’s post is not about music.  One thing that I have been enjoying on Apple Music is listening to comedy.  I’m not just talking about comedic songs, although there is an Intro to “Weird Al” Yankovic curated playlist that has everything from Eat It to I Lost On Jeopardy, plus lots of other funny songs.  Today, I’m talking about stand-up comedy albums.

Stand-up comedy is a genre of album that I have never before purchased.  It always seemed to me like something that I would listen to once and then be done with, no matter how good it is, and thus not worth owning.  But because the philosophy of Apple Music is pay one price — currently no price at all — and listen to anything that you want, all that you want, Apple Music provides a perfect opportunity to listen to some funny comedy on your iPhone.  And notwithstanding what I just said about not wanting to listen to routines more than once, I have found that there are some routines that I listened to long ago — such Steven Wright’s funny I Have a Pony album — that remain just as funny when I hear them again today.

I’ve only just begun to explore this genre, but here are some of the albums that I have enjoyed so far or that I have on my list to listen to soon.  Hopefully you will enjoy some of these too while you are driving around in your car, doing chores, or otherwise listening to your iPhone.  If you have any other suggestions for good stand-up comedy albums that I should add to my list, please share in a comment to this post!

And finally, it won’t surprise you that virtually all of this humor is not safe for work.

• Louis C.K. – Hilarious
• Steven Wright – I Have a Pony
• Amy Schumer – Cutting
• Eddie Murphy – Greatest Comedy Hits
• Patton Oswalt – Werewolves and Lollipops
• Steve Martin – A Wild and Crazy Guy
• David Cross – Shut Up, You F*****g Baby!
• Robin Williams – A Night At the Met

UPDATE:  Here is another one suggested to me by a reader.  (And there are more recommendations in the comments to this post)

• Woody Allen – The Stand-Up Years

The Activity app on the Apple Watch encourages you to be more active by using circles.  If you stand and move around during 12 or more different hours during the day, you complete the blue “Stand” circle.  If you exercise for 30 minutes or more during the day, you complete the green “Exercise” circle.  And if you move around and burn enough active calories to meet that goal (which can be adjusted), you complete the red “Move” circle.  Complete all three before midnight, and you get an alert congratulating you for completing all of your goals that day.  Complete all of your goals every day in a week, and your watch congratulates  you on that.  Completing circles gives you positive reinforcement for being more active every day, and I know that for many people, this encourages them to be more physically active.  It has for me.

The only problem is that I typically workout late at night.  I’m not a fan of early mornings, I’m too busy at work during the day to go to a gym in the 9 to 5 hours, I spend time with my family at night, and after reading stories and putting my kids to bed, finishing up my work from the day, writing posts for iPhone J.D., etc., it is often 11pm before I have time to use my treadmill.  That’s usually still enough time to exercise and complete my circles for the day, unless I’m really busy and find that it is close to midnight before I can exercise.  But the Apple Watch only gives you credit for work done before midnight, so if you start exercising at 11:45pm on Tuesday night and finish at 12:15am Wednesday morning, your Apple Watch only assigns 15 minutes of activity credit to Tuesday, which may not be enough to complete your circles for that day.  This is frustrating because I consider any time before I go to sleep to be the end of the day on Tuesday, even if it is technically Wednesday morning.

Fortunately, I’ve found that there is a solution for those of us who exercise late at night.  Before midnight comes, on your iPhone, go to General -> Date & Time.  You probably have your iPhone configured to Automatically set the time.  Turn that off, and manually select a time zone.

 

I live in New Orleans, which is in the Central Time Zone, so when I see that it is getting late I just tell my iPhone that I am in Cupertino, which is two hours earlier.  Within just a few seconds, the time on my Apple Watch automatically adjusts to two hours earlier.  And with this extra time at the end of the day, I can easily both start and finish my workout before my Apple Watch believes that it is midnight.

When you are finished with your workout, you may be tempted to change the time zone back to normal.  Don’t do so yet, because if you do, your Apple Watch will immediately adjust your activity circles to reflect that some activity was before midnight on one day and the rest of the activity was on the second day.  Instead, my tests show that you need to wait until it is past midnight in the time zone that you manually selected.  You can then adjust the time accordingly.  I usually just wait until the next morning to return to the real time zone.  Keep in mind that if you are using your iPhone or Apple Watch as an alarm clock in the morning, you’ll need to account for the time zone change when you set the alarm.

Hopefully you won’t need to use this trick very often because it is confusing to have to change the time zone back in the morning.  I myself have only had to resort to this trick a few times over the past few months.  But if you exercise late at night and your goal is to complete your circles for one day even though the clock reflects that it is technically the next day, this trick will let you get the activity circle credit as you intended, and will ensure that the Activity app on the iPhone gives you all of the completed circles that you intended to earn.

If you are looking to try out a bunch of apps without spending a lot of money, Apple is running a promotion this week in which 100 apps and games are being sold for only $0.99 each.  There are even some great productivity apps like GoodReader (a must for any attorney) and Scanner Pro.  Also on sale is this little up-and-coming game called Angry Birds; there might be a future in that one.  Check out the full list of $0.99 apps here.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• John Gruber of Daring Fireball notes that Apple now sells as many iOS devices as the worldwide PC industry sells PCs.  And Apple makes a lot more money selling iPhones and iPads than PC makers do selling their computers.
• Farhad Manjoo of the New York Times discusses the future of the Apple Watch, noting that, as Apple announced earlier this week, Apple sold more units in the first nine weeks on the market than either the iPhone or iPad did during that same period.  Perhaps one day Apple will sell more Apple Watches than PC makers sell PCs?
• As John Moltz points out, Apple’s statement that the Apple Watch is selling better than the iPhone and iPad at launch means that Apple sold more than 3.27 million Apple Watches in the first nine weeks.  Others are estimating 4 million.  Anecdotally, though, I’m still not seeing many folks wearing an Apple Watch — just enough that I actually take notice when I see it.
• Apple’s HomeKit technology is still in its infancy, but I’m a fan of it, as you can tell from my review last month of the Lutron Caséta Wireless Dimmer and Smart Bridge.  Rene Ritchie of iMore says one reason that compatible devices are slow to come out is that Apple has very stringent security requirements.  And this is a good thing.  As Ritchie notes:  “These accessories are coming into our homes. They’re going to be controlling the devices we and our families live with. They need to be rock-solid reliable and as secure as the state-of-technology allows. Because you better believe the first ‘hijacked home’ video will go viral.”  Agreed.
• Ritchie also reviews the new iPod touch, which is essentially a thinner and smaller iPhone 6 without the phone.  It looks like a good device if you want to give your kids something that can run apps and play music but doesn’t have a phone (and a monthly contract).  It can also be useful if you want a second iOS device, such as something smaller and lighter to take to the gym.
• John Callaham of iMore notes that Microsoft updated its iOS Office apps this week, including Word.  New features include the ability to open and view documents that have permissions applied to them.
• Serenity Caldwell of iMore wrote a comprehensive guide to troubleshooting Apple Music.
• Joshua Ho and Brandon Chester wrote a long and in-depth review of the Apple Watch for AnandTech.
• And finally, Apple has recently been featuring some stunning videos shot by real people using an iPhone 6.  Elite Daily put together this parody video showing more honest videos shot on an iPhone.

Yesterday, Apple released the results for its 2015 fiscal third quarter (which ran from March 29, 2015 to June 27, 2015) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results.  This is typically not a big fiscal quarter for Apple; the important quarter for Apple every year is the first fiscal quarter containing the holiday sales season, and during the fiscal third quarter, most potential Apple customers wait to see what new products Apple will introduce in the Fall.  Even so, Apple reported record results for a third fiscal quarter:  revenue of $49.6 billion and net profits of $10.7 billion.  Apple CFO Luca Maestri said that “growth was driven by the tremendous performance of iPhone, the introduction of Apple Watch and the continued strength of Mac and App Store sales.”  If you want to get all of the nitty gritty details, you can download the audio from the announcement conference call from iTunes, or you can read a rough transcript of the call prepared by Seeking Alpha.  Apple’s official press release is here. 

As always, I’m not as interested in the financial details as I am the statements of Apple executives during the call, including Apple’s CEO Tim Cook, that are of interest to iPhone and iPad users.  Here are the items that stood out to me as of interest to iPhone and iPad owners:

iPhone

• During the past quarter, Apple sold 47.5 million iPhones, the most that Apple has ever sold in a fiscal third quarter.  By my count, as of June 27, 2015, Apple had sold over 773 million iPhones
• Cook said that iPhone unit sales grew 35% since the 2014 fiscal third quarter, which he said was almost three times the growth rate in the overall smartphone market.
• Apple did particularly well in China, with iPhone unit growth of 87% — which is particularly remarkable when compared to the overall growth in the China smartphone market of only 5%.
• Cook said that 27% of the people who used an iPhone before the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus went on sale in September of 2014 upgraded to an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus.  Apple sees that as a market of 73% of iPhone owners who have yet to upgrade, which Cook said makes him bullish on future iPhone sales.
• Cook announced that in this latest financial quarter, Apple saw the highest ever rate of switchers from Android smartphones to the iPhone.  I suspect that this is because a lot of folks who prefer larger smartphones now have a reason to switch thanks to the larger iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.  But Cook said that the increase in sales was not just due to switchers and was also because of a large number of first-time iPhone buyers around the world.

iPad

• Apple sold 10.9 million iPads.  That’s the smallest number of iPads that Apple has sold in a fiscal third quarter since 2011.  Apple still sells a lot of iPads — by my count, as of June 27, 2015, Apple had sold over 282 million iPads — but clearly people do not buy new iPads as frequently as they buy new iPhones.
• Even so, Cook said that he is bullish on the future of the iPad, especially in light of the iPad productivity enhancements coming in iOS 9 such as split view, slide over, and picture-in-picture (which I discussed last month). 

Apple Watch

• Apple told the world last year that it would treat the Apple Watch differently than the iPhone and iPad and would not announce the number of units sold every quarter.  Cook did say that June sales were higher than April and May, dispelling rumors that there had been a huge demand in the beginning and then decreasing sales after that.
• Apple groups Apple Watch revenue in the same category on its quarterly report as revenue from Apple TV, Beats Electronics, iPod, Apple-branded and third-party accessories, and a few other items.  In Apple’s 2015 fiscal second quarter, Apple reported $1.689 billion in revenue in the Other category.  In the fiscal third quarter, Apple reported $2.641 billion in that same Other category.  Just comparing those two numbers, and assuming that everything else in that category sold the same from quarter-to-quarter, that suggests perhaps that the Apple Watch brought in $952 million.  But it’s actually more than that because we know that we cannot assume that everything else in “Other” stayed the same; Cook specifically said that the rest of the items in that category (such as iPods) are selling less.  So it seems fair to guess that Apple sold over $1 billion in Apple Watch devices and accessories (such as watch bands) last quarter, although we still don’t know precisely how that corresponds to a specific number of Apple Watches sold.
• Apple started taking pre-orders for the Apple Watch on April 10, 2015, and for most of the time since then, demand has outstripped supply.  But Cook announced that, in just the last few days, Apple has finally been able to catch up with demand, and thus Apple will soon be ready to expand Apple Watch sales to additional countries.
• Cook said that the most popular uses of the Apple Watch are text messaging and monitoring activity (e.g. when exercising).  He said that the most popular third party apps are social messaging apps such as Twitter.  Cook said that Apple Watch owners are “tracking their fitness, getting breaking news alerts, following their investments, connecting with friends, and living a healthier day.”

Tomorrow is the seven year anniversary of my being an iPhone user.  (I’m posting this today because tomorrow I plan to discuss Apple’s financial call that will take place at the end of the day today.)  The original iPhone was released on June 29, 2007, but I didn’t get one because it didn’t work with the Microsoft Exchange email used at my law firm (and most other large law firms).  So instead I continued to use my Palm Treo 650, a device that I really liked for many years but which, by mid-2007, I was eager to replace with an iPhone.  Apple added support for Microsoft Exchange in iOS 2, which became available on July 11, 2008, the same day that Apple released the iPhone 3G. 

Early in the morning on July 11, 2008, I lined up at my local AT&T store to get an iPhone 3G, but the store ran out of stock of the model that I wanted almost immediately (if they even had any to begin with).  So instead I placed my order and waited for notification that my iPhone arrived.

Seven years ago, I received that email on my Treo shortly before lunch, and that was the day that I switched from being a Palm Treo user to an Apple iPhone user:

As a side note, it amuses me to look at that screenshot.  For the many years that I used a Treo, that is how all of my emails looked — so very different from what I see on an iPhone today.

But back to 2008.  The AT&T store is just a few blocks from my office, so I took an early lunch break, picked up my new iPhone 3G, and started to once again use Apple products in my law practice.  (My law firm was an all-Mac firm when I started in 1994, but switched to PCs in the early 2000s, so it had been many years since I had anything with an Apple logo on my desk in my office.)

The iPhone 3G was a great first iPhone.  That’s when the App Store was brand new, so there were only 500 apps to start (there are over a million in the App Store today), but there was so much potential.  Like many attorneys, I looked forward to good legal-specific apps and a good way to work with Microsoft Word documents on the iPhone, both of which of course we have today, but back in 2008 it was just exciting to see all of the new apps coming out.  Also, as the name indicates, the iPhone 3G was the first iPhone to use the 3G network, which was so much faster than the Edge network used by the original iPhone.  It was also the first iPhone to include GPS.

As I think of how much of an improvement the iPhone 3G was over the original iPhone, it does make me wonder how much Apple will add to the next version of the Apple Watch.  Don’t get me wrong, I love my current Apple Watch and don’t regret buying it at all.  But all technology improves over time, and I wonder if the additional features in the 2016 version of the Apple Watch (or whenever the next model comes out) will seem like as big of an improvement (in hardware and software) as the iPhone 3G was over the first generation iPhone.

About four months after I started using my first iPhone, I started iPhone J.D.  It is my first iPhone, the iPhone 3G, that appears in the banner at the top of this website.  But it all began with that email that appeared on my Treo 650, seven years ago.  That Treo still works today, and the email saying that my iPhone is ready is one of the last emails that displays on it.

Today marks the 300th time that I have written an In the news post with links to news from the past week that might be of interest to attorneys who use an iPhone or iPad.  I discussed the history of this weekly post when it reached the 100 mark back in 2011.  The link in that post to the music from an old IN THE NEWS segment on CBS no longer works, but better yet, here is a video of a sample segment from 1980 — which should be nostalgic for any of you who, like me, watched Saturday morning cartoons in the 1970s or early 1980s.  Of course, my kids can now watch cartoons any time of day, any day of the week, thanks to Cable TV, DVDs, the iPad, etc.  As I think about it, the 1970s version of me as a child is quite jealous.  And now, let’s move along and focus on the much more recent history of just the past week, in which these were the news items of note:

• This week, Apple substantially updated the iPod touch, which I have always considered an iPhone without a phone.  California attorney David Sparks discusses the new iPods.
• In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell wonders whether the new iPod touch means that we will see a new, smaller iPhone.
• Kimber Streams picks the best Bluetooth keyboard in a post for The Wirecutter.  I almost always agree with the picks in The Wirecutter, so I’m sure that the Logitech Bluetooth Easy-Switch Keyboard K811 is nice, but my favorite Bluetooth keyboard for the iPad is the Apple Wireless Keyboard.  Streams briefly mentions the Apple keyboard, but dismisses it for reasons that don’t persuade me.  She starts by saying that the Apple keyboard “offers a solid typing experience, sturdy design, and all the OS X and iOS function keys a Mac user could hope for. It’s less expensive than the K811, too.”  (The Apple keyboard costs $69, versus $99 for the K811.)  Sounds good, so why doesn’t she like it?  First, she says that it doesn’t have backlit keys.  I admit that could be a nice feature, but I’ve never missed it.  Second, she says that it runs on AA batteries.  I consider that a plus, not a minus — the Apple Wireless Keyboard lasts for many months, and AA batteries are cheap and easy to find when you need to replace them.  Next she says that it is heaver than the K811.  The K811 weighs about three-quarters of a pound, and the Apple Keyboard weighs about a pound.  I’ve never once considered the Apple Wireless keyboard heavy.  Finally, she says that the Apple Keyboard “leaves Windows and Android users out in the cold,” which is irrelevant if you are buying it to use with an iPad (or iPhone). 
• If you want a more portable Bluetooth keyboard, Jordan Kahn of 9to5Mac reports that Microsoft is now shipping its $99 foldable keyboard for iOS.
• Maurizio Pesce reports for Wired that there will soon be a Commodore smartphone.  As someone who happily used a Commodore 64 in the 1980s, this intrigues me.  (The C-64 even got me through my Freshman year of college, before I purchased a Mac Plus as a Sophomore.)  Having said that, the Commodore name has bounced around to so many different companies since the 1980s that I’m not sure it has any real meaning today, other than nostalgia.
• Software developer and podcaster Marco Arment notes that, according to a study by The Verge, Apple Music streaming sounds about the same as Tidal, even though Tidal charges more and advertises being higher quality.
• iOS 9 will be released in about two months, and is now in public beta.  Rene Ritchie of iMore provides a first look at the new features, many of which I discussed last month when Apple first previewed iOS 9.
• Software architect Opal Alapat wrote an interesting post on what she loves, and doesn’t like, about the Apple Watch.
• Last month, I reviewed the Lutron Caséta Wireless Dimmer and Smart Bridge, which you can use to control the lights in your house using your iPhone and Apple Watch.  I like it a lot.  This week, Michael Brown of Macworld/TechHive reviewed and compared the Lutron product with the Insteon Smart Hub Pro.  He prefers the Lutron product, for many of the same reasons that I like mine.
• Software developer Craig Hockenberry wrote an extensive post on using an Apple Watch to track exercise while swimming in the ocean.  Apple doesn’t encourage using an Apple Watch while swimming, but Hockenberry says that it does work, although you should rinse it off with clean water when you are finished.
• Dan Throp-Lancaster of iMore reports that Apple Pay went live in the UK this week.
• It has nothing to do with the iPhone, but New Horizons flew by Pluto to take a picture this week.  How cool is that?
• And finally, Apple came out with four new ads for the Apple Watch this week, as noted by Zac Hall of 9to5Mac.  If you try to complete your activity circles with your Apple Watch like I do, then the final few seconds of this ad will make you smile:

There is a fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal written by Shira Ovide and Daisuke Wakabayashi which reports that Apple makes 92% of the profits in the smartphone industry.  The report is based on numbers from Canaccord Genuity, an investment banking and financial services company.  I myself don’t know if all of the data and conclusions of Canaccord Genuity are 100% valid, nor do I know the margin of error, but based on the commentary that I have seen elsewhere since this report was released, there seems to be a good chance that the 92% figure is roughly accurate.

The 92% figure on its own is pretty striking.  There is no question that Apple is making a lot of money from the iPhone because every quarter Apple reports record profits, but I never realized that Apple was taking so much of the profit in the industry. 

Moreover, the 92% number is even more remarkable when placed in proper context.

First, it is amazing that Apple is so profitable when so few smartphone manufacturers make money at all.  The report says that Apple makes 92% and Samsung makes 15% of the profit in the smartphone industry.  You might question how it can be that those two numbers add up to more than 100%, but it is because everyone else loses money in the industry.  In other words, Apple and Samsung make more money on smartphones than the industry does as a whole.  The article reports that there are around 1,000 companies making smartphones, but all of them except for Apple and Samsung either break even or lose money.  Apple, and to a lesser degree Samsung, make all of the profit in the smartphone market. 

Second, the 92% number is fascinating in light of the previous estmates.  Only one year ago, Canaccord Genuity estimated that Apple received 65% of smartphone profits.  And in 2012, Apple and Sumsung each had about 50% of the profits. 

Why the meteoric rise in the past year?  Rene Ritchie, an astute Apple observer from the iMore website, believes that the difference is that last year, folks who wanted a larger phone had to choose between the 4 inch screen of the iPhone 5/5s/5c and larger phones sold by Samsung and other companies, and many of them opted for a non-Apple smartphone to get that larger size.  But since the Fall of 2015, Apple now sells the 4.7 inch iPhone 6 and the 5.5 inch iPhone 6 Plus, along with other (older) models with smaller screens.  I myself am not a fan of the super-large screens on some iPhones.  I still sometimes find my iPhone 6 a little big and I cannot imagine using an iPhone 6 Plus.  But I know many folks who feel differently and prefer to use a larger phone.  Whether the credit goes to the larger iPhones, improvements in iOS 8, or other unique advantages, Apple is clearly selling more iPhones than ever before, and apparently it is making good money doing so. 

By the way, here is a chart showing the increase in iPhone and iPad sales over the years.  This chart is based on quarterly data that Apple releases, and at this point the most recent data is from April of 2015.  We’ll get new numbers next week when Apple has its fiscal second quarter conference call on July 21, 2015.

Third, the 92% figure is surprising because the iPhone does not have 92% of the smartphone market.  Far from it, in fact.  The Wall Street Journal article says that Apple sells less than 20% of all smartphones worldwide.  The article also says that Apple is able to demand higher prices than its competitors, and there is some truth in that because Apple doesn’t sell new smartphones than are cheap (although Apple does sell older models of the iPhone at lower prices).  But there are lots of other smartphones that sell for the same price as an iPhone, so that’s not the full story.  I believe that Apple’s profits also stem from the company doing an excellent job in manufacturing and predicting demand.

Thus, if the 92% figure is even close to accurate, it is truly remarkable on so many different levels.

An interesting counter-example to Apple’s recent success with the iPhone is the news last week about Microsoft’s smartphone business.  Back in 2007 when the iPhone was introduced, Nokia was making about two-thirds of the profits in the smartphone industry.  In August of 2013, Microsoft announced that it would pay $7.2 billion to acquire Nokia’s smartphone business.  Microsoft announced that the deal closed in April of 2014, so for just over a year now, Microsoft has been making and selling smartphones that had previously been sold under the Nokia brand name.  But just last week, it was reported by Robert Cyran in the New York Times and others that Microsoft is now writing off most of what it paid for Nokia in 2014.  So during the past year, while Apple’s share of the smartphone industry profits soared, Microsoft essentially threw away $7 billion in the smartphone industry.

Apple’s strategy has never been to sell the most of any product, but instead to sell the best of any product, with the expectation that profits will follow regardless of market share.  In the smartphone arena, it appears that this strategy has paid of in a big way.

Do you use your iPhone or iPad in your bed before you go to sleep at night, thinking that it will help you to get tired?  Maria Konnikova writes in an article for the New Yorker that doing so makes it harder for you to go to sleep.  She cites a Harvard Medical School study that finds that the blue light emitted by these devices is interpreted by your body as daylight, resulting in a surge of energy instead of the melatonin release that tells your body that it is time to go to sleep.  The study found that people who read a (traditional) book at night got tired over an hour before people who read an e-book at night, and the e-book readers were less alert the next morning.  It’s an interesting study, and perhaps I’ll read it on my iPad before I go to sleep tonight.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• New York attorney Neil Squillante of TechnoLawyer wrote a report on the new DocReviewPad app.
• New York attorney Niki Black discusses good iPhone apps that she has recently discovered in an article for The Daily Record.
• One of the topics discussed on the Clockwise podcast I was on this week was the future of the iPod.  Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac considered the same question.
• Security expert Glenn Fleishman of Macworld discusses the new two-factor authentication coming in iOS 9.  iOS 9 will also require six-digit verification codes, unlike iOS 8 and prior versions that allowed a four-digit code to unlock your iPhone.
• Apple debuted a new set of ads yesterday, with the tagline “If it’s not an iPhone, it’s not an iPhone.”  Chance Miller of 9to5Mac discusses the ads and provides links to them.
• Maddy Myers of iMore lists some 1980s video games that you can play on your iPhone.  I shudder to think of how many quarters I put into Dragon’s Lair in my youth.
• Rich Edmonds of iMore reports that T-Mobile no longer charges you for using an iPhone in Canada or Mexico.
• Ken Segal reviewed the Apple Watch on his blog.  Segal knows a thing or two about Apple — he used to work for Apple’s advertising agency, where he not only authored the famous Think Different campaign, he also came up with the name “iMac.”
• Analyist Ben Bajarin wrote an interesting article on using the Apple Watch, and then not using it for a week, noting that “the Apple Watch is a modern day convenience … in the same way a dishwasher or washer/dryer or a microwave is. None of the items are absolutely necessary, yet so many of their owners can’t imagine life without one.”
• Ariel Adams of A Blog to Watch reviews the Apple Watch from the perspective of someone who reviews traditional watches (including luxury watches) for a living.
• The Apple website has advice for not letting your Apple Watch get too hot or too cold.  “For example, Apple Watch shouldn’t sit unattended in direct sun for long periods, undergo dramatic changes in temperature or humidity, or be left in a car on hot days.”
• The Big Think notes that in 1926, Nikola Tesla predicted the iPhone.
• Christine Chan of AppAdvice compares Apple Music with Rdio and Spotify.
• Rene Ritchie of iMore explains how to use Siri to control Apple Music.
• Serenity Caldwell gives tips for using the Apple Music app.
• And finally, Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal wrote an interesting review of Apple Music.  She gives some tips on using the service, including Siri tips, and also talks about the drawbacks.  She doesn’t love the service, but feels that Apple has time to work out the kinks, and she pointed out on Twitter, “I also didn’t love the iPod at first.”  She also prepared a humorous video to describe Apple Music, doing it in the form of a music playlist:

One of my favorite podcasts is the Clockwise podcast, and thus I was thrilled to be a guest on yesterday’s show.  This podcast has a lot going for it.  First, it is a podcast about technology (especially Apple technology) hosted by two of the best in the field:  Jason Snell, the former Macworld Editor in Chief who has been writing about Apple since the 1990s, and Dan Moren, who wrote for Macworld from 2006 to 2014.  Second, the podcast always includes two other guests, which change from week to week, so every show includes different perspectives.  Third, each episode is strictly limited to 30 minutes, so it is fast-paced and doesn’t waste your time.

Yesterday’s show (Episode 94) was a good one.  The two guests were me and Georgia Dow, who lives in Montreal and is both a psychotherapist and a regular contributor to the great iMore website.  (She is also a two-time Canadian Jujitsu Champion.)

We started off with a pretty narrow topic — whether Apple is doing a good enough job updating the Safari web browser — and then discussed everyone’s all-time favorite Apple hardware products, the future of the iPod, and finally we speculated on what might be the next big advancement for the iPhone.  So this episode features discussions of Apple technology past, present and future.

You can download the show in your podcast player of choice, or you can click here to listen in your browser or download the show.  I encourage you to check it out.