Just in time for your holiday travel over the next few weeks, Netflix now lets you download content to your iPhone or iPad so that you can watch a video even when you have no Internet connection (such as on a plane) or just a poor Internet connection (such as in an airport, or at a relative’s house). I just downloaded the entire Season 2 of the Netflix series Narcos (10 episodes, each one almost an hour) and it and that took up about 2.4 GB on my iPhone. Similarly, ten hour-long episodes of Black Mirror took about the same amount of space. Even when I have an Internet connection, I sort of like the idea of fully downloading in advance so there is no risk of stuttering. Raymond Wong of Mashable has additional details on downloading from Netflix. I suspect that this will be a popular new feature. And now, the news of note from the past two weeks:
- Legal tech consultant Brett Burney reviews Typic, an app that you can use to add text to a photo on your iPhone.
- California attorney David Sparks has some holiday gift recommendations, most of which relate to the iPhone or iPad in some way.
- Sparks also talks to New York lawyer Joshua Holt about the apps on his iPhone home screen.
- San Diego attorney Jeff Bennion recommends that lawyers use a password manager in an article for Aobf the Law. I use 1Password and cannot imagine not using it.
- AT&T DirecTV Now is a new streaming service that lets you stream live TV to your iPhone, iPad or Apple TV. It is cheaper than a cable subscription, but has certain limitations, such as no DVR and no ability to pause live TV. Geoffrey Fowler of the Wall Street Journal talks about the new service and similar streaming options.
- Ryan Christoffel of MacStories discusses some of the uses of an Apple Pencil.
- If you use an Apple Magic Keyboard as an external keyboard for an iPad, the new Studio Neat Canopy looks like a nice way to protect your keyboard and prop up your iPad when you want to use it.
- When the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus were released and Apple noted that they are water resistant, many folks decided to push the envelope and actually take them underwater, such as using them for underwater photography. But they really are not designed for that, and Serenity Caldwell of iMore learned that the hard way when she destroyed her finacé’s iPhone by using it in a pool.
- Zac Hall of 9to5Mac reviews the Kanex GoPower Watch, a portable charger for the Apple Watch that is similar to the Archeer Apple Watch Portable Charger I recently reviewed.
- Looking for a new Wi-Fi router for your home or office? Mesh systems are currently all the rage, and Dave Hamilton of The Mac Observer takes a look at the best options on the market.
- Jim Slater similalry looks at the best Wi-Fi router options in an article for The Wirecutter.
- Apple’s own Wi-Fi router, the AirPort Extreme, has long been one of the best-loved routers. Just this week, J.D. Power named it the most-loved router. But does it have a future? Mark Gurman of Bloomberg reports on rumors that Apple is getting out of the Wi-Fi router business. Of course, these are just rumors; maybe Gurman is wrong, or maybe Gurman is only half-right — for example, Apple could be giving up on the AirPort Extreme only to replace it with a better product, such as perhaps a competitor to the Amazon Echo. I love my Apple AirPort Extreme Base Stations for the reasons noted in this review, but if I were buying something new today, I’d probably get an Eero.
- And finally, if you want to see more of Apple’s new coffee table book, Stephen Hackett of the Relay FM podcast network shows off many of the pictures in the book next to many of the actual products (thanks to his extensive collection of old Apple items) in this video: