Apple starts selling the iPhone X at 8am today. And because of time zones, that means that folks in Sydney, Australia (which is 15 hours ahead of the Eastern Time Zone) have been using an iPhone X for a while now, and Apple has a few pictures. Shortly after Apple started taking pre-orders one week ago, shipping times slipped to 5-6 weeks. Apparently Apple is working hard to ramp up production, because as I type this it is now down to 3-4 weeks. Of course you can also show up at an Apple Store today to buy one without a pre-order, but I'm sure that supply is very limited, so unless you are already standing in line as you are reading this in the early hours of Friday morning, I suspect that it is too late for you to get one today. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- If you have any interest in using your iPhone to control lights and more in your home, Florida attorney Katie Floyd and California attorney David Sparks had a fantastic episode of their Mac Power Users podcast in which they speak with home automation expert Robert Spivack. It was good to hear that Spivack is as much of a fan of Lutron Caséta light switches as I am. (My review.)
- New York attorney Nicole Black discusses on the MyCase blog five third party Apple Watch apps that lawyers might find useful. At this point, however, I think it is really the built-in Apple Watch apps that attorneys will use most of the time.
- Rene Ritchie of iMore notes that the iPhone X lacks the setting to display a battery percentage in the top corner, but as a workaround you can see it when you bring up the Control Center.
- Apple Pay works a little differently on the iPhone X, as Rene Ritchie of iMore explains.
- Speaking of Apple Pay, Bryan Wolfe of AppAdvice notes that you will soon be able to use Apple Pay in some new locations, including Saks Fifth Avenue, Dick's Sporting Goods and Albertson's.
- My favorite app for listening to podcasts, Overcast, was updated to version 4.0 yesterday. Federico Viticci of MacStories explains what is new.
- Apple CEO Tim Cook was interviewed by NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt to discuss Apple specifically (including the iPhone X) and the tech industry in general.
- Apple has a special page of its website devoted to iPhone X tips.
- Lance Ulanoff of Mashable talked to a few Apple executives to get the backstory on the creation of the iPhone X.
- For folks who want a new iPhone but want a more traditional model with Touch ID and without the $1000+ price tag, Apple now has the new iPhone 8. Jason Snell of Six Colors wrote this review.
- As noted by Trevor Daughterty of 9to5Mac, a neat AR feature was added to the Amazon app this week. Tap the camera icon at the top and then tap AR view. Now you can select lots of different products and see how each would look in a room in AR. Once you place the object, you can walk around it, zoom in and out, etc. Neat stuff.
- And finally, Apple came out with a new commercial for Apple Music this week, and I really like it. It features the Apple Music logo (two eighth notes) worked into animations of famous albums and artists. Every time I watch the ad I pick out something else; for example, the homage to Fleetwood Mac's Rumours album cover goes by in such a fraction of a second that I didn't even see it the first two times i watched the video:
