If you have enough interest in the iPhone to read iPhone J.D., then there is a good chance that your friends and family look to you when they have questions about their devices. And I suspect that you will see lots of friends and family members over the next few days for the holidays. A question you are likely to hear is "why is my [older] iPhone getting so slow?" Of course, one reason is that as iOS gets more sophisticated, it takes more advantage of newer iPhones with faster processors. An older iPhone that did well with iOS 9 will run slower with iOS 10 and iOS 11. This week, Apple provided another part of the answer, as discussed by Niraj Chokshi and Brian X. Chen of the New York Times. As iPhones get older, the lithium ion batteries inside start to run out of battery capacity. Instead of having folks get stuck with iPhones that don't last very long, Apple scales back the processing power. The result is that an older iPhone runs slower, but can keep going for longer. Since you don't always need an iPhone to run at top speed, I think that Apple has its priorities in the right place. But if you use an older iPhone and this is starting to bother you, you can pay Apple $79 to get a new battery installed, and then that older iPhone will run faster (and last longer). And now, the news of note from the past week:
- Attorney Scott Killian told Zac Hall of 9to5Mac the story of how his Apple Watch saved his life when it woke him up to warn him that he was having a heart attack. Killian used a third-party app, but Apple itself recently launched the Apple Heart Study to research how to do more of this. You can sign up to participate in the study if you have an Apple Watch; I started doing so nine days ago.
- Texas attorney Jnana Settle recommends 25 legal influencers to follow on Twitter in an article for Disrupter Daily.
- Zac Hall of 9to5Mac reports that Twitter is now supporting two-factor authentication using third-party authentication apps. (In this post, I described how you can do this with 1Password.) This is more secure than using text messaging as the second factor of authentication because it is possible for a hacker to spoof your cellphone and get your text messages, but only you should have access to a device running an authentication app. I configured this for my Twitter accounts yesterday, and it was easy and fast to set up.
- If you are lucky enough to receive Apple AirPods for Christmas, they probably were not a last minute gift. Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reported this past Monday that AirPods were sold out from Apple and other retailers until 2018.
- Back in early 2015, I recommended a great ebook on the Photos app called Photos: A Take Control Crash Course by Jason Snell. Snell recently updated the ebook to account for the new features in Photos on the Mac and iOS 11. If you purchased the ebook in the past, the new content is a free upgrade. Otherwise, the ebook is only $10 and it is full of fantastic information that will help you do so much more with the pictures on your iPhone, iPad and/or Mac. Highly recommended.
- Geoffery Fowler of the Washington Post recommends some favorite smart home gadgets. The main devices I use in my house are Lutron in-wall switches (my review), but I also recently started using a Nest Protect smoke detector, and I like it so much that I'm planning to get a second one.
- Federico Viticci of MacStories put together a good list of must-have iOS apps.
- FYI, the new Star Wars movie — The Last Jedi — is really good. I really enjoyed seeing it last weekend, and I my kids and I already have plans to see it again.
- And finally, speaking of answering tech support questions from family members, Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal provides some great advice to common questions in this video, and does so with the aid of puppets: