When I was younger, taking a photograph meant using film in a camera. You only had so many pictures on a roll, and you had to pay to develop every picture (even the bad ones), so you were more circumspect about pressing that shutter button. Nowadays, you can take virtually unlimited pictures for free with your iPhone. That's great, but it also means that you end up with tons of pictures, only some of which are worth keeping. This week, California attorney David Sparks of MacSparky reviews BestPhotos, an iPhone app that helps you to pick out the photos on your iPhone that are worth keeping. The app even gives you options to quickly delete obvious errors. For example, the app can quickly find all of the videos on your iPhone that last about one second because those are videos that you likely took by accident when you intended to take a photo but instead you were in video mode. Just tap the mistakes and then tap one button to delete them all. You can also quickly add missing location information to a bunch of photos at one time, view photos side-by-side to quickly select the one worth keeping, view all of the metadata associated with a picture, and much more. I was thrilled to learn about the BestPhotos app (developer website) from David Sparks and I quickly paid the $3 to unlock all of the features. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories writes about some of the interesting details of Apple's October 30th announcements that you may have missed.
- California attorney Jeffrey Allen recommends iPhone apps for road warriors in an article for the ABA GPSolo Magazine.
- I've written before (1, 2) about how border patrol agents will sometimes demand the right to search your iPhone as you come into the United States, and if you decline to unlock your iPhone and let them do so, they may seize the device. Two months ago this happened to an American Muslim woman, and she retained an attorney with the Council on American-Islamic Relations to represent her in a lawsuit against the government. Cyrus Farivar of Ars Technica reported this week that the case settled and that the government returned her iPhone.
- It sounds like a scene from a techno horror movie — a bunch of Apple Watches in a hospital shut down, and then a bunch of iPhones shut down, but other cellphones and electronic devices continue to work just fine. What in the world could cause that? Kyle Wiens of iFixIt reports that it turns out that there was a helium leak from an MRI machine which impacted the clocks on Apple devices, and when the clock stops working, the rest of the device cannot work so it shuts down. It's an interesting story.
- If you use the Microsoft Outlook app on your iPhone, Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac reports that a new update provides better support for the larger screens on an iPhone XS Max and and iPhone XR.
- Jeremy Burge of Emojipedia shows off all of the new emoji and emoji changes introduced in iOS 12.1, which came out earlier this week. He counts 158 new emojis.
- In January of 2017, Apple introduced a new power management feature for the iPhone 7 and earlier models to help to prevent a device from unexpectedly shutting down when the battery in the device gets old. Joe Rossignol of MacRumors reports that iOS 12.1 adds this feature to the iPhone 8 and iPhone X.
- Rossignol also reports that initial tests show that the new iPad Pro is as fast as a new MacBook Pro. Wow.
- Charlie Sorrel of Cult of Mac discusses the USB-C port on the new iPad Pro.
- M.G. Siegler reviews the Apple Watch Series 4 in a post on Medium. He believes that this is the first truly great Apple Watch, and I agree.
- Brent Dirks of AppAdvice reviews Name Skillz, a $5 app which helps you to remember peoples' names.
- And finally, Apple released two videos this week which show off the new features in the iPad Pro. A one minute video called Change focuses on what is different, like the larger screen. The more informative one is a three-minute introduction video, and that is the one I have embedded below:
