In the news

The big Apple news this week is just a rumor, but it comes from enough sources that it may well be true.  John Paczkowski of BuzzFeed reported that on March 25th, Apple will hold a big event for the press at the Steve Jobs Theater at its new Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California.  Paczkowski says that at the event, Apple will unveil its new subscription news service, which I presume will let you pay one price to read lots of magazines and newspapers on your Apple devices.  And then, in an article for Fortune, Mark Gurman and Anousha Sakoui reported that this is also the event at which Apple will unveil its video streaming service, which I presume will be a competitor to Netflix.  The Fortune article says that Apple will have some Hollywood stars at the event, which could include Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Garner, and J.J. Abrams.  Janko Roettgers and Cynthia Littleton of Variety report that the streaming video service won’t actually launch until the summer or fall.  Only Apple knows all of the details, but this looks to be an interesting event.  Add these new services to its existing Apple Music service, and subscription services could soon become a major part of Apple’s portfolio.  And now, the other news of note from the past week:

• I’m currently preparing a presentation that I will be giving with Brett Burney at ABA TECHSHOW in Chicago in two weeks.  Our presentation will be full of useful tips, app suggestions, recommended hardware, and more for the iPhone and iPad.  I’m looking forward to it, so if you will be at TECHSHOW, I encourage you to attend our session on Friday, March 1, at 10:30 a.m.
• Another presenter at ABA TECHSHOW 2019 is California attorney David Sparks.  This week he explained why he enjoys using an app for the Mac called AirBuddy, which makes it easy to switch between using your AirPods with your iPhone and your Mac.
• Sara Salinas of CNBC reports that Gene Levoff, the lawyer at Apple responsible for stopping Apple employees from conducting insider trading, has himself been charged with insider trading.
• David Shepardson of Reuters reports that Apple CEO Tim Cook and others are joining a Trump administration task force to address workforce shifts resulting from artificial intelligence and automation.
• Speaking of President Trump, yesterday his press secretary Sarah Sanders announced on Twitter that the president would sign a government spending bill but would also declare a national emergency so that he can build a wall even without congressional approval.  I don’t want to get political on iPhone J.D. so I won’t share my thoughts on that, although believe me I have many, but I did think it was interesting how Sanders made the announcement.  Instead of just posting a normal tweet, Sanders made the announcement by typing in the Notes app on an iPhone, creating a screenshot, and then posting that picture.  (It looks like she also accidentally put a black dot on the screen using the Markup feature when she cropped the image.)  Folks often use a Notes screenshot circumvent the 280 character limit of a tweet.  This message was only 300 characters so it may have been possible to edit a few words and post a normal tweet, but nevertheless it is interesting to see an official government communication using the same app that I use for a simple grocery list.  (After I wrote that sentence, I learned that Trevor Noah found a more funny way to say the same thing.  That’s why I’m a lawyer and he hosts The Daily Show.)
• And finally, for the Grammy’s earlier this week, Apple created three music videos inspired by its Memoji feature in Messages featuring Florida Georgia Line singing Simple, Khalid singing Talk, and Ariana Grande singing 7 Rings.  Here is the Ariana Grande video: