Every year in September, Apple announces new iPhones, and now we are just a few days away from this year’s announcement on September 10. In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell provides his wish list of new iPhone features that he’d like to see, and on Six Colors he posted about other announcements he would like to see. My own thoughts on the event are very similar to his. For example, as I take more and more pictures with my iPhone instead of my DSLR camera, I’m always interested in improvements to the camera. All will be revealed very soon. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- If you like playing games with your iPad, iPhone, TV, and Mac, you’ll be interested to learn about vastly improved support for game controllers in the next version of the operating systems, including support for PlayStation and Xbox controllers. Illinois attorney John Voorhees took a deep dive into this upcoming support and prepared this report for MacStories.
- In an article for Medium’s Elemental, Ashley Ladrer offers advice for avoiding hearing loss when you use earbuds.
- Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac discusses new HomeKit-compatible accessories from Eve, including a smart water detector that can detect, for example, if a room has flooded.
- Nick Guy of Wirecutter updated his article recommending the best Apple Watch chargers and stands. I still use the Material Dock by Studio Neat that I reviewed in 2016.
- iOS 13 will feature vastly improved voice control technology, which will be especially useful for folks with accessibility needs but will likely be helpful to many other folks too. Steven Aquino describes what is new in an article for MacStories.
- Dave Rees of The Gadgeteer reviews the Brydge Pro keyboard for the 2018 iPad Pro.
- Rich Mogull of TidBITS explains that Google’s Project Zero discovered that China exploited a number of iOS vulnerabilities to spy on Muslims.
- In another article for TidBITS, Josh Centers critiques Apple’s inconsistent use of the ellipses icon on the iPhone.
- Leif Johnson of Macworld reviews the Adonit Note stylus, and is frustrated by the same thing that I found frustrating in my review — it is too easy to accidentally press the power button. That flaw is unfortunate because, otherwise, it is a very nice, less expensive alternative to the Apple Pencil.
- And finally, here is a video of Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano on the International Space Station using his iPad to act as a DJ in orbit, playing music to folks dancing on a cruise ship. When asked to comment on the performance, the folks on the ship said that it was out of this world. (I’m a father, so I believe that I have the constitutional right to make dad jokes.)