A week ago, Apple released iOS 13.0, but it had lots of bugs. This week, Apple released iOS 13.1 and iPadOS 13.1, and unfortunately I'm still seeing some bugs, especially in the Mail app in iPadOS 13.1. I love all of the new features, but hopefully it won't be long before we see another update so that we can appreciate all of the new features without seeing bizarre behavior in some of the built-in apps. [UPDATE: About 12 hours after I posted this, Apple released iOS 13.1.1 and iPadOS 13.1.1 to provide "bug fixes and improvements." Hopefully, this will make a difference.] And now, the news of note from the past week:
- As I mentioned last week, if you want to hear me talk about iOS 13 and you are in the New Orleans area, I'll be speaking to the Krewe de Tech group at the Jefferson Parish East Bank Regional Library on Tuesday, October 1 at 6:30. The meeting is free and open to the public. Click here for more details.
- This week, the Lit Software blog shared the story of New York attorney Gurfein Douglas who used the TrialPad app (my review) in a seven-week medical malpractice trial in which he obtained a verdict of $110,640,958.
- iOS 13 has been a big news item for many weeks now, but if for some reason you are still running iOS 12, you should install the iOS 12.4.2 update which came out yesterday to address some security issues, as explained by Chance Miller of 9to5Mac.
- Michael Simon of Macworld ranked all of the Apple Watch Series 5 watch faces, from worst to best. Even if you disagree with his rankings, he does a good job of explaining what is different in each face.
- Dan Moren and Jason Snell continue to update their Six Colors series on 13 features of iOS 13. For example, this week Dan Moren discussed what is improved in the Mail app in iOS 13, and he also explained some of the nice new features in CarPlay.
- In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell explains that the Shortcuts app is much more powerful in iOS 13.1.
- Matthew Cassinelli (who helped to create the Workflow app, which became the Shortcuts app) provides 150 shortcuts to use with iOS 13.
- In an article for The Verge, Dieter Bohn shares a few of the things he likes and dislikes about iPadOS.
- In an article for Macworld, Leif Johnson shares eight cool new features of iPadOS 13.
- Zac Hall of 9to5Mac shares the story of a mountain biker who flipped his bike, hit his head, and was knocked unconscious. But fortunately, he was wearing an Apple Watch, which automatically detected his fall, alerted 911 to his location, and texted his son.
- Alex Guyot wrote a comprehensive review of watchOS 6 for MacStories.
- And finally, the band Maroon 5 recently released a catchy new song called Memories. Of course, that is also the name of a feature of the iPhone and iPad in the Photos app. Members of the band are Apple fans, so they teamed up with Apple in two ways, as described by Heran Mamo of Billboard. First, the band created the music video for their song by using the Memories feature pointed at a folder of pictures and a few videos of the band members starting when they were young and then through the years. It's a great music video, and it shows off the power of the Memories feature. Second, the song Memories is currently available (although only for a limited time) for you to use as a soundtrack with your own Memories movie. The Photos app may select that song for you automatically, but if it doesn't, just create any movie in Memories (part of the For You tab), then pause the movie and tap Edit at the top right, and then tap Music to edit the music selection and then from the Soundtracks section, listed under Pop, select Memories by Maroon 5. It's a great song, and the lyrics go well with any selection of old photographs of family and friends. I cannot embed the Maroon 5 music video in this post, but you can watch it if you click here or click on the picture below. If you don't subscribe to Apple Music, you'll see a 30 second preview. If you do subscribe, you can watch the whole video in the Apple Music app.