Almost every week for over ten years, I've been collecting the news of note related to the iPhone from the prior week and posting a Friday column called In the news. Add them all up and you'll see that today is the 500th edition, a number that I certainly did not have in mind when I wrote this post in 2009. If you are interested, I explained the origin of In the news back in 2011 when I published the 100th edition. Having said that, if you are around my age and used to watch Saturday morning cartoons in the 1970s and/or early 1980s, then you already know what my inspiration was for the title. Before I head out to the fancy 500th celebration gala, here is the news of note from the past week:
- Lit Software makes some of the very best apps for attorneys who use an iPad, such as TrialPad and TranscriptPad, and has more lawyer-specific apps coming in the future. In a post on the Lit Software blog, the company explains what is on the future roadmap for Lit Software, including a new subscription model and better support for iPadOS 13.
- In an article for Law Technology Today, attorney Dennis Kennedy discusses attorney use of cloud computing, including use on mobile devices.
- Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories discusses the new features in GoodNotes, my favorite app for taking handwritten notes on the iPad (and a current sponsor of iPhone J.D.)
- This week, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three scientists who developed lithium-ion batteries: Stanley Whittingham, John Goodenough, and Akira Yoshino. As John Timmer of Ars Technica explains, that discovery spawned the mobile-electronic revolution, including the iPhone. And in an article in the New York Times, Prof. Whittingham is quoted as saying that "he always hoped lithium-ion technology would grow, 'but we never envisaged it growing this far. We never imagined it being ubiquitous in things like iPhones.'" Congrats! All three of you are invited to New Orleans for the 500th celebration gala.
- Jason Cross of Macworld compiled a list of all of the modern iPhone touch gestures and commands.
- When iOS 13.0 debuted on September 19, 2019, it had an unfortunate number of bugs, resulting in the need for numerous software updates over the past few weeks. Chaim Gartenberg of The Verge says that there is still a long way to go, but fortunately, both iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 are fairly stable for me now.
- William Gallagher of AppleInsider offers advice for using the Control Center in iOS 13.
- If you are interested in using Shortcuts on iOS 13 and/or iPadOS 13, Shawn Blanc of The Sweet Setup wrote a comprehensive guide for doing so.
- The team at MacStories identifies apps that do a good job of taking advantage of iOS 13 and iPadOS 13.
- Eric Griffith of PCMag identifies hidden features in iOS 13 that you might want to try.
- iOS 13 and iPadOS 13 are very similar, but there are some important differences, as noted by David Nield of Gizmodo.
- If you liked the idea of using a Logitech Crayon with your iPad instead of an Apple Pencil but the bright colors deterred you from doing so, Malcolm Ower of AppleInsider reports that you can now buy an all-gray version of the Crayon for the same price of $70.
- Michael Grothaus of Fast Company explains why you should be careful about accepting a Lightning cable from a stranger now that a hacked Lightning cable is being mass-produced that can be used to take over your computer. Yikes.
- If you have a new car with a wide video screen, CarPlay looks much better, as Danny Zepeda of iMore demonstrates.
- In an article for Wired, Sophie Charara interviewed DJ Zane Lowe to discuss the future of Apple Music.
- If you prefer Spotify over Apple Music, Brent Dirks of AppAdvice explains that you can now control Spotify using Siri.
- In just a few weeks, Apple will debut its Apple TV+ streaming video service. Ramin Setoodeh of Variety interviews Jennifer Aniston, who talks about her new show and why she brought it to Apple TV+. Aniston explained that Apple is "all about quality, not quantity, so that was really appealing. And in spite of their comical secrecy, it’s been worth it. Who doesn’t want to be part of the Wild Wild West?"
- Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that the NFL fined Ben Roethlisberger $5,000 for wearing his Apple Watch on the Pittsburgh Steelers' sideline during the Monday Night Football game against the Cincinnati Bengals.
- And finally, here is a one-minute video from Apple that shows off some of the new features of iPadOS 13. In showing off the new swipe-to-type feature that Apple calls Quick Path, the video shows that you can pinch on the full-size iPad keyboard to turn it into a small, iPhone-size keyboard. Even when I'm not using Quick Path, I use that feature quite a bit when I want to type something but I also want to be able to see more items on my screen. If you haven't tried it yet, you should check it out.
