Today is the launch day for Apple’s video streaming service, Apple TV+. Cynthia Littleton of Variety has an interesting behind-the-scenes article on how the service got started. Joe Rossignol of MacRumors rounded up some of the reviews from critics who got early looks at the new shows, as did Ryan Christoffel of MacStories. I’m very much looking forward to the series For All Mankind, which looks to be getting good reviews. You and the rest of your family can get one year of Apple TV+ for free if you purchased a new iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV, or Mac after September 10, 2019 (click here for details); anyone else can sign up and get the first week for free. After that, it is $4.99/month. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- Pennsylvania attorney Evan Kline shares his iOS shortcut for creating a meeting template on his 40Tech website.
- Apple’s new AirPods Pro are now available, and the reviews that I have seen have been very positive. For example, here’s a review from John Gruber of Daring Fireball, and here is one from Killian Bell of Cult of Mac who says that it is hard to recommend regular AirPods because the AirPods Pro are so much better.
- If you want to use your AirPods Pro with an Apple Watch, you need to update to watchOS 6.1, which came out this week, as reported by Chance Miller of 9to5Mac. That is also the first version to support the older Apple Watch Series 1 and Series 2.
- David Pogue of the New York Times describes some of the top new features in iOS 13.
- This week, I saw links to this interview of Steve Jobs by David Sheff published in February 1985 in Playboy. (That version of the article is on the Longform website so it is safe for work.) It is a fascinating interview. Even though I’ve read countless interviews of and articles about Steve Jobs, this was one that I couldn’t stop reading once I started.
- Armando Correa of People en Español interviewed Apple CEO Tim Cook to discuss his decision to come out six years ago as being gay. It’s a great interview.
- Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac explains how to use custom fonts on the iPhone and iPad.
- Rich Schaprio of NBC News shares the story of a time in 2017 when Rudy Giuliani got locked out of his iPhone after he entered the wrong password at least 10 times and took his iPhone to an Apple Store to get it unlocked — which involved erasing the phone and then downloading a backup of his data from iCloud. As John Gruber of Daring Fireball pointed out in 2018, it takes over 90 minutes to enter the wrong password 10 times because of built-in delays starting with the fifth attempt.
- And finally, here is a new video from Apple called Privacy on iPhone — Simple as that, which emphasizes Apple’s commitment to privacy in this age in which privacy is diminishing.