Last month, for my birthday, my wife purchased me a pair of AirPods Pro. But due to the intense demand, I didn’t actually receive them until this week. If you are lucky, you can occasionally find them in limited quantity in an Apple Store or on Amazon (they are out of stock as I am typing this), but for the most part you have to wait. I want to use them for a few weeks before I write my review, but I was interested to read an article this week by financial analyst Horace Dediu called iPods Pro. That title isn’t a typo; Dediu is making the point that products like the AirPods are surpassing the “peak iPod” point which occurred in 2007. At the time, the iPod was credited with saving Apple, showing that the company could branch out beyond the Mac with a successful product. Of course the iPhone would become far more popular than the iPod, but “peak iPod” is still an interesting point of comparison. Dedui believes that the Apple Watch already passed “peak iPod” and that the AirPods are about to do so now. This doesn’t surprise me; almost everyone I encounter who uses AirPods really likes them. My son recently received AirPods as a present when he turned 14, and they instantly became his constant companion. (I can’t judge; mine are almost always in my pocket too.). And now, the news of note from the past week:
- Louisville, Kentucky attorney Stephen Embry is featured in a recent blog post on the Lit Software website because of his extensive use of apps like TrialPad and TranscriptPad and other iPad apps.
- Legal ethics expert Dane Ciolino reports that South Carolina recently became the 38th state to adopt the duty of technology competence in ABA Model Rule 1.1, comment 8. You can get details on all 38 of the states on this webpage maintained by Massachusetts lawyer Bob Ambrogi.
- In article for Wired, Lily Hay Newman discusses the problem of smart devices like the Ring Doorbell and Ring indoor cameras being exploited by hackers, who can then hear what is going on inside your house and in some cases even force you to listen to them. Yikes. This is why I see so much value in buying products from a company like Apple that pays attention to privacy.
- Apple released iOS 13.3 this week. It includes some minor feature improvements, as discussed by Ryan Christoffel of MacStories, and also fixes some important bugs, such as an AirDrop flaw described by Chance Miller in an article for 9to5Mac.
- Killian Bell of Cult of Mac recommends Apple Watch stocking stuffers for $40 or less. There is an interesting item on the list I had never heard of before: the EdgeGear Shift, a band that wraps around your hand to hold an Apple Watch so that it is easier to see why you are running.
- Jonny Evans of Computerworld offers tips for getting better battery life on an iPhone.
- Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac reviews the AirFly Pro, which you can use to wirelessly connect your AirPods to any device with a headphone jack, or to send audio from your iPhone to any device with an AUX-in jack.
- Hardy also reviews the ConnectSense, which replaces a traditional power outlet to provide HomeKit compatibility.
- Ryan Christoffel of MacStories reports that you can now post a Live Photo taken with your iPhone on Twitter; Twitter converts them to GIFs so that anyone can see the short video.
- And finally, this week Apple released a very impressive video shot on iPhone in a desert in Suadi Arabia called The Saudi desert riders. Very cool.