Ever since iPad OS 13 was released last year, it has been possible to run two instances of certain apps side-by-side. For example, you can have the Mail app open on the left side of the screen while, at the same time, you use Mail to compose a message on the right side of your screen — making it easy to consult older emails as you draft a new one. Microsoft has an Office Insider program that offers beta versions of upcoming Microsoft software, and this week, the Office Insider Blog describes an upcoming feature in Word for iPad that lets you use two windows side-by-side. This seems like an incredibly useful feature. When I use Word on my computer, I virtually always have more than one Word window open at a time so that I can copy items from one document and paste them into another. It will be great to be able to do the same thing on the iPad, even if you are limited to having two documents open at once. If you use PowerPoint on your iPad, that same post says that this feature is also coming to PowerPoint for iPad. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- California attorney David Sparks shares his initial impressions of the Magic Keyboard for iPad.
- Christina Farr of CNBC provides the behind-the-scenes story on how Apple and Google came together to create an exposure notification system for COVID-19 that protects your privacy.
- Brad Gibson of Cult of Mac notes that Apple Maps can now show you COVID-19 testing locations in your area.
- If you use the Group FaceTime feature to talk to multiple people at once, you know that the square of the person who is speaking gets larger while the squares of others get smaller. That feature is visually interesting, but it also can make you feel a little seasick as faces move around the screen. Dan Moren of Six Colors reports that the next version of iOS — iOS 13.5 — will include the option to disable this feature.
- In that same post, Moren reports that iOS 13.5 will also make it easier to unlock an iPhone when you are wearing a mask, bringing you directly to the screen where you enter your passcode instead of using Face ID.
- In a different post, Moren reviews the Logitech Combo Touch. It looks somewhat similar to the Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad in that it combines a keyboard and a trackpad. But while Apple’s Magic Keyboard works with the two most recent models of the iPad Pro (the 3rd and 4th generation iPad Pr0), the Logitech Combo Touch works with the 7th generation iPad (released in 2019), the 3rd generation iPad Air (released in 2019), and the 10.5″ version of the 2nd generation iPad Pro (released in 2017). Moren concludes that the Logitech Combo Touch is fine, but not nearly as nice as the Apple Magic Keyboard. Of course, it is also not as expensive.
- If you use Microsoft Teams for your videochats, Microsoft announced yesterday that background blur is “rolling out now” as a feature on the iPhone and iPad. I don’t see it yet. but hopefully it will come in an update very soon. The iPhone and iPad versions of Teams also lack the ability to use custom backgrounds, something added to the PC and Mac client a few weeks ago. According to that same post, the desktop client is about to get the option to have nine people on the screen at one time instead of four — to which, I say, it’s about time! (And Microsoft says that the number will increase even more in the future.) No word on when, if ever, you will be able to see more than four faces on the screen at one time on the iPad or iPhone versions of Teams.
- Mike Peterson of Apple Insider shares some interesting tidbits about the origins of the Apple Watch from Imran Chaudhri, one of the original designers at Apple.
- Ben Sandofsky of Halide takes a detailed look at the camera on the iPhone SE. While the hardware is essentially the same as what was included with the iPhone 8, you get more features and better results with the iPhone SE because it has such an advanced processor. Every year, it becomes even more true that software, not hardware, determines how good a camera is.
- Bradley Chambers of 9to5Mac discusses HomeKit options for outdoor lighting. Back in 2018, I reviewed the iHome iSP100 Outdoor Smart Plug, which is what I use to control the lights in my backyard. I recently changed my outdoor configuration, so I updated that post earlier this week. Since my wife and I have been sheltering in place for over six weeks, we have been using our backyard even more, and I really love being able to tap a button on my Apple Watch or iPhone to turn the outdoor accent lights on and off.
- If you want to use HomeKit to lock and unlock the deadbolt on a door, Level Lock is a new product that replaces the inside of your deadbolt but lets you keep the outdoor hardware. As a result, the lock looks the same, but now you can lock/unlock it using your iPhone or Apple Watch. And you can also give guests the ability to do the same thing during time periods that you create. It looks like an interesting product.
- Max Zahn with Andy Serwer of Yahoo Finance tell the amusing story of how Tim Cook recently tried to teach Warren Buffett how to use an iPhone.
- No matter where in the world you are located, you can celebrate the second-and-final-weekend of what would normally be Jazz Fest in New Orleans this weekend by listening to Jazz Festing in Place on WWOZ, either in the iPhone app or on the web. Great artists who are on deck for today through Sunday include Professor Longhair, Allen Toussaint, the Neville Brothers, Wynton Marsalis, Dr. Michael White, the Blind Boys of Alabama, John Boutte, the Hot 8 Brass Band, and many, many more. You can also use the two-week archive to listen to last week’s Jazz Festing in Place.
- And finally, in this video called Float, Apple shows off the iPad Pro with the new Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad: