This is the final In the news for 2020, and given everything we have gone through this year, I — like pretty much everyone else — am very much looking forward to the future. But of course, there are always folks thinking about, and looking forward to, what the future may hold. A few days ago, an iPhone J.D. reader shared an article with me from the April 11, 1953 edition of The Tacoma New Tribune in which Mark Sullivan, the president of Pacific Telephone & Telegraph, made this bold, and very accurate, prediction: “In its final development, the telephone will be carried about by the individual, perhaps as we carry a watch today. It probably will require no dial or equivalent, and I think the users will be able to see each other, if they want, as they talk.” I was curious if this was real, but it is confirmed by Snopes and has been discussed elsewhere in the past, such as this article by Jason Kottke. I’m impressed that someone could look at the rotary telephone of the 1950s and foresee the iPhone. As I glance at my iPhone 12 Pro, I honestly have no idea what phones will look like and do 67 years from now, but I hope that it won’t be called the iPhone 79 Pro. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- New York attorney Nicole Black recommends holiday gifts for lawyers working remotely on the MyCase blog.
- Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories reviews the Level Touch, a HomeKit-compatible smart lock that looks like a normal lock.
- This week, Apple added cardio fitness notifications to the Apple Watch. Alex Guyot of MacStories explains what that means and how you turn it on.
- Photographer Erin Brooks shows off the advantages of the camera on the iPhone 12 Pro Max.
- Apple released iOS 14.3 this week, and one of the new features is support for the ProRAW format for the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max. Photographer Austin Mann does a great job of explaining and showing what you can do with ProRAW that you couldn’t do before.
- Juli Clover of MacRumors explains another new feature iOS 14.3: you can ask your iPhone what hundreds of animals, musical instruments, and other items sound like. This amused my kids, for a few minutes at least.
- Another new feature of iOS 14.3 is support for Apple Fitness+. Todd Haselton of CNBC wrote a good review of the Fitness+ service. I started using it this week, and so far I’m very impressed.
- Apple CEO Tim Cook discusses using Apple technology for health and fitness — and just for being outdoors — in a good interview on an episode of the Outside podcast.
- Apple updated its map of Canada, and Justin O’Beirne does a great job showing examples of what has changed.
- MacStories named the winners of its MacStories Selects 2020, recognizing the best apps of the year. There are some great apps on that list.
- Clare Duffy and Shannon Liao of CNN decided to figure out how much you would have to spend if you want to get the best versions of all of Apple’s current products. The figure they came up with is about $80,000, but about $70,000 of that was devoted to a desktop and laptop computer. So if you don’t need a new computer, just think of all of the money you can save.
- And finally, this week Marques Brownlee had an opportunity to ask Barack Obama a question about how he and his team embraced technology, and it is a pretty fascinating video Q&A: