On April 22, 2009, Tim Cook (who at the time was Apple's COO and acting CEO) announced that Apple had sold its 21st million iPhone, was happy with its exclusive relationship with AT&T, and looked forward to the competition from the Palm Pre. Just two days later, I published the first edition of In the News. Fast forward to today, and analyst Horace Dediu concluded that Apple recently sold its 2 billionth iPhone, and this is the 600th edition of In the News. That is a lot of Fridays. Well, TGIF once again, and here is the news of note from the past week:
- One of the new announcements made by Apple this week was a new plan for Apple Music. The Apple Music plan options were $9.99/month for an individual, $14.99/month for up to 6 people in a family, or $4.99/month if you are a college student. This week, Apple added a fourth plan: $4.99/month for the Apple Music Voice plan. With this plan, you have to ask Siri to play music — such as individual songs, albums, Apple Music playlists, or new mood and activity playlists (such as "Play the dinner party playlist") — and you cannot use the traditional Apple Music app to search for songs. You also don't get Spatial Audio, and because you are not using the Apple Music app, you cannot see lyrics or watch music videos. California attorney David Sparks points out another drawback: Siri often does not understand you when you ask it to play one song and it plays a different one instead. Perhaps this new plan will be attractive to some folks, but I share David's concerns. On the other hand, I think that the family plan is a tremendous value. Apple Music integrates incredibly well with all of our Apple products, and it is great that I, my wife, and both of my teenagers can play virtually any song that we want, whenever we want, for about the same price that I paid for a single cassette tape when I was a teenager. And I don't even need to flip the iPhone over to play the second half of that Journey album.
- Speaking of David Sparks, he and Stephen Hackett released a great episode of the Mac Power Users podcast with tips on getting work done using an iPad. I learned a lot from that one.
- Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories shares some of the small things that you may have missed associated with Apple's new product announcement from this past Monday.
- How do you decide between the AirPods (second generation), the new AirPods (third generation), and the AirPods Pro? Chance Miller of 9to5Mac compares the three products and created an especially useful chart comparing the key features.
- Stephen Hackett of 512 Pixels (and the Mac Power Users podcast) shows all the details on how the new Apple Music Voice plan compares to the other plans.
- Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac notes another new announcement from Apple this week: you can now buy the HomePod mini in the original colors (space gray and white) or three new colors: yellow, orange, and blue. I reviewed the HomePod mini earlier this year, and I'm still a big fan.
- Juli Clover of MacStories notes a new Apple product that Apple did not mention at its event this past Monday: a new $19 Polishing Cloth that is safe to use to clean any Apple device. And I see as I type this that it is currently sold out for the next 10-12 weeks, so I hope that you were not counting on getting one from Santa Claus this year.
- Dan Moren of Six Colors reviews the iPhone 13 Pro.
- One feature of the iPhone 13 Pro is 120hz ProMotion. What exactly does that mean? This two-minute YouTube video from "The Slow Mo Guys" uses slow motion to show exactly how it works. Very informative.
- Federico Viticci of MacStories writes about an app called Yoink, a clipboard manager on the iPad that and iPhone that manages to run all the time in the background by telling the operating system that it is in picture-in-picture mode. I'm curious if Apple will let the app continue to exploit this loophole.
- One of the new watch faces that Apple created to take advantage of the larger face on the Apple Watch Series 7 is called Contour. Parker Ortolani of 9to5Mac shares all the details on how the Contour watch face works.
- Mark Sullivan of Fast Company reviews the Apple Watch Series 7 as a smartwatch for runners.
- Jason Cipriani and Lisa Eadicicco of CNet recommend some Apple Watch settings that you might want to change.
- You can usually get 3% cash back when you use an Apple Card to purchase products from Apple. But Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports that you can now get 6% cash back.
- Clive Thompson writes on Medium about reading War and Peace on an iPhone. The. Whole. Book. It's a fascinating article written by a great writer, and it addresses far more topics than you might expect.
- And finally, if you missed the first two minutes of Apple's announcements on Monday, then you missed a great video called Start Up: 45 Years of Apple Sounds. I love so much about this video: the homage to creating something in a garage — the place that Apple itself started, the vintage Apple products, and the song that A.G. Cook created. Worth watching:
