When Apple introduced the third generation AirPods and said that it would continue selling the second generation AirPods for $129, I wrote last month: "That makes me think that those will eventually go on sale for under $100." And sure enough, as reported by Christine McKee of AppleInsider, Walmart is now selling the second generation AirPods for only $89 as part of an early Black Friday sale. That is a fantastic price for a beloved product. The second generation doesn't support Spatial Audio and lacks the longer battery life that you get with the $179 third generation AirPods, but they are only half the price. Whether you want to get AirPods for yourself or you are looking to get a great stocking stuffer, this Walmart price is a very good deal. And it wouldn't surprise me to see similar holiday sales offered by others over the next few weeks. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- Apple announced this week that Alex Gorsky, the CEO and chairman of Johnson & Johnson, was joining Apple's Board of Directors. As John Gruber of Daring Fireball notes, this is further evidence that "Apple sees health as a major new frontier."
- Gorsky is joining Apple when it is at an all-time high. A great way to see this is to look at graphs charting Apple revenue over the past 20+ years that were created by Jason Snell of Six Colors.
- The first graph shows that Apple revenue in fiscal 2021 was considerably higher than ever before. And the graph showing iPad revenue over the years is particularly interesting because the iPad hit a peak in 2013, then revenue dropped, and now it is back up again and better than ever.
- Scanner Pro, my favorite app for scanning documents with an iPhone, added a new Smart Categories feature this week to make it easier to find something that you scanned in the past.
- Mike Fleming, Jr., of Deadline reports that Finch, the new Tom Hanks movie on Apple TV+, is the most-watched movie on the service. My son and I watched the movie last weekend, and we both loved it. I recommend it.
- Speaking of shows on Apple TV+, every week that I watch the Sci-Fi show Foundation on Apple TV+, I like the show more and more. It looks as good as any big-budget movie, and while it took me a few episodes to get engrossed in the story, now I'm loving it. Episode 8, The Missing Piece, came out last week and it is probably my favorite episode so far, and there are two more episodes to go.
- If someone calls you and asks you for your two factor authentication code, of course you should not provide it to them. But as John Gruber explains in this report, which is based on a report by Joseph Cox for Motherboard, there are sophisticated bots that might trick you into doing just that. Be careful out there.
- Oliver Haslam of iMore explains another scheme that iPhone thieves are using to trick you into helping them disable Find My after they steal your iPhone.
- Jeff Benjamin of 9to5Mac reviews the HomePod mini, now that it comes in colors.
- Josh Centers of TidBITS explains in detail how to use the new FaceTime features: screen sharing and SharePlay.
- I've never thought of using Keynote to create a greeting card, but Apple did. If you visit the page on the Apple website dedicated to holiday gifts and scroll down to the Today at Apple section, you can download a Keynote template to "[m]ake a unique holiday card." Given how easy it is to create shapes and add images to a Keynote presentation, it actually makes perfect sense to me to use that app to create cards.
- And finally, here is a new "mobile phone" that you might want to purchase that is being sold by Fisher-Price. Yes, that's right, I said Fisher-Price. The first telephone that you ever used now includes Bluetooth to work with your current iPhone. And of course, it still has the eyes and the wheels. This introduction video is cute, and you can get more information on the Fisher-Price website: