Apple has now been working with PRODUCT(RED) for 15 years, making special versions of its products that are red. When you buy these products, a portion of what you pay goes to fight AIDS. According to this page, Apple has raised nearly $270 million for (RED) during the past 15 years. A new short video celebrates that partnership and notes that part of fighting AIDS today is fighting COVID, which I suppose makes perfect sense when you are trying to treat people around the world. And now, the news of note from the past week
- Mobile, Alabama attorney Carter Hale wrote an excellent article on using technology to give presentations at trial in the Winter 2021 edition of the Tennessee Defense Lawyers Association Journal, and his article is packed with tips for using TrialPad on an iPad. You can click here to see an electronic version of the issue, and the article starts on page 8.
- I often link to articles written by California attorney David Sparks of the MacSparky website. In this post, David explains that he has decided to stop practicing law so that he can devote 100% of his time to helping people use technology, through his MacSparky site, his video field guides, etc. That should mean that there are even more interesting articles written by David for me to mention here on iPhone J.D. Good luck to David as he begins this new chapter of his life.
- Federico Viticci of MacStories reviews Remind Me Faster, an app that helps you to very quickly add an entry to the built-in Reminders app.
- At the CES convention this week, Belkin announced that its upcoming smart home products would work with Matter and the Thread mesh protocol, a new smart home standard that Apple created with Amazon, Google, and Samsung to eventually replace Apple’s HomeKit and other technologies. Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac shares some of the details.
- I’m typically a big fan of Apple’s Memories feature. It almost always shows me pictures and videos that bring a smile to my face, and thanks to the Photos widget, I don’t even have to open the Photos app to know that there is something new to see. But as Stephen Hackett of 512 Pixels notes, sometimes Memories can be less desirable, such as when it resurfaces a painful event such as January 6, 2021, or when it shows pictures of someone who you no longer want to see.
- I’ve heard of some people placing an Apple AirTag in a wallet to find it if you lose it. I understand the desire to do that, but the AirTag is rather large for that purpose. Chance Miller of 9to5Mac discusses the new Chipolo Card Spot, a thin card that works like an AirTag (including Find My compatibility) but is easier to fit in a wallet.
- Speaking of Find My, Glenn Fleishman explains in an article for Macworld that if Find My indicates that a device is in one location but that seems wrong, it may be because a Wi-Fi router was relocated.
- Patrick McGee of Ars Technica notes that this past week, Apple became the first company to ever hit a market capitalization of $3 trillion (the price of a stock multiplied by the number of outstanding shares). Just as impressive, Apple’s value rose by $1 trillion in less than 16 months. Even if you don’t own Apple stock (I don’t), this matters to users of Apple products because it helps Apple to retain its best employees, who receive a significant portion of their income through stock options that vest over time. Thus, this milestone is indirectly responsible for us getting even better products from Apple.
- Dave Mark of The Loop shares a video from Apple with advice for finding lost AirPods. As he notes, there are lots of details in that video that you probably didn’t know about.
- Benjamin Mayo shares very short reviews of every show that has ever been on Apple TV+ in a 5-minute video. Whether or not you agree with his opinions (I agree with most, but not all), this short video is a great way to remind yourself of what else you might want to watch on Apple TV+.
- William Gallagher of AppleInsider reports that, according to a new survey, 87% of U.S. teenagers use an iPhone. In my house, 100% of them do so.
- I did not know that the Apple Watch Hermès bands come in a fancy microfiber pouch, but Matt Fuller shows that they do.
- And finally, here is a powerful ad produced by Apple called 911 about three people who were able to get critical help during an emergency because they called 911 using their Apple Watch. Federico Viticci’s tongue-in-cheek proposed title for this video is “you’re gonna die if you don’t buy an Apple Watch.” Of course, we all hope that none of us ever need to call 911, but the reality is that if you do, there are circumstances in which having an Apple Watch makes that much easier.