In response to concerns that AirTags and other devices using the Find My network can be used to stalk people, Apple announced a number of changes this week. First, Apple will add new privacy warnings during AirTag setup, letting folks know that an AirTag is meant to track belongings, not people. Apple will also remind folks that law enforcement can request from Apple identifying information about the owner of the AirTag, which I would hope would be a strong deterrent to improper use. As Michael Kan of PCMag puts it, "If you abuse AirTags for stalking, expect police to come knocking." Apple will also adjust alerts so that if unknown AirPods have been traveling with another person, that person will receive an alert that explains that. Apple will also adjust the precision finding feature. Right now, if you are trying to find your own AirTag, you can see the distance and direction to the AirTag (if you are using an iPhone 11 or newer). In the future, Apple will let the recipient of an unwanted tracking alert do the same thing so that they can locate the AirTag that a stalker tried to hide on their person or elsewhere. Currently, when an AirTag is moving with someone besides its owner, it will eventually make a sound. What if a hacker disabled that speaker or did something to muffle the sound? To address this, Apple will also play an alert on a nearby iPhone. And Apple's announcement mentions other changes to make AirTags safer for everyone. Apple says that it has been "working closely with various safety groups and law enforcement agencies" to come up with these changes. I'm sure that some will be critical that it has taken time to make these changes, but these changes seem to be good ones. Also, remember that while there are stories of some folks using Apple's Find My network for bad deeds, there are also good stories, such as one this week from Jessica Schladebeck of the New York Daily News, who explains how former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg's housekeeper was kidnapped by someone searching for the billionaire's daughters at a Colorado ranch, but the armed suspect was located because the housekeeper's iPad was in her possession and it was tracked to a motel room. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- Hard to believe that it has already been a year since Texas lawyer Rod Ponton uttered the words heard around the world: "I'm here live. I'm not a cat." The judge who presided over the Zoom civil forfeiture hearing in which the cat filter was used, Judge Roy Ferguson, celebrated the anniversary by posting the full 41 second Lawyercat video to Twitter, including the ending that I had never seen. Thank you to all involved for teaching the rest of us the importance of checking our video settings before starting a Zoom hearing with a court.
- Lafayette attorney Claire Roubion reports on the Louisiana Legal Ethics website that an Arizona lawyer was suspended from the practice of law for using the chat feature to communicate with his client while the client was being cross-examined via GoToMeeting during trial. Don't do that.
- California attorney David Sparks of MacSparky discusses the new features in Fantastical 3.6, including a Quarterly View in the iPad app that makes it easy to see at a glance lots of your upcoming activity. He also includes videos showing off the new features.
- Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories discusses the new features in Tweetbot 7, including a great Stats view, which had been missing from the app for three years.
- New Orleans attorney Ernie Svenson explains in this video why TextExpander is so useful for lawyers and others.
- Yesterday, Apple issued an update to the iPhone and iPad to fix a critical security vulnerability in Safari that hackers may be using right now. Jason Cross of Macworld explains the details, and while you are reading that, why don't you go ahead and install iOS 15.3.1 and iPadOS 15.3.1.
- In another article, Cross laments the errors in autocorrect on the iPhone.
- Filipe Espósito of 9to5Mac reports that, based on a new study by Statista, Apple leads the headphone market in the United States “by a considerable distance” thanks to the success of the AirPods and Beats brands.
- Cellebrite is a hardware and software solution used by law enforcement and others to unlock smartphones. Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac reports that Celebrite can still collect data from an iPhone if the Cellebrite customer knows the password, but if the iPhone is locked, the Celebrite hardware can no longer crack the device—although Cellebrite customers can still send an iPhone to the company and pay $4,000 to unlock a device.
- For seven years, Jason Snell of Six Colors has surveyed a set of people who follow Apple to produce a report card on how Apple is doing in several areas. This year's report card is now out.
- If you have trouble going to sleep, Julian Perry of The Gadgeteer recommends Kokoon Nightbuds, a $224 pair of headphones that is designed for you to go to sleep with while you listen to soothing sounds produced by an app on your iPhone. I've also heard good things about Bose Sleepbuds II, which are $249 on Amazon. I think that I would prefer the Bose design because it doesn't wrap around the back of the head, but I haven't tried either product.
- Up until now, if a merchant wanted to accept payments using an iPhone, they would need to add external hardware such as a Square credit card reader. Apple announced this week that the iPhone will soon handle this without any external hardware using tap to pay. The purchase can simply tap their credit card or smartphone on the merchant's iPhone. The merchant will still need to sign up with a third-party company to handle the payments, and Apple says that Stripe will be the first payment platform to offer this new Tap to Pay on iPhone feature. My guess is that this will be part of iOS 15.4, which I'm guessing will be available in March, but we'll see.
- iOS 15.4 will also enable Universal Control, which lets you use the same keyboard and mouse with both a computer and an iPad. David Nield of Gizmodo explains the difference between Universal Control and Sidecar and recommends the times when you might want to use one or the other.
- Sebastiaan de With, one of the developers of the Halide app, wrote a comprehensive analysis of the cameras on the iPhone 13 Pro.
- When I was in college and planning to one day go to law school and become a lawyer, one of the books that I loved reading was Presumed Innocent, the first novel by Scott Turow. Turow also wrote One L, which was an essential book for new law students in the early 1990s, and I know that many still read it today before starting law school. A few years after Presumed Innocent was released, the book was turned into a movie starring Harrison Ford. I mention all of this today because, according to Joe Otterson of Variety, David E. Kelley—a former attorney who created numerous TV shows such as Doogie Howser, M.D., Ally McBeal, Chicago Hope, Boston Legal, and many more—is turning Presumed Innocent into a TV show with J.J. Abrams as the executive producer, and it will run on Apple TV+. Turow, Abrams, Kelley, Apple... this one ticks a lot of the boxes for me, so I'm excited to see this one.
- And finally, Oscar nominations were announced this week, and I was happy to see that the Apple TV+ movie CODA received three nominations: Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Troy Kotsur (who played the father), and Best Adapted Screenplay for writer/director Siân Heder. CODA was one of my favorite movies in 2021, and I'm still running into people who haven't seen it yet, so clearly, not everyone knows how good this one is. A few of the scenes with Troy Kotsur had me and my wife laughing out loud, and the other actors are also fantastic, especially Emilia Jones and Marlee Matlin. Even if you don't subscribe to Apple TV+, you should spend $5 for a one-month subscription just to watch this movie, and then you can spend the rest of the month watching lots of other great titles like Ted Lasso, For All Mankind, Foundation, On the Rocks, Mythic Quest, The Morning Show, and so much more. Or just watch CODA, and you will more than get your $5 worth of laughs, and perhaps a few tears. Here is the trailer for CODA if you want to watch that first, but frankly, I recommend that you skip the trailer and just watch the movie.