If you can feel the excitement in the air, it may be because we are on the verge of new Apple announcements. On Monday, Apple begins its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), and at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern on Monday, Apple will hold a keynote address to announce something new. We are certain to see news on the next version of the iPhone and iPad operating system—which I expect will be called iOS 16/iPadOS 16 and which I expect will be released around October. But as for what new software features these updates will bring to our iPhones and iPads, only Apple knows for sure. I’m excited by some very recent rumors of Apple bringing power user features to the iPad and improvements to the Apple Watch. The keynote may focus on software improvements, but sometimes Apple announces new hardware at WWDC, so that is a possibility. Maybe Apple will even say something about the AR/VR goggles that the company is widely rumored to be working on, although I suspect that one isn’t quite ready for a preview. It will be exciting to see what Apple shows us … and then it will be frustrating knowing that we need to wait several months before we can actually use the new software. And know, the news of note from the past week:
- California attorney David Sparks, who I’ve mentioned quite a few times this week on iPhone J.D., shares the good news that the spy show Slow Horses on Apple TV+ will have a third and a fourth season. I loved the first season, I know that the second season was filmed at the same time as the first and can’t wait for it to be released, and I’m excited that there will be two more seasons after that. Mick Jagger wrote the theme song, and it is pretty good as well.
- Jason Snell of Six Colors discusses what he hopes to see at the WWDC keynote on Monday.
- This week, Apple announced the finalists for its 2022 Apple Design Awards. The winning apps will be announced next week at WWDC.
- I’ve been thinking about getting Apple’s $99 MagSafe Battery Pack ever since it was announced in July of 2021. Amazon is currently running a sale, so you can purchase the Battery Pack for only $79.99. I just purchased one, and I’ll post a review after I’ve used it for a while. But if you already know that you are interested and were just waiting for the price to drop, the time is now.
- Speaking of MagSafe, Simon Jary wrote a great article on the best MagSafe and MagSafe-compatible chargers for Macworld in which he explains what you should look for when you buy a MagSafe product.
- Federico Viticci of MacStories is well-known for making his iPad his primary computing device. But for the last few months, he switched to using a MacBook Pro, and he explains what he likes and dislikes about a Mac versus an iPad.
- Kenny Wassus of the Wall Street Journal created an interesting video comparing the Apple Pencil with the Surface Pen and the Samsung S Pen.
- Jeremy Reimer of Ars Technica writes about the Apple Newton MessagePad, which was introduced 30 years ago this week. The handwriting recognition on the Newton was criticized when the device was first released, but it got better over time, and the Newton was clearly the precursor of the iPhone and iPad. Additionally, as Reimer notes in that article, working on the Newton led Apple to invest in a British company called Acorn which had a new CPU design that was fast but had very low power requirements. The Acorn RISC Machine became the company ARM which is the core of the chips that Apple uses in every iPhone and iPad and its newest Macs. Reimer’s article is full of great stories and is worth reading.
- Andrew O’Hara of Apple Insider explains how to identify plants and flowers using an iPhone camera thanks to the iOS 15’s Visual Lookup feature.
- Tim Hortons, a well-known coffee chain in Canada that also has locations in other countries, has a mobile app that tracked its users constantly according to an announcement this week by Canada’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner, as reported by Jon Brodkin of Ars Technica. The report concludes an investigation that began in 2020, and apparently, Tim Hortons modified its app in 2020 shortly after the investigation started to stop the constant tracking. I know that Tim Hortons has a lot of admirers, so this shows that just because you like a company that doesn’t mean that you can trust the company to respect your privacy.
- I haven’t heard this yet myself, but Jason Snell notes in an article for Macworld that Apple has started inserting ads in some of its playlists and radio stations on Apple Music. They are ads for other Apple radio shows and/or short interviews with artists, so it is not like your music is being interrupted by a commercial for a detergent, but it is still an interruption.
- And finally, here is an advertisement for AirPods with Spatial Audio released by Apple this week. The video features the song Music for a Sushi Restaurant by Harry Styles, and it reminds me of the old iPod commercials that featured dancers in silhouette. I believe that this video just uses stereo, but if you listen to that song on Apple Music, it sounds good in Spatial Audio: