This week’s episode of the In the News podcast takes a deeper look at some issues that we’ve discussed before. Following up on our past discussion of the new Live Activities feature, we talk about some apps that do it well such as ParkMobile and Flighty. Following up on our past discussion of crash detection on the iPhone 14, we discuss some recent tweaks made by Apple. And following up on our past discussion of the Apple Card credit card, we discuss a great offer that gives new customers 5% back. We also discuss Belkin’s new $15 product for cleaning a pair of AirPods, the new App Store awards, and Apple’s fantastic new video called The Greatest.
In our In the Know segment, Brett shares a tip for customizing background app activity. I discuss the value of AirDrop and recommend some possible adjustments that you can make depending on how you want to use the feature.
As I had hoped, we are starting to see more developers take advantage of Apple’s Live Activities function so that notifications can update themselves to provide useful information. I saw a great example the other day when I used the ParkMobile app that I reviewed in 2016. This app lets you pay the “meter” for street parking in New Orleans and many other cities. After I paid for parking, ParkMobile put a notification on my lock screen with a countdown timer showing me exactly how much time I had left on my parking spot, plus other information such as the number of the zone where I parked. This meant that while I was taking care of things, I could just glance at my iPhone screen to immediately see how much time I had left, without needing to unlock the iPhone and open an app. The feature even worked when my always-on display activated and the screen dimmed, although to preserve power, in this mode the notification only displays the number of minutes left without updating the seconds. Bravo to ParkMobile for this incredibly useful implementation of Apple’s Live Activities feature. And now, the news of note from the past week:
If you use Apple Music, you can now take advantage of the Apple Music Replay feature to see your favorite songs, albums, etc. from 2022. Attorney John Voorhees of MacStories has the details. It works great unless you let your teenager use your iMac to play video games while he listens to music via iTunes without logging out of your account, in which case you will find that all of “your” top songs from the year are songs and artists that you have never heard of. Ahem.
A few weeks ago, I discussed reports that certain roller coasters were triggering crash detection alerts on the iPhone 14. As Felipe Espósito of 9to5Mac explains, this week, Apple released iOS 16.1.2 to improve the crash detection feature on the iPhone 14 models. I’m sure that the large number of iPhone 14 models now in use has given Apple lots of data to analyze about how to improve the feature.
Andrew Liszewski of Gizmodo reports that Belkin released an AirPods Cleaning Kit, including earwax softener, to get your AirPods (but not the AirPods Pro) looking and sounding good as new. The kit is only $14.99. Seems like a good stocking stuffer, and not a bad present for yourself.
Chance Miller of 9to5Mac predicts that the second generation AirPods Pro (my review) ($229 on Amazon) could be the most popular gift this holiday season. I certainly love mine.
As a result of several statements that Elon Musk made on Twitter this week, it looks like there could be a dispute on the horizon between Apple and Twitter. Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac reports that Elon Musk met with Tim Cook on the Apple Campus this week, and hopefully they were able to iron things out.
I consider a password manager to be critical, but developers of password manager apps need to be extra careful about the security of their own products. Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac reports that LastPass was breached back in August, and it was learned this week that attackers were able to access some customer data. I’ve been using 1Password for many years, and this hasn’t happened to them. I’m not saying that something similar couldn’t happen to 1Password tomorrow in theory, but the fact that it hasn’t happened gives me additional trust in that product.
If you don’t have an Apple Card credit card yet, there is a promotion running right now where new customers can get 5% Daily Cash back on purchases between now and Christmas.
This week, the App Store recognized some of the best apps of the year. I was thrilled to see that GoodNotes was recognized as the iPad App of the Year. GoodNotes is a fantastic app that I use in my law practice and in my personal life just about every day—a great way to use an Apple Pencil to write notes on an iPad.
In an article for Six Colors, Jason Snell reports that even if you only have access to iMessage—such as when you are on an airplane using the free Internet feature that only supports text messages—you can still receive push notifications. As a result, apps like Flighty can give you real-time flight updates even if you are in the air.
If you have an Apple Watch Ultra and you like to dive underwater, you’ll want to check out the new Oceanic+ dive computer app that came out this week. The app is free, but you can pay to add special features. The Apple website has a very in-depth look at the Oceanic+ app.
If you have been using a small handheld device for as long as I have, then you probably used a Palm or PalmPilot years ago. Jason Scott creates a new online emulation, available at the Internet Archive, that lets you run old Palm software again. Playing Solitare Pack from Stand Alone, Inc. on my iPhone as it emulated a PalmPilot made me feel like I was in the late 1990s again.
And finally, Apple released a video this week called The Greatest that shows off some great iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac accessibility features such as Door Detection, Voice Control, Sound Recognition, and Siri. The video does a nice job of demonstrating how empowering these features can be. Also interesting is the same video with audio descriptions.
I’ve been using a pair of HomePod mini speakers for almost two years, and I love them. For a while, I had them in two different rooms downstairs in my house, and it was fun to have the music flow from room to room. But since I use them in our living room / family room so much more often than anywhere else, I eventually decided to put both of them in that room and create a stereo pair to make the music even richer. However, my left HomePod mini is located on a table behind a couch, and because the table is just a little bit lower than the back of the couch, it seemed to me that the HomePod should be elevated just a little bit. I was surprised to find that there are many products on sale for this very purpose. The one that I purchased on Amazon, the balolo Real Wood TriPod for HomePod Mini, is exactly what I was looking for: a little elevation in a form factor that looks nice.
What it is
The TriPod, which is handmade in Germany, consists of three legs made of walnut wood attached to a 1.5mm powder-coated steel circular base.
The feet have cork on the bottom to protect the table and absorb vibration.
Elevated sound
Using the TriPod couldn’t be easier. Just place the TriPod in a location and sit your HomePod mini on top of it. That’s it. Nothing to attach or anything like that.
The product raises the height of the HomePod mini about 1.25 inches. For me, that was just enough to get it a little higher behind my couch, which is what I was looking for.
Does this make a noticeable difference in sound? To be honest, I cannot say yes using any objective scale, but I feel like it is better. On the one hand, it makes more sense to me for my HomePod to be a little higher because of the edge of my couch. On the other hand, Apple clearly designed the acoustics of the HomePod mini to sit on a flat surface and bounce sound off of that surface, and I’m cognizant of the fact that using a stand changes that.
My other HomePod mini is on a shelf, so I didn’t see any reason to raise it even higher. But for this HomePod mini, the slight elevation seems to make sense to me.
Elegance
The primary reason that I’m a fan of this stand is that it looks great. I have a lot of wood in my living room, and having wooden feet on this HomePod mini makes it fit into the decor even better.
The walnut version that I selected pairs well with a black HomePod mini. If you have a white HomePod mini, you might want to get the oak version because the wood is a lighter color.
Conclusion
This is a simple product, but it looks great and it does exactly what I wanted. And unlike many of the other HomePod mini stands that you can find on Amazon that are made of plastic and look cheap, I think that this one looks nice and improves the overall look of the HomePod mini.
For over three decades, the ABA has conducted an annual survey of lawyers to find out what legal technology they use. These results are released every year by the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center. The 2022 report was just released (edited by Taylor Young, and researched by Taylor Young and Joshua Poje). There are five volumes, and you can purchase a copy using this page of the ABA website.
I have been looking at these reports every year since 2010 because they have been the best source of statistics on the use of mobile technology by lawyers. (My reports on the prior ABA surveys are located here: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010.) Starting in 2011, the survey asked lawyers what smartphones they use, and from 2011 to 2021, we saw an increase in iPhone use, reaching a record high of 80% in 2021. Android use started at 15% in 2011, increased to a high of 25% in 2018, and has been around 18%-19% since 2019. During those same years, we saw the fall of the once-dominant BlackBerry along with all other smartphone brands other than the iPhone and Android.
Unfortunately, we don’t have updated numbers for 2022. In 2020, the ABA changed the way that it collected data. In odd-number years, the ABA releases a volume called Life & Practice, and that volume asks about the type of smartphone that a lawyer uses. In even-number years such as this one, the ABA replaces that with a volume called Litigation Technology & E-Discovery. The 2022 volumes still contain some interesting data on smartphone and tablet use by attorneys, but not as much we saw last year.
The ABA was kind enough to provide me with a complementary copy of the 2022 volumes. Here are the survey results that relate to smartphone and tablet use that jumped out at me.
Putting the YO into BYOD (Bring Your Own Device)
The 2022 ABA survey asked respondents to identify the type of hardware for which they are allowed to select their own brand, model, or type. The #1 response was the smartphone, where 81% of lawyers reported that their law firm let them select what they wanted. We have this policy at my own law firm; the overwhelming majority of attorneys at my firm decide to select an iPhone model, but a small number of attorneys select an Android phone. The #2 response was the tablet, with 55% reporting that they can select their own device. For other device types, less than half of the respondents could select what they want: monitor (43%), printer (37%), desktop (32%), portable accessories (31%), and scanner (30%).
Lawyers were also asked if their law firm allows them to use a personal mobile device such as a tablet, laptop, or smartphone to access the firm’s network. Only 5% said no. However, almost two-thirds of the lawyers said that pre-approval was required and/or restrictions are imposed. I presume that many law firms use some sort of Mobile Device Management (MDM) software to protect both the law firm network and individual attorneys.
Online research
An all-time high of 91% of lawyers reported in 2022 that they do legal research when they are out of the office. That’s up from 88% in 2021, 87% in 2020, and 86% in 2019. The most popular way to do so is with a laptop or desktop computer, with 65% of lawyers saying that they do so regularly and 18% saying that they do so occasionally. But a significant number of lawyers report doing legal research using a smartphone or tablet. 22% reported using a smartphone regularly and 32% report using a smartphone occasionally to do legal research. 18% report using a tablet regularly and another 18% report using a tablet occasionally to do legal research.
One statistic that I’m trying to wrap my brain around is that 2% of lawyers report that they regularly use a smart wearable device to do legal research. I am a huge fan of the Apple Watch, and I regularly use it in my law practice for communication and reminders. But I don’t think that I use my watch for anything that I would call legal research. The only possible exception that I can think of is starting and stopping a timer to track how long I spend doing legal research. Is there something else that I’m not thinking of? If you have an idea for how a smart wearable device can be used for legal research—especially if you yourself are part of that 2% who do this—please let me know!
The iPhone and iPad in the courtroom
Speaking of legal research while out of the office, one such venue for doing so is the courtroom. But of course, there are many other reasons to use an iPhone or iPad in the courtroom, from consulting a calendar to scheduling upcoming dates to giving an appellate oral argument.
According to the survey, 81% of lawyers say that they use a smartphone in the courtroom. And since 2017, the responses to that question have been in the 80% to 84% range, so lawyers have been doing this for some time now. Lawyers at law firms with 100 or more attorneys are somewhat more likely to use a smartphone in the courtroom (87%).
Here is a chart showing what lawyers say that they are doing with their smartphone in court (click to enlarge). The most popular uses are email and calendaring. I was amused to see 25% of lawyers report that they use their smartphone in court to browse the web to kill time—something that I hope attorneys only do while waiting for the judge to enter the courtroom.
Far fewer attorneys report using a tablet device in the courtroom — about 33%. For those who do, top uses are for email, calendaring, legal research, accessing key evidence and documents, real-time communications, and delivering presentations.
This week, Brett and I recorded a special edition of the In the News podcast: the 2022 iGift Guide. Brett and I each picked 10 items that would make perfect gifts for the person in your life who enjoys using Apple mobile products. And if you are reading this, I suspect that these are also gifts that you would love to receive yourself, so now you have some ideas if someone asks you what to get you. Also, if you find yourself with a gift card, these are some great ideas for picking out your own present.
This week we have a great episode of the In the News podcast and I encourage you to check it out. Brett just returned from a four-day hiking trip through the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. He was off-the-grid for most of the trip, but his Apple Watch Ultra and iPhone 14 Pro helped him to navigate the terrain and arrive at the top of Guadalupe Peak, the highest natural point in Texas, in time to take some amazing sunrise pictures. After Brett shares lots of fascinating details about his adventures, we discuss how much safer he could have been if Apple’s new Emergency SOS via a Satellite feature had been active just a few days earlier while he was there, and we also discuss all of the details about this new service. We then discuss some interesting upcoming new features for the Apple Watch and iPhone.
In our In the Know segment, we share tips for preserving battery life. Brett discusses a new low power mode for the Apple Watch, and I discuss whether you should keep 5G turned on or off.
The big iPhone-related news this week was that Apple turned on the Emergency SOS via Satellite feature for all four phones in the iPhone 14 line. If you own one of these phones, you should understand how this system works in case you end up in an emergency. if you don’t yet own an iPhone 14, I’m sure that your next iPhone will have these features. I’ve linked to stories below with more information, but in short, you start by calling 9-1-1. If you don’t have a strong enough signal for that call to go through—using either your own carrier or any other carrier’s signal—then Apple gives you the option to call Emergency SOS via a Satellite. You answer a series of questions about your emergency and you follow on-screen directions to point your iPhone in the correct direction to see a satellite in the sky. The back-and-forth texts with emergency services are slow, but they work, and you can choose to allow your designated emergency contacts to see the back-and-forth conversation on their own iPhone (although they just watch the texts and cannot participate). I’ll share more details in connection with the posts below, along with the other news of note from the past week:
Apple helped Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal test out the Emergency SOS via a Satellite in a way that didn’t actually involve the emergency services folks, and she wrote a great article and prepared an even better video showing how it works.
iJustine went to Apple’s campus in Cupertino to test out the feature as well. Although it looks like she was given the same ability to test as Joanna Stern, her excellent video on YouTube shows off the feature in a different way.
Apple’s press release also contains interesting details on the new service. For example, Apple says that in clear conditions, and with the help of a new text compression algorithm, people can send and receive satellite messages in as little as 15 seconds.
You can test out the feature yourself if you want. On an iPhone 14, go to Settings -> Emergency SOS -> and then under Emergency SOS Via Satellite tap Try Demo. Apple will turn off your cellular radio (to simulate being in the middle of nowhere) and let you connect to a real satellite to see how the process works. You can also have an emergency conversation via text that looks real but which is just a demonstration and doesn’t actually get sent to emergency services.
Even if you don’t need help, you can use this service to share your location with folks even when you are off the grid. As Apple explains in this article, open the Find My app, tap Me at the bottom right, and then just below the words My Location via Satellite, tap Send My Location. You can do this up to once every 15 minutes. That way, if one of your friends who has access to you via Find My opens the Find My app on their device, they will see your last location update via Satellite.
DC Rainmaker writes about the new satellite features and also notes where they work. Right now, it works in the United States—including Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, but not Guam or American Samoa. It also works in Canada. Starting next month, it will work in France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Germany. Note that iPhone 14 devices purchased in China, Hong Kong, and Macau will not support the satellite SOS feature. He notes that the feature also does not work very well above 62° latitude, and he shows you on a map what that means. For example, you may not get satellite coverage in many parts of Alaska.
Raymond Wong notes on his Inverse website that iOS 16.2 will provide a new alternative to the always-on display: you can choose to have the screen go completely black, with only the date and time visible.
Zac Hall of 9to5Mac writes about some new features coming to the Apple Watch. One that I had not yet heard about is Track Detection. If Apple senses that you are at a running track and you are wearing an Apple Watch Ultra, you can tell your watch which lane you are using for more precise metrics.
Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac reviews the Moft Snap Float Folio ($53.99 on Amazon), an iPad case that turns into a stand that raises your iPad to eye level.
Nick deCourville of The Mac Observer notes that if you go to iCloud.com, it now has a brand-new interface. I like using iCloud.com on my PC in my office because it lets me access some features like my Photos, Notes, and other features that I normally wouldn’t be able to access on a PC.
Earlier this year, I reviewed an app called Weather on the Way, a nice app that helps you to see the weather forecast as you are driving across the country. Michael Potuck notes that the app has been updated with a live radar display that can show on a CarPlay screen, which seems like a great new feature.
In an article for Macworld, Dan Moren notes that when Apple acquired Primephonic (a classical music streaming service) in 2021, Apple said that it would launch a dedicated classical music app in 2022. But with not many weeks left in the year, it appears that this may slip into 2023.
If you listen to Audible audiobooks, the service announced this week that you can now access your library and stream books directly to an Apple Watch app without having to sync to an iPhone.
Starting to think about holiday presents? Don’t let the #666 episode number scare you away because in the latest episode of the Mac Power Users podcast, California attorney David Sparks and Stephen Hackett recommend holiday gifts that would be perfect for anyone interested in technology.
Apple announced its Black Friday sale. From November 25 to 28, you will get Apple gift cards when you purchase certain Apple products, such as a $75 gift card with certain AirPods models and a $250 gift card with certain Mac models.
And finally, did you know that two people can use AirPods (or Beats headphones) to listen to audio from a single iPhone or iPad? To show this, Apple released a fun seasonal video that features a lot of snow. The video is titled Share the Joy: AirPods Pro.
iPhone J.D. turns fourteen years old today. When I wrote my first post on this website, in which I explained why I liked using an iPhone in my law practice, I was still trying to encourage attorneys to consider using an iPhone. There is certainly no longer a need to do that. Now, the focus here is on how to make the most out of an iPhone … and iPad, and other Apple mobile technology.
Every year on this anniversary, I take a look back at the past year. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13). Let’s do it again, first by looking at which posts over the prior 12 months were the most popular. The fact that these posts were so popular often sheds some light on what has been on the minds of attorneys and other folks using an iPhone or iPad. Here, in order, are the top ten most viewed posts published in the last 12 months:
Review: LG OLED C1 Series TV — amazing 4K HDR television for iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV 4K users. You may not think of a TV as an iPhone accessory, but my LG television has been the perfect way to show off the incredible 4K video and photos that I can take with my iPhone. It also works incredibly well with my Apple TV. LG now sells an updated model, the C2 Series, and it is a little bit brighter, but otherwise both models are excellent and incredibly similar. Right now, they both cost about the same on Amazon, so you might as well get the C2, but if you can find a cheaper price on a C1. I would recommend that you just get the C1.
Review: eufyCam 2 Pro — wireless security camera with HomeKit support. I wrote that review shortly before the thirteenth anniversary last year, but I am including it in this year’s list because it got so many pageviews during the past year. I continue to be very happy with these outdoor security cameras. My wife and I pay attention to them almost daily.
Review: COMPLY Foam Apple AirPods Pro 2.0 Earbud Tips. I wrote that review when I was using my first-generation AirPods Pro, but I continue to use these replacement earbud tips with my second-generation AirPods Pro. For my ears, they are much more comfortable, and unlike Apple’s own tips which don’t stay in my ears very well, these COMPLY tips help my AirPods Pro to stay in place.
Review: Anker Nano Pro (40W). This is a great little product. It is barely bigger than the power adapter that Apple used to include with the iPhone, but it provides 4x the power and has two USB-C ports.
Review: Satechi 108W USB-C 3-Port GaN Wall Charger. This is an even better portable charger. You get 3 USB-C ports. You get 108W, so there is plenty of power for all three ports. It uses GaN so it is much smaller than similar products. It works great in an office—I use mine there every day to provide power for an iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch—and because the prongs fold down, it is also a great travel charger. I’ve been really happy with this device.
Why lawyers will love iPadOS 16. I wrote that post when iPadOS 16 was first announced. We had to wait for iPadOS 16.1 to first try the new operating system on the iPad, but for the most part this new version has worked well. Stage Manager is the one feature on which the jury is still out. Sometimes when I use it, it works great. Other times, it feels like it is still a work-in-progress. Most of the time that I use my iPad, I don’t use the new Stage Manager mode.
Review: Apple Watch Series 7. The larger screen was the major new feature, but for many folks like me who were using older models of the Apple Watch, the Series 7 was a great opportunity to start taking advantage of other features added in the Series 6 such as the increased speed. I’ve been so happy with my Series 7 that I saw no need to upgrade to a Series 8 this year.
Review: MagSafe Battery Pack from Apple — small, lightweight solution for additional iPhone power when you are on-the-go. I’m glad to see that this post made the Top 10 list. When I purchased this product a few months ago, it had already been out for almost a year, so my review was certainly not an early review. But I continue to love this small battery pack, and I encourage you to get one if your iPhone supports MagSafe charging. It is so small that it is easy to slip it in a pocket. It is so easy to use: just put it on the back of the iPhone and let the magnets align it. And it provides lots of extra power to an iPhone to help you get through a long day, even when you have been doing things like taking 4K video that drain the battery.
LIT SUITE — the best litigation apps for the iPad, now available for the Mac. I wrote this post in September because LIT SOFTWARE was a sponsor of iPhone J.D. that month. But I’m sure that the reason that most lawyers read that post is that a major new feature came to the LIT SUITE a few months ago: the ability to run the company’s great iPad apps on a Mac. Whether you are preparing trial exhibits in TrialPad, annotating transcripts in TranscriptPad, or preparing a document production in DocReviewPad, you can now go back-and-forth between the iPad and Mac and continue working in the same apps. No other developer has supported lawyers using iPads as much as LIT SOFTWARE over the years, and I love that they are still finding ways to add major new features to these incredibly useful apps.
Visitors to iPhone J.D. Every year, I use this post to share some statistical information on iPhone J.D. visitors, to the extent that I can figure it out using the tools at my disposal — specifically, the Google Analytics service.
Google Analytics reports that, during the past 12 months, about 48% of readers visited from a smartphone, and 94% of those were iPhones. For folks using a computer to access iPhone J.D., about 53% used a Mac, about 43% used a PC, and about 3% used Linux. There was a single person who accessed iPhone J.D. from a BlackBerry device during this past year; hopefully that person has now updated to an iPhone and is much happier.
About 58% of people accessing iPhone J.D. use Safari. About 32% use Chrome. Edge and Firefox are almost 2% each.
I know that lawyers around the world use the iPhone and iPad. About 53% of iPhone J.D. visitors during the past year were in the U.S., which is about the same as last year. Just over 7% were in the UK, down from 10% last year. The other countries with a large number of visitors were Canada, Australia, Germany, Czech Republic, China, and India.
Every year, I also look at the top cities for the folks who visit iPhone J.D. London was the #1 city in 2015, 2020, and 2021, but every other year, New York has been #1. Well start spreading the news, because the Big Apple is back on top again this year:
New York
London
Prague
Chicago
Los Angeles
Dallas
Ashburn
Atlanta
Singapore
Sydney
There were a few big changes on the list this year. First, Prague in the Czech Republic has never made the Top 10 list before, and this year it was all the way at #3. English is not one of the top languages in Prague, but the city has been called a potential tech giant, and I suspect that the interest in tech provides some explanation for the surprisingly high ranking this year.
Second, I’ve never seen Ashburn, Virginia in the Top 10 list before, although it has been in the Top 20 for the past few years. Ashburn is a relatively small city, but it is a major hub for internet traffic, so perhaps that explains the ranking: people who are actually reading from other locations are being considered residents of Ashburn by the Google Analytics service. Or maybe there are just lots of visitors from Loudoun County, which is in the Washington D.C. area, and they are all being counted as part of Ashburn.
A Canadian city such as Toronto has often been in the Top 10, but for the second year in a row, Toronto was #11 this year. Other cities that just missed the Top 10 list include Melbourne, Seattle, Houston, and Boston. Montreal was #25. New Orleans was #33. Dublin was #50. Cleveland was #100. Fort Lauderdale was #200. And one of the (many) cities with only a single reader of iPhone J.D. during the past year was Valley View, Ohio, with a population of 2,034. If any of you know an attorney in Valley View who uses an iPhone—and I’m especially thinking of you, Cleveland readers—please spread the word about iPhone J.D. Just one new reader will double the number of visitors!
For many years, I have had two kinds of lights in my backyard, in part to provide illumination but mostly just because they look interesting: small lights on a string, similar to what you might put on a Christmas tree, and larger G40-style globes on a string ($18.98 from Amazon) that hang over an outdoor table. For many years I would just manually plug them in to an outdoor outlet when I wanted them to come on. In 2017, I purchased an iHome iSP100 Outdoor Smart Plug so that I could turn the lights on and off without having to even go outside, and I reviewed that plug in 2018. It worked well for many years—I definitely got my $40 in value from it—but a few months ago, it started to have problems working with HomeKit. When I told Siri to turn lights on or off, it didn’t work more often than it did work. At first, I thought it was a problem with Siri, but I eventually realized that the unit itself was starting to fail. Thus, I replaced it with a Meross Outdoor Dimmer Plug with a list price of $30.99 that that is only $17.39 on Amazon. I’ve been using the Meross product for a few months now, and it has been working great. This is a great gift idea for virtually anyone since it works with Apple HomeKit, Alexa, and Google Home, and of course, it would be a great gift to give yourself.
This Meross plug has been a perfect replacement for that iHome product because not only does it do everything that the iHome plug did, it also lets me dim the lights to any level, giving me even more control over how the lights look in my backyard.
The Meross Outdoor Smart Plug has a standard three-prong plug on one end. The other end has a water-resistant outlet that is made to work outdoors (or indoors). I have an extension cord plugged in, and the other end of the extension cord goes to my fence where my lights are located.
Once you are set up, you can tell Siri to turn the lights on or off. You can also tell Siri to adjust the light to any level, from 0% to 100%.
Meross has a free app that you can use to control the device, but I’ve used this product for months without even downloading the app. I just added the Meross Outdoor Dimmer Plug using my iPhone’s built-in Home app and everything worked great. In preparing this review, I finally downloaded the Meross app to see if it does anything special. It has a few extra features, such as the ability to see how good of a WiFi signal the plug is receiving (mine has a 65% and that has been working great), and a feature that lets you test if your lights are compatible with the plug or if they start to flicker at certain brightness levels.
Because this is a standard HomeKit device, you could put your outdoor lights on a timer if you want them to, for example, come on at sunset and turn off a few hours later or at sunrise. That’s not how I use my backyard lights so I haven’t specifically tested this, but that should work since it is just a standard HomeKit function.
When I purchased this device a few months ago, I was surprised to find that it was the only outdoor smart plug that worked with HomeKit and also included a dimmer function. I just did another quick search, and I’m still not seeing another product that includes both functions.
I’m also impressed with the price. The iHome device that I had been using cost me almost $40. The Meross product is less than half the price. I’m also a big fan of Lutron’s Caséta products, which I have throughout my house, and there is a Lutron Caséta Weatherproof+ Outdoor Smart Plug, but it costs almost $100 and doesn’t have a dimmer function. That Lutron product does appear to be more durable; for example, using the IP code scale, the Lutron product is IP65, whereas this Meross product is only IP44. The first number is dust protection and the second number is water protection, so that means that the Meross product, IPx4, can handle water splashing from any direction whereas the Lutron product, IPx5, can handle a water jet from any direction. If you are watering your plants using a hose, I guess you should avoid pointing a jet directly at the Meross device. Normally, I would consider paying more for a more durable product, but given the large price difference—$18 versus $100—I’m willing to risk having to replace the Meross multiple times and still pay less than the Lutron device.
To be fair, there is one more advantage for the Lutron device. Lutron Caséta products use a proprietary Clear Connect technology that is even more dependable than HomeKit over WiFi. This means that the almost $100 Lutron outdoor device should be more dependable when you use Siri or the app to turn it on or off. Having said that, in the few months that I have been using this Meross product, it has worked perfectly every time that I turn it on or off.
Conclusion
I have been incredibly happy with the Meross Outdoor Dimmer Plug. It is very nice when it is dark outside to be able to tell my HomePod or my iPhone or my Apple Watch to turn on the fence lights and, through my window in my living room, see the lights come on. Or, if I’ve been outside for a while and the sun starts to set, I love being able to turn on the outdoor lights using my iPhone or Apple Watch without having to manually plug in a cord. And it is great that I can even dim the lights to get just the right ambiance. On top of all of that, at less than $20, this device is incredibly inexpensive. Note that if you want to independently control three different outdoor devices and you don’t need a dimmer, Meross also sells an Outdoor Smart Plug with 3 Independent Sockets for only $33.75 on Amazon. But if you just want a simple outdoor plug that works with HomeKit and lets you dim outdoor lights, this Meross product is the one to get.
The period from now through the end of the year is when Apple sells more products than ever as a result of the holiday buying season. But a few days ago, Apple released a press release to warn Apple investors and others that the facility in Zhengzhou, China that assembles the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max is “operating at significantly reduced capacity” due to COVID. As Tripp Mickle of the New York Times reports, Zhengzhou is known as “iPhone City” because Apple’s presence is so dominant, and the Foxconn facility in that city can produce 500,000 iPhones a day—Apple’s largest single plant, producing about 80% of all iPhones. But when it cannot produce those 500,000 iPhones, day after day, that has a significant impact on the ability to purchase a new iPhone. China has a “Zero COVID” policy which results in strict quarantines whenever there is a breakout. If you are thinking about buying an iPhone for someone this season, I recommend that you order immediately. For example, I see that if you order an iPhone 14 Pro using Apple’s website right now, the current delivery date is Dec 13 – Dec 19, which is cutting it very close for Christmas and Hanukkah. And now, the news of note from the past week:
A quick programming note: Brett Burney and I are not recording an episode of the In the News podcast this week because Brett is “on assignment,” testing out his new Apple Watch Ultra as he hikes through Texas. Brett, if you are reading this, good luck with the hike, and remember that Apple’s new satellite SOS feature isn’t turned on yet so be safe out there.
One more programming note: if you subscribe to iPhone J.D. via an RSS reader, the feed stopped working for a few days, but it seems to be working again now. If your RSS reader is still not seeing new posts, switch to this updated link instead. Similarly, if you receive new posts from iPhone J.D. via email, I know that newsletter stopped working for a short while, but it started working again this week. If you still are not receiving those emails, check your spam filter to see if you need to teach your email provider that the newsletter is not spam. Or, if you want to subscribe from another email account, you can click here to do so.
Indiana attorney Seth Wilson wrote a good article for The Indiana Lawyer about using the new Continuity Camera feature to use your iPhone as a webcam. He found that it works well but you need some sort of stand for your iPhone. I’ve had similar experiences. The quality of the video is fantastic; my iPhone camera is far better quality than any built-in webcam. But the makeshift system that I worked up to prop my iPhone on the top of my iMac worked well for about half of a videoconference this past week and then the iPhone started to shift its position. Fortunately, I wasn’t speaking at the time, so I could quickly disable the camera feature of Microsoft Teams so that I could adjust the iPhone and then turn my camera back on. I really need a clip that fits well on the top of my iMac and holds the iPhone steady. I’m sure that in a few months we will see tons of products like this on Amazon.
Attorney John Voorhees of MacStories discusses a new announcement from Apple about its Emergency SOS service for the newest iPhones and Apple Watch models. The service will launch later this month and will use 24 low-earth orbit satellites operated by Globalstar—located in Covington, LA, not far from where I live—to relay messages to emergency services. Additionally, iPhone 14 users will be able to send their location via satellite using the Find My app.
Michael Simon of Macworld reports that Apple released iOS 16.1.1 this week, and similar updates for other devices, to patch some bugs and install critical security updates. Update when you can.
The Wallet app on the iPhone can store your driver’s license or state ID, but only if you live in Arizona or Maryland … or, starting this week, if you live in Colorado, according to a report by Chance Miller of 9to5Mac. Although I don’t use Apple’s wallet app, I do have my driver’s license on my iPhone thanks to a special app, and I find it very useful to be able to jump in the car with just my iPhone, without needing to grab my wallet. If you live in a state that supports a digital license, whether it be via the Wallet app or another app, I encourage you to use it.
You may not feel like you are ready for Christmas yet, but Philips is. As Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports, a new product available for this season is the Philips Hue Festavia string lights, featuring 250 smart LED lights on a 20-meter cord. They work with HomeKit, and cost $159.99.
If you are looking for a good movie to watch on Apple TV+, I thoroughly enjoyed watching Causeway, which debuted last week. It stars Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry, both of whom are excellent.
And finally, Apple released a new video this week called Testing Action Mode which, sure enough, shows off the new Action Mode using an iPhone 14 Pro to stabilize video even during extreme shots.
