We all know that an iPhone passcode is supposed to remain private. However, Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal recently published an alarming story, and accompanying video, that highlights just how critical this is. In this post, I want to describe the problem, then discuss some steps you can take to protect yourself.
The scam
Stern’s investigation revealed that access to a short string of numbers—your iPhone passcode—can unravel your entire digital life. Criminals working in teams, around the country, have come up with ways to cause a victim to unlock their iPhone by typing in their passcodes. Perhaps someone talks to the victim in a bar and volunteers to take a picture with the victim’s iPhone, pressing the buttons on the side of the iPhone to put the iPhone in the mode where it must be unlocked with a passcode instead of FaceID or TouchID. Next, a different criminal watching over a shoulder or taking a video recording from across the room watches the victim unlock the iPhone with a passcode, thereby learning the passcode. Finally, the criminals grab the victim’s iPhone to steal it.
The consequence of having both your iPhone and your passcode stolen are more dire than you probably realized. First, a criminal with your passcode can not only change your passcode (blocking you from using it even if you recover the iPhone) but, far worse, can change your Apple ID password, even without knowing your current Apple ID password. With the new Apple ID password, the criminal can turn off Find My iPhone.
Think about that. The first thing that you would probably think to do if your iPhone was lost—track it with Find My iPhone—becomes impossible almost immediately after your iPhone is stolen.
The criminals might then use your iPhone and passcode to pay for items (using the credit cards in the wallet on your iPhone) or send money to themselves (via Apple Cash). Even worse, if you use Apple’s built-in password management tool to store passwords for things like your bank, the criminals might access your bank account online and transfer money from you to them. Joanna Stern learned of many people who had $10,000 stolen from their accounts.
A criminal with your Apple ID password can also easily delete a lot of your information—perhaps most notably, all of your pictures. And with your Apple ID password changed, this can result in you losing access to all of your photos on all of your devices—computers, iPads, etc.—as one of the victims interviewed by Stern described.
These are the highlights from this story, but I encourage you to read the story for more details. (If you hit a paywall, remember that you can read the Wall Street Journal in the Apple News app if you subscribe to Apple News+) And whether or not you read the story, I recommend that you watch the excellent video that Stern created, which I’ll embed right here:
Steps you can take to protect yourself
Stern discusses some possible solutions in her video. I have similar advice.
First, you need to keep your passcode private. We all already know this, but perhaps knowledge of this specific scam will encourage us all to be more serious about it. Anytime that you type your passcode in public, shield the screen in a way that someone looking ever your shoulder cannot see what you are typing. The scam described by Stern in her article may not work on all iPhones, and you may have other protections if your iPhone is subject to Mobile Device Management, but play it safe. Keep your passcode private, at all times.
Second, consider using a more complex passcode. The default iPhone passcode is six digits. It is possible to change that to only four digits, but you should not do so. In fact, consider doing just the opposite: more than six digits, or a combination of numbers and letters. Apple explains on this page how to use a more complex passcode. That’s what I do, and I got used to it very quickly.
Third, be very careful about giving your iPhone to someone else—especially someone who you don’t know. If you do so anyway, and if they hand your iPhone back to you and suddenly you need to enter your passcode, that should be a red flag. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they are a criminal; it could just be that your iPhone tried to unlock with their fingerprint or their face and put itself in the mode where a passcode is required, but be safe and treat this as a sign to proceed cautiously.
Fourth, you should strongly consider using a third-party password manager instead of Apple’s built-in password manager—not only for passwords, but for other information and photos. And in light of the recent troubles at LastPass, the only one that I recommend right now is 1Password. Stern’s story notes that criminals were able to access passwords using Apple’s built-in password manager and could access pictures in the Photos app of items like social security cards, passports, driver’s licenses, and other confidential documents. A password manager can store not just passwords but also confidential information, confidential photos, confidential documents, etc. Even if a criminal has physical access to your iPhone andthe passcode, the criminal still cannot access items in your password manager because they are locked behind a different password.
Fifth, use two-factor authentication (“2FA” or “MFA” for multi-factor authentication) when you can, and avoid using a text message as the second form of authentication if you have a choice. When there is a choice, it is much better to use another app like 1Password to store the one-time passcode (one that changes every 30 seconds). I’ll be honest: this is a little complicated to set up, especially the first time you do so, but it gets easier every time. And if you have read this far into this post, I suspect that you appreciate the value of security, so the trouble is likely worth it for you. Unfortunately, some banks and other institutions don’t give you a 2FA option other than text messages, which of course offers you zero extra protection when the criminal has access to your iPhone.
It would not surprise me if Stern’s story and similar news of these scams prompts Apple to make some changes to the iPhone that make some of the steps being used by criminals either impossible or more difficult. But then again, Apple may not do so because this scam has still only impacted a very small percentage of iPhone owners, and Apple knows that almost every step taken to increase security can also make life more difficult for innocent iPhone owners in some other way. Plus, even if Apple makes changes, clever criminals may find new workarounds. Fortunately, the steps that I recommend above can help to protect you regardless of whether Apple, or the criminals, change their approaches.
After taking a week off, Brett Burney and I are back this week to discuss a large variety of interesting topics. We start by taking the long view towards technology, then shift completely to discuss some of the interesting new Emoji coming soon to your iPhone, including a Moose and a Shaking Face. We discuss lots of different Siri commands that you probably did not know about. We discuss Uber live notifications, medication notifications, AirPlay alternatives, creative charging, and then finish up by wishing that we had kept a shrink-wrapped iPhone from 2007.
In our In the Know segment, Brett explains how to temporarily mute notifications from the Lock Screen and why you might want to do that. I discuss the fantastic Photo Shuffle Lock Screen and explain what to do when a picture comes up that you really like, or you really hate.
This week, longtime tech journalist Harry McCracken showed on Twitter the remarkable difference between a picture taken by a Palm Treo in 2005 and a picture taken by an Apple iPhone 14 in 2023. John Gruber links to that post and correctly remarks: “One of tech’s truisms that has no exceptions: We overestimate how much progress we can make in a year, and underestimate how much we can make in a decade.” Ten years ago, the topics being discussed here included Siri Eyes Free, which was technology that made it easier to get information from your iPhone while you are driving (in the days before CarPlay), speculation on how popular a version of Microsoft Office for the iPad might be if Microsoft ever released it, and my first time using an app called 1Password, now one of the most essential apps on my iPhone. And now, the news of note from the past week:
When iOS 16.4 is released, we will get new Emoji on the iPhone. Keith Broni of Emojipedia previews some of the new Emoji including Shaking Face, Donkey, Moose, Wing, Folding Hand Fan, Flute, and Khanda (the symbol of Sikhi, an Indian religion and philosophy).
The Uber app got a major update this week. As Filipe Espósito of 9to5Mac explains, the home screen of the app has a new, clean look, and Live Activities support is expanded.
Tim Hardwick of MacRumors reports on the legal battles between Apple and medical device company AliveCor about patents that allegedly relate to the ECG feature of most Apple watches. Because of a December ruling from the U.S. International Trade Commission, there is a risk of a ban on Apple Watch imports. Although I’m a lawyer, this is way outside of my area of expertise, so I don’t know enough to predict what might happen here, but it certainly could be interesting.
An original iPhone from 2007, never opened from its box, was just sold at an auction for $63,356.40, as reported by Michael Simon of Macworld. I presume the main reason that the owner auctioned it off is that the original iPhone used AT&T’s Edge network, which AT&T shut down on January 1, 2017.
And finally, Apple TV+ released a trailer for a new show called Extrapolations, which comes out next month. Apple says that the series has “Eight interwoven stories about love, work, faith and family from across the globe” that take place in the near future when climate changed has caused huge problems. What jumped out at me is the cast: Meryl Streep, Sienna Miller, Kit Harington, Daveed Diggs, Edward Norton, Diane Lane, Tahar Rahim, Yara Shahidi, Matthew Rhys, Gemma Chan, David Schwimmer, Adarsh Gourav, Keri Russell, Marion Cotillard, Forest Whitaker, Eiza González, Murray Bartlett, Indira Varma, Tobey Maguire, MaameYaa Boafo, Hari Nef, Heather Graham, Michael Gandolfini, Cherry Jones, Gaz Choudhry, Ben Harper, Judd Hirsch, and Neska Rose. That is an incredibly impressive cast. Wow. Here is the trailer:
Today is Mardi Gras day, the culmination of many weeks of festivities in New Orleans. This past weekend, the weather was great for the parades, and it looks like the same will be true today. I had great fun getting together with friends and family as we yelled “throw me something” to the floats and enjoyed good food and drinks. Whether you are here in person or just in spirit, have a great day, and Laissez les bons temps rouler!
Mardi Gras is now in full force here in New Orleans. Multiple parades will go by my house tonight for the third night in a row, and that will continue every day until Mardi Gras day on Tuesday, with some of the biggest parades this weekend. This season has been full of King Cakes, beads, parties, costumes, and a whole lot of purple, green, and gold. As has been true for many years now, a parade app is a great way to use your iPhone to see the schedule and find out where the next parade is and how long it will take to get to you. The free WDSU Parade Tracker app has been working well for me this season. If you haven’t experienced Mardi Gras yet, I recommend that you take the time to check it out one year. Whether you are enjoying time with kids and family on St. Charles Avenue or experiencing the craziness of the French Quarter, it is a fun experience that you won’t forget. And now, the news of note from the past week:
A quick programming note: there will be no episode of the In the News podcast today.
Apple released iOS 16.3.1 for the iPhone and similar updates for other devices this week. Juli Clover of MacRumors says that this is an update that you should install if you haven’t done so yet because it fixes a security vulnerability that was actually being exploited in the wild.
Zac Hall of 9to5Mac reports that Ivory, the Mastodon client for iOS, added a number of improvements this week including the ability to edit prior posts.
1Password for the iPhone and iPad was updated this week to add a number of new features, as noted in this post on the 1Password blog. One that I particularly look is the ability to reorder fields and sections. It is also nice that when you are looking at any list of passwords or other items, there is now a search tool at the top (swipe down to make it appear) that you can use to search just that list.
Jason Snell of Six Colors reviews the new HomePod. He likes the sound, but is frustrated by the limitations of Siri and some bugs that he encountered, so much so that he concludes that he “can’t in good conscience recommend them to anyone who isn’t well-versed in troubleshooting misbehaving Apple technology.”
Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports that the new Apple Watch crash detection feature played a critical role in rescuing people in a car crash in Germany because it contacted emergency services and was able to provide a precise location for the car.
Justin Meyers of Gadget Hacks came up with a list of Siri commands for the iPhone that you might not already know. Many of these were new to me.
And finally, here is a short compilation of the Apple TV startup screens used from the first version introduced in 2007 to the version used today. Spoiler alert: only the first two versions were interesting. I myself would not want to waste time with a startup animation on my iPhone, iPad, or computer, but I have to admit that there was something fun about seeing it on the first two generations of the Apple TV, and I sort of miss it.
One of the unfortunate consequences of our increasingly digital lives is a need for more plugs, cords, routers, hubs, etc. And as they accumulate, they become more unsightly. I have a set of shelves in my living room, and on one shelf I have a lot of electronics: an eero Pro to provide great Wi-Fi in my living room, the cords for a HomePod mini, a hub for my Lutron Caséta system (connected to the extra Ethernet port on that eero Pro), a cord for a diffuser, etc. It makes sense to have all of those electronics on a single shelf because I have a wall outlet there, but it makes the shelf ugly to look at. Fortunately, I recently found a solution: CovoBox. CovoBox is made from real books, but they are cut out at the back to create a hidden compartment for your cords. It is a wonderful solution that looks great, and as a bonus, I prevented some unwanted books from going into a landfill.
Before and After
Rather than describe CovoBox, this is one time when a picture is worth a thousand words. Here is what my shelf looked like before the CovoBox:
Here is what it looks like with the CovoBox:
Ordering a CovoBox
Each CovoBox is custom-built for you. There is the regular CovoBox (which I got) which has a height of up to 9.5″. There is also the Tall CovoBox which has a height of up to 11.25″ (if you get the large) or up to 12″ (if you get the oversize) or 13″ (with the MAXXI). Once you choose the height that you want, you choose the length, in two-inch increments, with different prices for each increment. Then you choose the color.
For example, I have the regular CovoBox, which has a starting price on Amazon of $29. If I get a length of only 3″ there is no extra charge. But 5″ adds a $20 charge, 7″ adds a $40 charge, etc. The version that I got is 17″ so that added an extra $140 to the $29.
If you select the Multicolor option, which is what I got, you will a variety of books without paying extra for color. But if you want a color theme for the books, you need to pay more. Black adds an extra $49. Blue adds $99. Orange and yellow add $139. Or select a custom color for $159.
The version that I purchased is open at the top.
However, if you are using a lower shelf, or placing the CovoBox on a table, you may want to order the CovoBox2 or the Tall CovoBox2. With this version, you can see the tops of the books. That adds to the price; not only is the starting price different ($57 for CovoBox) but there is a larger price increase for each increase in length (such as $40 for each two inches of length for the CovoBox). For example, for a 17″ version that I got, instead of paying $169 for my CovoBox, you would pay $337 for the CovoBox2. But the result seems nice if that is what you are looking for:
When you look at my CovoBox from the back, the cuts on the books are obvious. But from the front, on my shelf, it is virtually impossible to notice that the books are cut:
Yet another option is the Horizontal CovoBox, which has books laying on their side:
If you want even more options, like a tall version that you might place on the floor next to a coach, check out the CovoGoods store on Etsy. The Etsy shop even has a few discounted, pre-made selections—perhaps items ordered by people who later changed their minds after they were made.
Conclusion
The CovoBox is not an inexpensive product, especially if you select a larger size. But because it is made using real books, it looks great, just like books on a shelf. On my shelf, it is virtually impossible to tell that it is hiding a bunch of ugly electronics and cords. And as a bonus, it is nice to know that some unwanted books are getting a new life.
If you are looking for a good way to hide ugly electronics, cords, routers, plugs, hubs, etc. on a shelf or some other location where it would look better to see books, CovoBox is a great solution.
Thank you to SaneBox for sponsoring iPhone J.D. again this month. I’ve heard of the SaneBox service for many years, but it wasn’t until a few months ago that I started to use the service myself, and now I’m kicking myself for not trying out it out earlier. It is that good. SaneBox vastly improves your email inbox by giving you tools to adjust what you see and when you see it. And because of the way that the service works, it can work with almost any email service. The end result is that when you look at your Inbox, almost every email that you see will be an email that is there for you to act on. Instead of your Inbox being stuffed with newsletters, junk emails, and other items that make it difficult to see the emails that deserve your attention, SaneBox moves those emails to another location where you can deal with them later or perhaps never deal with them at all. It is like having an assistant organize your email for you so that you can focus on the important stuff.
How SaneBox works
SaneBox works with any email service that provides IMAP, EWS – OWA, or Active Sync, such as Yahoo Mail, Gmail, AOL, iCloud, MS Exchange, Microsoft 365, Fastmail, Amazon WorkMail, and others. Since last yaear, I’ve been using it with my iPhone J.D. email account, which is just a normal IMAP account associated with a domain that I own. You may have an email account exactly like this one. My inbox receives a lot of emails from lots of different sources: people reaching out to me with questions or suggestions, companies that offer valuable and relevant services, newsletters that I signed up for, but also a lot of unwanted and/or junk email that is not caught by my spam filter.
SaneBox works by analyzing the headers—but never the body—of your emails. That means that SaneBox sees things like the subject line, date, and who the email is from. But SaneBox does not see what the email says in the body of the email. Based on its analysis of the headers, SaneBox keeps the email on your own email server—SaneBox never transfers your emails to its own server—but moves some of the emails from your Inbox to another folder.
You need to give SaneBox your email address and your email password so that it can see the headers. But the security of SaneBox has been audited by numerous security firms. The service has been around since 2010, a long track record that attests to its trustworthiness. Moreover, if you want to avoid giving SaneBox your normal password, you can turn on two-factor authentication and create an app-specific password with many services so that the password you give SaneBox is specific and unique to SaneBox. Click here for more information on this process.
You can also use two-factor authentication with the SaneBox service itself. That way, you can be sure that your SaneBox dashboard is completely private and accessible only by you.
What SaneBox does
The main thing that SaneBox does is analyze the information in the headers of your emails and then filter messages based on that analysis. For any message that SaneBox thinks is likely a normal email that you would want, SaneBox leaves the email in your Inbox. For messages that SaneBox considers less useful, such as messages that may be junk, SaneBox moves those emails to a folder called @SaneLater. Messages that seem to be mailing lists are moved to a folder called @SaneNews. Messages that SaneBox knows that you don’t want to see because you already told SaneBox (more on that below) are moved to @SaneBlackHole. And so on. I have more information on these specific folders below, but the end result is something like this: instead of going to your Inbox and seeing 17 new messages when only 3 of them are actually important, you see 5 new messages, including the 3 that are most important.
Thanks to SaneBox, I am much more efficient when I check email. I check my iPhone J.D. inbox from time to time during the day. Without SaneBox, if I pause what I am working on and see that I have over a dozen or more new messages, going through those emails becomes a chore. I need to take the time to separate the important emails from the others, and the whole process wastes time. With SaneBox, I instead glance at my Inbox and just see a few emails that are important. Based upon that, I can quickly decide if I need to read or act upon any of them or if I can get back to whatever else I was working on. Later on, when I know that I have more time to devote to email, I can pay attention to the emails that were moved into another folder such as @SaneLater. This vastly improves email efficiency.
It also saves you time. If you receive an alert every time an email comes in, the time that you waste looking at a new email only to discover that it is something unimportant and then trying to get your mind back to the task you were working on before can really add up.
Here is a deeper dive on the main SaneBox folders and other features. Note that you get to determine which of these folders and features you turn on and off, and you can typically adjust settings on each feature to fine-tune it. So for example, if you want to keep all newsletters in your Inbox instead of having them automatically moved to @SaneNews, just don’t turn on the @SaneNews feature in your SaneBox dashboard.
@SaneBlackHole
My favorite SaneBox folder is @SaneBlackHole. When I get an email from someone who I don’t want to get email from—maybe it is a spam message, maybe it is a marketing company that is of no interest to me, maybe it is a political candidate who I don’t want to see literature from, etc.—I simply move it from my Inbox to the folder called @SaneBlackHole. This trains the SaneBox service. Future emails from that address will automatically move to the @SaneBlackHole folder, stay in that folder for a week, and then get deleted.
Why not just click the unsubscribe button in the unwanted email? That’s fine if you trust the company sending you the email that you don’t want. But sometimes when you click an unsubscribe button, you are confirming to the sender that your email is an active one, and they will turn around and sell your email address to other companies, which results in even more unwanted email. When you move an email to the @SaneBlackHole folder, the person or company is not alerted that you did so.
What if you make a mistake? If you put something in the @SaneBlackHole folder by accident, simply move it back into your Inbox. SaneBox will see that you did that and learn that you don’t want future emails from that sender to go into the @SaneBlackHole folder.
Is the @SaneBlackHole folder the same thing as a Spam folder or a Junk folder from your email provider? Not really. The end result is similar, but how it gets there is very different. Your own email provider provides a Spam folder feature that analyzes not only the sender and subject line but also the content of your email to determine if something is spam, phishing, a virus, etc. Spam folders are not perfect, but when they do work, they perform an important job by moving an unwanted email out of your Inbox. Even with SaneBox, you should continue to use the Spam folder feature provided by your own email provider. But as we all know, there are many messages not caught by a Spam folder even though you might want them to be. Perhaps your emial service cannot determine whether it is truly junk because for some types of messages, one person might want the message and another person may not. While you can often train the Spam folder provided by your email service provider, and you should do so, Spam folders are not always as smart as you want them to be. Thus, @SaneBlackHole works in a different way, along with your normal Spam or Junk feature, to provide a more customized filter. If you never want to hear from X again, just move one email from X into the @SaneBlackHole folder. And then you are done.
SaneBox describes the difference between a Spam folder and the @SaneBlackHole folder this way: “Keep in mind that @SaneBlackHole is not for SPAM. It is meant to be used for legitimate email from people or services that you don’t want to see or hear from anymore. Spammers go out of their way to make each email be sufficiently different so trainings like these don’t work.”
For me, the @SaneBlackHole folder has worked extremely well. Every once in a while, I’ll take a look at what is in that folder and see a huge number of emails that used to be going straight to my Inbox. I’m so thrilled to see that they went there instead and didn’t waste my time.
@SaneNews
When SaneBox detects that you are receiving something that looks like a newsletter, it moves the message from your Inbox to the @SaneNews folder. This is nice because I receive many newsletters that I signed up for and want to receive, but I don’t always want them to interrupt my workflow during the day by piling up in my Inbox. Whenever I’m ready to look at newsletters, such as while I’m having lunch or at the end of the day, they are waiting for me in this folder.
Sometimes, I’ll see something show up in @SaneNews that I did not sign up for and that I don’t want to receive. I simply move that email into the @SaneBlackHole folder to train SaneBox to put similar emails there in the future.
On the other hand, sometimes I’ll see something that is a newsletter but it is important to me so I’d rather keep it in my Inbox. For example, perhaps you love reading the free iPhone J.D. email that goes out whenever there is a new post. (You are not receiving the iPhone J.D. newsletter? Just click here or scan the QR code to the right to sign up.) Simply move the email with the newsletter out of @SaneNews and into your Inbox to teach SaneBox that it should keep that particular newsletter in your Inbox so that you will notice it more quickly.
It is nice that @SaneNews, like all SaneBox folders, is simply another folder in your email. This means that the fact that SaneBox has filtered the email doesn’t mean that you don’t have easy access to it. It’s not like you need to go to the SaneBox website to view it or anything like that. Your current mail client, including the Mail app on your iPhone or iPad, just sees @SaneNews as another folder. Your iPhone, iPad, computer, etc. doesn’t need to know that it was the intelligence of SaneBox that moved the message into the @SaneNews folder or any other SaneBox folder, nor does your iPhone need to know that by moving a message from one folder to another folder, you are training the SaneBox service.
@SaneLater
The @SaneLater folder is a place where SaneBox puts emails that it considers likely to be less important, including messages that may be junk. If there is a type of email that you want to receive but typically don’t want to act upon right away, move it from your Inbox to the @SaneLater folder to train SaneBox to move similar messages there in the future. You can always manually move a message from @SaneLater to your Inbox to train SaneBox that this is an important type of email that deserves to stay in your Inbox.
A lot of the emails that show up in my @SaneLater email are emails that I would consider spam or junk emails and that were not caught by my Spam filter. So I will often select a bunch of them and move them into the @SaneBlackHole folder so that in the future they will go straight there instead of in my @SaneLater folder. That system isn’t perfect—the spammer may change up the “from” email address slightly to try to confuse SaneBox—but when I move a message into the @SaneBlackHole folder, at least I am trying to do something.
@SaneCC
If a message is sent to someone else but also sent to you as CC, you can have that message automatically go to a @SaneCC folder instead of your Inbox. I understand the idea here—since the email was not sent directly to you, it is potentially less important than other emails in your Inbox. I don’t have this SaneBox folder turned on because so many of the emails that I receive as a cc are just as important as the ones for which I am in the “to” field. Nevertheless, I can understand how this may be valuable for many folks.
@SaneNoReplies
Have you ever sent someone an email asking for a response, but then they don’t reply, and then you forget that you were waiting for a reply, and then you get annoyed at yourself for not following up sooner? The @SaneNoReplies folder is an optional folder aimed at addressing this situation.
Here’s how it works. You send an email to someone. Just like always, your sent email goes into your Sent folder. But additionally, within a few minutes, SaneBox puts a copy of your sent email into the @SaneNoReplies folder. When someone replies to your email, the email that you sent is deleted from the @SaneNoReplies folder because it is no longer an email without a reply. The idea is that you can glance at your @SaneNoReplies folder from time to time to see the message to which there was no reply, and that can remind you to follow up and request a reply. If you see something in there that doesn’t belong—perhaps you never expected a reply, or perhaps the other person replied in some other way like a phone call or a different email—just delete it from that folder and SaneBox will stop waiting for a reply.
Note that the @SaneNoReplies folder only acts upon emails where you sent the first email. If you are replying to an email chain, nothing that you send will go into this folder.
SaneReminders
What if you want to make sure that you get a reply within a specific time period, like three days? When you compose your email, add a bcc or a cc to 3days@sanebox.com. If three days have passed and you haven’t yet received a response, then SaneBox will put a reminder email at the top of your Inbox. What if you want to get that reminder in three days regardless of whether you get a reply? Simply add the word “keep” such as keep.3days@sanebox.com.
Pretty much anything that you can think of will work for those SaneBox reminder addresses. There is a big list of them on this page. Examples include sunday@sanebox.com, november21@sanebox.com, dec.21.2pm@sanebox.com, etc.
SaneReminders works when you are sending a message and you use that special email as a cc or bcc. It also works if you receive an email and you want to deal with it at a later date: simply forward the email to a SaneBox reminder address such as friday@sanebox.com. On Friday, at the top of your inbox, you will see an email reminding you to act upon that email. (You can configure in the SaneBox settings what time of day those emails show up.) This is a good way to move an email out of your Inbox so that it doesn’t bother you right now, but then have it come back when you will be ready to deal with it.
…and more
This post would get too long if I described every feature of SaneBox. There are lots of them. As I noted above, this service has been around for over a decade, so SaneBox has come up with lots of different features over those years. For example, you can schedule Do Not Disturb periods for your Inbox. You can create custom folders like @SaneReceipts or @SaneFamily and teach SaneBox how to move things into those folder for you. Just recently, SaneBox introduced an Email Deep Clean feature to help you clean up an Inbox that has gotten too big. And you can do so much more.
Price
SaneBox has lots of different pricing tiers so that you can just pay for what you need, and you can try before you buy to get the service working and find out if it makes sense for you. It only takes minutes to set it up, and if you don’t like the service, simply unsubscribe. And while you can pay month-to-month if you want, you can save substantially if you sign up for one year or two years.
If you only want to use two SaneBox features, you can choose the “Snack” tier which is $7/month or $59/year or $99 for two years. The most popular tier is the “Lunch” tier which can work with two email accounts and lets you choose six features for $12/month or $99/year or $169 for two years. (That’s the tier that I paid for.) You can also get the “Dinner” tier which works with four email accounts and includes every feature for $36/month or $299 a year or $499 for two years. There are discounts for educational, non-profit, and governmental agencies.
Click here to sign up. That link includes an affiliate code that provides a small affiliate fee to iPhone J.D. if you decide to pay for a plan.
Conclusion
SaneBox is a fantastic service that makes your email better. Even if you are not sure that the service is for you, it costs you nothing to try it out. SaneBox can also work especially well if you have an alternative email service that you use for making purchases and other purposes but that you don’t check throughout the day. With SaneBox working to keep the Inbox clean and tidy, you can be much more efficient when you check that Inbox. I recommend that you check out the free trial to see for yourself how it works and the wonders that it can do for your Inbox.
Many of the topics in the latest episode of the In the News podcast address putting new things in historical perspective. Brett and I discuss the new Apple website and how much it has changed over the decades. We talk about the new Apple financial report and explain how the iPad can be doing better than ever right now at the same time that it is disappointing many folks who have been following the iPad for a long time. We talk about the new version of Myst on the iPad and how far it has come from the version many of us played on Apple computers in the 1990s. And we talk about how the newest HomePod compares to the original version released years ago. On top of all of that, we talk about CarPlay apps, the Camo app, and HomeKit smartplugs. It is a jam-packed episode, but you can take your time with it because we won’t be able to record an episode next week.
In our In the Know segment, Brett explains how you can fix an Apple Watch if the Digital Crown doesn’t turn as well as it should. I explain how you can fix an iPhone if it doesn’t want to wake up—spoiler alert: push volume up, push volume down, then hold down the power key—and we explain why you should do your best to remember that combination.
This week, Apple debuted a new look for the Apple website. There are still tabs at the top devoted to topics like iPhone, iPad, and Mac, but now you can hover your computer mouse over each tab, or tap once on a tab on an iPad, to see a large list of pages associated with that tab. There is a somewhat similar layout for the iPhone, but it is based on a menu button at the top right. It’s a nice design change that makes it easier to get to the specific part of the Apple website that you want. Additionally, many of the pages on the website have been spruced up with graphics that animate as you scroll down the website. For an interesting look at past Apple website home pages, check out this page from the Version Museum, which covers 1994 to 2020. And now, the news of note from the past week:
I added a new paragraph to my recent review of Camo, the app that lets you use your iPhone as a webcam, to note that I initially had some difficulties using Camo when my iPhone was connected to my Windows computer using a cord. I solved that problem by updating a driver, and it helped Camo to work much better. I’ll discuss this issue in more detail when we record today’s episode of the In the News podcast.
What do people who pay attention think about Apple’s performance in 2022? Jason Snell of Six Colors released the latest version of his annual Report Card to answer that question. Folks were happy with wearable technology like the Apple Watch and AirPods, but more grumpy about HomeKit and developer relations.
If you want to use HomePods in a stereo pair, they need to be of the same generation. Unless you use a workaround, described by Chance Miller of 9to5Mac in this post, which involves using the Airfoil app on a Mac. If you own a single original generation HomePod and a single new HomePod, it might be something worth trying to see what you think.
Aidan Pollard of Insider tells the story of a couple whose luggage was lost by Air Canada after their honeymoon. Thanks to an AirTag, the couple was able to track the bag for months, and they finally recovered it after learning that their ID tag had become disconnected from the luggage and then the airline donated the luggage to a charity. AirCanada says that the owners should have put identifying information inside of the luggage to account for the possibility of the tag outside of the luggage becoming detached, but I suspect that most people don’t do that.
I don’t play a lot of video games, but I have fond memories of loving the game Myst when it came out on the Mac in 1993; the graphics were incredible (considering the technology of the day) and the puzzles were fun to solve. Juli Clover of MacRumors reports that a newly remastered version of Myst is now available for the iPad and iPhone called Myst Mobile. It is free to play, although you eventually need to pay $9.99 to unlock the entire game. For devices with an M1 or M2 chip, the games defaults to “Epic” settings to allow the graphics to look as good as possible.
And finally, Apple released this video three weeks ago to advertise the new HomePod, but I hadn’t seen it until last night, and it does a good job of promoting the key features.
A few days ago, Apple released the results for its 2023 fiscal first quarter (which ran from September 25, 2022, to December 31, 2022, and did not actually include any days from calendar year 2023) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results. This is typically Apple’s best quarter of the year because it includes holiday sales. One year ago, it was the best quarter in the history of the company, with an all-time revenue record of $123.9 billion. This year, it was the second best quarter in the history of the company, with revenue of $117.2 billion.
Most of us would be happy to report over $100 billion in revenue in a quarter, and most of us would be happy to report a second best quarter ever. But for most of the time since the iPhone came around, Apple’s fiscal first quarters have been better every year. Why not this year? Apple identified three reasons. First, Apple pointed to “foreign exchange headwinds.” In countries like China, Apple sold more this year than last year. But because of the strength of the U.S. Dollar, when China sales are converted to U.S. currency, the revenue from China was actually down compared to last year. Second, Apple pointed to COVID shutdowns at the factory (also in China) that made the iPhones. And third, Apple pointed to the overall macroeconomic conditions: inflation, war in Eastern Europe, the pandemic, and other issues that cause people around the world to spend less money now than they used to. As you can see, Apple’s overall message was that Apple itself is doing a great job making wonderful products that people want to buy, but external factors softened the overall revenue. I think Apple makes some good points, but others will see doom-and-gloom because it wasn’t the best quarter ever.
As always, I’m not all that interested in the financial details. What interests me is that this is one of four times a year when Apple answers questions from a bunch of analysts, so I’m always curious to see what Apple has to say about the iPhone and iPad and related technologies. If you want to get all of the nitty-gritty details, you can listen to the audio from the announcement conference call on the Apple website, or you can read a transcript of the call prepared by Jason Snell of Six Colors. Snell also created a number of useful charts that put Apple’s financial announcements in perspective over time. Apple’s official press release is here. Here are the items that stood out to me.
iPhone
iPhone revenue was $65.8 billion. That is down from $71.6 billion a year ago, but it is still the second-best iPhone quarter ever, up just slightly from $65.6 billion two years ago.
Apple CFO Luca Maestri said that the installed base of active iPhones is at an all-time high across all geographic segments.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the shutdown of factors in China due to COVID significantly impacted the supply of iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, and this lasted through most of December. We all saw how difficult it was to get a high-end iPhone if you wanted one in your hands by Christmas or Hanukah. Fortunately, Apple has gotten past that. Right now, you can order an iPhone 14 Pro and—in many big cities—have it in your hands only two hours later.
Cook mentioned the Emergency SOS via Satellite feature that is available with all iPhone 14 models, noting that “it is incredibly heartening to get emails from people describing the life-saving impact our new safety features have had on them.”
Cook said that many people “are willing to really stretch to get the best” smartphone they can afford because it is so “integral into people’s lives.” “It contains their contacts and their health information and their banking information and their smart home and so many different parts of their lives, it’s the payment vehicle for many people.” I interpreted that statement as an explanation of why the Pro models of the iPhone are so popular, but Mark Gurman of Bloomberg speculates that Cook could be signaling that Apple has plans for an even higher priced iPhone model in the future—an iPhone Ultra?—to sell an even more expensive iPhone to those willing to pay more.
iPad
For much of Apple, last quarter was about getting the silver medal, but for the iPad, this was the gold medal quarter, the best iPad quarter of all time. iPad revenue grew 30% to $9.4 billion.
Maestri provided two reasons for the great iPad quarter. First, this time last year, Apple experienced significant supply constraints, while this year they had enough supply to meet demand. Second, there was a lot of interest in the new iPad and iPad Pro models introduced last quarter.
Apple no longer reveals the specific number of iPads sold or in use, but Maestri did say that the iPad installed base reached a new all-time high.
Other
If you are old enough to remember the iPod, you may also remember people talking bout the “iPod halo effect,” the idea that once a customer bought an iPod and loved it, they would have more interest in buying other Apple products like a Mac computer. More recently, Apple has been talking about the number of active devices. If you own an iPhone and then replace it with another iPhone, that doesn’t add to the total number of active devices (unless you give your old iPhone to someone else). But as people who already own one or more Apple products buy even more Apple products, and as other people buy their first Apple product, Apple’s potential future growth increases. Folks with even more Apple products are even more a part of the Apple ecosystem and more likely to purchase services from Apple such as Apple TV+ or Fitness+. And of course, customers buying their first Apple product have the potential to spend even more money on Apple products and services in the future. Cook was proud to mention the number of active devices when he spoke to analysts a few days ago because he announced a new milestone: two billion active devices. It was only seven years ago that Apple announced that it had one billion active devices. Apple was founded on April 1, 1976, so it took Apple almost 40 years to sell the first billion devices, but only 7 years to sell the second billion devices. You can do the math and see that this paints a picture of a bright future for Apple.
Apple saw $20.8 billion in revenue from services in this past quarter, the highest ever. This included records in many services categories including cloud services, payment services, and music.
After Steve Jobs died in 2011 and Tim Cook took over the company, one of the changes instituted by Cook was a Giving program. Cook announced that during those 11 years, more than $880 million was donated to humanitarian efforts, disaster relief, childhood education, and more.
When asked about Artificial Intelligence, Cook said that it is a “major focus” of Apple because of the ways that “it can enrich customers’ lives.” He said that “you can look no further than some of the things that we announced in the Fall with crash detection and fall detection or back a ways with ECG. I mean, these things have literally saved people’s lives. And so we see an enormous potential in this space to affect virtually everything we do. It’s obviously a horizontal technology, not a vertical, and so it will affect every product and every service that we have.”
