When Apple first started producing TV shows and its first original show was Planet of the Apps, I had my doubts about what might come next. But ever since the start of Apple TV+ with just a few shows on November 1, 2019, the quality of the programming has steadily improved to the point where Apple TV+ is now perhaps my favorite streaming network. Case in point: this week, Apple aired the seventh and final episode of the show Hijack, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, just as I have every other episode of this suspenseful show. What is great is that the star of the show, played by Idris Elba (Stringer Bell in The Wire) is not an action hero but a professional negotiator, so he uses his words and psychology, not weapons, to battle the bad guys. If you haven't watched Hijack yet, I urge you to do so. And when you do so, good luck resisting binging the whole thing at once. I'm not sure that I would have had the patience to wait very long if all episodes had been available when I started. Will there be a second season? The star of the show, Idris Elba, told K.J. Yossman of Variety back in June that he was "open to that character coming back" but he didn't want it to be yet another hijack plot, which makes sense. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- Air Canada announced this week that you can now watch Apple TV+ shows on Air Canada flights. As much as I just raved about Hijack, that might not be the best show to watch while you are actually on an airplane.
- Why are smartphone sales down while the iPhone's market share is increasing? David Sparks of MacSparky has some theories.
- Users of AirPods know that Spatial Audio can make a big difference when you are watching a video or listening to music. and Spatial Audio in the FaceTime app has been able to make voices sound more spread out for a while. A post by Hong Sodoma on the Microsoft Teams blog this week reports that Microsoft has now also added spatial audio to Microsoft Teams so that people on the left side of the screen appear to be talking from that direction, etc. Watch the video in that post starting around the 60-second mark to see it in action.
- Shortcuts expert Matthew Cassinelli—he was part of the team that invented the app Workflow, which Apple purchased and renamed Shortcuts—reports that there are new shortcuts in iOS 17 that let you open up the camera in a specific mode, such as selfie of video. Sometimes, I want to start taking a video or a photo right away, and hopefully this will help to make that a reality.
- Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac reviews the Philips Hue Enrave, a ceiling fan light that has a very simple design so you won't really notice it but it works with HomeKit. It doesn't have all the colors in the spectrum like some Hue products, but it does let you adjust the color temperature of the white light. There are different sizes and prices, but it looks like a solid product for a smart home.
- Julia Buckley of CNN reports that a man traveling from the United States to Zurich via London landed in Zurich only to discover that his bike was missing. And considering that this was a biking trip, that was a problem. But he had an AirTag on the bike, which allowed him to confirm that his bike never made it out of London, and eventually, the airline got his bike to him thanks to the AirTag—even though it was about halfway through his time in Europe.
- Using an AirTag to track a bike doesn't seem unusual. What seems unusual is using an AirTag to track a plant. But as reported by Fox29 Philadelphia, that is what one person did after being annoyed about potted plants disappearing from the front of her house.
- Last week, I reported that a four-pack of AirTags was on sale on Amazon for under $85, a great price. This week they are a little higher at $88.99, but that is still a discount over Apple's $99 price.
- Leander Kahiney of Cult of Mac says that if you want an inexpensive way to add wireless CarPlay to your car, you can use an Amazon Fire tablet.
- And finally, Apple has launched a new campaign called Pay the Apple Way to show how much easier and safer it is to pay for items using Apple Pay. Here is one of the new, funny videos in that campaign called Everyday Captcha:
