Yesterday, I took a vacation from work, and my wife and I attended the first day of Jazz Fest in New Orleans. This is a two-weekend festival that is at the end of April and beginning of May every year. If you haven't been before, it gets my highest recommendation. There are over a dozen stages, so at any one time, there is always lots of good music to hear. Yesterday, I listened to some great Blues music and a little bit of Gospel, some swamp rock and roll, a great brass band, the legendary Dixie Chicks who celebrated 60 years of singing "Chapel of Love," Zydeco music from Rockin' Dopsie, and then a little band you may have heard of called the Beach Boys. It was an eclectic mix of music and I loved it all. Upcoming artists this year include The Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters, Jon Batiste, Vampire Weekend, Chris Stapleton, and many more. If you cannot be here in person, you can also stream some of the music live or after the fact on WWOZ. (For example, use this link and then jump to the 50:10 point to hear John Boutte playing yesterday his toe-tapping crowd favorite: At the Foot of Canal Street.) We also had some amazing food throughout the day including beignets (both sweet with powdered sugar and savory with crawfish), a turduckin po-boy, cochon de lait, soft shell crab, catfish, meat pies, crawfish enchiladas, the always refreshing Mango Freeze, and more. If you hear "festival food" and think corn dogs, this is the opposite of that, some of the best dishes that New Orleans has to offer. If you enjoy music, food, art, and having fun, this is my annual PSA that you owe it to yourself to attend Jazz Fest in New Orleans one of these years. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- A podcast update: Brett Burney and I cannot record this week's edition of the In the News podcast on Friday morning because of Brett's travel schedule, so we will instead record on Saturday morning. Absent any hiccups, you should see the episode in your podcast player and the video on YouTube on Saturday afternoon.
- The ultimate App Store rejection is the one that occurs when Congress passes a law, signed by the President, that essentially bans your app, and that is what happened to TikTok this week, as reported by Cristiano Lima-Strong of the Washington Post.
- Some, such as John Gruber of Daring Fireball, have been arguing in favor of a ban for a long time. Others think that the new law is xenophobic, unconstitutional, and/or wrong. I'm not sure where I come out. It's quite complicated, and there are interesting arguments on both sides.
- As I noted early this week, Apple will announce new iPads on May 7. Jovana Naumovski of Gadget Hacks has some ideas of what may be in the third-generation Apple Pencil, such as the ability to squeeze the Pencil to add a shape, signature, sticker, or text box.
- After May 7, the next big set of announcements from Apple will come during the Keynote presentation at its WWDC developer conference on June 10. It seems certain that AI will be a part of that presentation. In the meantime, some of the AI researchers at Apple have been publishing academic papers on these topics. For example, Malcolm Owen of AppleInsider reports on new ways that Apple researchers have come up with to improve the accuracy and reliability of AI using large language models. The details of these advancements are way over my head, but it is good to see folks at Apple making progress.
- Jason Snell of Six Colors thinks that when Apple announces new AI features, it will be a reason to upgrade your iPhone and other devices because you will need to have even more RAM to run the AI on-device.
- Here is another story about a person recovering their stolen vehicle thanks to an AirTag. But this one is a little more dramatic because dashcam videos allow you to see much of the story, not just read about it. Mekahlo Medina of the NBC affiliate in Las Angeles has the story, and I recommend that you watch the video.
- The crew at MacStories is back to make HomeKit recommendations, this time for devices that are outside of your home. It's a great set of recommendations.
- For outdoor lighting, I'm a huge fan of the Meross Smart Dimmer plug, which you can get on Amazon for less than $25. Here is my review from 2022, and it has continued to work great for me since then.
- Rikka Altland of 9ti5Toys reviews some new stands from Satechi that feature Qi2 for faster 15W charging of an iPhone and also charge either one or two other devices. And of course, the stands work with Apple's Standby Mode, which I love and use every day and every night, as I discussed in this post. I myself continue to be super happy with the the Anker 3-in-1 Cube with MagSafe (now only $129.99 on Amazon), which I use at work and when I travel, and the Twelve South HiRise 3 Deluxe ($149.99 on Amazon), which I use next to my bed.
- There are portable batteries, and then there are portable power stations. Eric Slivka of MacRumors reports on products in development by Bluetti including a portable cooler that looks like a regular ice chest but which works as a refrigerator for up to three days. It even works as a portable ice maker. And oh yeah, you can also use it to charge your iPhone.
- Filipe Espósito of 9to5Mac reports that a doctor in Brazil used his Apple Vision Pro to assist during a shoulder arthroscopy surgery. I guess if you are doing a surgery that uses a tiny camera, you might as well display it on a Vision Pro screen. There is also a YouTube video that lets you see what the doctor saw during surgery.
- Before I used the iPhone, I was a big fan of Palm OS devices for a decade. My first was the Palm III in 1998 and my last one was the Palm Treo 650, which I used until I purchased an iPhone in 2008. Cameron Kaiser of Ars Technica wrote a great retrospective on all of the devices that ran Palm OS. I enjoyed the walk down memory lane.
- And finally, I've embedded below the trailer for Season 4 of the Apple TV+ show called Trying. I'm mentioning it today because this is one of those shows that hasn't gotten a lot of buzz but it is really good: both heartwarming and funny. The show is about a couple in England who are trying to adopt, and since the show is now about to start its fourth season, you can probably guess that the adoption story has a happy ending. But the series also explores the grief that typically goes along with the adoption process. The series especially hit home for me since my wife and I went through this process, and we also know so many others who have gone through the adoption process. But anyone who is a parent will find lots of humor in this series that hits close to home. If you haven't started this one yet, go back to Season 1 and see what you think. I think you'll like it. And if you have been watching, Season 4 starts on May 22:
