There are lots of tips and tricks in this week’s episode of the In the News podcast, as Brett Burney and I start the episode discussing some tips related to the Settings app and then we discuss tips for using the iPhone keyboard. We next discuss the present and future of visionOS, tons of great shows on and coming to Apple TV+, the future of CarPlay, and much more.
In our In the Know segment, Brett shares a very useful tip for sharing your contact information via LinkedIn instead of using business cards—a tip that I would have been using for years if I had known about it. I share a tip and a historical curiosity related to the Calendar app.
One of the nice things about the Summer is that sometimes things slow down enough that you can take a break and watch some good things on TV. Apple TV+ has lots of good things on right now and even more coming out soon. I’m currently enjoying Dark Matter and Trying. I haven’t even started watching Presumed Innocent yet, but it is getting good reviews, and it has special appeal for me because I loved reading the book and then watching the movie just before I started law school. I’m also interested in two movies being released soon by Apple TV+: Fly Me to the Moon starring Scarlett Johansson, which is a comedy-drama about NASA in the 1960s, and Wolfs, an action-comedy starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt. But those are both going to the theater first, and there is no current release date for the home theater. Fortunately, other promising shows are coming to the TV soon, and Macworld has a helpful page devoted to upcoming Apple TV+ shows. Here are some that I am looking forward to that have release dates. July 19: Lady in the Lake (starring Natalie Portman and Moses Ingram). July 24: Time Bandits (based on the quirky movie of the 1980s, stars Lisa Kudrow, created by and appearances by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi). July 31: Women in Blue (Mexico’s first female police force). August 9: The Instigators (Matt Damon and Casey Affleck). August 14: Bad Monkey (produced by Bill Lawrence, starring Vince Vaughn). Two others that look interesting and that will come out later this year: (1) Sept. 4: Slow Horses Season 4 and (2) Oct. 11: Disclaimer (Cate Blanchett and Kevin Kline). That could be a whole lot of great things to watch on TV. And now, here is the news of notes from the past week.
iPadOS 18 will add support for formatting external drives, according to Federico Viticci of MacStories. Is that a feature that most people need? Probably not, but it is an example of an advanced iPad feature, and I love seeing the iPad get more powerful. I often use my iPad to get work done when I don’t have a computer nearby, and it is frustrating to hit the limits of an iPad when it ought to be able to do a task that a computer can do.
Apple is rolling out a firmware update for all AirPods. There is nothing that you need to do, eventually, it will install on its own, but according to Chance Miller of 9to5Mac, it fixes a Bluetooth vulnerability that a hacker could use to gain access to your AirPods (or Beats headphones). Yikes. If you want to determine if your model is updated yet, go to the Settings app on your iPhone -> Bluetooth -> click the info button next to your AirPods / AirPods Pro -> Version to learn what firmware version number you are running. Miller’s post has a list of all of the latest versions. For example, for my AirPods Pro (2nd generation), the new version is 6F8.
If your Apple Watch is having difficulty detecting your pulse or other vitals, take a look to see if you happen to have a tattoo on your arm. If you do, it can interfere with the sensors, and you may have to remove the tattoo as explained in this post by Malcolm Owen for AppleInsider.
One day, Apple may give us the ability to purchase and install custom watch faces. But until that day comes, you need to customize the limited faces provided by Apple if you want a different look. I find that using the Stripes fact is one way to change the look; I have a version of Stripes with Green and White that I wear to support my daughter’s high school basketball team, a version with Purple, Green, and Gold that I wear for Mardi Gras, etc. Zac Hall of 9to5Mac shows a way to create a very minimal watch face using the Photos face and a black image as the photo.
There is currently no native YouTube app for the Apple Vision Pro, but Juno is a $5 third-party app that tries to be the next best thing. The app was updated yesterday to support 360º videos on YouTube, as reported by Flilpe Espósito of 9to5Mac. The good news is that there are lots of 360º videos that you can watch on YouTube, so this greatly increases the amount of 3D immersive content for the Vision Pro. The bad news is that the stuff on YouTube doesn’t seem to be very good. I don’t just mean the critical quality of the videos is lacking, although there is a lot of that. I mean the technical quality. The videos on YouTube are noticeably inferior to the 8K immersive videos released by Apple and, more recently, Disney/Marvel. Even when a video surrounds you, that grainy quality removes any sense that you are really there. Having said that, there are still some interesting things to watch if you want to try. Here are two to start with. (1) Teleportaled is a very short Sci-Fi comedy that is cute. (2) This is a view from the cockpit of a Swiss Air Force fighter jet. Note that even if you don’t have a Vision Pro you can click on those links and watch a 2D video, and you can click and drag to change your view, but that completely removes you from the feeling of 3D.
Apple TV+ is expanding from movies and TV shows to original podcasts with a show called My Divo premiering on July 1, 2024, as noted in this press release.
And finally, one of the features of the next version of CarPlay is that the interface can control all aspects of a car. The folks at Blackbox Infinite played around with the software to see if they could imitate some of the most iconic car dashboards of all time, and they did an amazing job. It makes me think that this version of CarPlay could be really cool. Now we just need cars that support it. You can view their work on this webpage and in this video:
Details are emerging about the upcoming iOS 18 now that beta versions are in the hands of developers. Brett Burney and I start this week’s episode of the In the News podcast by discussing some of the more hidden features in iOS 18 that you might want to use. We also discuss the new features coming to Maps in iOS 18. Next, we took about new tools for creating immersive videos for the Apple Vision Pro, the end of Apple’s Buy Now Pay Later program, and more.
In our Where Y’At? segment, we discuss the happy tale of a firefighter who may owe his life to his Apple Watch and the strange tale of Steve Spielberg’s Apple Watch.
In our In the Know segment, Brett shares a great tip for using YouTube on an iPhone or iPad. I explain why you may want to ditch the camera button whenever you upgrade to iOS 18.
Thirty years ago yesterday, on June 20, 1994, at a time when most people had no idea what the World Wide Web or the Internet was (Netscape Navigator did not come out until late 1994), Apple opened the doors to eWorld, an online service that was a Mac-oriented competitor to AOL. I used eWorld during the two years that it was around. and I liked it. Nevertheless, it was always clear to me and others that so much more was coming from the Internet. Fast forward to today and the iPhone and other Apple products act as the front door to the Internet for many people, whether they are browsing the web in Safari or using Internet-based apps to pay for coffee, communicate with friends, work remotely, and so much more. As we now look to the future, beta versions (at least, the developer beta versions) of iOS 18 and other upcoming operating systems are now available for those who want to try things out early. You definitely won’t see me put an early beta on my iPhone or iPad because I need those devices to get work done, and I cannot have them quit randomly, overheat, or run out of battery. But if you have an extra device, or if you don’t mind living with the crazy ups and downs of the beta cycle just to be the first to try something new (for example, my son falls in that category), you can register yourself as an Apple developer for free and download the new software now. Or, you can sign up for the free Apple Beta Software Program to access the early beta versions when they are somewhat more polished. Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac speculates that the first public beta will be available in a few weeks. Or, perhaps best of all, you can let others be the guinea pigs and just read what they have to say. That’s the approach that I plan to take for the next few months, with the possible exception of my Apple Vision Pro—which is inherently a beta device so I might try the beta software on it. We’ll see. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Rajesh Pandey of Cult of Mac identifies 11 hidden iOS 18 features that Apple did not tell you about. I’ve already mentioned a few of them last week, like the ability to adjust the flashlight width and the screen bezel expanding when you press a side key on the iPhone, but there are some other good ones on that list.
Patrick Holland of CNet shares lots of details about how text messaging via satellite will work in iOS 18. No pictures or videos, but you can send and receive text messages, emoji, tap backs, and even iMessage bubble and screen effects.
We all have an Apple ID, and if you used the earliest versions of iTunes, you may even have two of them. Adam Engst of TidBITS reports that in iOS 18, Apple is changing the name to Apple Account.
David Price of Macworld reveals that in watchOS 11, Apple is removing the Siri watch face, presumably because you will be able to get a similar feature from any watch face by just swiping up.
I’m a big fan of the podcast transcripts feature now in Apple Podcasts. Ari Saperstein of The Guardian interviewed folks from Apple about the feature and learned that Apple has been working on this since 2018.
As I’ve mentioned before, immersive content on the Apple Vision Pro is truly incredible, and I wish we had more of it. That is now starting to become more possible. Jeff Benjamin of 9to5Mac explains how you can purchase an Insta360 X4 ($499.99 on Amazon) and then convert the video so it will play on the Vision Pro. We also need to have a good website or app to watch immersive videos taken by others.
In a post for Six Colors, Joe Rosensteel reveals how Sandwich Video pulled off the first live 3D stream for the Apple Vision Pro last week.
If you use 1Password as your password manager and you are worried that you may one day forget your master password, you can now (optionally) create a recovery code that you can print out and store in a secure location that can be used, in connection with access to your email account. to get back into 1Password. Ryan Christofel of 9to5Mac explains how it works.
Mitchell Bailey of Global News (Canada) reports that a firefighter in Canada started to have a headache when his Apple Watch warned him that he may be having atrial fibrillation. That led him to go to the hospital where he learned that he was having a heart attack. The man and his wife credit the Apple Watch for helping to save his life.
On the other hand, sometimes the Apple Watch makes mistakes. Lexi Carson of Variety reports that Steven Spielberg was giving a talk on stage during the Tribeca Festival when his Apple Watch mistakenly told him that he had taken a hard fall. He responded by taking off his watch and throwing it on the ground—which wasn’t the best idea because that triggered the watch to begin to call 911.
Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac reports on a new feature coming to Apple TV+. If you start watching a live MLS game after it has already started, you can watch a series of highlights, generated automatically using AI, to get caught up before you start watching live. I love this.
Last year, Apple launched a buy now, pay later program. It was somewhat controversial since it seemed to encourage people to spend beyond their means. And this week, Chance Miller of 9to4Mac reports that Apple is discontinuing the program.
Ben Lovejoy of 9to5 speculates that Apple may be discontinuing the program to avoid having to deal with regulations that date back to 1968.
And finally, I enjoyed watching this 15-minute video in which Marquest Brownlee interviews Apple CEO Tim Cook. It begins with interesting Qs and As on Apple Intelligence and then ends with Cook discussing some of the greatest products in Apple history.
Apple’s WWDC conference took place this week, and there were so many interesting announcements that this week we have a jam-packed episode of the In the News podcast. We start by discussing Apple Intelligence: what makes Apple’s AI effort different from what others are doing, and how will you use it? We then talk about numerous exciting changes coming to iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, the Apple Vision Pro, the Apple TV, and CarPlay.
In today’s Where Y’At? segment, we discuss using your AirPods, of all things, to track your stolen car.
In our In the Know segment, Brett and I pick some of our favorite new features that were announced by Apple this week.
WWDC was this week, and at the developer conference, Apple showed off an enormous number of new features coming to the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, Apple Vision Pro, Mac, HomePod, CarPlay, iPod … OK, maybe not the iPod, but the iPod did actually make an appearance during the first few minutes of the Keynote address. (And those first few minutes are fun, so if you didn’t watch the Keynote, I recommend you at least check out the beginning.) These new features will be beta-tested and improved over the next few months, and by this Fall, we will start to be able to use them on our devices in a shipping version of the operating systems. So in today’s post, let’s start to dig into the firehose of new announcements that are the news of note from the past week:
William Gallagher of AppleInsider says that the new Control Center in iOS 18 is faster to use and easier to customize. I can actually see this turning out to be one of the most useful features in iOS 18.
Here is something small and interesting in iOS 18. When you press a button on the side of the iPhone, the black portion of the display bezel goes in slightly, as if you are physically squeezing the side of the iPhone. Juli Clover of MacRumors shows off how this looks.
Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac notes that you can have collapsible sections in Notes in iOS 18. That looks very useful, especially on the smaller iPhone screen.
Earlier this week, when I wrote about the features in iPadOS 18 that look promising to me, one feature that I did not mention is Smart Script. The idea is that AI looks at your handwriting to understand your own personal style, and if something that you are writing using a stylus starts to get too messy, Smart Script will clean up your handwriting—not to look like the handwriting of someone else with great penmanship, but to look more like your handwriting on a good day. It is an interesting idea, but I’ve seen other companies try similar things in the past and I have never been impressed. Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac has tried out Smart Script in the beta version of iPadOS 18, and he found that sometimes it works but other times it does not. If Apple figures out how to make this work so that it works well and consistently, this might become a feature that interests me, but at this point, it isn’t something that I’m expecting to use much or at all.
Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac notes that in iPadOS 18, you can designate an iCloud folder so that it is always downloaded to your device, making the contents accessible even if you don’t have Internet access.
Here’s some Apple Watch news that we can all use: David Schloss of Apple Insider reports that you can monitor the heart rate of a lion by putting an Apple Watch around its tongue.
Macolm Owen of AppleInsider also describes new features in visionOS 2. He notes new support for trains in Travel Mode, which is interesting to me because I’ve used an Apple Vision Pro on a train and it works fine. You simply need to turn on Airplane Mode first so that your windows don’t get left behind as the train moves. I’m curious what the new train support in Travel Mode adds.
One interesting new feature in visionOS 2 discovered by Tim Hardwick of MacRumors: if multiple people are using Spatial Personas, you can touch fingers, high five, and fist bump with visual and audio feedback.
In an article for MacStories, Sigmund Judge explains what is new in tvOS 18. One feature I’m looking forward to is InSight, which gives you information about the actors on-screen and the soundtrack in a scene. It sounds similar to the X-Ray feature on Amazon Prime Video, but if you don’t want this info to cover up the screen you can also use InSight in the Remote app on your iPhone.
Will we get more Ted Lasso? Peter White of Deadline reports that this week at the Banff World Media Festival, Channing Dungey, chairman and CEO of Warner Bros Television Group, said that Apple definitely wants more Ted Lasso for Apple TV+, and that Jason Sudeikis and people at Warner have talked about a potential fourth season or a spin-off show, but nothing has been decided yet.
To use some features in HomeKit, you need a hub. An Apple TV can serve as a hub, and Felipe Espósito of 9to5Mac reports that in iOS 18, you can also designate a HomePod to serve as your home hub.
Taylor Ardrey and Nathan Hart of USA Today share the story, and stunning video, of an Apple Watch delivery being stolen from a front porch by a “porch pirate” so quickly that the FedEx driver was still on the porch.
There have been several recent stories of a person finding a stolen car that had an AirTag hidden in it. Harry Howard of WWL, the local CBS affiliate in New Orleans, shares the story of a man who tracked his stolen car because his AirPods were in the car. Unfortunately, he tried to confront the thieves on his own, without involving the police, and one of the suspects tried to shoot him.
And finally, here is a fun but also informative video from Apple that shows off 18 things announced by Apple during WWDC24:
Yesterday, Apple held a Keynote address to kick off its WWDC24 developer conference. There were tons of announcements, including major new updates to the operating systems of virtually every device sold by Apple, all of which will be coming later this year. Apple also decided to put the “A” in “AI” by announcing Apple Intelligence, a system that will use the information on your device to help you find items on your device and express yourself in new ways. Here are the highlights of iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 that I think will appeal the most to lawyers and other professionals who use the iPhone and iPad to get work done—although I’ve also included some new features below just because they seem fun.
Improved Control Center
You can currently swipe down from the to right on a modern iPhone to bring up the Control Center and access some commonly used features, such as a Wi-Fi toggle, the flashlight, Shazam, screen sharing, etc. In iOS 18, there are many more controls, and app developers can even add their own controls so that you can toggle an in-app function without having to actually open the app.
If you have lots of control center icons, you can even add some of them to a second or third screen.
The Control Panel functions can also be used on the Home Screen, replacing the camera and flashlight buttons that have been there for a long time. Or you can assign them to the Action button.
Lock an app
If you sometimes give your iPhone or iPad to another person and you want to restrict what they can do, you can now lock any app with Face ID / Touch ID. So if you want to let a child watch a video while you are in a restaurant and you don’t want your child to read or delete emails, change time entries in your billing app, etc., you now have an easy way to restrict access to any app.
Mail improvements
Using on-device AI, you can optionally have the Mail app analyze your messages and automatically sort them into Transactions (such as receipts), Updates (social media, newsletters), and Promotions. That way, while you are trying to get work done, you can focus on your main emails, and then later when you take a break you can deal with the emails in those three categories.
Also, a digest view will display multiple emails from a specific business together, such as all of your emails with a specific airline.
I will be curious to see if this works with all mail services, including those of us who sync with Microsoft Exchange. If it does, I guess I will see all of my emails in Outlook on my work PC but my iPhone and iPad will show just the subsets of my emails? I’ll be curious to see how this all works in practice.
You can use AI writing tools to proofread your email, rewrite the email in a different style, summarize the text in an email, convert text into a table, and much more.
It will be very interesting to see how useful these AI tools are in practice. Microsoft has similar writing tools in its new Copilot service
Math Notes
Let’s set aside the jokes about why it has taken Apple 14 years to finally include a calculator app with the iPad. One is coming with iOS 18. But what jumps out at me is not the calculator itself but instead a feature called Math Notes. If you are taking handwritten notes using a stylus on the iPad, you can write out math equations and have the iPad solve them. It even works with incredibly complicated equations, which I’m sure will be useful for engineers and students taking an advanced math class. But what interests me is if I am just writing a list of numbers in some notes, I can have the iPad add the numbers for me. Sure, I could have done the same thing by opening a spreadsheet app such as Excel or Notes, typing in all of the numbers, and adding the correct equations in a cell. But it seems much faster to just jot things down using the Apple Pencil. And it looks like you can easily change a number and have the answer update as well.
When Math Notes writes the answer, Apple says that it tries to imitate the style of your own handwriting so that it will look like you wrote it.
You don’t have to use the stylus for this. You can also use the Math Notes feature with text, such as in the Notes app.
For the simple math that I do as a lawyer, such as thinking about settlement figures during a mediation or adding up a few numbers to calculate a damages claim, this looks like it would be perfect.
Photos improvements
There are tons of changes and improvements to the Photos app on the iPhone and iPad. First, there is a new interface that shows both photos in a grid and sets of photos all on the same page.
I’m not quite sure if this change is an improvement. But it is certainly different.
Second, there is what looks to be a fantastic new search feature. Thanks to AI, you can use natural language to describe what you are looking for in your Photos collection and the app should find the photos. One example shown by Apple yesterday is to type “Katie with stickers on her face.” The app knows who Katie is because Photos can already identify people, and it will look for pictures that seem to have stickers on her face.
You can even use this search feature in videos that are stored in your Photos app, with the app able to find a particular moment in a video and then show you just that relevant segment. The example shown by Apple yesterday was “Maria cartwheeling on the grass,” which immediately showed that part of a video.
You can also use AI to create a memory movie such as “everything we ate in Japan.” Photos will pick out the best pictures and videos, put them in an order that makes sense, and select appropriate background music.
There are also new edit tools that use AI, such as the ability to remove an unwanted person from the background of a photo. We’ve seen this before in other apps, but it will nice to have this in the built-in Photos app.
Accept or reject calls with your head
If a call comes to an iPhone tucked away in a pocket while you are wearing AirPods, Siri will already ask if you want to answer the phone. You can currently say (out loud) yes or no, or if you are wearing an Apple Watch, you tap to take or reject the call. iOS 18 adds another way: you can nod yes to take the call or no to reject the call, all without saying a word. Apparently, AirPods Pro can detect the motion of your head using a gyroscope.
I’m not sure how useful this feature will be if you want to accept a call. Sure, you can skip saying “yes” to Siri, but won’t you immediately need to tell the caller “Hello” so you need to speak anyway? But I can see this being useful as a quick way to reject a call.
When you eventually do take the call, Apple also said that AirPods will get improved voice isolation so that even if you are in a lot of wind or in a place with loud background noises, your voice will still sound good to the person on the other end.
Passwords
My hope is that most people reading this already use a password manager and have done so for a long time. Using a password manager is the only practical way to use complex and unique passwords for every service. iOS 18 will feature a built-in Passwords app, so for those who have not yet started using 1Password or another third-party app, there is no longer any excuse for not using something. To my surprise, the app is cross-platform, not just working on the Mac. iPhone, and iPad but even on Windows.
For power users, a third-party app like 1Password will offer much more, such as sharing passwords with family members, a place to store other types of confidential information, etc. But password security is such a critical topic that I’ll be thrilled to be able to tell every iPhone and iPad user who isn’t yet using a password manager that there is no longer a reason to wait.
Messages improvements
There are lots of improvements to the Messages app. Instead of being limited to six Tapback reactions, you will be able to use any emoji as a Tapback on a specific message. You can schedule a text to be sent later. You can format text with bold, italic, underline, and strikthrough. In addition to the prior full-screen effects that you can use to deliver a message, iOS 18 adds text effects for specific words in your message to make them stand out more (or just to be funny).
And if you are in the middle of nowhere, with no Wi-Fi and no cellular service, you will still be able to send and receive text messages via satellite. Other companies charge for this feature, and I haven’t yet seen if this is free or if there is a charge for doing this.
You can also use generative AI to create images that you send in a text message. You can even make a figure in the image look like the person to whom you are sending the text message, or make the figure look like yourself.
Image Playground
A popular generative AI feature is the ability to create images. Apple’s AI in iOS 18 will have this feature, and it can be used within many apps (such as creating an image in Messages to send to someone) or you can use a new stand-alone app called Image Playground to create images. At first, it supports three styles of images: animation, illustration, and sketch. Pick a style, tell the app what you want in the image with as much detail as you want, and then the app creates an image along with alternative versions.
It seems obvious that Apple is starting with a limited set of styles to try to avoid some of the problems that have been associated with generative AI, such as photorealistic images that people may think are real images.
I could see this being a useful feature if you want to quickly add an image to a PowerPoint or a Keynote slide. It could also potentially be useful for demonstrative exhibits at trial. You can already do something similar with current AI products, but you get better privacy by doing this all on-device.
Phone call transcripts
Different jurisdictions have different rules on when you can record a phone call, and sometimes the restrictions are even more severe on lawyers than others. But with the full consent of all participants, I suspect that recording calls is allowed everywhere, and there are certain circumstances when it could be useful. A new feature in iOS 18 will let you create a transcript of a phone call.
When you turn on the feature, all call participants are notified that the call is being recorded. Then, the iPhone gives you a transcript of your call. You can even use AI to summarize the call when it is finished.
The Notes app will have a similar feature for recording audio. I suppose this means that a student could record a lecture as they are taking notes, which is a feature that has been available in many dedicated notes apps for many years.
…and the rest
Of course, that is just the tip of the iceberg. There are lots of other new features that don’t really jump out at me so much but will certainly appeal to many others. This includes the ability to customize the position of apps on the home screen (leaving some of the app icon areas blank so that you can see through to the wallpaper underneath) and changing the tint of app icons.
The Maps app adds topographic maps so that you can create hiking routes. Reminders can be integrated with the Calendar app so that your to-do items appear in your calendar. When you are screen-sharing with someone else to explain to them how to do something on their device, you can remotely draw on their screen to circle something and request remote access to control their screen. And much more.
Conclusion
The updates to iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 would have been impressive even without Apple introducing its new integration of AI throughout the operating system. But with all of the AI improvements, I almost feel like we had two WWDCs worth of updates this year. I very much look forward to this Fall when new features are officially released for the iPhone and iPad.
Apple’s WWDC conference starts on Monday, so Brett and I begin this week’s episode of the podcast discussing what Apple might announce. We expect AI to be a big topic, and shortly after we stoped recording this episode, I saw reports that Apple may refer to its spin on AI as “Apple Intelligence.” We’ll see. We also talk about a settings change for the Notes app that you might want to make, soft app pillows, and much more.
In our Where Y’at? segment, we share tales of people tracking down lost luggage, stolen power tools, and missing laptops.
In our In the Know segment, Brett and I celebrate the 10th anniversary of Microsoft Word on the iPad by sharing some tips for that app. Brett discusses the Mobile View feature, and I discuss the new paste format feature.
On Monday, June 10, at 10 Pacific / 1 Eastern, Apple will stream a Keynote address as a part of its developer conference, WWDC24. Every year, Apple takes this opportunity to preview the next versions of its major operating systems, so on Monday we will learn about new features in iOS 18, iPad OS 18, and other operating systems that Apple will release in a few months, probably September 2024. This year will be a little different. For prior WWDC keynotes, certain specific features were the big news, such as the StandBy feature announced at WWDC in 2023. But this year, I expect a theme to be the big news: AI. Apple has been hinting for months that AI will be the big theme of WWDC, and that doesn’t come as a big surprise because many other technology companies have been making major AI announcements lately. And that has resulted in articles such as this one: How Apple Fell Behind in the AI Arms Race by Aaron Tilley of the Wall Street Journal. Articles with that angle strike me as unfair. First, Apple has been incorporating AI for many years, even adding a special neural engine to its chips to handle the processing power. Just to pick one example, the Memories feature of Photos always surprises and delights me with the pictures it selects from my collection, and it uses AI to select pictures that I might like. Second, the companies that have been on the bleeding edge of AI have also had lots of embarrassing incidents, often because of the hallucinations in AI. One of my favorite recent examples was when Google’s AI recommended that people eat rocks every day, and the source of that advice was discovered to be this article from The Onion. (In case you don’t know, perhaps because you have been living under one of those rocks, The Onion is a news parody site, and a very good one.) Can Apple meet the challenge of coming up with a take on AI that seems substantial enough to satisfy users while also somehow avoiding the significant problems that seem inherent in so much of the cutting-edge AI nowadays? I myself have no idea how they will thread that needle, and it is the main reason that I am looking forward to Monday’s announcements. And now, as we look forward to WWDC next week, here is the news of note from the past week:
I enjoyed the recent interview of Tara Cheever of Lit Software by Steve Embry of the FED Speaks podcast from the Federation of Defense & Corporate Counsel. Tara discusses her company’s great apps such as TrialPad and TranscriptPad and explains why the new iPad Air is a particularly good device to use with those apps because it has most of the features that used to be associated with the iPad Pro but at a more attractive price.
Tara isn’t the only one with that thought. Juli Clover of MacRumors has been using the new iPad Air for the last few weeks and Clover similarly concludes: “The M2 iPad Air is essentially an M2 iPad Pro without the higher-quality display, and it’s a good middle tier option if you want solid performance for futureproofing but also don’t want to spend $1,000+ on a tablet.”
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy of The Verge reports that Apple’s newest iPads, MacBooks, and iMacs all contain Thread radios even though Apple hasn’t announced that they are there. I continue to hold out hope that Apple will soon announce some type of major improvements in the smart home category, and perhaps these not-yet-announced Thread radios will be a part of that story.
One of the predictions for iOS 18 is that Apple will unveil a standalone Passwords app, something similar to 1Password. John Gruber of Daring Fireball points out that this wouldn’t really be a “new” item because Apple has been slowly improving the Password panel in the Settings app for a long time. Add a few more improvements and put it in a standalone app so that it is easier for users to find and you will end up with a great app. Of course, for almost every good iPhone or iPad app made by Apple, there is an even better third-party app for people who want more features. I suspect that I will stick with 1Password even if Apple releases a fantastic Passwords app simply because I will appreciate features like cross-platform support (I doubt that Apple’s product will work on Windows) and multiuser support (so that I can easily share passwords with my family). But because having strong and unique passwords is so important, and because a password manager is essential for having good password hygiene, I think it would be incredibly great news for Apple to announce a Passwords app on Monday that will have widespread appeal.
Tesla gets lots of attention for making electronic cars, but there are other great options available. I recently had a chance to check out a friend’s Rivian electric truck, and I was incredibly impressed with all of the features and how nice the ride was. Juli Clover of MacRumors reports that the second-generation versions of Rivian’s vehicles (it makes a pickup and an SUV) will support Apple’s Car Keys feature so that your iPhone or Apple Watch could work as your car key. Rivian vehicles don’t support CarPlay, but they do support Apple Music.
If you love an iPhone app so much that you just want to curl up to it, Juli Clover of MacRumors reports that Thowboy has a new range of pillows that look like app icons: Notes, Messages, Apple Music, and Mail. Plus a Finder icon, so perhaps these are supposed to be Mac icons and not iPhone icons, but you can certainly think of them as iPhone icons if that helps you sleep better.
Lowe’s has an Apple Vision Pro app called Lowe’s Style Studio that you can use to customize a kitchen. Juli Clover of MacRumors reports that you will be able to try out an Apple Vision Pro with that app at select Lowe’s locations in North Carolina, California, and New Jersey this month. I suspect that if this proves popular, Lowe’s will try this at additional store locations.
There have been lots of examples of people finding luggage that an airline claimed was lost thanks to an AirTag attached to the luggage. William Gallagher of AppleInsider shares the tale of a woman in Florida who didn’t have an AirTag but she did have a MacBook Pro in her lost luggage. The day after her flight, her Apple Watch alerted her that her computer was at a location, and when she went to that location, she found a house with suitcases littered around it. The police arrested the person who lived at the house, a man who worked at the airport, and reminded the victim that it is always best to call the police before approaching a house that you think contains stolen items.
Paul Duggan of the Washington Post shares the story (gift link) of a carpenter who was fed up with his tools being stolen so he hid some AirTgs in his larger tools. Sure enough, one of them was stolen, and he alerted the police to the location. They got a search warrant and ultimately discovered 15,000 stolen power tools. Wow.
John Guber of Daring Fireball comments on a new report that Apple is in talks with China Mobile to bring Apple TV+ to viewers in China, which would be the first U.S. streaming service in China. I share Gruber’s concern that if this happens, it may have an impact on the content of shows on Apple TV+ in an effort to comply with China’s strict restrictions on many types of content.
For a few months now, Apple TV+ has been making a selection of older movies available for a limited time. I’ve enjoyed that feature quite a bit. For example, I’ve watched some good 3D movies on my Apple Vision Pro. Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac lists the movies that are available this month. (Unfortunately, I don’t think that any are available in 3D this month.)
Christoffel also reports that Season 2 of the fantastic Apple TV+ show Silo may be coming out this year, and Seasons 3 and 4 may be filmed back-to-back. That sounds great to me; it is a wonderful show.
Christoffel also came up with a selection of products that will let your iPhone or Apple Watch mimic classic Apple designs.
I see that a number of Anker products are currently on sale on Amazon for a limited time. I am writing about two of them because I reviewed them recently and I use them every day.
First, the Eufy SmartTrack Card (Eufy is an Anker company) is like a flat AirTag made to fit in a wallet. Here is my full review. In short, if you ever lose your wallet, you can use the Find My app on your iPhone to locate your wallet. This product works great, and the list price is $40, but the price sometimes dips down to about $17, which is how much I paid for mine. The price is there again ($16.98 as I type this), so this is a great product to get now, either for yourself or as a gift.
Second, the Anker 3-in-1 Cube with MagSafe is what I use at my desk every day. I reviewed it at the end of this post about the StandBy feature. In short, it charges and holds an iPhone so that you can use StandBy mode, plus it can charge your AirPods and an Apple Watch. It is also so small that I take it with me whenever I travel. I paid $150 for it, but you can get it now for $112.46.
I use affiliate codes when I link to Amazon, so by using those links to make a purchase, a tiny portion of your sale price goes to help pay the costs associated with keeping the lights on here at iPhone J.D. But more importantly, you’ll get great deals on two products that I use extensively and that I recommend to people even when they are not on sale.
