Month: October 2024

As a resident of New Orleans, a city that unfortunately has had ample experience with hurricanes, I know what it is like to live through a natural disaster. But as Hurricane Helene is reminding us all, you don’t have to live below sea level near the Gulf of Mexico to experience devastating effects from a hurricane. Fortunately, the iPhone can be a big help in these circumstances. Three years ago after Hurricane Ida, I wrote about how the iPhone was incredibly valuable and shared some advice for using the Messages app to communicate with family and friends when cellular service is overloaded and many cell towers are down. For folks who have been suffering from a lack of cellphone and WiFi service after Hurricane Helene—Kevin Collier of NBC News reports that some areas have had fewer than 10% of cell sites fully functioning—there is a new option: messages via satellite. As Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac reports, there have been numerous reports of people using this feature, and as one person in Asheville, North Carolina, noted: “This is literally saving lives @Apple.” To send a message via satellite, you need to have an iPhone 14 (all models) or later and you need to be running iOS 18. And as Apple explains, you need to be outside with a clear view of the sky and horizon, and the person you are contacting has to be using either an iPhone running iOS 18 (to receive and reply to your message via iMessages) or an iPhone running iOS 17.6 or later or a non-Apple device (to receive and reply to your message via SMS). When Apple first announced the feature, I was thinking of it being most useful when you do an off-the-grid activity like hiking in the mountains. But after a disaster, when the power is out and cell towers are not working well or at all, I now see that this feature can be just as useful in an urban environment. I would have loved to have had access to a feature like this after Hurricane Ida. and I’m so glad that I will have it in the future. And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Yesterday, Apple released iOS 18.0.1 for the iPhone and iPadOS 18.0.1 for the iPad. Chance Miller of 9to5Mac discusses what is new. I know that many owners of an iPad Pro with an M4 chip (the newest model) have been unable to use iOS 18 since it came out over two weeks ago, and this update should finally fix that. There are other updates too, like watchOS 11.0.1 and visionOS 2.0.1.
• The Audio Mix feature on iPhone 16 models is really neat, as I noted in my review of the iPhone 16 Pro Max. Tim Hardwick of MacRumors explains how to use the feature.
• I still haven’t decided what I think about the new Photographic Styles feature of Photos, but Filipe Espósito of 9to5Mac explains why this is his favorite feature of the iPhone 16.
• I love the Camera Control button on the iPhone 16. John Gruber of Daring Fireball recommends a recent episode of the Design Tangents podcast, a podcast hosted by Evan Orensten and Josh Rubin (founders of the Cool Hunting website), in which they interview Johnnie Manzari and Rich Dinh of Apple to discuss the Camera Control. I haven’t listened to this one yet, but it looks like it could be good.
• Federico Viticci of MacStories explains why after five years of using “Pro” models of the iPhone, this time he instead purchased the iPhone 16 Plus. If you are trying to decide which iPhone 16 model to get, you should check out his reasons. For me, I prefer the Pro model because of the 5x telephoto lens, the Always On display with support for Stand By mode, the better display with ProMotion, the better video recording with Dolby Vision up to 4K at 120 fps, and the support for USB 3 (which I used to quickly transfer home movies or other video from my Mac to my iPhone).
• Aman Kumar of How-To Geek recommends 12 features of iOS 18.0 to check out.
• At some point this month, Apple will release iOS 18.1. Tim Hardwick of MacRumors highlights some of the expected big features in that upcoming release.
• Everyone has different ears, so while Apple’s AirPods Pro are a great fit for some folks, for others they don’t work well. If you fall in that category, John Moltz writes in an article for Macworld that the AirPods 4 are worth checking out.
• I know that some people have been able to locate a stolen car when there is an AirTag in the vehicle, but Marko Zivkovic of AppleInsider reports that police found a stolen Ferrari worth over half a million dollars by tracking the owner’s AirPods, which were in the car when it was stolen. Better yet, when the police pulled over the car, the suspect escaped but left his iPhone behind, allowing the police to identify the thief when he was later arrested for stealing another car.
• One week ago, I recommended using the Juno app for the Apple Vision Pro to view 3D content on YouTube. If you own a Vision Pro, I hope you took advantage of my recommendation when I made it because as July Clover of MacRumors reports, YouTube forced Apple to remove the app from the App Store. If you don’t already have the app, you can no longer get it. As John Gruber of Daring Fireball reports, this is the second time that the same developer, Christian Selig, has had Apple remove one of his well-reviewed apps from the App Store because of a complaint by a service provider. (Selig used to make the beloved Reddit client Apollo.) If you want to view 3D content from YouTube on a Vision Pro and you don’t already have Juno, I don’t know what else to suggest since YouTube itself doesn’t yet make a native Vision Pro app.
• William Gallagher of AppleInsider reports that Wolfs, a movie that debuted last week on Apple TV+ starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney, was the most watched new movie ever on the service. Of course, there haven’t been that many new movies on Apple TV+, but clearly this movie is popular, and Apple is already planning a sequel. I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet and have other plans this weekend, but this one is on my short list.
• And finally, there is a limited series coming to Apple TV+ starring Billy Crystal, but don’t get ready to laugh. The show, called Before, is a psychological thriller in which Crystal plays a child psychiatrist, and it is interesting to see Crystal playing such a drmatic role. As the preview video shows, this is not a remake of When Harry Met Sally:

Apple is well-known for having a generous 14-day return policy. If you purchase a product directly from Apple—online or in an Apple Store—the Apple website says: “You have 14 calendar days to return an item from the date you received it.” Obviously, your return must include everything that come with the product, including the cables. But this is truly a no-questions-asked return policy. Over the last few months, I used this policy a few times and learned a few things along the way.

My multiple Apple Watch purchases and returns

I purchased an Apple Watch Series 7 with a stainless steel case in 2021. I loved that device, But after three years, the battery life wasn’t as good as when I first received it and I was ready for something new. Thus, my plan had been to get a new Apple Watch when the new models went on sale in 2024, which I correctly guessed would be in September.

Unfortunately, at the very end of a family beach vacation in early August, my Apple Watch Series 7 stopped working. I have no idea why. I had been using it in a pool, but I’ve done that on and off for years. I don’t believe that I dropped it or anything. It was just dead. So when my vacation ended, I brought it to my local Apple Store to see if perhaps it just needed a new battery, which would cost $99. With a fresh battery, maybe I could sell the Series 7 model after I had upgraded or even pass it along to a family member. The Apple employee was able to use his special tools to get the watch to turn on and run a diagnostic test, but the verdict was that a new motherboard was requried, and I wasn’t going to spend hundreds of dollars on a watch I was about to replace.

I use my Apple Watch every day so I didn’t want to go without one for a month, but I also felt silly purchasing any Apple Watch when new models would be announced in just a few weeks and available for sale soon after that. But it occurred to me that maybe I could purchase an Apple Watch to carry me over for a short period of time and then return it. And to my surprise, the Apple employee who helped me even suggested this as an option. I could purchase an Apple Watch, use it for two weeks, then return it and get a different Apple Watch, and then return that and perhaps then the new models would be available. The Apple employee mentioned that some people refer to this as the unofficial Apple Loan program.

So that’s what I did. I purchased the Apple Watch Ultra 2, and it was a great opportunity for me to learn first-hand what the Ultra models are all about, the pros and cons. I posted my review on August 13, 2024, and even though that model was released in 2023, it turns out that the review remains quite relevant today because Apple continues to sell the same Ultra 2 model, although a new color was added this year. (Perhaps in 2025 we will see an Apple Watch Ultra 3.) When I returned the Ultra 2, I exchanged it for an Apple Watch Series 9. I didn’t post a review of that watch, but using it gave me a chance to see the improvements since the Series 7 that I had been using and it also gave me a chance to stop using an Ultra after using it for two weeks so that I could find out what I would miss. I also got to try a different band, the Braided Solo Loop, which I reviewed on August 28.

When it was time to return the Series 9, it was still only August 31, so I exchanged it for another Ultra 2. My hope was to return that on Friday, September 13, and at that time purchase one of the 2024 models. Apple did announce the new Series 10 on September 9, but instead of it coming to stores that Friday, it would arrive the following Friday, September 20. Thus, on September 13, I returned my (second) Ultra 2 and got a (second) Series 9, this time with a gold stainless steel case just to see what I thought of having a gold case. Once my Apple Watch Series 10 arrived on September 20, I returned the Series 9 for a refund.

The return process

As you can see, I purchased and then returned four Apple Watches in August and September. I had heard that Apple has a good reputation for having a no-questions-asked policy when it comes to returns. and that was 100% my expeirence. Every time that I returned one watch, I thought that someone at the Apple Store would challenge me and ask for a reason for the return. But no. Once they saw that I was within the 14-day return window and that I had returned everything, that was it. I could not believe how easy it was.

You do need to pay attention to the return window dates. The Apple website says that the 14 days starts to run on the date you received a product. But during one of my returns, I did have one employee tell me that if I ordered a watch online for pickup the next day, the 14 days would start to run from the date of the online order, not the date that the watch was in my hands. To be safe, I decided that I would count 13 days from when I purchased a product, so if I purchased and received a watch on a Sunday, I would plan to return it on the Saturday that was 13 days later. Doing that always worked fine for me.

Although the normal return period is 14 days, Apple does often provide a more generous return period during the holidays. For example, any product purchased between November 3, 2023, and December 25, 2023, could be returned until January 8, 2024, a 66-day return period. That special policy meant that you could purchase an Apple product as a gift for someone, secure in the knowledge that if the recipient wanted something else, you could still return it after the holidays. I presume that Apple will do something similar next month for the 2024 holidays.

When you return one product and purchase another, the refund from one product applies directly to the purchase of the next one—i.e., an exchange. Thus, on some occasions, I would receive a refund on my credit card (such as when I returned an Ultra 2 to get a Series 9), and on other occasions, I would owe a little bit more because the trade-in value did not quite pay for my next purchase. Note that the Apple website says that exchanges are not available for certain custom products such as engraved AirPods or a custom-configured Mac; you can still return and get a refund to the original form of payment, but that money cannot be directly used on a product you are purchasing a the same time as your return.

Restrictions

As generous as this policy is, there are still some restrictions, all of which are noted on Apple’s website. Here are a few that I think you should keep in mind.

First, Apple’s return policy only applies if you purchase from Apple (either online or a retail store). If you purchase from another store like Amazon, you will have to figure out that store’s return policy.

Second, Apple’s return policy is really just intended for hardware. Apple specifically says that you cannot return opened software (not that many people purchase software in a box anymore), Apple Gift Cards, and Apple Developer products (such as a ticket to Apple’s WWDC conference).

Third, don’t damage the product. The product must be returned in its original condition to take advantage of the return program. If you break it, you bought it.

Fourth, if you return a product that has a wireless service associated with it (such as an iPhone) you may still have to pay carrier fees, and each carrier has its own cancellation policy. I use AT&T for my wireless service, and I pay $10.99 a month for the “Unlimited for wearable” plan. That plan includes unlimited talk, text, and data for a wearable device, and while there is a $35 activiation fee when you first start the plan, I was not charged any additional fee any of the times that I added a new Apple Watch—which I have done five times since my Apple Watch Series 7 died. But I don’t know if a different wireless company will charge you a fee every time you get a new Apple Watch.

Fifth, you can only return a product in the same country where the product was purchased.

Closing thoughts

It is wonderful that Apple gives people two weeks to try a product and see if it is right for them. I loved having the ability to try out an Apple Watch Ultra 2 and see what I thought after multiple days of real world use. And at the same time, Apple’s policy gave me the ability to use an Apple Watch during a period of time when I otherwise would not have had one.

I certainly don’t encourage people to abuse Apple’s generous policy. If too many people do that too many times, I’m sure that Apple would change the policy for all of us. But as someone who has been purchasing Apple products since 1988 but who has never before taken advantage of this policy, I was delighted to learn that this return policy really is as generous as people have said it is. It is truly no questions asked. If you find yourself in a position where you are unsure about whether an Apple product is right for you, keep this generous return policy in mind. As long as you don’t break it or forget to return it until after 14 days have passed, Apple’s return policy gives you more than enough time to see what you really think, the ability to try before you buy.