The heck if I know why this has been a thing for so many decades, but for my entire life, when you walk in the French Quarter in New Orleans, someone will sometimes try to hustle you by offering to bet you that they can tell you “where you got them shoes at.” Sometimes they will appear to increase the challenge by betting they can even tell you the very street “where you got them shoes at.” Spoiler alert: their answer will be that you got them at your feet, and the street you got them at will typically be Bourbon Street. But as Andre Revilla of Engadget notes, now your iPhone can tell you where shoes are at because Skeechers has released what Revilla calls “a helicopter parent’s dream shoe.” Find My Skeechers is a line of children’s shoes that has a place where a parent can hide an Apple Air Tag under the heel. It reminds me of the Nike+iPod activity tracker device, which was released back in 2006 and for which, to my great surprise, there is still a barely-usable page on the Apple website (in Canada at least). I’ve heard of parents getting an Apple Watch for a child specifically so that they could track the child. This may be a better option … as long as the kids keep their shoes on. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- Speaking of Find My, Marcus Mendes of 9to5Mac reports that there are now thirty airlines that let you share with the airline your Find My tracking for a lost item of luggage so that the airline can return the item to you faster. He lists all of the airlines in his post, and it includes American Airlines, Delta, and United—but not a few other major U.S. airlines, such as Southwest and Alaska Airlines.
- I’ve heard quite a bit about how Liquid Glass in the upcoming iOS 26 looks for things like menus but not much about how app icons have a different look. Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac put together some great before-and-after pictures that compares what Apple’s own app icons look like in iOS 18 versus iOS 26.
- Nirave Gondhia of Digital Trends believes that “Apple’s new iPadOS 26 is so good, it’s transformed the iPad into my computer of choice when chilling on the couch.”
- Similarly, Federico Viticci of MacStories says that iPadOS 26 has “far exceeded my expectations” and is “a game-changer for those who want to multitask on their iPads.”
- In an article for MacStories, Jonathan Reed reports on the new features in watchOS 26 that are available in the new public beta. He notes, for example, that the new Workout Buddy voice will not only comment on your workout statistics but will even occasionally refer to the music or podcast that you are listening to.
- It seems like ever since I learned that the upcoming Messages app in iOS 26 will let me move unwanted text messages into a folder that I can mostly ignore, I’ve been getting even more unwanted text messages on my iPhone. It’s like those annoying text senders know that their days are numbered. John Gruber of Daring Fireball reports that a major Republican election group is complaining that this change will make it harder for them to send unsolicited text messages to try to convince people to make political donations. This feature is platform agnostic—it applies to unsolicited text messages from folks no matter where they fall on the political spectrum—and I have no sympathy for any election group making these complaints. I feel that people have a right to ignore unwanted phone calls, text messages, people ringing a doorbell, etc. If you disagree and you look forward to those solicitations, you don’t have to enable this feature. Indeed, Gruber notes that the new feature doesn’t even seem to be on by default, at least in the beta version.
- Have you ever been using AirPods to listen to something on your iPhone, only to find that the sound output suddenly changes to another Bluetooth device? Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac notes that in iOS 26, you can prevent that from happening.
- All eyes may be on the Fall releases of iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and similar operating systems, but this week, Apple released an update to iOS 18. As noted by Juli Clover of MacRumors, the new iOS 18.6 fixes a bug in the Photos app and provides some security improvements.
- Riley Hill of Slate Pad reports that the Microsoft Teams app for iPad now lets you open Chats and Channels in separate windows. This works today, but it seems like it will be even more useful in iPadOS 26.
- This is the time of year when many parents purchase a laptop for a student. You can currently get the excellent MacBook Air with an M4 chip on Amazon for $799 instead of the normal $999. That’s quite a discount for a fantastic device.
- Here’s one more great deal: the Apple Watch Ultra 2 on Amazon for only $649 instead of $799. That’s an all-time low price.
- The last time that I traveled to Europe, I decided to pay my carrier (AT&T) about $12/day to use my iPhone while abroad. That’s the easiest option, and it ensures that your phone, texting, etc., works just like you are at home. But if you only want data and you will be abroad for more than a few days, a cheaper option is to purchase an international eSIM plan. Glenn Fleishman of Six Colors provides lots of details on how to select the best plan.
- I knew that Ted Lasso was coming back to Apple TV+ for a fourth season, a season that they recently started filming, but I didn’t realize that there would also be a fifth and sixth season. Nellie Andreeva of Deadline reports that Jason Sudeikis has a three-season arc planned and that the key actors have signed three-season contracts. More Ted Lasso sounds great to me.
- If you like purchasing movies to watch on your Apple devices, Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac notes that Apple is in the middle of a 14-day “Summer Deal of the Day” promotion in the Apple TV app. The deals I saw this week were The Hangover trilogy for $9.99 (movies that are normally $12.99 or $14.99 each), all four Men in Black movies for $9.99, and all eight Harry Potter movies for $39.99. If that sort of deal interests you, keep checking the Apple TV app every day to take advantage of the deep discount.
- And finally, while it is interesting to read about how the upcoming iPadOS 26 will substantially change the ability to use an iPad to get work done, sometimes seeing is better than reading. Marques Brownlee posted a video to YouTube this week that does a fantastic job of showing off why this update is such a big deal. First, he shows off the new windowing system in the beta version of iPadOS 26. If you are not running the beta, check this out to see what it looks like. Second, he has an insightful discussion on whether and when an iPad running iPadOS 26 can take the place of a laptop computer. I won’t spoil his analysis here, but I agree 100% with his conclusion.