I was talking to an attorney this week about buying a new iPad, and I’ll tell you the same thing I told him: don’t. At least, not right now. All signs are that Apple will introduce two new models of the iPad Pro in the next few weeks, and perhaps a second generation version of the Apple Pencil — which part of me hopes Apple will call the “No. 2 Pencil.” The speculation is that it will support Face ID, have smaller bezels, and perhaps even use USB-C instead of Lightning. We’ll see. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Virginia attorney Sharon Nelson discusses a recent incident in which the FBI compelled an iPhone owner (via a warrant) to unlock his iPhone using Face ID.
Nelson also discusses an incident in which police arrested someone for murder based on data from the victim’s Fitbit — and it could have just as easily been an Apple Watch. Her heart rate spiked, and then ceased to register at all, during the time that video surveillance showed that her stepfather was in her house.
California attorney David Sparks discusses Apple’s announcement yesterday that 53% of users of iOS devices sold in the last four years have already updated to iOS 12. Once iOS 12.1 comes out with the new Emoji I discussed earlier this year, I’m sure even more folks will rush to upgrade.
If you are looking for a place to find and download some interesting iPhone shortcuts, check out Sharecuts.app.
Don’t be like Kanye West. There are probably many ways one could apply that rule, but right now I’m referring to his Oval Office meeting with President Trump yesterday morning in which Kanye entered his iPhone passcode while a camera was filming him from behind — his first no-no — and then the entire world saw that Kanye’s password is 000000, i.e. just six zeros. Chance Miller of 9to5Mac has the details including a video clip. Seriously, don’t do that.
As I noted above, the next version of the iPad Pro might have USB-C. In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell analyzes what that could mean for users.
Zac Hall of 9to5Mac wrote a great overview of the types of HomeKit accessories that you can use to control your home with Siri, and he even recommends some of the best specific brands. I continue to be a huge fan of the Lutron switches in my house, which I reviewed in 2015.
Bryan Wolfe of the iDownloadBlog explains how to use the Live Listen feature of iOS 12. Place your iPhone close to a source of sound, put on your AirPods, and then your iPhone will act as a remote microphone for your AirPods. Useful if you need to hear something or someone but you are too far away to do so.
One of my favorite features of Apple Music is the ability to request a song by part of a lyric — Hey Siri, play the song that goes [say a few words in the lyrics]. Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac reports that this function will improve because Apple is now incorporating more lyrics from a company called Genius.
There was a horrible story in the news this week about a reporter who wrote for the Washington Post being killed while in the Saudi consulate in Turkey. Reuters reports that information gained from the Apple Watch he was wearing might help the investigators to figure out what happened.
Jesse Hollington of iLounge reports that today Apple is debuting Season 2 of Carpool Karaoke, including one episode featuring the Muppets. It’s time to play the music, it’s time to light the lights…
And finally, here is a video from Apple showing off some of the new features of the iPhone XS and XR. That’s one reason to watch the video, but another reason is that it does a great job of showing off Apple’s new Apple Park campus:
One of my favorite features in iOS 12 is the new Shortcuts app and its deep integration with iOS, allowing you to create all sorts of useful automations to be more productive on your iPhone and iPad. There is a learning curve, and thus I’m sure that lots of iPhone users won’t even bother to pay much attention to shortcuts. But if you are smart enough to have made it through Con Law I and the Rule Against Perpetuities part of your 1L Property class, you are more than smart enough to use the Shortcuts app. Even so, it helps to have a guide hold your hand while you get started.
California attorney David Sparks created what he calls a video field guide — a series of short video lessons, a total of 3 hours and 15 minutes — to walk you through the Shortcuts app. The course is called the Siri Shortcuts Field Guide and costs $29, although it is currently discounted to $24 during the introductory period. David gave me a free pass to the course so that I could check it out, and I’m super impressed. Whether you are starting from square 1 or you have a general sense of how shortcuts work but want to learn more (which describes me), this is a fantastic resource.
You access the course in any web browser. It was perfect to watch it on my iPad Pro, but you could also watch it on an iPhone or a computer if you prefer.
On the iPad, there is a list of chapters on the left. I’m sure that David designed the course to go through each one in order, but instead I jumped around, skipping the chapters devoted to topics that I thought I already knew. Sometimes I went back to watch that chapter anyway because I realized that I didn’t know as much as I thought I knew.
The course does a great job of walking you through the Shortcuts app itself, and then it shows you how to do things with the app, including working with different types of information. In each lesson, you see David’s iPad screen as he is describing to you what he is doing. There is a great interface for the videos; you can scroll your finger across the bottom to jump ahead or go back.
I particularly enjoyed the lesson in the Advanced Siri Shortcuts Tools section on creating and using variables. Before this course, I had no idea what a Magic Variable was, but after watching David describe what they do and actually create a shortcut using Magic Variables, now it all makes perfect sense to me.
I think that the best part of the course is the last main section called Useful Shorcuts. David walks you through 12 shortcuts that you might actually use, explaining how he created each one why he did what he did. You can create the shortcuts on your own by following along with David, or you can just download the complete shortcut.
One such shortcut useful to lawyers is a date calculator. The shortcut David created lets you count a certain number of days after a date or before a date, or even the number of days between dates. For me, this is so useful that I even added a Siri command to it so that I can just say “Hey Siri, date calculator” to bring it up. And now that I understand how the shortcut works, I can modify it to meet my particular needs. Here is a very short video showing me using the date calculator shortcut that David describes and provides in the lesson:
Conclusion
If you have any interest in creating shortcuts to increase your efficiency and accomplish tasks, I highly recommend this video course. And I especially recommend getting into this now. What Apple has already done with the Shortcuts app is amazing, but I know that it will get more useful in future updates. By getting your arms around this stuff now, you will be well-positioned to take advantage of the improvements to the Shortcuts app over the coming months and years.
The Apple Watch has supported third party apps since it first went on sale on April 24, 2015. Unfortunately, however, because of the limitations of the hardware and the software, usability has been limited. Graham Bower of Cult of Mac wasn’t very far off the mark when he wrote an article in 2016 titled “Apple Watch apps kinda suck, but Cupertino hopes you won’t notice.”
Fortunately, with the new Apple Watch Series 4 and watchOS 5, I think those days are over. Third party apps which have complications on my watch face or which are stored in my dock now launch pretty much instantly. And just as impressively, even third party apps which I use less often and need to access by pressing the Digital Crown to see all of my apps now launch almost instantly, often under a second. Moreover, with the speed of the Apple Watch Series 4, performance is high enough that apps are much more responsive. As a result, Apple Watch apps no longer “suck,” and I’m sure that Cupertino is happy for you to notice that.
All of this means that I’m starting to download more apps for my Apple Watch. Some are more useful than others, but at least now all third party apps have the ability to be really good. Just to name one example, PCalc is a great calculator on the iPhone, but it is also a very usable calculator on the Apple Watch — much better than the Casio Calculator Watch I wore back in the 1980s.
As I have downloaded more apps to my Apple Watch, there are more apps to choose from when I press the Digital Crown on the side of my watch. To make it easier to find the app that I want, I’m now taking advantage of a feature that was introduced in watchOS 4 last year: the ability to switch from grid view to list view. Grid view with its honeycomb layout is pretty, but unless you remember exactly where you placed an app, you will waste time searching around the screen to find it. In list view, everything is alphabetical, and it is quick and easy to spin the Digital Crown to scroll to the name of the app that you want — something which is made even easier with the haptic feedback added to the Digital Crown in the Apple Watch Series 4. You can now feel it as you scroll past every app in the list.
To switch from one view to another, simply press the Digital Crown to get to your app screen, and then regardless of whether you are currently in grid view or list view, force press on the center of the screen. This brings up a screen with the option to select either grid or list view.
If you own an Apple Watch Series 4, I encourage you to enable the list view so that it is easier for you take advantage of third party apps, even if you don’t use them very often.
I posted my review of the Apple Watch Series 4 earlier this week, and so did many others. I particularly enjoyed the reviews by Jason Snell of Six Colors and Zac Hall of 9to5Mac. Michael Steeber of 9to5Mac writes about the new-and-improved Digital Crown on the Apple Watch Series 4. Also notable was the review by Joann Stern of the Wall Street Journal because of the video which accompanies that review; she hired a stunt woman to test the fall detection feature. Even if you don’t read the review, you should watch the fun video so that you can see how fall detection works without having to fall down yourself. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Legal technology expert Brett Burney reviews the TextExpander app for the iPhone and iPad, and even created a nice video showing you how it works.
The Thomson Reuters ProView app was recently updated to version 4.1 with an improved search feature. As before, you can read and annotate hundreds of legal titles on your iPad or iPhone. Click here for more information. (Note that the Westlaw division of Thomson Reuters is a current sponsor of iPhone J.D.)
Dan Moren of Six Colors notes that Wi-Fi is giving up its former, bizarre, approach to naming each version (802.11b, 802.11n, 802.11ac, etc.) and changing to just numbers. The next version will simply be called Wi-Fi 6. Amen!
Federico Viticci used the new iPhone Shortcuts app to create a shortcut which shows you pictures on your iPhone which were taken in prior years on the same day.
There is a post on the 1Password Blog explaining how 1Password integrates into iOS 12. I use this feature every single day, and I love it every time.
A few years ago, I wrote about wireless emergency alerts on the iPhone, and I explained that there are three kinds: (1) emergency alerts issued because of an imminent threat to public safety or life, such as evacuation orders or shelter in place orders due to severe weather, a terrorist threat, or a chemical spill; (2) AMBER alerts for when a child is abducted, and (3) Presidential Alerts. All three alerts arise out of the Warning Alert and Response Network Act, sometimes called the WARN Act, 47 U.S.C. § 1201, and more specifically the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) program which was created pursuant to the WARN Act by the FCC working with FEMA.
When I wrote that post in 2013, I noted that no president had ever issued a Presidential Alert under WEA or similar prior systems. And I also noted that while the WARN Act provides in 47 U.S.C. § 1201(b)(2)(E) that cell phone users may opt-out of emergency alerts and AMBER Alerts, a user may not opt-out of Presidential Alerts. Thus, if you open the Settings app on your iPhone and tap Notifications and then scroll to the bottom, you will see that you only have on/off switches for the first two types of alerts:
Tomorrow, October 3, 2018 at 2:18 p.m. Eastern / 1:18 p.m. Central / 12:18 p.m. Mountain / 11:18 a.m. Pacific, FEMA and the FCC will conduct the first-ever test of a Presidential Alert. Note that while the test will start at 2:18 p.m. Eastern, it will continue for 30 minutes, so if your iPhone doesn’t get the alert right away, it may come at some other time during that 30 minute window. (This test was originally planned for September 20, but it was delayed because of Hurricane Florence.) The message will have a header that reads “Presidential Alert” and the body of the message will say: “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.”
If you will be in court or somewhere else where it would be inappropriate for your iPhone to make a loud noise, TURN OFF YOUR IPHONE BEFORE THAT TIME. And if you are around other cellphones that make a loud noise tomorrow, now you know what is going on.
Hopefully the test will be deemed a success and we won’t have to go through this again for a long time. And also, my understanding is that the rumors are false, and President Trump will not begin using the Presidential Alert system to send all of his tweets to each of us. At least, I hope those rumors are false.
When I reviewed the new 2018 versions of the iPhone, I noted that this is just an “s” year. There are definitely some nice new features in all of the new iPhones, especially for taking pictures, and if you want a larger screen or a cheaper iPhone X, it is great that Apple has three new models. Nevertheless, this is not as big of an iPhone upgrade as we saw a year ago.
The opposite is true with the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch Series 4 is the first significant upgrade to the Apple Watch hardware since the Apple Watch was first previewed in 2014 and started selling in early 2015. Unlike 2014, when Apple wasn’t really sure how the Apple Watch would be used, Apple now has years of experience and knows what people like most about an Apple Watch. And those are precisely the parts of the Apple Watch that Apple improved. I’ve been using the Apple Watch Series 4 for a week, and I am blown away at how amazing this device is. I use it daily in my law practice, outside of the office for messages and entertainment purposes, when exercising, and pretty much all day long no matter what I’m doing from when I wake up until I go to sleep. This is an incredibly useful device that I recommend highly to any attorney who uses an iPhone.
The iPhone X version of the Apple Watch
Last year, the iPhone X was a huge leap forward in the iPhone world because Apple figured out a way to make the screen go virtually edge-to-edge. Thus, the physical size of the iPhone remained familiar, but the usable screen was larger. You saw much more in the same amount of space. Apple has applied the same design magic to the Series 4 Apple Watch. There are some changes to the physical size of the watch. First, the new watch is slightly thinner. It’s not a big change, but it is welcome nevertheless. In these pictures, my Series 2 is on the left and my Series 4 is on the right:
Another physical change is that the face is slightly larger, with 40 mm and 44 mm sizes instead of the former 42 mm and 38 mm sizes. This increase is so minor that you probably won’t ever notice it unless you put the new Apple Watch next to an old one. In this picture, my old Apple Watch Series 2 is on the left, and the new Apple Watch Series 4 is on the right:
I’ve heard some people wonder if the increase from 42 to 44 mm means that a person who previously used a 42 mm should instead get the smaller 40 mm model. Maybe for some folks this makes sense, but I suspect that most folks who have previously used a 42 mm will be perfectly happy with the 44 mm. It’s really not a big difference in physical size.
The real change to the size of the Apple Watch is that, much like the iPhone X, Apple has brought the usable screen closer to the edges of the watch. As a result of the improvements, the new screen is now 30% larger.
This is a huge, noticeable improvement. The additional information that you can see is fantastic. For example, I’ve always been able to look at an email on my Apple Watch, but the size of the watch face severely limits how many words you can see at one time. With the larger screen on the Series 4, I typically see one additional sentence on the screen as compared to the older models. For longer emails, I’ll have to use the scroll wheel to scroll down on either watch, but less scrolling is necessary on the Series 4. The same is true for text messages and any other app which puts lots of information on the screen. You see more, and thus you can obtain, and can act upon, the information more quickly.
Other apps simply expand to fill the larger screen so you get a larger watch face, larger controls for music and podcasts, etc. For these tasks, the larger face makes the Apple Watch much easier and more enjoyable to use. Here’s a s simple example, but one which matters because I do it every day: typing in my passcode to unlock my Apple Watch is far easier with the larger screen on the Series 4 with the larger buttons.
The larger screen also makes it possible to have new watch faces with many more complications. The following picture uses the new Infograph watch face that Apple keeps showing off in its press pictures. It has eight complications in addition to the time:
I am not sure if I am going to use the Infograph as it seems a little too busy to me, plus I prefer digital time over hands on a watch face, but I love that this is an option.
Note that even with the different screen and sizes, you can still use your old Apple Watch bands with the new Series 4. That’s good news for me because I love my Milanese Loop watch band, but it is $150 so I’m glad that I didn’t have to buy a new one.
Faster
Early models of the Apple Watch were rather slow, which had a negative impact on usability. But with each new generation, the Apple Watch gets faster. The Series 4 is the first Apple Watch to feature a 64-bit processor, which Apple says is twice as fast as the Series 3 — which was 70% faster than the Series 2, and the Series 2 was 50% faster than the original Apple Watch. Thus, if you are upgrading from an earlier version of the Apple Watch, this speed increase should be quite noticeable — especially if you are using something older than a Series 3.
At this point, you may be thinking “ho hum, it’s faster, but every new model is faster.” Fair enough, but this time, the speed increase has real consequences. With the Series 4, the Apple Watch has crossed over from being a device that operates so slowly that sometimes I just don’t bother to use it into a device which operates so quickly that I have no hesitation to use the device to perform tasks.
Let’s go back to that email example. On my Series 2, working with emails works fine, but it is somewhat slow. On the Series 4, working with email is lightning fast, just as fast as working with emails on my iPhone. Because of this speed increase, along with the larger screen, I am working with emails on my Apple Watch far more than I ever have before. I can very quickly triage my inbox by deleting the junk mail and mail that doesn’t really interest me. I can quickly read emails that do matter to me and then act upon them. Responding to emails is still easier on an iPhone or iPad if I need to type something of substance, but if I just want to send a quick reply, the watch works fine. And of course I can dictate or scribble out the words of a longer reply if I need to do so.
If your law practice is anything like mine, this is huge. I get tons of email every day. When new emails come in, with the Series 4 I can often deal with them faster on my Apple Watch than on my iPhone, in large part because the watch is right their on my wrist whereas I need to dig out the iPhone and then put it away when I’m finished. Plus, when I pick up my iPhone, there is a greater risk that I will be distracted by some other app on the iPhone. When working with emails on my Apple Watch, I get in and out more quickly and then get back to my work. I had no idea before using the Series 4 a week ago that working with emails would be so dramatically improved thanks to the larger screen and the faster watch.
Here’s another example where the speed has a direct effect on usability. I have lots of lights in my house which are controlled by HomeKit, It is handy to use my Apple Watch to turn lights on and off, sometimes by speaking to Siri, other times by tapping a button in the Home app on the watch. On my Series 2, sometimes this feature worked OK, and other times it was so slow that it was painful. With my Series 4 watch, HomeKit devices respond to my Apple Watch commands right away — as quickly as commands coming from an iPhone. The speed increase means that I no longer hesitate to use my Apple Watch with HomeKit devices, and thus it is almost like HomeKit performance is an additional feature of the Series 4.
Cellular
Apple added cellular support to the Apple Watch Series 3, but I never owned a Series 3 so I’ve been using cellular on my Apple Watch for the first time this week. Thanks to a new ceramic back, which reduces interference with radio waves, Apple says that cellular activity is works even better on the Series 4.
Before last week, I didn’t think that this would be that significant for me. After all, don’t I carry my iPhone pretty much all the time? But it has been been a nicer feature than I expected, especially when I’ve walked or jogged in a park to try to close my activity circles. There often isn’t really a good place to put an iPhone in exercise clothes, and with the Series 4, I don’t have to. I pair my AirPods with my Apple Watch, and then I’m off. I’ve tested receiving and sending emails, receiving and sending text messages, and placing and picking up phone calls when my Apple Watch is using cellular. It all just works. It is so nice to know that I’m connected to the outside world in case someone needs me or I need to contact someone else – even though I’m not carrying around a heavy iPhone. Indeed, I don’t even feel the weight of an Apple Watch on my arm or AirPods in my ears, so I get all of this without feeling ANY extra weight at all.
Digital Crown
As part of the redesign, Apple made the Digital Crown on the side smaller. I don’t notice the difference in normal usage. Apple also added haptic feedback when spinning the Digital Crown, and the clicks make a big difference. It makes spinning the crown feel far more precise because you feel a click as each item is passed on the scrolling list. If you haven’t tried a Series 4 yet this might not sound like a very big deal, but in normal usage it is really nice.
EKG
In addition to monitoring your heart beats, the Series 4 adds the ability to check your heart activity by running a simple EKG test (sometimes called an ECG). Just put your finger on the digital crown, start the test, and you’ll get results in 30 seconds. I’m a lawyer not a doctor, but from what I’ve been reading for the last few days, this feature can help to save lives.
For example, here is a post on Reddit by a doctor explaining that the new Apple Watch can help to detect Atrial Fibrillation, which is the most common cardiac arrhythmia, and something that is experienced by up to 25% of people over 40 years old.
Note that this EKG feature requires a special app, which Apple says it will release later this year. And for many folks, this feature will be unimportant. But for some folks, especially those working with a heart doctor, this feature could be literally life changing.
Louder
The new speaker in the Apple Watch is 50% louder. And the microphone was moved to the right side of the Apple Watch (the opposite side as the speaker) to reduce interference. If you are using your Apple Watch to make phone calls or to use the new Walkie-Talkie feature, the improved speaker should help. I usually keep sounds turned off on my Apple Watch, so this feature doesn’t matter so much to me.
Fall detection
The Series 4 Apple Watch includes a more advanced accelerometer and gyroscope which can detect if you fall. And if you fall down and then don’t move for 60 seconds, the Apple Watch can even call 911 and your emergency contacts. For folks above a certain age — or for anyone who can be clumsy — this looks like a feature that you hope to never use, but that you will very much appreciate if you need it.
Etc.
There is a lot more that is packed into the Apple Watch Series 4, including new watch faces, Bluetooth 5.0 (which I hope will improve communications between the Apple Watch and the iPhone), increased battery life for outdoor workouts when you are using GPS, and more.
Models
This is the first version of the Apple Watch that does not come in a more expensive Special Edition version made of high-end materials (gold in the first Apple Watch, ceramic in later models). However, there is now a new gold stainless steel version of the watch. You can also select the Nike+ version or the Hermès versions, which include different watch bands and a special watch face.
Apple no longer calls the aluminum version of the Apple Watch the “sport” model. You just get an Apple Watch, and you choose whether you want aluminum and stainless steel, with stainless steel costing $300 more. I prefer the look and feel of the stainless steel over aluminum, and I also like that the stainless steel version has a more durable screen — a sapphire crystal face, instead of Ion-X glass. Even though I have hit the face of my Series 2 Apple Watch on countless objects over the yaars, I have never gotten a scratch. My wife is far more poised and less clumsy than me, but her Series 2 aluminum Apple Watch does have some small scratches.
Conclusion
I was really excited about the iPhone X when it came out a year ago, and I absolutely loved using it for the past year. I feel the same way about the Apple Watch Series 4. The larger screen and the increase in speed make everything better. Indeed, some features are so much better than I am using them far more than ever before. The Apple Watch Series 4 is a huge leap forward. If you have been thinking about getting an Apple Watch but were waiting for the right time, that time is now. If you have an older Apple Watch and you already know that it is a useful device for you, upgrading to a Series 4 will be a huge improvement to what you already love.
—–
This article won the BlawgWorld Pick of the Week award on October 1, 2018. The editors of BlawgWorld, a free weekly email newsletter for lawyers and law firm administrators, give this award to one article every week that they feel is a must-read for this audience.
This is the best time of the year for the iPhone. We have new devices, and the iPhone XS has been a real champ for me this week during a crazy busy week for me both at work and after work. We are also seeing more apps being updated to work with iOS 12 and watchOS 5. And CarPlay has been seeing some nice improvements thanks to more third party apps. Here is the news of note from the past week:
I was in my local Apple Store last week and I saw that they were selling the Logitech Crayon, a stylus with all of the precision of an Apple Pencil except that you save $30. It currently only works with the 2018 version of the 9.7" iPad, but I suspect that will change when Apple releases additional new iPads. It has some advantages and some disadvantages as compared to the Apple Pencil, but it is definitely worth considering. Leif Johnson of Macworld posted a review of the Logitech Crayon to help you make that decision.
This scenario seems pretty far-fetched, but Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac has a scenario in which Apple Watch fall detection could get you sideways with law enforcement. Spoiler alert: it involves other evidence of a crime being around when the police go to save you.
Zac Hall also posted some iPhone X and iPhone XS photograph comparisons. He finds lots of circumstances in which the iPhone XS is noticeably better (as did I).
Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac reminds of us of the procedure to force quit an Apple Watch app: hold the power button until the power screen appears, and then hold the digital crown.
If you are thinking of getting a portable solar battery charger for your iPhone or iPad, Sarah Witman of Wirecutter picks the best ones.
And finally, Apple is running a commercial for the Apple Watch Series 4 showing how the device can make you a better version of yourself. It’s a cute commercial.
Last year’s iPhone X was, in my opinion, the most significant year-to-year advance in iPhone technology. Apple found a way to almost defy physics, fitting a larger, beautiful OLED screen into a device that remained the same size in your hand. Apple also added a second camera lens — a telephoto lens — which Apple previously only found space for on the larger Plus models. Toss in the speed improvements and various other new features, and it was a major upgrade. The 2017 iPhone X seemed like it was a 2018 iPhone X that we were somehow seeing a year early. (And as if to emphasize that point, last year Apple introduced an iPhone 8, and then skipped number 9 to also introduce the iPhone X.)
How do you follow up on an act like that? Apple actually has some experience in this area. It adds nice but incremental improvements to the prior year model, and then to indicate that it is a less significant upgrade, Apple adds an “s” to the name. Hence, Apple has introduced the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5s, and iPhone 6s. An “s” year iPhone doesn’t mean that there are no big new features. For example, the iPhone 4S added Siri and the iPhone 5S added a way to authenticate without typing a password (Touch ID), and both of those features remain critical parts of the iPhone. But in an “s” year, hardware changes are typically less noticeable.
That last sentence holds true this year in one way, but doesn’t hold true in two other ways. The iPhone XS, which I purchased, fits the mold of prior “s” year upgrades. The hardware on the outside looks almost exactly the same, so the real improvements are under the hood. But in addition, Apple made the iPhone larger in the iPhone XS Max, and Apple made the iPhone less expensive with the iPhone XR. If you purchase either the iPhone XS Max or the iPhone XR, then you are getting a phone with obvious physical differences from the 2017 iPhone X. This review focuses on the iPhone XS, but I at the end I also have some comments about the other two new iPhones.
The iPhone X
Before talking about the iPhone XS, I want to say a few words about the iPhone X, because I am sure that most of you who are considering a new iPhone this year are upgrading from a model that is at least a few years old. Crossing over from an iPhone with a home button to an iPhone with an edge-to-edge screen is a major change. And at least initially, perhaps not a welcome change. Many attorneys (including my wife) have told me that they like having a home button; something that you can always press to exit from an app and go back to the main screen. Additionally, there are real advantages to using Touch ID over Face ID. For example, your face has to be in front of the camera, so you cannot just reach over to touch your iPhone to unlock it; you need to move the iPhone (or move your face) to the right position. And while you can discretely unlock an iPhone using Touch ID while you are talking to someone else, the other person will notice if you stop looking at them and start looking at your iPhone.
Nevertheless, I think that the advantage of a larger screen is more than worth it. I’m reminded of ten years ago, when I heard from countless attorneys who loved the small keyboards on their BlackBerries and Palm Treos, folks who said that they couldn’t imagine typing on a flat glass screen. I would always say that the space used up by a physical keyboard is wasted when you are not typing, resulting in a tiny screen that could be twice as large, allowing you to see more emails and other information. The same is true today. When you give up the space dedicated to the home button and the bezels around the edges, you have so much more screen real estate without increasing the size of the device. I used this picture with my review of the iPhone X, and it sums up why I love, love the larger iPhone X, and now iPhone XS, screen — you get Line 8 and Line 9:
Learning to swipe up from the bottom of the screen instead of pressing a button involves a learning curve, and you do give up something when you move from Touch ID to Face ID. But I think it is worth it, and I encourage you to keep an open mind about the change. The large and beautiful screen on the iPhone X and now the iPhone XS is a delight to use, and my enthusiasm hasn’t waned one bit even after almost a year of using it. You can use a device that feels the same size in your hand, but you can see so much more on the screen, and the screen technology itself is so much nicer to look at. The iPhone has always been about the touchscreen, and for the past year that touchscreen has been amazing.
Better photography
If you skipped over the iPhone X and are now thinking about getting the iPhone XS, one of the big reasons to do so is that you can take much better pictures with the iPhone XS. Last year’s iPhone X already did a great job of taking pictures, but there were circumstances in which it struggled, such as when you had lots of contrast in a picture with both bright and dark areas.
The iPhone XS is really impressive in these circumstances because of technology which Apple calls Smart HDR. When you are talking about photography, a picture really is worth a thousand words, so here are some examples. I took some pictures this weekend using both my iPhone X and my iPhone XS, and I think that the differences are pretty remarkable. If you are using an iPhone even older than the iPhone X, the differences will be even more noticeable. I did not do anything to correct the color, exposure, etc. in any of these pictures. I did crop them a little. In every picture below, the first picture was taken with the iPhone X, and the second picture was taken with the iPhone XS, in both cases using the normal 1x wide angle lens, not the telephoto lens. You can click on any picture to see a larger version.
In this first example, I’m taking a picture of brick walls with a bright sky in the background. The sky was bright enough that the contrast overwhelmed the iPhone X. It is not until you look at the second picture taken with the iPhone XS that you realize that you are supposed to be seeing a roof of a house just over the brick wall. And the color of the bricks in the iPhone XS picture better matches what my eyes actually saw.
Now let’s go to St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans to look at a passing streetcar. On a bright day, many pictures taken with the iPhone X are hazy, which causes the colors to be more drab. The iPhone XS does a better job of showing the true colors of the green streetcar with its crimson accents. You also see more color, and more detail, in the shadow on the grass created by the streetcar. The text on the side of the streetcar is crisper. The skin tones on the people are more accurate. It is just a better picture.
As the streetcar passed me, I took another set of pictures. Once again, the iPhone X picture is far more hazy, so the colors look worse. I will admit that there is one small advantage to the haze in the iPhone X picture: You see rays of light, which is an interesting artistic effect. But the rest of the picture looks worse. One noticeable difference: the sky. Over and over again in my pictures, I noticed that on a bright day you are far more likely to see the blue in the sky with the iPhone XS. If you like a blue sky, get an iPhone XS. (Note to Apple: feel free to use that marketing line in your advertising.)
I even tried to save the iPhone X picture by using the edit feature in the Photos app to restore some of the green and crimson on the streetcar and the green of the grass that is washed out in the original iPhone X picture. That helped, but it still didn’t look as good as the iPhone XS picture; for example, I still couldn’t see the blue of the sky.
As the streetcar started to head away from me and towards the French Quarter, I took one last set of pictures. With the streetcar taking up less of the screen, I was finally able to see some of the blue sky even in the iPhone X picture. But the shadow on the side of the streetcar and on the ground next to the streetcar was too much of a challenge for the iPhone X, resulting in a darker picture with fewer details. But the iPhone XS handled this with aplomb.
I think that these streetcar picture examples are informative because they reflect many of the pictures that I take with an iPhone in real life. The times when I think to myself something like: “Oh cool, there is a streetcar, let me take a quick picture as it passes.” Because your iPhone is with you so often, the convenience makes it the perfect camera for those quick, unplanned moments in life in which you want to quickly snap a picture of friends or family or the world around you.
Professional photographers use equipment and techniques to get the right amount of light for a photograph. But in real life, you don’t have all that fancy stuff, and often you want to take a picture when the light isn’t that great. As iPhone low light photography has improved every year, you are more likely to get a great picture to remember that special moment. It comes as no surprise that the iPhone XS also does a better job with low-light photography, and thanks to the advanced processor, it is a big leap forward. John Gruber of Daring Fireball has some excellent examples of both photos and videos in low light in this set on Flickr. The video examples near the bottom are particularly impressive.
One thing that you notice in low light photos in which there is a source of light is that the source of light itself looks much better. In the following pictures, notice how you can actually see the shape of the flame in the iPhone XS picture. It is all just a blob in the iPhone X picture:
The iPhone XS also does a great job with videos. I took some videos of my daughter playing soccer on Saturday, and they came out great. The grass is green, the sky is blue, and the images are crisp. Jason Snell of Six Colors may have figured out the reason that the video looked so good when he tweeted the following on Friday: “Maybe the most bananas thing I’ve learned about iPhone XS is that if you shoot 4K 30fps video, it actually shoots 60fps with every other frame stepped up/down, and then stitches the frame pairs together on the fly to create extended dynamic range.” By the way, if you enjoy using your iPhone to take videos, I strongly encourage you to consider getting the Glif + Hand Grip by Studio Neat, which I reviewed last year.
Portrait mode photographs are pretty neat on the iPhone XS. You can adjust the amount of blur in the background, an effect called bokeh, commonly seen in pictures taken with high-end SLR cameras. I tried this with some pictures of my daughter, and it was nice to have this level of control. As you blur the background more, you place more emphasis on the subject of the photo, and then you get to decide how much blur is too much. Apple did a nice job with this.
Every year, there is new iPhone that takes better pictures, but this year Apple did an especially good job with the improvements. What is most fascinating to me is that while the iPhone XS does feature a slightly better wide angle lens (the zoom lens is the same as the iPhone X), the picture quality is often substantially better simply because the processor inside of the iPhone is so much faster and more sophisticated. The iPhone X was already a good camera, but the iPhone XS is much better. If you take pictures with your iPhone, this is the iPhone for you.
Performance
Speaking of the processor improvements, the new CPU is faster and more energy efficient, and it includes a neural engine which allows the iPhone to handle even more sophisticated tasks. Updating from an iPhone that is two or more years old to the iPhone XS result in a noticeable speed increase, with everything seeming much more responsive. And even as compared to last year’s iPhone X, the iPhone XS does a much better with complicated operations. For example, the free augmented reality LightSpace app is much more fluid on an iPhone XS than on an iPhone X. I rarely play games with sophisticated 3D graphics, but I have no doubt that those perform even better on the iPhone XS.
I haven’t yet been able to test Gigabit-class LTE, a faster version of 4G as 5G is still being developed, which the iPhone XS supports. My carrier, AT&T, is bringing this service to New Orleans this year, but apparently, it isn’t live yet. In cities where it is available, Gigabit-class LTE should be about twice as fast as current LTE.
The iPhone XS Max and the iPhone XR
I stopped in my local Apple Store this weekend to see what the new Apple Watch Series 4 looks like. (It looks awesome, and the one I ordered should be delivered soon.). I also checked out the iPhone XS Max. It looks just like an iPhone XS, only bigger, which makes everything easier to see. However, it felt ridiculously large in my hand. For me, the advantage of a larger screen isn’t worth the tradeoff of the device being so much harder to hold, not is it worth losing the ability to use the iPhone with just one hand. Having said that, soon after I tried out the iPhone XS Max, I ran into someone telling me how much he likes his iPhone 8 Plus, which is about the same size, so I know that there are people who like this form factor. If that describes you, then the iPhone XS Max is a major leap forward because you get a crazy large screen in a device size that you are already used to holding.
If you want to spend less money but get most of the features of the iPhone XS, then the iPhone XR might be perfect for you. In my September 13, 2018 post, I listed everything that you give up with the iPhone XR. The feature that I would most miss is the telephoto lens, but if that isn’t important to you, the iPhone XR looks like a very compelling device. You can order an iPhone XR starting October 19, and devices ship and are available in stores a week later.
Misc.
There are a few other things worth knowing about the iPhone XS and the iPhone XS Max. First, they come in a new color: gold. It is sort of a mocha/copper type of gold. It doesn’t appeal to me, but I’m sure that it will appeal to many folks.
Second, Apple says that the screen is even more durable. Vanessa Hand Orellana of CNet did some drop tests, and the results were promising: “I’ve done my fair share of drop tests in my time at CNET, and I’ve never come out of one without a broken phone. Until now. The iPhone XS didn’t crack.” Hopefully none of us need to “test” this ourselves.
Third, the iPhone has dual-SIM support using a second eSIM. If you travel intentionally, this could be very useful.
Fourth, Face ID is a little better on the iPhone XS versus the iPhone X. In my side-by-side tests, sometimes it worked just as well, but other times Face ID worked better on the iPhone XS. Every little bit helps, but so far this has not been a major improvement. One important caveat — Face ID is a technology that is supposed to improve over time. Is it possible that I’m really comparing an iPhone X with a year of learning my face against an iPhone XS which has only had a weekend, and will get even better over time? I’m not sure, but perhaps.
Fifth, the sound is improved. The speakers are much better than the iPhone X, with wider sound, so much so that the first time I played a video I was actually startled that this sound was coming from my iPhone. And when you record video, the iPhone XS now records in stereo, so it sounds better. Check out those John Gruber videos I linked above to see what I mean.
Sixth, the iPhone XS is more water resistant. I didn’t test this with my expensive new phone, but as I described in more detail in my September 13, 2018 post, Apple has increased the IP Code rating from IP67 to IP68. And that’s better.
Conclusion
Unless you are an early adopter who loves using the latest and greatest technology, I don’t recommend upgrading from an iPhone X to an iPhone XS unless you want the larger size of the Max or if photography is really important to you. But for everyone else, the iPhone XS is amazing, combining everything I loved about the iPhone X with even more nice features.
With the large and beautiful screen of the iPhone XS, you can see more information on the screen at one time. Whether you are reading emails, looking at a document, doing some quick legal research, or looking at a PDF file, you can be more productive than ever with the iPhone XS. Sure, there will still be times when you want to instead reach for an iPad or a computer, but I have been able to do more with my iPhone X for the last year and the same will be true with the iPhone XS. When you are done with your work, the iPhone XS is the perfect device for the rest of your life, especially if that involves taking pictures.
It is also nice that you get more choice this year. If you want a crazy large screen, get the iPhone XS Max. If you want to shave off some of the features that you can live without and save some money, get the iPhone XR next month. But for the best all-around phone, I think that the iPhone XS hits the sweet spot.
My past year of using an iPhone X was my favorite year ever of using an iPhone. I can already see that the iPhone XS is going to be even better. If you are ready for an upgrade, you are in for a treat.
Many of Apple’s newest products go on sale today, including the iPhone XS, the iPhone XS Max, and the Apple Watch Series 4. (The iPhone XR will be available in stores starting October 26.) Using the Deliveries app on my current iPhone, I’ve been monitoring my iPhone Xs this week as it went from Shenzhen, China to Anchorage, Alaska to Louisville, Kentucky, and as I type this it should soon be on an early Friday morning plane to New Orleans. My own travel over the last few days has been far less interesting because my days have mostly been consumed with drafting appellate briefs. This has been a crazy busy week in the world of iOS-related stories, thanks to the new version of iOS and watchOS that came out earlier this week, the numerous reviews written by folks who got early looks at the new iPhones and new Apple Watch, and tons of app updates to take advantage of the new features in iOS 12. I’ve tried to select some of the most interesting items to feature in this collection of the news of note from the past week:
California attorney David Sparks posted a video review of the Elevation Labs Draft Table, a strong and sturdy stand that can tilt your iPad to various angles. I like that it can be adjusted to different angles. In my law practice, I mostly use my iPad Pro in two different angles. First, when I am taking handwritten notes, and sometimes when I am annotating documents, I prefer a slight tilt, and the Apple Smart Cover is perfect for that. Second, when I am mostly reading things on the screen and doing some light annotation, I prefer a more upright position, and for that, I love the strong and sturdy Simplex Tablet iPad Stand by Thought Out (my review). The Simplex only has one viewing angle, but I find that it is the only angle that I need other than the one I get with my Apple Smart Cover. Whatever product you use, I think that getting your iPad in the right angle for the work you are doing is a key part of being more productive with an iPad in a law practice.
Suzanne Barlyn of Reuters reported this week that John Hancock, one of the oldest life insurers in North America, will stop underwriting traditional life insurance policies and instead will only offer policies that adjust the life insurance premiums based upon how much you exercise, as measured by a wearable device such as the Apple Watch.
To get you ready for your new insurance policy, let’s start with some news items about the Apple Watch. I wasn’t surprised to see reviews of the new Series 4 Apple Watch this week by traditional media outlets, but I was surprised to see a review by Jon Hamm — yes, that Jon Hamm, of Mad Men — who talked to John Lonsdale of Men’s Journal about his thoughts on the new device. Hamm says: “It’s not as chunky on your wrist, but the face is bigger, so if you have fat fingers like me, you can press those little buttons and it all works well.”
Stephen Pulvirent of Hodinkee, who specializes in reviewing expensive watches, wrote a great review of the Series 4 Apple Watch. The video which accompanies the review is beautifully-produced and informative. Given his job, it is no surprise that he concludes by saying that he still plans to wear his Rolex most days, but he admits that he is going to keep a Series 4 charged and ready to go for certain days, and says that “Apple is on a trajectory where each new version of the Apple Watch gets more useful, cooler, more fun to wear, and we’re on a path where at some point, it’s just going to become indispensable. And with the Apple Watch Series 4, Apple is showing us that that future is closer than we thought.” I’ve never owned a Rolex or other super-expensive traditional watch, and because I love wearing an Apple Watch so much, I’m quite certain that I never will.
The new Series 4 Apple Watch looks amazing, but almost every Apple Watch model got better this week thanks to watchOS 5. Alex Guyot wrote a comprehensive review of watchOS 5 for MacStories.
The other new Apple hardware in the news this week was the iPhone XS. Rene Ritchie of iMore wrote a comprehensive review of the iPhone XS.
David Pogue of Yahoo reviews the new iPhone XS and, as always, includes one of his funny and goofy videos to go along with it.
Former White House photographer Pete Souza took some amazing pictures for DailyMail with the new iPhone XS in Washington, D.C.
Almost every model of the iPhone got better this week thanks to iOS 12. Jason Snell of Six Colors explains the improved search feature in Photos in iOS 12 which allows you to, for example, see pictures you have taken of dogs, and then refine that to just see pictures of dogs in the snow.
I love, love, love, love, love the deep integration of 1Password into iOS 12. Ryan Christoffel of MacStories shows off how it works. If you still don’t use a password manager, now that iOS 12 is out, you really don’t have an excuse.
Overcast was already my favorite podcast app, but it is now so much better with iOS 12 and watchOS 5. I particularly love the ability to listen to podcasts using just my Apple Watch and my AirPods, which is great for doing tasks around the house without having to carry around an iPhone. I haven’t yet used this combination when walking or jogging outside, but I look forward to trying that out soon. Zac Hall of 9to5Mac wrote a good review of what is new in Overcast on the iPhone and Apple Watch.
It’s going to take me months to get my arms around the new automation that is now possible thanks to Siri Shortcuts and the Shortcuts app in iOS 12. But as if that wasn’t enough, Federico Viticci of MacStories figured out how to trigger IFTTT applets using Siri and the Shortcuts app, which gives you the ability to trigger hundreds of additional services and devices such as a Sonos, a Roomba, an online document, and more.
A few days ago, Apple provided select members of the press with an iPhone XS and an iPhone XS Max so that they could post a review yesterday, shortly before the 2018 versions of the iPhone officially go on sale this Friday. Review units were given to John Gruber of Daring Fireball (review), Matthew Panzarino of TechCrunch (review), Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal (review), Nilay Patel (a former practicing attorney) at The Verge (review), Raymond Wong of Mashable (review), John Paczkowski of BuzzFeed (review), Brian X. Chen of the New York Times (review), Lauren Goode of Wired (review), Todd Haselton of CNBC (review), and Scott Stein of CNET (review). Here are my major takeaways from what these folks wrote after using the new iPhones for the last few days:
Many people found the camera to be much better than the iPhone X. John Gruber was particularly impressed, and the photos that he provided as examples show that the iPhone XS produces noticeably better pictures than the iPhone X in situations in which HDR makes a difference — pictures in which you have both light and dark spots. If you are taking pictures outside on a nice day, this may not matter very much. But if you are inside with less light, this can make a big difference. Similarly, Matthew Panzarino provided some stunning sample pictures and said that he thinks Apple “dramatically undersold how much improved photos are from the iPhone X to the iPhone XS. It’s extreme, and it has to do with a technique Apple calls Smart HDR.” And Nilay Patel says that the “camera upgrades on the XS over the X are significant. The XS makes the X camera look terrible most of the time.” (Patel still prefers the pictures taken by the Google Pixel 2, but when I looked at his sample pictures, I preferred the iPhone XS picture over the Google Pixel 2 picture every time. Just goes to show you that there is certainly a subjective element to an art like photography.)
On the other hand, some of the other reviewers were less impressed with the camera. For example, John Paczkowski said that the iPhone XS pictures were better than ones he took with the iPhone X, and yet it was still “pretty hard to tell” the difference. And Lauren Goode said that pictures taken with the iPhone XS were only “slightly improved from the iPhone X photos,” although she did see a more noticeable improvement in portrait mode photos.
Considering that you can actually see how much better the pictures are in the reviews posted by folks like Gruber and Panzarino, I find myself believing that the iPhone XS camera really is a big improvement over the iPhone X, but only some of the time, and perhaps other reviewers were taking pictures in conditions in which the improvement was less noticeable. As Joanna Stern noted: “The smart HDR feature and new sensors did make for a more even and clear photo when shooting almost directly into brighter lights—plus crisper, more colorful low-light shots—but overall my photos looked similar to the ones I’ve taken with the X.” But she also found that autofocus and launching the camera is much faster.
If you like the idea of a bigger phone, the iPhone XS Max is a very nice bigger phone. If you previously used a Plus model of an iPhone, then you know whether that type of size is too large for your hands. But many reviewers, such as Brian X. Chen, said that after trying both, they preferred the iPhone XS size. If you want an interesting perspective, check out the video at the top of the review by Joanna Stern in which she shows what an iPhone XS Max looks like in the hands of basketball player Gheorghe Muresan.
Only one reviewer, Todd Haselton, tested the improved water resistance of the iPhone XS. He said that he put the iPhone XS “in a fountain about 1 foot deep for five minutes and it was totally fine after I took it out.”
The screen on the iPhone XS supposed to be more durable. Nevertheless, Joanna Stern reported that the screen on her iPhone XS Max cracked after “a minor fall onto wood.”
The built-in speakers are noticeably better. Raymond Wong says that there is more separation between the left and right channels. And many reviewers noted that the sound is noticeably louder.
The iPhone XS is noticeably faster. Raymond Wong notes that complicated games like Fortnite play better on the iPhone XS. And Joanna Stern noted that even “[e]veryday actions are faster too — even just pressing the reply button in the Gmail app.” Several folks noted that Face ID is also faster and thus works better.
If you use a wireless charger, it will work better with the iPhone XS because the iPhone XS is more forgiving about where you place the iPhone on the charger.
My iPhone XS is supposed to be delivered this Friday. In light of these initial reviews, I’ll definitely be taking lots of pictures this weekend to see what I think about the improvements. And I hope that I notice the speed increases in everyday actions, as Joanna Stern pointed out.
