Jeff Richardson

Thank you to SaneBox for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month. In the past, I’ve written extensively about how SaneBox works. Today, however, I want to cut to the chase. Wouldn’t it be great if you could automatically filter out the less important and annoying emails so that when you want to check your email, all that was left was just the good stuff? That’s what you get when you take your existing email service and follow the simple instructions to turn on SaneBox for your account.

SaneBox lets you avoid the distraction of dozens of non-essential emails in your Inbox. Instead, your Inbox just contains the few messages that really matter, the ones that you want to know about and/or need to act upon. When you have more time, you can click the sub-folder in your Inbox into which SaneBox stores items like email newsletters—things that you want to see at some point, but there is no urgency to read them right away. Or you can click the sub-folder in your Inbox into which SaneBox filters items to be read later—for me, these items are mostly junk messages that were not caught by my email’s built-in spam filter. For unwanted items, you can drag them over into your SaneBlackHole folder, which is a way for you to teach SaneBox’s brain that you never want to see items from that sender ever again.

SaneBox can even provide you a report to estimate how much time you are saving. (This post explains the math.) My latest report says that I saved 50 minutes last week by using SaneBox. That’s awesome!

SaneBox offers much more than what I’ve just described. For example, it can remind you when you haven’t received a response to an email, and it can filter emails in countless other ways. But those core features make the process of reading your email so much faster and so much less annoying.

I’ve been paying for and using SaneBox with my iPhone J.D. emails since last year and it has been a tremendous improvement. Why not see if it makes sense for you. Click here to get a 14-day free trial with no credit card required. If you don’t like having a clean and tidy Inbox and want to go back to how you had it before, no sweat. But if you appreciate having a better way of working with email, using the link in this post will give you a generous $25 credit for when you pick a plan—and there are lots of different plans offered so that you can pick the one that gives you just what you want.

Thanks again to SaneBox for giving me and you a more efficient way to work with email and for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month.

Who needs a good spy movie on Apple TV+ when Apple’s own employees are providing stories of intrigue? We start today’s edition of the podcast by discussing the technique that Apple reportedly used to catch a person leaking Apple secrets. Next we talk about the upcoming Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro apps for the iPad, apps that are interesting not just because of what you can do with the apps but also because what the release of these two apps suggests about Apple’s future plans. We prepare for iOS 16.5, explain why you should get an Apple Pencil now that it is on sale, talk about how Apple technology is catching bank robbers and saving lives, and discuss Apple Music Classical. We also recommend some great shows to watch on Apple TV+ and elsewhere.

In our In the Know segment, Brett provides a tip for customizing the search results you get in Google Maps and Apple Maps. I explain how to adjust whether the Apple Watch shows words on the screen when you are talking to Siri and when Siri is responding to you.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just listen using your podcast player of choice.  You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

I don’t discuss Apple rumors very often on iPhone J.D. You never know if they are real or just made up, and even if they were once real, you never know if Apple changed its mind. Of course, sometimes a rumor becomes so widespread that you cannot help but think it is true, such as the rumor that Apple will announce some sort of headset next month at its conference called WWDC. Apple hates rumors because it ruins the surprise and Apple’s ability to control the narrative, so Apple takes many steps to discourage rumors and locate leakers. If you believe this story … and I guess it could be false … Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac reports that Apple was trying to identify a tipster called analyst941 who had leaked lots of information, including information about iOS 17 which will be announced at WWDC. Thus, Apple told different people at Apple that versions of its Final Cut Pro and Logic apps for Mac would be released for the iPad, and told different dates to different people who were suspected to be leakers. On May 2, the Twitter account for analyst941 announced that the release dates would be 2024 for Final Cut Pro and 2025 for Logic, and apparently Apple provided those specific (false) dates to a woman who works at Apple. Before long, Apple learned that her brother owned the analyst941 Twitter account, and she was fired. For more details on how this all unfolded, check out Ed Hardy’s post. And now, the rest of the news of note from the past week, including the real release date for Final Cut Pro and Logic for the iPad:

• Final Cut Pro and Logic for the iPad will be released on May 23, 2023. My source for this tip has a reliable track record: it’s a press release from Apple itself. If you are a musician who uses a Mac, even just an amateur one, you may already know how powerful Logic is. For me, after moving from iMovie to Final Cut Pro on my Mac many years ago, I’m super excited about having the power of Final Cut Pro on my iPad. You need to have a newer iPad with an M1 or M2 processor, and the cost will be $4.99/month or $49/year for each app.
• Jason Snell of Six Colors raises some questions and provides some answers about the upcoming Final Cut Pro and Logic apps for iPad.
• Normally, we don’t know precisely when Apple will release software updates. But this week, Apple confirmed that iOS 16.5 will be released next week. Chance Miller of 9to5Mac writes about the primary new feature, a “new dedicated ‘Sports’ tab in the Apple News app, as well as other enhancements to make it easier to follow along with games.” It also includes some bug fixes.
• Amazon is currently selling the Apple Pencil (2nd Generation) for only $89, which is a fantastic $40 savings. I use mine almost every day; as a lawyer, it is fantastic for taking handwritten notes, annotating briefs, highlighting cases that I download from Westlaw, and so much more. This second generation of the Pencil works with iPad Pro models introduced in 2018 and later, the iPad Air released in 2020 and later, and the iPad mini released in 2021.
• I mentioned last week that Apple and Google will work together to develop an industry standard to reduce the risk of devices like an AirPod being used for stalking. In an article for TidBITS, Glenn Fleishman provides tons of details on what is planned.
• Griffin Jones of Cult of Mac identifies some features of Apple’s Maps app that you might not have known about.
• If you have the Google Nest Thermostat that was released in 2020—only that model, not the popular earlier versions—Ben Schoon of 9to5Google reports that Google is now rolling out an update to give that thermostat the ability to work with the Matter standard. And that means that it also works with Apple’s HomeKit technology, so you can see and adjust the temperature on that model of the Nest product using Apple’s Home app for the first time.
• Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports that bank robbers stole $1.1 million from a Brinks armored truck. However, Brinks had hidden AirTags in some of the money bins, and as a result, Brinks was able to track the criminals to their home, where they were subsequently arrested by the police.
• Miller also reports on a woman who was staying in a hotel room on a business trip when she felt pain to her chest and then collapsed to the floor. She was eventually able to text a friend, who rushed to the room and then called 911, but it turns out that an ambulance was already on the way because of the Apple Watch’s fall detection feature.
• Similarly, David Schuman of CBS News reports that a man in Minnesota was hit by a car as he was in front of his own house. Fortunately, he was wearing an Apple Watch, which noticed that he fell and automatically called 911 and texted his wife and kids. After the experience, the man sent an email to Apple CEO Tim Cook, and Cook responded to wish him a speedy recovery.
• If you need help identifying that classical song that begins “Da Da Da DAH,” Joe Rossignol reports that the Shazam app was updated this week to support Apple Music Classical on the iPhone.
• If you use the Ivory app for Mastodon, it received some significant updates this week, as explained by Filipe Espósito of 9to5Mac.
• If you enjoyed watching Season 1 of the SciFi thriller Foundation on Apple TV+, Apple announced this week that the second season starts on July 14 and released this trailer.
• Oliver Haslam of iMore reports that Silo on Apple TV+ is at the top of the streaming charts. I’ve been watching it, and so far I love it. (By the way: #8 on that list is The Diplomat, a Netflix series starring Keri Russell, and it is also excellent.)
• Mariella Moon of Engadget reports that Disney announced this week that it will merge its Disney+ and Hulu apps later this year. That doesn’t make much sense to me because I think of them as different services with different offerings.
• And finally, every year since 2016, Apple has released a Pride Edition band for the Apple Watch to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. Proceeds benefit a number of advocacy organizations, so you can feel good about buying them, but I’ve always been a fan and came close to buying them many times in large party just because they are always colorful and fun. This week, Apple released the 2023 Pride Edition band, along with a special watch face that complements the band. Apple says that “the new Sport Band design showcases the original pride flag rainbow colors and five others — black and brown symbolize Black and Latin communities, in addition to those who have passed away from or are living with HIV/AIDS, while light blue, pink, and white represent transgender and nonbinary individuals.” You can think of all of those things when you look at the band, but for me, the bold design reminds me of a birthday party, and I’m sure that it will appeal to many folks for that reason:

A few days ago, Apple released the results for its 2023 fiscal second quarter (which ran from January 1, 2023, to April 1, 2023) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results. Unlike Apple’s Q1 which contains all of the holiday sales, Apple’s Q2 is usually not a particularly interesting quarter. This time last year, Apple set a new Q2 record of $97.3 billion. This year, earnings were $94.8 billion, down 3% from last year, but that was still better than what Apple said it had been anticipating and it was the second-highest Q2 ever for Apple. If you want to get all of the nitty gritty details, you can download the audio from the conference call from iTunes, or you can read a transcript of the call prepared by Jason Snell of Six Colors. Apple’s official press release is here. If you want to see some great charts that make it easier to put the financial information in perspective, check out this post on Six Colors. Here are the items that stood out to me.

iPhone

• iPhone revenue for the quarter was $51.3 billion, a record for a fiscal second quarter.
• Apple CFO Luca Maestri said that the strong iPhone sales were in part because of “very strong performance in emerging markets, from South Asia and India to Latin America and the Middle East.” Apple CEO Tim Cook said that another factor was folks who wanted to purchase an iPhone in the prior financial quarter but because of limited supply deferred their purchase to this most recent quarter.
• Cook also said that there are well over a billion iPhones in active use. He also said that if you add the other Apple devices that are in active use, including Macs and iPads, Apple has over two billions devices in active use.

iPad

• iPad revenue for the quarter was $6.7 billion, which was less than 2022 Q2 ($7.6 billion) and 2021 Q2 ($7.8 billion). But last year saw a boost because Apple introduced the iPad Air with an M1 chip, whereas there was no new iPad announced in 2023 Q2.
• Over half of the people who purchased a iPad during the quarter were purchasing their first iPad.

Other

• Although Apple does not reveal specific information about Apple Watch sales, Apple said that the entire category of Wearables, Home, and Accessories saw revenue of $8.8 billion, the same as last year. Apple also said that the number of people using an Apple Watch increased to a new high this past quarter with two-third of the people who purchased an Apple Watch in the past quarter getting their very first Apple Watch. That is certainly consistent with what I see; I now see lots of people wearing Apple Watches almost everywhere that I go.
• Apple services revenue rose to a record $20.9 billion. That accounts for the App Store, Apple Music, iCloud, Payment Services, Apple TV+, etc.
• Maestri said that Apple’s mobile gaming revenue, which was elevated during “the COVID years,” is now in a bit of a slowdown.
• Apple opened its first two stores in India: one in Mumbia, one in Delhi. Cook said that in India there “are a lot of people coming into the middle class, and I really feel that India is at a tipping point, and it’s great to be there. … But what I do see in India is a lot of people entering the middle class. And I’m hopeful that we can convince some number of them to buy an iPhone. And we’ll see how that works out. But right now it’s working out well.” As Jason Snell of Six Colors noted, this is similar to what Cook was saying about China ten years ago, although Cook emphasized that each country is different.
• When asked about what Apple thinks about the emergence of AI, Cook said: “I do think it’s very important to be deliberate and thoughtful in how you approach these things. And there’s a number of issues that need to be sorted, as is being talked about in a number of different places. But the potential is certainly very interesting. And we’ve obviously made enormous progress integrating AI and machine learning throughout our ecosystem, and we’ve weaved it into products and features for many years, as you probably know. You can see that in things like fall detection and crash detection and ECG. These things are not only great features, they’re saving people’s lives out there. And so it’s absolutely remarkable. And so we view AI as huge and we’ll continue weaving it in our products on a very thoughtful basis.”
• Cook said that Apple views its banking services as similar to its fitness services because much like Apple wants to help people live a more healthy life, it wants people to have better financial health.
• When asked of corporate use of Apple devices, Cook said that the enterprise business is growing and added: “We have been focusing a lot on BYOD programs. And we’ve seen more and more companies that are leaning into those and giving employees the ability to select, which is placed to our benefit, I believe, because I think a lot of people want to use a Mac at work or an iPad at work … but we’re certainly primarily a consumer company in terms of our revenues, obviously.”

There were lots of things to talk about on this week’s episode of the In the News podcast. We start by discussing Apple’s new savings account service and how Apple is becoming a bank. Next, we discuss CarPlay adoption and shortcomings, Apple’s new method of delivering security updates to your iPhone, new uses for the Dynamic Island on the iPhone 14 Pro, the demise of the Brydge Keyboard, and skydiving with an iPhone.

In our Where Y’at? segment, we discuss the City of New York’s announcement that it was giving out 500 free AirTags to help combat carjacking and Apple and Google’s announcement that they are teaming up to reduce the risk of improper use of tracking devices.

In our In the Know segment, we talk about ways to customize Siri. Brett explains how to control the way that Siri announces notifications, such as reading new text messages when you are wearing AirPods. I explain a way to speed up using Siri to respond to a text message by turning off the request for a confirmation before sending your reply.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just listen using your podcast player of choice.  You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

Apple recently added the ability to put money into an Apple savings account via the Wallet app, and Kyle Barr of Gizmodo reports that in just four days, there was nearly $1 billion deposited into Apple savings accounts. It is amazing how quickly Apple has become a big player in the banking industry. By the way, I’m happy to note that in my first month with Apple Savings, I have already earned $0.04 in interest, so if any two of you want to ask me for my two cents, you know I’m good for it. And now, the news of note from the past week:

• I noted last month that GM has announced that it will not support Apple’s CarPlay system in its future electronic vehicles. John-Anthony Disotto of iMore reports that Ford CEO Jim Farley has said that Ford plans to continue to support CarPlay, noting that 70% of Ford’s customers in the U.S. are also Apple customers.
• I mentioned earlier this week that Apple is now using its new Rapid Security Responses program. Adam Engst of TidBITS offers lots of details on the new feature.
• Stephen Hackett notes on his site 512 Pixels that when cars get bigger and bigger screens, CarPlay looks strange because the user interface hasn’t yet been updated for the largest screens. As a result, some of the buttons look tiny and there is lots of wasted space on the 14-inch screen in his 2023 Toyota Tundra. Hopefully, Apple has plans to fix this soon in an update to CarPlay.
• Joe Rossignol of MacRumors reports on two popular apps that plan to soon support the Dynamic Island on the newest iPhones. First, Uber Eats will do so, making it easy to track your order just by glancing at your iPhone. Second, Google Maps is planning to support the Dynamic Island for turn-by-turn instructions.
• Darryl Dsouza of The Mac Observer recommends some iPhone wallpapers that make the Dynamic Island on the iPhone more interesting.
• Apple pushed a firmware update for many AirPods models this week. Michael Simon of Macworld explains that it fixed a Bluetooth bug that could potentially let a bad guy gain access to your headphones.
• As reported by Chance Miller of 9to5Mac, this week, New York mayor Eric Adams announced that the City is giving out 500 AirTags to citizens, thanks to a donation from a nonprofit organization. The idea is that people can put AirPods in their cars to try to discourage and counteract carjackings.
• Roman Loyola of Macworld reports that Apple and Google are teaming up to adopt standards to reduce the risk of somebody misusing a tracking device like an AirTag.
• Chance Miller also wrote an extensive article on Brydge, a company that used to sell keyboard accessories for the iPad but which folded this year.
• Joe Fedewa of How-To Geek recommends some Apple Maps features that you might not know about.
• And finally, in this short video posted by Hatton Smith on TikTok, an iPhone appears to survive a 14,000 drop out of a pocket while skydiving. Wow.

@capt_rumcoffee When your phone falls out of your pocket at 14,000 feet #fail #screammovie ♬ original sound – Hatton Smith

I saw something on my iPhone last night that I had never seen before: an alert that there was a special kind of iOS update available, a Rapid Security Response update. You may have seen it too. What was that?

Apple typically releases security updates when a new version of iOS is ready. Right now, the latest version is iOS 16.4.1, which was released on April 7. I’m sure that Apple is already working on the next iOS update—perhaps 16.4.2, or perhaps 16.5—but what if there is a need to encourage users to install a security update but the next iOS version isn’t ready yet? In the past, we just had to wait, which meant that the iPhone was vulnerable to a known security flaw for a period of time. But thanks to Apple’s new Rapid Security Response system, which was introduced with iOS 16.4.1, Apple can now quickly push a security update even if it is not yet ready to provide a feature update. And because these security updates don’t contain feature updates, they are likely to be quick to download and quick to install. And while I’m focusing here on iOS, the Rapid Security Response system also works with iPad OS, so I updated my iPad last night too.

After you have installed a Rapid Security Response update, a letter appears after the version number when you check to see what version of the iOS you are running. For example, I now see that my iPhone is running iOS 16.4.1 (a).

Unlike a regular software update, this first Rapid Security Response update did not have any release notes. I don’t yet know if that will always be true, and if so, we won’t know exactly what Apple was fixing. But we will know that it was important enough that Apple wants to push the update out quickly. Frankly, that’s all that I need to know. I guess it is possible that this was even just a test of the system, not a real security fix.

Brett and I start this week’s episode of the In the News podcast by looking back at some important events in history that resulted in the iPhone and other Apple technology that we use today, including Motorola’s invention of the cellphone fifty years ago, Xeroc PARC, and SRI. Next, we talk about the complications that Tim Cook uses on his Apple Watch, Spatial Audio on Apple Music, iPhone security, and more.

We also introduce a new recurring segment of the podcast focused on finding items and people using Apple technology such as the Find My service, AirTags, and Apple’s Emergency SOS via satellite system. We are calling this the Where Y’at? segment. If you have ever visited New Orleans, then you know that “Where Y’at?” is a commonly-used phrased in the Crescent City that doesn’t really ask where you are located but instead is a way of saying hello and asking how you are doing. The origin of the phrase is a little murky, as Doug MacCash of Nola.com explained last month. Nevertheless, the phrase is as common in New Orleans as “Aloha” is in Hawaii, and it is even the title of a local magazine. In this week’s Where Y’at segment, we discuss an example of why you should let the police track your AirTag to find a stolen car instead of doing it yourself and discuss the rescue of BYU students who decided to go hiking and rappelling at a difficult canyon in Utah called “The Squeeze.”

In our In the Know segment, Brett explains how you can temporarily disable Face ID or Touch ID on the iPhone and iPad. I explain the Safety Check feature of iOS 16, an incredibly useful feature if you ever want to stop sharing your location and other information with another person (such as if a relationship ends or become abusive) or if you ever want to audit which apps can see which aspects of your private information.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just listen using your podcast player of choice.  You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

Fifty years ago this month, the first cellphone conversation took place. As Zoe Kleinman of the BBC explains, Marty Cooper, an engineer at Motorola, wanted to test the first prototype of a cellphone so he took his large device to a corner on Sixth Avenue in New York City. His call was to someone he knew at Bell Laboratories, a rival company that was also trying to create a  cellphone but one to be used in cars. Cooper said on that first call that he was calling from “a personal, handheld, portable cell phone.” And then at first, Cooper heard silence on the other end, presumably because the other person “was gritting his teeth.” I remember when my father started using a Motorola portable phone in the 1980s. It was huge, with a big antenna, and poor battery life. But it worked, and it allowed my father—an architect who often needed to make calls from a house that was under construction—to conduct business in a way never before possible. Now, virtually all of us work and play in ways that would have seemed impossible in the 1980s and earlier as a result of our iPhones. Kudos to Cooper and the rest of the team at Motorola way back when for paving the way. And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Speaking of companies whose past contributions helped to lead to the iPhone, two other companies with prominent roles in Apple history are Xerox PARC and SRI. Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) reached an agreement with Steve Jobs to show him their groundbreaking graphical user interface, which led Jobs and others at Apple to develop the interface for the Apple Lisa and then the Apple Macintosh. SRI, formerly known as Stanford Research Institute, started its life doing early AI research for the U.S. military and then eventually developed Siri, which was purchased by Apple. (Get it – SRI? Siri? Similar names.) Apple kept the name and gave us the Siri that we use today. I mention these two companies because, as Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac points out, Xerox donated PARC to SRI International so that they can work together on future projects. Perhaps they will come up with something else of interest to Apple.
• Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac describes a major update to the Calendars app for iPhone from Readdle.
• When Apple CEO Tim Cook visited India last week, he was the subject of many photographs. One of them revealed the watch face on Cook’s Apple Watch, which led Griffin Jones of Cult of Mac to come up with a long post on the Apple Watch watch face and each of the complications used by Tim Cook.
• Some college students at BYU decided to go hiking and rappelling at a difficult canyon in Utah called “The Squeeze.”  Unfortunately, as reported on Facebook by the Emery County, Utah, Sheriff’s Office and reported by Andrew Orr of AppleInsider, some of them got trapped in water and were experiencing hypothermia. They were far out of cellphone range, but one of them had an iPhone 14, and every 20 minutes a satellite came in range from the canyon enough to send a message to 911 for help, and the group was rescued. I guarantee you that I will take my iPhone the next time that I go rappelling at “The Squeeze,” and also that I will never go rappelling at a place called “The Squeeze.”
• Malcom Owen of AppleInsider reports on a carjacking victim that was able to help the police track down the stolen car because of an AirTag hidden inside the vehicle. Although it only took an hour to recover the car, by that point, it was severely damaged due to driving through yards and being involved in a shootout.
• Tyler Hayes of AppleInsider explains what he loves about spatial audio music on Apple Music and gives examples of songs that take good advantage of the technology.
• Kroger grocery stores have long been an Apple Pay holdout because it had been promoting Kroger Pay using the Kroger iPhone app.  However, Joe Rossignol of MacRumors reports that select locations in Kentucky and Ohio are starting to accept Apple Pay, so perhaps it will roll out to all Kroger stores.
• Rikka Altland of 9to5Toys reviews the M650 wireless microphone kit from Anker, a device that aims to improve the audio portion of video taken with an iPhone.
• Fans of Ted Lasso know that actress Hannah Waddingham has an incredible singing voice. After two years of producing Christmas specials with Mariah Carey, Apple announced that this December it will release a new Apple TV+ special called Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas featuring Waddingham and special guests.
• If you enjoyed the Tetris movie on Apple TV+, I recommend watching this video in which the two creators of Tetris answer questions.
• And finally, in past weeks, I’ve linked to the excellent Wall Street Journal stories about how thieves can steal your iPhone after learning your passcode by looking over your shoulder and then cause all sorts of trouble. One of the most troubling aspects of this has to do with abuse of the iPhone Recovery Key system. That system offers great protection against online hackers, and can protect you even if a bad guy convinces a phone company to move your iPhone’s SIM card to a new card controlled by the bad guy—which had been a common scheme used in the past. But the current version of the iPhone Recovery Key system offers no protection if a bad guy understands how the system works and steals your physical iPhone and learns of your passcode. In the following video, Zoe Thomas and Nicole Nguyen of the Wall Street Journal discuss the iPhone Recovery Key in detail. This is a good video to watch if you want to learn more about this so that you can better protect yourself. The key takeaway, however, remains the same: protect the secrecy of your iPhone passcode.

Every year, one of my absolutely favorite times to be in New Orleans is for the two weekends of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which everyone calls “Jazz Fest.” It starts this Friday, April 28, 2023, and runs through Sunday. For the second weekend, it starts on Thursday, May 4, 2023 (known as “Locals Thursday” because many of the out-of-town tourists haven’t arrived yet) and runs through Sunday, May 7, 2023. Despite the name, “Jazz” is only a small part of the music. Yes, there is the WWOZ Jazz Tent, dedicated to great Jazz music. But there are 12 other music stages with every kind of music that you can imagine: rock, country, blues, gospel, cajun, R&B, and more. And Jazz Fest isn’t even just about the music: the food is equally impressive. The competition to even be able to serve food is fierce, and the food offerings are amazing. There is also a stage where famous and not-yet-famous chefs show off how to make popular dishes (and typically provide samples). Plus, there are tons of arts and crafts to browse and purchase.

If you look at the list of artists for the first weekend, you get a sense of how wonderful and diverse the music is. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Jason Marsalis, Kermit Ruffins, Wu-Tang Clan, Charmaine Neville, Galactic, Michael White, Ed Sheeran, Steve Miller Band, Rebirth Brass Band, Kenny Loggins, Los Lobos, and so many more. For more information on many of the artists, I recommend downloading a copy of this week’s issue of Gambit, a free alternative newspaper in New Orleans. (Click the download link at the top left of the viewer to get a PDF version, which is easier to read on an iPad or a computer than the web-based viewer.)

But better yet, why not listen to those artists? Many people have that one friend that you turn to for music advice, For decades, for me, that has been Bill Kelly, founder of Kelly Law Partners in Denver. Bill has an appreciation for classic artists while also somehow being keenly aware of the best new acts. And he is an even bigger Jazz Fest fan than I am.

To get in the mood for Jazz Fest this year, Bill created a playlist composed of artists playing at the first weekend of Jazz Fest, and he picks out one great song for each artist. It’s not quite everyone who is playing this weekend, but it is pretty darn close. I was surprised to see a song on the list by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, a band started by Louisiana native Joseph Nathan “King” Oliver in Chicago in 1920s. Louis Armstrong played with that band. It turns out that this year is the 100th anniversary of some of the best music released by that band. So this year, there is a tribute to that groundbreaking band at Jazz Fest, led by Don Vappie.

After Bill shared the playlist with me, he said that I could share it here on iPhone J.D. This is an Apple Music playlist, but if you instead use Spotify, I know that there are many ways to transfer a playlist from Apple Music to Spotify, so hopefully you can listen to on your music service of choice. I’ve listened to this playlist many times now, and it is fantastic.

Alas, I will not be at Jazz Fest this year. As I explained at the end of the last episode of the In the News podcast, I recently had an orthopedic surgery, so my leg is in a cast for four weeks, making it difficult to get around. No Jazz Fest for me. But at least with this playlist, and streaming music from WWOZ, I can appreciate some of the music. If you are not attending Jazz Fest this year either, with this playlist, now you can do the same.