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One year ago, the Apple Vision Pro went on sale. I was at my local Apple Store when the doors opened to pick mine up, and a few hours later, I recorded a podcast episode to share some initial thoughts. Given the occasion, a number of folks who have also been using this product since Day 1 shared their thoughts this week. I thought Jason Snell of Six Colors did a very nice job with his article, and since I stood in line with Zac Hall of 9to5Mac, I’ll also share a link to his article. Looking back at the past year, it is easy to say something negative. This first version of this product is expensive, and that high price is only worth it for a small number of people right now. And because so few people own one, few developers have spent time creating apps for the Vision Pro (and I doubt that these apps are currently earning much money for those early developers). Moreover, while I hoped to use this as a productivity device, that has been limited for various reasons during this first year. For example, a big reason that I can use my iPhone and iPad to get so much work done is that they work with my law firm’s email, document management system, contacts, etc. Because the Microsoft Intune MDM software is not yet available for the Vision Pro (it is coming in “early 2025"), I cannot yet do the same thing on my Vision Pro. Despite all that, I love using my Vision Pro. It is an amazing device for watching TV shows and movies. The immersive videos created by Apple are stunningly lifelike and a joy to watch. Using the FaceTime persona feature to have a videoconference with other Vision Pro users is leaps and bounds better than using Zoom or Microsoft Teams. And there is so much more that is fantastic, such as the Mac Virtual Display mode that I am using right now as I type this post. Remember that the first year of the iPhone was also quite limited—no App Store, no cut and paste, the Edge cellular network was crazy slow, iPhone J.D. had not even launched yet (ahem)—and I have no doubt that we will one day look back at this first year of the Vision Pro the same way. Even so, it has been thrilling to be a part of the early stages of the next big thing, so Happy First Birthday to the Vision Pro. I look forward to watching you grow up. And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Apple doesn’t introduce new apps very often, but it happened this week. You can now download the Apple Invites app for free from the App Store, as noted by John Voorhees of MacStories. The app lets you plan an event, like a party, invite others, and track who is coming. The app even makes it easy to create a shared album associated with the event. Many websites do something similar, but they are typically full of obnoxious ads, and I’m sure that they collect and sell all of the email addresses you provide. You have to pay for iCloud+ to use the app, but you can send invitations to anyone, even if they don’t use an iPhone or have an Apple Account.
• The Super Bowl is being played in New Orleans in two days, and since I live there, I have enjoyed getting a front-row seat for some of the fanfare. For example, the light show being displayed in the French Quarter right now is something special to see in person. Amber Neely of AppleInsider explains how you can watch Super Bowl LIV from your iPhone, iPad, or Mac.
• Here’s a great tip if you use the Notes app from Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac: you can tap a button to quickly switch between notes you have recently used. I did not know that.
• Speaking of tips, Tim Hardwick of MacRumors compiled a list of some of the best iPhone features added in the three big updates to iOS 18.
• Juli Clover of MacRumors reports that a few developers were able to get apps on the App Store that could use screen reading malware to look for information in your Photos, but Apple pulled the apps and banned the developers as soon as it found out. Yikes.
• I’m a big fan of the Anker MagSafe Charger Stand (my review). I use it daily in my office, and I see that it is currently on sale on Amazon for about $100. (I paid $150 for mine.) But Simon Jary of Macworld notes a new charging stand from ESR, the Qi2 3-in-1 Wireless Charging Station with CryoBoost, that costs only $69.99 on Amazon. Moreover, because it uses a fan to keep the Qi charger cool, it can apparently charge your iPhone almost twice as fast. Plus, the Apple Watch charger is detachable, so you can carry it when you are on the go. Because I keep my iPhone on my Anker device throughout the day to keep it in the handy StandBy mode, wireless charging speed doesn’t make much difference to me. Even so, I cannot help but be intrigued by this ESR device.
• Jeff Carlson shares some of his favorite Apple Watch tips in this article for CNet.
• Last week, I mentioned this year’s version of Apple’s Unity Band for the Apple Watch, which Apple introduced for Black History Month. Michael Burkhardt of 9to5Mac shows the different versions of the Unity Band that Apple has introduced over the years. This year’s version is my favorite.
• USB-C cables are useful. An Apple Watch charger is useful. Are these two great tastes that taste great together? Andrew O’Hara describes the new Nomad Universal Apple Watch cable, a $100 USB-C cable with a built-in Apple Watch charger.
• Apple recently updated Find My so that if you lose luggage with an AirTag attached while traveling, you can now share the tracking information with your airline to recover your bag more quickly. A number of airlines offered that feature from the start, and more have been adding support since then. As William Gallagher of AppleInsider notes, it was amusing to see Lufthansa add support this week because not that long ago, that airline had actually banned the use of AirTags.
• If you are a fan of the Apple TV+ show Severance, I think that you will enjoy this interview of Ben Stiller by Rebecca Keegan of The Hollywood Reporter. If you are not a fan of the Apple TV+ show Severance, then I can only imagine that means that you haven’t started watching it yet, and boy is there a treat waiting for you.
• And finally, whenever I use my Apple Vision Pro, I feel like I am getting a peek into the future. But here’s a video with another glimpse into the future of Apple products that is simply outstanding. I’m surprised Apple is letting its researchers show off the experimental work. I am so excited to see what product eventually emerges from this research. With no further ado, I present to you: ELEGNT.

A few days ago, Apple released the results for its 2025 fiscal first quarter (which ran from September 29, 2024, to December 28, 2024, and did not actually include any days from calendar year 2025) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results. The fiscal first quarter is always Apple’s best quarter of the year because it includes holiday sales. This time, the fiscal first quarter was also Apple’s best fiscal quarter of all time, with a record revenue of $124.3 billion. That’s up 4% from a year ago, and it beats the previous all-time record set three years ago. As always, I’m not all that interested in the financial details. What interests me is that this is one of four times a year when Apple provides some indication of how well its products are selling and answers questions from a bunch of analysts, so I’m always curious to see what Apple has to say about the iPhone and iPad and related technologies. If you want to get all of the nitty-gritty details, you can listen to the audio from the announcement conference call on the Apple website, or you can read a transcript of the call prepared by Jason Snell of Six Colors. Snell also created a number of useful charts that put Apple’s financial announcements in perspective over time. Apple’s official press release is here. Here are the items that stood out to me.

iPhone

• iPhone revenue was $69.1 billion. This was the third-best iPhone quarter ever. iPhone revenue was $71.6 billion three years ago (that one was the record), and it was $69.7 billion one year ago.
• Although Apple always declines to discuss upcoming and unannounced products during these financial calls, sometimes, the analysts try anyway. This time, one analyst asked Apple CEO Tim Cook if there was any room left for innovation on the “form-factor” of the iPhone or if Apple planned to stay consistent with the current lineup. This was a not-so-subtle attempt to get Cook to say whether we would see a radical new design, such as an iPhone that is super-thin and/or foldable. Cook’s response was: “I think there’s a lot more to come, and I could not feel more optimistic about our product pipeline. So I think there’s a lot of innovation left on the smartphone.” I guess perhaps that indicates that something new might be coming, but that language is certainly pretty vague.
• Cook said that an all-time record number of people upgraded their iPhone in the last quarter and noted that there were “compelling reasons to upgrade” for many folks.

iPad

• iPad revenue was $8.1 billion. The record was set two years ago ($9.4 billion). One year ago, the number was down to $7 billion, but I thought that was still an impressive number considering that Apple didn’t introduce any new iPad models in 2023. In 2024, there were some great new iPads introduced, so there were lots of good choices during the holiday buying season.
• Why was iPad revenue higher this year? Some people thought it might be because of the new iPad Pro with an M4 processor, but Cook said that it was more driven by the iPad Air and the entry-level iPad. That doesn’t surprise me. Although I love my M4 iPad Pro, for most of the people who ask me for buying advice, I think that the iPad Air is the sweet spot: it is cheaper than the Pro, but still a powerful device that includes many of the features that used to only come with the Pro model.

Other

• Cook was asked what effect the Trump administration’s tariffs would have on Apple. His answer: “We are monitoring the situation and don’t have anything more to add than that.”
• Once again, profit in Apple’s services sector (which includes Apple TV+, but also a whole lot more) was at an all-time high of $26.3 billion. And I’m sure that was part of the reason that Apple’s gross margin was also at an all-time high of 46.9%.

Fifteen years ago, Apple introduced the iPad. We begin this episode of the In the News podcast by looking back at that announcement and by discussing how far the iPad has come. We also discuss iOS 18.3, why this might be the perfect time for Apple to introduce new devices for the home, the latest watch face for the Apple Watch, how Grammarly compares to Apple Intelligence writing tools, the upcoming Super Bowl, going bananas, and much more.

In our In the Show segment, we discuss the Apple TV+ shows Silo and Mythic Quest. 

In our In the Know segment, Brett explains the best way to slip an iPhone out of the clear MagSafe case, and I share a tip for doing math in the Messages app.

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:

The actions and statements of President Trump and those in his administration aimed at undermining equal opportunity and anti-discrimination efforts have increased daily since Inauguration Day, culminating yesterday—as reported by Erica Green of the New York Times and countless others—in the president’s bizarre, baseless, and insulting suggestion that the devastating plane crash into the Potomac River this week was somehow caused by diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. Ariana Baio of the Independent reports that these actions will result in the U.S. State Department significantly downplaying Black History Month when it begins tomorrow. I’m sure that other federal agencies will follow suit. [UPDATE: And less than 12 hours after I wrote that sentence, NBC News is reporting Federal agencies bar Black History Month and other ‘special observances’] Nevertheless, Apple is still recognizing Black History Month, and Apple debuted its 2025 Black Unity Collection this week. The part of that collection that intrigued me the most was the new watch face now available to all Apple Watch owners. It is called Unity Rhythm, and it features custom numerals formed by intertwined threads of red, green, and yellow. The design is impressive. The new watch face uses the watch’s gyroscope so that the colors change as you move your wrist. The design also moves when you touch the watch face. It is a bold and interesting watch face that I encourage you to check out. Sure, you can enable it to show that you support diversity, but it is also just fun to play around with. The only downside is that it reminds me that I wish that Apple would release new watch faces far more frequently and/or allow third parties to create watch faces. This new watch face demonstrates that there is so much potential for watch face creativity. And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Apple released iOS 18.3 this past Monday. Juli Clover of MacRumors explains everything that is new—which isn’t much, but there are some tweaks to Apple Intelligence. There are also some critical security updates, including a fix for one actively exploited vulnerability.
• Rumor has it that at some point in 2025, Apple will introduce a new smart home product, something similar to a HomePod with a screen. Jason Snell of Six Colors explains in an article for Macworld that while perhaps it would have been nicer for Apple to have introduced a product like this long ago, this may actually be the perfect time for such a product from Apple because there is no clear leader in the market and a lot of the technology, like the Matter and Thread standards, seems to be maturing.
• Harry McCracken of Fast Company explains why surgeons and other doctors are using the Apple Vision Pro and seeking to expand the use of that device.
• Apple released a new immersive video for the Apple Vision Pro today called Man vs. Beast. It is a 10-minute short film about rodeo bull riders. I was afraid that it might include shots taken by people actually riding the bulls, which would have been nauseating. Instead, the film provides a better-than-front-row seat to the action guaranteed to get your heart beating. It’s worth watching if you have access to an Apple Vision Pro.
• The Apple Vision Pro may be a new device, but much more simple virtual reality devices have been around for some time. Wesley Hilliard explains how to watch some of that legacy content on a Vision Pro.
• As Samsung has done many times in the past when Apple releases a product, Samsung is now copying the Apple Vision Pro. The product, which is still in development, is called Project Moohan, and Samsung has worked closely with Google to develop the product using the upcoming Android XR operating system. According to a video by tech reviewer Marques Brownlee and a related article by Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac, the headset is very similar to an Apple Vision Pro with only minor changes, and much of the user interface is a direct copy of what Apple came up with. That is disappointing. One feature that Samsung is showing off that is not currently a part of the Apple Vision Pro: the ability to press the Gemini button and talk to the AI. This includes asking the AI about something that you are currently looking at. Of course, Apple already has a similar feature for the iPhone 16—you can hold down the Camera Control button and then ask the iPhone to tell you about the places and objects around you—and so I suspect that Apple plans to add this and other Apple Intelligence features to the Vision Pro. Samsung predicts that it will have a product on sale at some point in 2025, but no price has been announced.
• The Super Bowl will occur in my hometown of New Orleans in about a week on February 9. The halftime performer will be Kendrick Lamar, and Zac Hall of 9to5Mac reports that starting on February 6, you will be able to play a special version of the Apple Vision Pro game Synth Riders that lets you move through one of his songs.
• You can also watch the Super Bowl in 4K for free on any Apple device, including the Apple TV, by using the Tubi app, as reported by David Snow of Cult of Mac.
• Chance Miller of 9to5Mac shares his thoughts on how Apple could improve CarPlay.
• Amber Neely of AppleInsider reports that an update to the Netflix app for the iPhone and iPad now lets you download an entire season of a show by pressing one button.
• Abner Li of 9to5Google reports that the Gmail app for the iPhone and iPad has been updated with a new design. I like it.
• Adam Engst of TidBITS compares Grammarly to Apple’s new AI writing tools.
• For the last few years, if you have wanted to watch Major League Soccer, you had to use Apple TV+ to do so. Jason Snell of Six Colors explains that Apple is now making MLS League Pass available as a subscription add-on for users of Xfinity and DirecTV.
• Season 4 of the comedy Mythic Quest is now streaming on Apple TV+. The first two episodes came out this week, and I thought they were very funny. I’m happy to see that even though a lot has changed about the story since Season 1, there are still lots of big laughs. Kelly Woo of Tom’s Guide says that it looks like this will be a good season of the show.
• I haven’t started watching it yet, but Lucy Mangan of The Guardian says that the new Apple TV+ show Prime Target is “like Good Will Hunting meets The Bourne Identity” and is both “utterly preposterous and brilliant fun.” It’s on my list.
• For those having difficulty deciding whether to carry around an iPhone or a banana, you’ll love this post from Lewis Wallace of Cult of Mac.
• And finally, 15 years ago this week, Apple launched the iPad. The Apple keynote during which Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone may have been the best one ever, but I think that this was the second best. Steve Jobs was noticeably frail from his health problems, but his enthusiasm for what Apple was introducing was palpable. The video is also interesting to watch because as Jobs shows off the very first iPad interface and apps, you cannot help but think about how far we have come. Steve Jobs asked during that presentation: “Is there room for a third category of device in the middle, something that is between a laptop and a smartphone?” Clearly, the answer is yes, and I use my iPad virtually every day. Here is that introduction video:

Thank you to SaneBox for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month. SaneBox is a service that changes your relationship with email. Looking at your Inbox no longer means having to weed through tons of messages that you don’t need right and now may not want at all. Instead, when you open your Inbox, you essentially see just the good stuff that matters.

How does SaneBox do this? Less important emails, such as newsletters, are moved to subfolders so that you can deal with them when you have time, and it is often faster to deal with all of those at once. And if you tell SaneBox that there is an email sender from which you never want to see email again, those go to the Black Hole folder.

If this general approach sounds familiar, it should. Apple started doing something sort of similar in iOS 18.2, where it tries to manage your mailbox by sorting messages. However, the way that SaneBox does this is infinitely better than what you get in iOS—just like many other third-party apps for things like calendars, podcasts, reminders, passwords, etc., are much more sophisticated than Apple’s built-in apps.

First, the mail sorting feature introduced iOS 18.2 only applies to the iPhone, so when you use a Mac or an iPad, you don’t see it at all. SaneBox works at the mail server level so it works no matter what you use to read your email—iPhone, iPad, Mac, PC, Apple Watch, etc.

Second, SaneBox gives you complete control over how the sorting takes place, and as I’ve explained in the past, that makes all of the difference. For example, if SaneBox moves a newsletter into its @SaneLater folder, but you know that this one particular newsletter is important to you and that you want it to always stay in the Inbox so that you see it right away, simply drag an email containing the newsletter from @SaneLater to your Inbox. That’s it. That teaches SaneBox that you want future issues of that newsletter to go to your Inbox.

The end result is that 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 right away. Or you can click the sub-folder in your Inbox into which SaneBox filters items to be read later. For me, these are mostly junk messages missed by my email’s built-in spam filter. For unwanted items, you can drag them over into your @SaneBlackHole folder, which teaches SaneBox’s brain that you never want to see items from that sender ever again.

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 for over two years, and I find the service well worth it. For my iPhone J.D. emails, when I look at the Inbox, I can quickly focus on the messages that matter the most to me, such as a reader sending in a suggestion with a news story for my Friday In the News post or interactions with someone who matters to me. From time to time, I look at the other folders used by SaneBox, and I can quickly deal with those emails, but they are virtually always the emails that don’t really matter to me. For my Gmail account, SaneBox has been a lifesaver. I use Gmail when I make purchases from websites, stores, services, etc., and as a result, there is so much in there that I don’t really care about. But I don’t want to miss my Gmail emails that do matter. Before I started using SaneBox, I would open up Gmail and see over a hundred messages, most of which didn’t really matter to me. Now, I often see less than 10 messages in my Inbox. Every few days, I’ll take the time to look at the folders used by SaneBox, and I can easily read things that I want to see or quickly delete all of them that I don’t care about. It has made a huge difference in my life, and it saves me so much time.

If you want to try out SaneBox to see what a huge difference it can make in your life, 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 decide to return back to how you had it before, no sweat. But if you appreciate having a better way of working with email, using this 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 choose the one that gives you just what you want.

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

In this week’s episode of the In the News podcast, Brett Burney and I start with our Where Y’at? segment. We begin in New Orleans to discuss and show pictures of the historic snow that fell this past Tuesday. Then, the location shifts to Colorado to discuss a program initiated by a police department to give out free AirTags—and related stickers to place on vehicles—in an effort to deter vehicle theft.

We expect to see iOS 18.3 in just a few days, so we next discuss the changes that will bring to your iPhone. Then, we discuss some iPhone time-saving tips, the Vitals app, the future of CarPlay, the future of the Matter and Thread standards, the latest music video from the band OK Go, and more.

In our In the Know segment, Brett discusses the fantastic Modular Ultra watch face that is only available for the Apple Watch Ultra, including the Training Bezel complication. I discuss iPhone battery life in extreme weather, such as when it is really cold.

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:

If you had asked me last week to bet which city would receive more snow this winter, Anchorage (Alaska) or New Orleans (Louisiana), I would have put all of my money on Anchorage and laughed at the question. But as reported by James Finn of the New Orleans Time-Picayune, National Weather Service data reports that Anchorage has seen 3.8 inches since December 1, 2024, and thanks to the historic snowfall in New Orleans this past Tuesday, the Big Easy has seen 10 inches. I certainly saw that much at my house, and no matter how many times I look at the pictures and videos I took on Tuesday, I still cannot believe that it happened. Even as I type these words, I can still look out my window and see snow on the ground, cars, rooftops, trees, etc., although I suspect that it will all have melted in the next 24 hours or so. Like everyone else in this city, I really had no idea how to prepare for significant snowfall, let alone the most snow that this city has seen since 1895, so I mostly followed my hurricane protocol, which included making sure that my iPhone, iPad, and backup batteries were all fully charged to prepare for a possible power outage. Fortunately, that never happened. I know that the snow was disruptive for some, but as an attorney, it was pretty easy for me to get my work done even when working remotely. And when I took a break from work to get bundled up and walk around my neighborhood with my son, what I saw was magical. Of course, I’ve seen snow in other parts of the country and the world in the past, but seeing that pristine white coating on this tropical city was truly breathtaking, and the pictures taken around this city (such as these from the Times-Picayune) are something to behold. And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Adam Davidson of How To Geek recommends some time-saving tips for your iPhone, and he covers a lot of great ones, such as using the text replacement function, customizing the Control Center, using Siri for certain tasks, and more.
• Adam Engst of TidBITS explains how the relatively new Vitals app on the iPhone may be able to detect an illness.
• Using an Apple AirTag is a great way to track an item that is lost or stolen. The police department in Arvada, Colorado, agrees—so much so that they are giving away AirTags for free, along with stickers to place on your vehicle to (hopefully) deter potential criminals, as reported by William Gallagher of AppleInsider.
• If you cannot find anyone to give you an AirTag for free, they are still at the all-time low price of $69.99 for a four-pack on Amazon.
• Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac reports that what is expected to be the final beta version of iOS 18.3 was released this past Tuesday, which means that we may see iOS 18.3 released next week. There will be some tweaks to Apple Intelligence, but he says that this update is expected to focus on bug fixes.
• If you want more info on what is coming in iOS 18.3, Justin Meyers of Gadget Hacks has a list.
• At some point after iOS 18.3, we will see iOS 18.4, and that version will include new Emoji. Jovana Naumovski of Gadget Hacks previews some of the new characters, such as Face with Bags Under Eyes, Fingerprint, Harp, Leafless Tree, and Shovel.
• Until yesterday, the CarPlay page on Apple’s website said that the next generation of CarPlay, which I presume will be called CarPlay 2.0, would “arrive in 2024.” Obviously, that did not happen, and Joe Rossignol of MacRumors noticed that Apple has now wisely removed that date from the page. Nevertheless, Apple issued a statement that this update is still planned.
• Matter is a protocol that works with Wi-Fi, Threat, Bluetooth, and more to allow lots of different types of devices to talk to each other locally. This is the same thing Apple tried to do with HomeKit, and other companies tried to do with their standards. What makes Matter promising is that it has the support of all of the key players: Apple, Amazon, Google/Nest, Samsung, and lots of smart home companies like Lutron and Philips Hue (Signify). Products have been supporting the Matter protocol for years, but every year it seems like we are not quite there yet. All of our devices are not yet talking to each other. Jennifer Pattison Tuohy of The Verge interviewed Tobin Richardson of the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA), which develops Matter, Vividh Siddha of Apple, who is also the president of Thread Group, and Kevin Robinson of the Wi-Fi Alliance to discuss where the Matter protocol is today and what we can expect in 2025.
• And finally, the band OK Go is well-known for its impressive music videos that are amazing to watch and often seem almost impossible to have made. The latest music video from the group for the song A Stone Only Rolls Downhill was created by playing 64 perfectly timed videos on 64 iPhones, and the result is truly stunning:

In this week’s episode of the In the News podcast, Brett Burney and I discuss Apple and your TV. This includes the recent update to the Apple TV that added the Snoopy screensaver and everything that Apple has been doing to hype up Season 2 of the Apple TV+ show Severance, which debuted yesterday. We also discuss the cool new features added to the CARROT Weather app this week, possible upcoming changes to the Genius Bar in Apple Stores, Apple CEO Tim Cook’s recent revelations, using the Wallet app on you iPhone to store a digital license, and more.

In our In the Know segment, we return to a discussion of the Apple TV. Brett explains why you might want to long-press on the Back button on the remote, and I explain why you might want to long-press on the TV/Control Center button on your remote.

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:

It is rare for Apple to devote space on its main Apple.com website to a specific show on Apple TV+. However, Apple is doing it right now because today is the launch of the second season of the fantastic and popular show Severance. And that is not the only thing that Apple is doing to build excitement for the show. Apple is doing traditional types of promotions, such as having the star of the show, Adam Scott, go on the talk show circuit, such as this appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. But Apple is also doing some more unusual things, like putting something very similar to the workstation cubicles from the show in the middle of the very busy Grand Central Terminal in New York City and then having the stars of the show pretend to work in there for a few hours, as reported by Juli Clover of MacRumors. Apple also created this site so that you can put your face on a blue balloon (here’s mine), which apparently will be a thing in Season 2. If you haven’t watched Season 1 since it first aired in 2022 (or haven’t seen it yet at all), I recommend going back and watching the first season again. I started doing so last weekend, and I was amazed at how many details I had forgotten over the last three years. And I agree with this statement by John Gruber at Daring Fireball: “We started that re-watch just after New Year’s, and holy hell was I reminded how much I don’t just like but love this show. … One true test of a great series is that it’s better on the second watch through.” After you watch each episode, I also recommend that you listen to the new Severance podcast hosted by show creator Ben Stiller and star Adam Scott. They rewatched Season 1 and recorded a podcast episode for each Season 1 show episode, and then they will be doing the same thing throughout Season 2. The podcast episodes are filled with behind-the-scenes stories and information on what happens in the episode and also feature special guests, such as other stars of the show. I cannot wait to finish my Friday workday so that I can go home and watch Severance. If only there was a way that I could have another version of me do all of the lawyer stuff so that the rest of me could stay at home and watch Apple TV+. Hmm. And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac reports that the excellent CARROT Weather app was updated this week to add two new features. First, you can set Live Activities to start automatically when it is about to rain, so the notification will automatically appear on your Lock Screen. This sounds great. Second, there is now a new CarPlay app that provides turn-by-turn driving directions along with a map featuring a live weather map. I tried this last night when I drove home from work, and I can see this being an especially useful feature when you are on a road trip and want to see what kind of bad weather you are about to start driving into and how long it is likely to last. Even if you don’t stay in this mode all the time—for pure turn-by-turn driving directions, I think that Apple’s own Maps app or an app like Google Maps is better—I love being able to quickly switch to this mode to get a sense of upcoming weather systems. You need to pay for the Premium Ultra level subscription to take advantage of these new features ($29.99/year, or $49.99/year if you want to share with your family, which is what I do), but I think that level was already worth it for the great features and now there is even more to love.
• One of the new Apple Intelligence features that was part of the recently released iOS 18.2 was summaries of news headlines. However, that feature has been criticized by many, including the BBC, because some of the headline summaries were inaccurate. I’m not surprised; when you take something that is already very short, like a headline, and then try to make that even shorter by summarizing it, chaos can ensue. Jason Snell of Six Colors discusses how Apple is responding to the criticism by changing this feature in the upcoming iOS 18.3. I will summarize Snell’s take and say that Apple may not be going far enough with this inherently problematic feature.
• Joe Rossignol of MacRumors shows off a new Apple Store in China that features a combined Genius Bar and Apple Pickup station, and he wonders if this could be something that Apple will expand to other locations. I have to admit that I like the current Apple Pickup stations at the back of an Apple Store because there is often not much of a line there, so it is a quick way to get help with something simple like a pickup or a return. If it also becomes a Genius Bar, you know that it will be crowded.
• Apple CEO Tim Cook was recently a guest on the Table Manners podcast, and he answered lots of questions about his personal life that I hadn’t seen him discuss before. Juli Clover of MacRumors sums up the tidbits in this post.
• Zac Hall of 9to5Mac shares the story of a man who passed out while driving, and then his car was soon upside down in a swimming pool with water rushing in, but fortunately, his Apple Watch detected the crash and helped to save his life.
• Clover also reports that the next states to let you add a driver’s license to the Wallet app on the iPhone will include Illinois, Connecticut, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Utah, Montana, and West Virginia.
• After using the Apple Watch Series 10 for three months, Oliver Haslam of AppleInsider wrote this review. One of the things that he likes is the fast charging system. As he notes, a 30-minute charge is enough to get you from 0% to 80%. I really like that feature too. It means that I can wear my Apple Watch 10 while I sleep at night—which I like for sleep tracking, for silent alarms from the watch just tapping my wrist, and for easily seeing the time if I wake up in the middle of the night—and there is more than enough time to recharge the watch while I take a shower and get ready. And if my watch is starting to run low on power, even just a fast five or ten-minute charge will do a lot. When I shifted from an Apple Watch Ultra 2 to the Series 10, I was worried that I would miss the amazing battery life of the Ultra line, but thanks to fast charging, it really hasn’t been an issue for me.
• Wesley Hilliard of AppleInsider reports tvOS 18.2.1 is now available to provide some bug fixes. That’s not a big news item, but I’m linking to it anyway to give me an excuse to talk about tvOS 18.2, which included a new Snooper screensaver for your TV. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you should do so. I find it clever and funny, and I often find myself just waiting to see what Snoopy will do next. Be warned, however, that my teenage daughter informed me that the Snoopy screensaver was boring and that she prefers the traditional aerial screensaver. So, if you are reading this post and you are a teenager, feel free to roll your eyes at my suggestion and, while you are at it, tell me that my “Dad jokes” are lame when, of course, they are actually awesome.
• Yvonne Villarreal of the Los Angeles Times interviewed Bill Lawrence in an article published on December 25, 2024. I waited until this week to read it because it has some light spoilers for the end of Season 2 of the Apple TV+ show Shrinking, which my wife and I just finished watching. (And it was so good!) The interview is great, and Lawrence also discusses the Apple TV+ shows Ted Lasso and Bad Monkey, as well as the upcoming reboot of Scrubs and a show that will soon come to HBO featuring Steve Carell.
• And finally, let’s finish this post where we started. Here is a short video from Apple showing off the Severance pop-up in Grand Central Terminal:

We start this week’s episode of the In the News podcast by discussing the Apple-related announcements from CES in Las Vegas this past week. Next, we discuss why you should keep track of how much space is in your iCloud account and how you can do so. We also discuss strange sounds coming from your AirPods Pro, the recent improvements to the Messages app, enjoying the Vision Pro while you lie down, and more.

In our In the Show segment, we discuss a number of Apple TV+ news items including the return of Severance in just a few days. (I’ve just started doing a re-watch of Season 1 to prepare for Season 2, and I’m surprised at how many details I have forgotten! I guess it has been quite a while since Season 1 first aired.)

In our In the Know segment, Brett share a great CarPlay tip, and I talk about restarting an Apple Watch or iPhone..

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: