pple released iOS 14.2 and iPad OS 14.2 yesterday. The most noticeable change is that it adds support for the new 2020 additions to the Emoji character set. Jeremy Burge of Emojipedia shows and describes each of the new Emoji characters, such as Smiling Face with Tear, Disguised Face (with Groucho Marx glasses), new animals, new objects, and more. And California attorney David Sparks discusses some of the other new features in iOS 14.2, as does Alex Guyot of MacStories. One noticeable addition is the ability to add Shazam (Apple calls it Music Recognition) to your Control Center (the thing you access by swiping down from the top right on an iPhone with FaceID). Another interesting new feature is that you can now ask Siri “What’s my update” to get a personalized update of your weather, calendar, reminders, and the news, as noted by Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Starting today, you can pre-order an iPhone 12 mini or an iPhone 12 Pro Max. Chance Miller of 9to5Mac links to some reviewers who have already posted initial impressions.
I’m a big fan of the Material Dock by Studio Neat, which I reviewed back in 2016. It gives you a central location to charge an iPhone and Apple Watch, and I use one on my bedstand. The one I use works with a Lightning cord to charge the iPhone, but Studio Neat now has a new version that works with MagSafe if you want to just place your iPhone down instead of plugging it in.
Apple is now offering the AppleOne bundle. If you get the Premier Plan, you get 2TB of iCloud storage. What if you need more than that? Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac explains that you can now add an additional 2TB of iCloud storage for another $9.99/month.
Have you ever noticed a small orange or green dot at the top of your iPhone and wondered what it means? Benjamin Mayo of 9to5 explains what the dots mean. They show that the videocamera or the microphone on your iPhone is in use — a good security measure to watch out for in case you don’t realize that an app is using the camera or microphone.
If you are looking for a new show to watch on Apple TV+, I really enjoyed the first season of Tehran. It’s a spy thriller set in Iran, full of suspense and with twists and turns. Much of the dialogue is not in English so you have to watch subtitles, but the show is totally worth it.
So far, I’ve been unimpressed by 5G. Michael Simon of Macworld notes that 5G can be incredibly fast on the iPhone 12, if you are lucky enough to be in the small area in which an mmWave tower is providing a signal. He also says that sub-6GHz 5G can still be faster than 4G LTE; I’m sure that can be true, but it hasn’t been true in most of my tests in New Orleans.
And finally, if you want to learn more about 5G, I did enjoy watching this YouTube video in which Justine “iJustine” Ezarik interviews Francesca Sweet of Apple to discuss 5G on the iPhone:
About two months ago, I wrote about a problem that I was having with my AirPods Pro. I would occasionally hear a strange crackling or static sound when I was using either noise cancellation or pass through mode. Or sometimes, if there was a noise in the outside world, it would be even loader in one of my AirPods than it should be. The problem was especially obvious when I was on a treadmill. I noticed it with my left AirPod about four months after I started using them, and I noticed it in my right AirPod about eight months after I started using them. Both times, I reached out to Apple, and Apple sent me a free replacement.
A few weeks ago, I started to notice the problem again with my left AirPod — the one that Apple had replaced about seven months earlier. I figured that meant that I would need to go through the process of requesting a replacement again, and because AirPods have a one-year limited warranty, I knew that I would have to do it before the one-year anniversary of my purchase.
However, on October 30, 2020, Apple launched a new AirPods Pro Service Program. Apple now acknowledges that “a small percentage of AirPods Pro” that were “manufactured before October 2020" — in other words, any AirPods Pro currently in use — “may experience sound issues.” Apple says that one symptom is “[c]rackling or static sounds that increase in loud environments, with exercise or while talking on the phone.” Another symptom is “Active Noise Cancellation not working as expected, such as a loss of bass sound, or an increase in background sounds, such as street or airplane noise.” That describes my problem to a tee. As a part of this new program, Apple will now replace an affected AirPod for up to two years from the date of purchase — double the original warranty.
To take advantage of this program, Apple says that you can visit an Apple Store, but with the risk of COVID-19, I wasn’t interested in risking exposure to others in the small and traditionally crowded Apple Store located in the Lakeside Shopping Center near New Orleans. Fortunately, that wasn’t necessary. Using the Messages app on my iPhone, I initiated a chat session with Apple support. I began by simply typing “AirPods Pro support.” A bot immediately responded by asking me to provide my serial number and then I was quickly connected to a real person.
I told the person about the problems that I was having with my left AirPod, and I was asked the following questions:
Are your AirPods fully charged?
Have you tried cleaning the AirPods case?
Are there any nearby sources of interference?
Does this happen with more than one device, like another iPhone or iPad, etc.?
Have your AirPods and/or charging case experienced any accidental or liquid damage?
Have you tried resetting them?
After I answered all of those questions, the support representative set up a replacement for me. Apple sent me a pair of new AirPods (even though I was only experiencing problems with the left one — so far, at least). I wasn’t sent a new charging case; just the individual AirPods. They each came in a separate box, and it only took 48 hours for the AirPods to show up via FedEx.
I put each old AirPod in the same box, exposed the self-addressed return label, and dropped them off at a FedEx location for a free return. (Apple put a hold on my credit card for the $198.92 cost of a replacement AirPod, but I know from my prior experiences that Apple will cancel that hold once they receive the return.)
As for the new AirPods, I put them in my current case (first the old left one with the new right one, and then later the new left one with the new right one), and I waited about 10 minutes. Then I removed the memory of the prior AirPods from my iPhone (Settings -> Bluetooth -> AirPods Pro -> Forget This Device), held down the button on the back of the case with the case open until the white light flashed on the front, then I paired my AirPods with my iPhone again.
So far, the new AirPods Pro work great. Not only do I no longer experience the bizarre noises, but I’m actually finding that the noise cancellation function works a little better than it ever did before. It seems like it is keeping out even more outside noises. Also, when I run the Ear Tip Fit test within the Settings app, I’m virtually always getting the “Good Seal” test result:
With my prior AirPods Pro, that test failed for me almost every single time, as I noted in my review.
I have no idea what was originally causing this problem and what Apple did to fix it. And at this point, I obviously don’t know if I will start to experience new problems in a few months. But for now, I’m very happy, and hopefully, Apple has really fixed it this time.
If you use AirPods Pro and you occasionally experience some of these bizarre noises, I encourage you to take advantage of the new AirPods Pro Service Program. AirPods Pro are amazing — one of my favorite Apple products — and I use them every single day. It is great to have them performing at their best 100% of the time.
Apple recently released the results for its 2020 fiscal fourth quarter (which ran from June 28, 2020, to September 26, 2020) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results. Apple’s fiscal fourth quarter is typically a transitional quarter; it is the first fiscal quarter — the one that we are in now — that is traditionally Apple’s big revenue quarter because of holiday sales. But everything is different this year as a result of COVID-19. For example, in 2020, the fourth fiscal quarter was the best quarter for Mac sales in the history of the company. Not only did Apple have the traditional back-to-school sales (including the MacBook Air that I purchased for my son as he started high school) but there were also many folks purchasing new Macs to use during the pandemic. In total, Apple saw $64.7 billion in revenue for the quarter, a record for Apple in a fiscal fourth quarter and 29% higher than this time last year. Wow. If you want to get all of the nitty gritty details, you can download the audio from the announcement conference call from iTunes, or you can read a transcript of the call prepared by Seeking Alpha, or a transcript prepared by Jason Snell of Six Colors. Apple’s official press release is here. As always, I’m not as interested in the financial details as I am the statements of Apple executives during the call that are of interest to iPhone and iPad users. Here are the items that stood out to me.
iPhone
iPhone revenue was $26.4 billion this quarter. That’s exactly the same as last quarter, but more importantly, is down 21% versus the same quarter last year when revenue was $33 billion. But there is an obvious reason for the year-over-year decrease. In 2019 (like most recent years), Apple started selling a new iPhone near the end of the fiscal fourth quarter. But this year, the new iPhone was delayed, presumably because of the pandemic. The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro didn’t go on sale until October 24, and the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max go on sale this month.
Apple CEO Tim Cook suggested that if it were not for that difference, iPhone revenue have been even higher than last year, pointing out that iPhone sales were up year-over-year until mid-September.
Cook said that there are more iPhones in use now that at any time in Apple’s history.
iPad
The iPad did incredibly well this quarter, with revenue of $6.8 billion, up substantially from $4.7 billion this time last year.
Apple didn’t provide theories why iPad sales were so high. Presumably, the large increase in remote working was a big reason for this.
Other
Cook said that Apple’s wearables business — which includes the Apple Watch and AirPods — is now the size of a Fortune 130 company.
Over 75% of people who purchased an Apple Watch last quarter were purchasing their first Apple Watch.
Apple has been incredibly successfully during the pandemic. In part, that is because work-from-home and school-from-home has prompted many people to upgrade their mobile technology, and Apple is a leader in that area. But Cook said that part of the success is also because being innovative is part of Apple’s DNA: “When we first began to grapple with COVID-19, I said there are worse things for a company whose business is innovation than having to periodically do just about everything in an entirely new way. This year we not only launched our most powerful and compelling generation of hardware, software, and services ever. We did it in a way that pushed us to re-imagine every part of that innovation process, down to how we share these announcements with the world, and how we get new products into our customer’s hands. Working from kitchen tables and bedrooms, in distanced office settings, and reworked labs and manufacturing facilities, the team rebuilt every part of the plane while it was midair. And the results speak for themselves.” He continued: “Innovation isn’t just about what you make. It’s about how you approach problems. And these teams, and every team across Apple, have not faced a single question this year that they haven’t found an answer to with passion and resolve. Their actions didn’t just meet the moment, they will make us a better company moving forward.”
Apple may not be a bank, but it now offers quite a few financial products such as Apple Card, Apple Pay, and Apple Cash. When an analyst asked Apple about this area, Cook responded that Apple is “very bullish about this area and view that there are more things that Apple can do in this space. And so it’s an area of great interest to us.” In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell pointed out that the last time Cook talked about an “area of great interest,” it was the wrist. And then about a year later, Apple introduced the Apple Watch. So perhaps Cook was indicating that Apple has another financial product coming soon.
Snell had another interesting observation in a separate article that he wrote for his Six Colors website. We think of Apple as being a company that makes products, but that is far less true today than it once was. Not only does Apple have those financial services, but Apple also makes a lot of money in the category of Services. Services accounted for 22% of Apple’s overall revenue in the past quarter. Snell pointed out that Apple’s gross profit margin last quarter was 30%, but the gross margin for Services was 67%. Or as Snell put it: “A dollar of Services revenue generates more profit than two dollars of product revenue.” Just a few days ago, I signed up for one of Apple’s newest services, the Apple One bundle. By paying a single price for a number of services that I used to purchase separately — iCloud storage, Apple Music, Arcade — as well as the Apple TV+ service that I had intended to start paying for once my free trial ends, I’m actually paying less money with an Apple One bundle. But of course, Apple hopes that most folks will ultimately end up spending more by purchasing a bundle. And I suppose that could be true for me too. Although my kids use the Apple Arcade service, I could see myself cancelling it at some point, but. now that it is included in my bundle, I guess I’ll just end up keeping it. The iPhone and iPad may entice many people to be Apple customers, but it is the revenue associated with services that makes Apple so profitable.
This is the first time that I have written a post for iPhone J.D. by candlelight, just like they used to blog in medieval times. Like most folks in New Orleans, I haven’t had electricity at my house since Hurricane Zeta came through on Wednesday. We’re told that it could take 10 days to get power restored to all of the residential areas (yikes!) but hopefully it won’t be that long. A late October hurricane in New Orleans is incredibly rare, but this is, after all, 2020. And now, the news of note from the past week:
I discovered a new advantage of 5G this week. When the 4G LTE network is completely overwhelmed by an entire city relying upon cellular data to keep up with the news during and after a hurricane because there is no other source of the internet, I had much better luck getting a signal using 5G. Even 5G has not worked all of the time, and the speeds are nothing like what I was seeing before the hurricane, but most of the time it has worked, often with enough speed to stream live video of a local news station. I’m still finding circumstances in which LTE is faster, but 5G tends to be more dependable.
On March 24, 2020, Apple added vastly improved mouse and trackpad support to the iPad. At the time, I noted that it would be fantastic to see this implemented in Microsoft Word for iPad. This week, Microsoft announced that the feature is on its way, although it isn’t out quite yet.
Jason Cross of Macworld posted a review of the iPhone 12 Pro. He likes the camera and the design of the phone, and thinks that 5G helps to future-proof the device.
Harry McCracken of Fast Company has been using an iPad as his main computing device for years, so he knows his way around an iPad. He is impressed with the new iPad Air and wrote about it in this review, noting that it is the perfect happy medium in the iPad lineup.
John Gruber of Daring Fireball reports that Apple’s new MagSafe charger only charges at full speed when you use a 20W power adapter. In a series of follow-up posts (1, 2), he recommends buying two third-party chargers that are cheaper than the one sold by Apple.
Julia Alexander of The Verge reports that, starting today, you can subscribe the new Apple One service, which combines multiple Apple services into a single package.
If you want to create a short video, the Clips app from Apple has always been powerful, but until now was limited to make square videos. As Ryan Christoffel of MacStories reports, this week the app was updated with many new features, including the ability to create landscape (or portrait) videos.
And finally, Apple hired some creative folks to produce and use an iPhone 12 Pro to film a video called Dark Universe, part of its Experiments series. There is also a behind the scenes video that shows how they did it. Pretty cool:
The iPhone 12 Pro is a fantastic phone. I think it is the phone to get if you are in the market for a new iPhone that will perform incredibly well for many years and if you also enjoy taking pictures with your iPhone. I’m a little disappointed that the flat edge of the iPhone isn’t as nice as I had hoped, but I still like this design, and this is a great device.
Design: the edges
One of the biggest changes in the iPhone 12 Pro is the new design. And the most noticeable design change is the flat sides.
If you used an iPhone 4/4s/5/5s, then you remember what it is like to have an iPhone with flat sides. The iPhone 5/5s design of 2012 and 2013 was my all-time favorite iPhone design to hold in my hand. In 2014, Apple introduced the iPhone 6 with a rounded edge, and Apple kept that type of edge design through the iPhone 11 family in 2019. The rounded edge feels great but it makes the iPhone more slippery, more like a bar of soap (although obviously not that bad). Which meant that you really need a case as a safeguard against dropping the iPhone. Here is the edge of the iPhone 12 Pro next to the edge of the iPhone 11 Pro:
My hope was that the iPhone 12 Pro would feel as good as the iPhone 5/5s and that the flat edge would make a case unnecessary. Unfortunately, the iPhone 12 Pro is not quite as comfortable to hold as the iPhone 5/5s because the edges on the iPhone 12 Pro (and iPhone 12) are squared off at the corners. The corners are not sharp, but they are just not quite as comfortable as the corners on the iPhone 4/4s/5/5s. On the iPhone 4/4s, the front and back of the phone were not quite as wide as the aluminum band, creating a slight step instead of a corner. On the iPhone 5/5s, the corners are chamfered so that there is a sloping edge. Those tiny details make the corner of the iPhone much more comfortable in your hand. The following picture shows the top edges of the iPhone 12 Pro, iPhone 5s, and iPhone 4s so that you can see the differences:
Note that the flat edge works great on the iPad Pro, and I presume it is also fantastic on the new version of the iPad Air. But with a larger tablet, you are not cupping both sides in your hand. When my hand wraps around the iPhone 12 Pro, I find myself wishing that it had chamfered edges so that it would feel as good as the iPhone 5.
Having said that, the flat edge does make it easier to grip the side of the iPhone, making it more secure in the hand. If I was walking quickly and holding one iPhone in one hand, the iPhone 11 design with the curved edges would likely slip out of my hand, but I think I could hang on to the iPhone 12 Pro. None of this will make a difference if you plan to use a case with an iPhone 12 Pro, but I do like that the iPhone 12 design means that I feel safer about not using a case. That makes the iPhone 12 Pro a little less bulky in my pocket, and I also prefer the feel of using the iPhone without a case.
Note that the iPhone 12 might be even less slippery than the iPhone 12 Pro. The iPhone 12 Pro uses stainless steel for its edges (which look great) and a matte back. The iPhone 12 uses aluminum for its edges and has a glossy back. John Gruber of Daring Fireball had a chance to try out both models and noted in his review that the iPhone 12 was less slippery: “Glossy sounds like it would be more slippery than matte, but when it comes to glass, glossiness adds grip — it gives your fingers a bit of tack, like clean sneakers on a polished basketball court.”
[UPDATE: Today, Jason Snell of Six Colors published a review of both the iPhone 12 and the iPhone 12 Pro. From a design standpoint, he prefers the iPhone 12 with matte sides and a glossy back over the iPhone 12 Pro. I haven’t touched an iPhone 12 yet, but reading his review makes me think that I would agree with his assessment. Nevertheless, I still prefer the iPhone 12 Pro because of the better camera, as explained below. Too bad I cannot get an iPhone 12 design with the iPhone 12 Pro camera.]
Of course, there are two reasons to use an iPhone case. The first reason is to reduce the risk of the iPhone slipping out of your hand, which is much less of a risk with the iPhone 12 design. But the case also provides additional protection if the iPhone 12 Pro does fall out of a hand and hits a hard surface. That additional protection is less necessary with the iPhone 12 design because it also includes a much more durable glass on the front, a new material that Apple calls Ceramic Shield. Apple says that the Ceramic Shield provides 4x drop protection for the front of the iPhone. A test done by the MobileReviewsEh YouTube channel showed that the iPhone 11 screen cracked with 352 Newtons of force (about 79 pounds) whereas the iPhone 12 didn’t crack until 442 Newtons of force was applied (about 99 pounds). (The tests also showed the front of the iPhone 12 to be much more resistant to scratches.) But even with the added protection of the Ceramic Shield, it seems that you would get even more protection with a case.
Design is inherently subjective, but here is the bottom line for me. Unless you are upgrading from an incredibly old iPhone 5s or earlier model, when you upgrade to an iPhone 12 or iPhone 12 Pro you will be changing from an iPhone with a curved edge to an iPhone with a flat edge. The good news is that it will be easier to hold the new iPhone in your hand without dropping it, so perhaps you won’t need a case. The bad news is that while the flat edge feels good, it doesn’t feel as good as the iPhone 5/5s because the chamfered corners on that model gave the corner an even more comfortable feel. On the other hand, I very much like the look of the shiny stainless steel flat edge. Of course, if you plan to put your new iPhone in a case, then you are unlikely to even notice the change from the curved to the flat edge.
Design: screen size
The other design change is the screen size. Unlike the iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone XS, and iPhone X which all had a 5.8" screen (measured diagonally), the iPhone 12 Pro has a 6.1" screen.
In part that is because of smaller bezels. In part, that is because, as you can see in the next picture, the new iPhone is just a tiny bit taller:
With the 6.1" screen, there is just a little more usable screen real estate. It isn’t a major difference, but it is nice. For example, when you are looking at a list of emails, you can see an additional half-a-line. The first picture is the iPhone 11 Pro, and the second picture is the iPhone 12 Pro:
If you already have an iPhone 11 (which is larger than the iPhone 11 Pro), then you already know what it is like to have a 6.1" screen. But the iPhone 12 Pro puts that same 6.1" screen size in a smaller device, which is nice.
5G
If you watch any of the advertisements for the iPhone 12 family, you would think that 5G is the primary reason to buy a new iPhone. It is not. At least not yet. I know that 5G will be more important in the future, and it is nice to know that a new iPhone that you purchase today will be ready for the new network that will become more important over the next few years. But for now, 5G is a mixed bag.
To even use 5G, you need to have a carrier plan that supports it. Although I already had an AT&T unlimited plan, it was a plan I signed up for in 2018 that AT&T no longer offers, and that plan doesn’t support 5G. Fortunately, it was easy for me to use the myAT&T app to select a new unlimited data service (all of the new unlimited plans support 5G) and in the process, I actually saved some money. My prior plan (AT&T Unlimited Plus) cost $185/month for three phones with 10 GB of monthly hot spot data plus my Apple Watch. My new plan (AT&T Unlimited Elite) costs me $170, although the price varies based upon the features that you select. The plan that I selected keeps hotspot data for each phone and increases it to 15 GB/month for two of the phones and 30 GB/month for my iPhone 12 Pro. On the other hand, my new plans offer HD video on my phone (just like AT&T Unlimited Plus) but only SD video on the other two phones. That still seems like a net win for my family, but I didn’t realize before I received my iPhone 12 Pro that I was going to need to change my plan to use 5G.
After I changed my plan using the app, about 30 minutes later I started to see the option to use 5G on my iPhone 12 Pro. That’s when I started to run some speed tests, and I have been running tests every day in various locations in New Orleans. And that’s when I saw the limitations of 5G.
First, there are many places that don’t have 5G at all. And if you live in the United States, to get the incredibly high speeds that 5G has the potential to deliver, you need to use a type of 5G that uses millimeter wave (mmWave) technology. But the mmWave towers can only send a signal for about a block and are easily interrupted, so you have to be outside with a clear line of sight to an mmWave tower to take full advantage. AT&T says that there are mmWave towers in New Orleans where I live, but I haven’t yet found one, even though I went hunting for them over the last few days. The AT&T website doesn’t tell you where mmWave towers are located, and neither an AT&T representative at a local store nor the AT&T 1-800 support line could give me a location for even one AT&T mmWave tower. I thought that I might find them downtown or in the French Quarter, and maybe they are there somewhere, but I couldn’t find them. I know from what I have read online that if you find one of the mmWave towers, you can get incredibly fast speeds of 1Gbps or higher.
The other type of 5G is called Sub-6 GHz, and it covers a much larger area. It has the potential to be faster than LTE, in part because of the way that it deals with congestion. If you are at a concert or a sporting event or some other event in which there are lots of people close to each other using the same cellular network — exactly the sort of situation that we cannot be in right now due to the pandemic — 5G might be considerably better than LTE. But in my tests over the past few days, I really haven’t noticed much of an improvement, and often 5G was actually worse than LTE.
Fortunately, the iPhone 12 family supports three different modes, accessed by going to Settings -> Cellular -> Cellular Data Options -> Voice & Data. You can select 5G On (5G all the time, which uses more battery life), 5G Auto (which uses 5G only when the iPhone feels that it would help without significantly reducing battery life), and LTE.
For the following tests, I used the Ookla Speedtest app on my iPhone 12 Pro. First, I ran a speed test using the 5G On mode. Second, I ran the speed test in the same location using the LTE mode. The numbers listed below are download/upload speed, measured in Mbps, with 5G first and then LTE. You would expect the first set with the 5G numbers to always be better. A few times it was, but most of the time, LTE was faster — especially for download speeds, which is typically more important than upload speeds.
5G — LTE
62.2 / 6.9 — 43.8 / 11.9
68.7 / 6.64 — 34.5 / 6.28
104 / 12.8 — 101 / 10.3
43.2 / 17.7 – 71.9 / 28.6
33.5 / 8.85 — 60.2 / 10.5
119 / 18.5 — 127 / 25.2
42.3 / 18.1 — 64.0 — 10.5
56.4 / 10.8 — 79.6 / 15.6
47.8 / 15.3 — 74.1 / 17.9
41.6 / 15.7 — 49.7 / 8.17
61.9 / 27.5 — 79.1 / 26.6
55.2 / 12.4 — 97.8 / 17.8
Granted, I wasn’t running these tests when I was with a big crowd. Had I done so, perhaps 5G would have been a clear winner. But in normal circumstances, my tests do not show Sub-6 GHz 5G being better than 4G LTE.
And of course, you can make an argument that small differences in numbers don’t really matter that much. For many iPhone uses, you may not even notice whether you are getting 25 Mbps or 50 Mbps or 100 Mbps. Your emails and texts will seem just as fast. You can notice a difference in loading web pages, but there are lots of other factors that cause that to vary. You can also notice a difference when you download or upload larger files (especially videos), but that is not something that I do every day. 5G would have to be substantially faster than LTE for it to be a noticeable change. AT&T 5G+ using mmWave might provide that. AT&T 5G using Sub-6 GHz does not yet seem helpful to me.
I’m going to keep my iPhone in 5G Auto mode for a while just to spend more time experimenting with 5G. Maybe I’ll find myself in an mmWave area at some point, and I’d like to see how much faster that is. But I certainly don’t want my iPhone to use 5G when it will significantly reduce my battery life because, for now at least, 5G doesn’t seem to be better than LTE. And if I find myself in a situation in which I need to get maximum speed, that might mean switching back to LTE.
Camera
The iPhone 12 Pro camera is awesome. In my own tests, I haven’t noticed much of a difference as compared to the iPhone 11 Pro, although the reviewers that I mentioned last week mostly concluded that the camera is a little better in low light or around the edges of a face when taking portrait photos (the ones that blur the background to provide an effect similar to an SLR camera). But if you are considering purchasing an iPhone 12 Pro, my guess is that you are upgrading from an earlier model, something that you got in mid-2019 or earlier. And if that’s the case, you will see some substantial improvements with the camera in the iPhone 12 Pro.
Moreover, this will be the first time that you will have to decide whether you want two cameras or three cameras on your iPhone. The iPhone 12 features two cameras, but the iPhone 12 Pro adds a telephoto camera. In my review from last year, I provided many examples of how adding the telephoto lens to an iPhone can make a big difference. And in the year since I have posted that review, I have used the telephoto lens very frequently. For example, on January 18, 2020, before the pandemic — which feels like 10 years ago — I attended a basketball game. By using the three different lenses on my iPhone 11 Pro, I took three images that really each tell a different story. The photo taken with the ultrawide lens tells the story of the entire arena:
The photo taken with the regular lens feels like it approximates what I saw from my “cheap seats” near the top of the arena:
And the photo taken with the telephoto lens gets much closer to the action on the court:
(Note that I have embedded lower quality pictures to make this webpage faster to load; my point here is to comment on the feel of each photo, not the detail that you get with each lens.)
Yesterday, I visited that same arena, but this time it was to vote early. Here are three pictures taken with the three different lenses on the iPhone 12 Pro:
The quality of the telephoto lens on the iPhone is not quite as good as the quality of the regular camera. Thus, you will get the best quality picture by simply getting closer to the object or person that you want to photograph. But often, that is not an option, and in those circumstances, the optical zoom provided by the telephoto lens is far superior to using the regular camera and just cropping the picture to fake a zoom. For example, yesterday while I was walking around downtown New Orleans and the French Quarter to search (unsuccessfully) for an mmWave tower, I took these three pictures. With the wider lenses, your focus is on a bunch of buildings. But you need the zoom lens to focus on the Hibernia Bank Building, which in the 1920s was the tallest building in Louisiana:
The telephoto lens on the iPhone is not as powerful as the telephoto lens that you can get on an SLR camera, but it can still make a big difference. For example, when I watch my daughter play soccer or volleyball or basketball and I want to get closer to the action, I certainly cannot move from my seat, but the telephoto lens makes my photos and videos even better. When my daughter played volleyball for her school during the last few months (wearing a mask), her team only played four games, and spectators were only allowed at two of those games because of COVID-19. And for those two games, each child could bring only a single spectator. I was happy to have that telephoto lens on my iPhone 11 Pro so that I could take a video of the game and be even closer to the action. After the game, I created a highlights reel to share with other family members. They could not attend as a result of the pandemic, but thanks to the iPhone and the telephoto lens, they could still experience the game.
If taking pictures and/or video is important to you, I strongly recommend that you consider the iPhone 12 Pro over the iPhone 12 because of the third camera with the telephoto lens. You can get an even better quality telephoto lens with the iPhone 12 Pro Max that comes out next month — 2.5x zoom versus the 2.0 zoom of the iPhone 12 Pro — but you have to use the larger phone, which I find to be too large for my hands.
As you make your own decision about whether you want an iPhone 12 or an iPhone 12 Pro, take a look at my review from last year which contains additional comparison pictures with the three different lenses. I think it will help you to decide whether getting the telephoto lens is worth the extra money for the Pro model.
Etc.
Every year, the iPhone gets a faster processor. There are certain things that seem a bit more snappy with the iPhone 12 Pro, but I have not run any objective measurements of speed. Suffice it to say that if you are upgrading from an iPhone that is two years old or more, you will appreciate the additional speed.
The iPhone 12 Pro features a MagSafe connector for even faster wireless charging. I almost never used wireless charging with my iPhone 11 Pro, but I may try out the MagSafe on the iPhone 12 Pro in the future. For now, though, I cannot share any first-hand experiences.
Conclusion
With the new iPhones in 2020, there is more choice than ever before. The iPhone 12 Pro Max is coming next month, and it will have an even better camera. If you don’t mind very large phones, that might be a good model for you, but it is not for me. And of course, the iPhone 12 mini is coming next month too, which is perfect for those who want the smallest phone. For me, the size of the iPhone 12 / iPhone 12 Pro is the sweet spot. And between those two models, I prefer the iPhone 12 Pro. The iPhone 12 Pro looks good, feels good in the hand (although, unfortunately, not as good as the iPhone 5), takes great pictures, is incredibly fast, and has an amazing screen. If you are ready for a new iPhone, you will love the iPhone 12 Pro.
Can you feel the excitement in the air? It’s new iPhone day! At least, it is for those getting the new iPhone 12 or iPhone 12 Pro. The small one (iPhone 12 mini) and the big one (iPhone 12 Pro Max) come out next month. Yesterday, Juli Clover of MacRumors shared some photos of folks in Australia getting their new iPhones at 8am Australian Eastern Daylight Time, which is 15 hours ahead of the Eastern Time Zone. Plus, we have the new iPad Air coming out today — which looks like a fantastic device. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories reviews Halide Mark II, a sophisticated camera app that allows you to have lots of control over your photographs. Whenever I have tried to use prior versions the app, I find myself a little overwhelemed by the options, but I see that this update includes some tutorials so I may have to give it another go.
Joel M. Podolny used to be the dean of the Yale School of Management, and now he is the Dean of Apple’s in-house educational program for its own employees called Apple University, which helps Apple employees learn from the company’s past successes and failures. In an article for the Harvard Business Revue, Podolny and Morten Hansen of U.C. Berkeley discuss how the program works.
Apple released iOS 14.1 this week. As Chance Miller of 9to5Mac explains, it fixes lots of bugs, adds support for the new iPhones, and more.
If you want wireless headphones but the AirPods are too expensive, Apple released the Beats Flex, which cost only $50. Chris Welch of The Verge wrote a favorable review.
If you were around in the 1980s like I was, you remember when MTV played music videos. This week, Apple began a new 24-hour stream of music videos called Apple Music TV. Jem Aswad of Variety describes the new offering. As I’m typing these words, I’ve got Apple Music TV running on my iPad, and the channel is showing Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play songs from their new album, Letter to You. I love it when a band that has been around for decades still sounds so incredible. I saw them play New Orleans Jazz Fest on May 3, 2014 (picture to the right; click to enlarge). The band was fantastic then and they still sound great today. If you subscribe to Apple TV+, you can now watch a documentary about the making of the new Springsteen album.
If you are getting a new device in the iPhone 12 family and will change to a cellphone plan in the U.S. that supports 5G, there are lots of plans to choose from. Eli Blumenthal of CNet explains all of the 5G options. I see that my current AT&T unlimited plan isn’t even being offered any more.
And finally, Apple shared a video showing what three-time Academy Award winner Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki was able to film with the iPhone 12 Pro. It won’t surprise you that there are some stunning shots in here:
Although Apple debuted the fourth generation of the iPad Air last month (I discussed it on September 16), the first day that you can purchase the 2020 version of the iPad Air is tomorrow. Apple gave review units to select journalists, and yesterday many of these folks posted their reviews. And the folks who have spent time with these devices have come to a conclusion that is very similar to what I wrote last month: this is the first iPad Air that is good enough to almost be an iPad Pro, and for many attorneys, it is the perfect device to get. If you think that you might want more than what the iPad Air offers and if you can wait, I encourage you to NOT purchase an iPad Pro today. The writing seems to be on the wall, and I expect Apple to announce new iPad Pro models at some point soon. The last iPad Pro update was announced on March 18, 2020, so you may have to wait until March 2021. But at this point, the iPad Pro is starting to look a little outdated while the iPad Air is fantastic. It is a great time to get an iPad Air. It is not a great time to get the iPad Pro.
Here are the initial reviews that jumped out at me, the ones that I recommend that you read if you are thinking about getting a new iPad Air:
Jason Snell of Six Colors had this to say about the current iPad Air versus the next iPad Pro: “There is, undoubtedly, an iPad Pro update on the horizon that will put plenty of distance between those models and today’s iPad Air. But who cares? Many features that were previously locked into Apple’s top-of-the-line iPads have migrated down to a more affordable model. Not everyone needs an iPad Pro, especially when there’s an iPad Air that’s this good.”
Federico Viticci of MacStories likes the new iPad Air, but says that Face ID is better than Touch ID on an iPad because it works automatically, without having to reach up and touch anything. I suspect that I would agree with this. When I wear a mask because of the pandemic, I often miss Touch ID on my iPhone, but I have never missed Touch ID on my iPad Pro. But if you are upgrading to the new iPad Air from a prior iPad model that didn’t have Touch ID, you may not be as bothered by the lack of Face ID.
Matthew Panzarino of TechCrunch concludes his review of the iPad Air with this good advice: “Buy this if you want a portable iPad Pro to use alongside a MacBook or desktop computer for those times you don’t want to carry or can’t carry it. If you want an iPad Pro as your only computer, get the big iPad Pro, but probably wait until they update that one in a few months.“
Although you cannot purchase an iPhone 12 or an iPhone 12 Pro until this Friday, Apple seeded a few journalists with review units, and yesterday they started to post their reviews. I am very excited about the “new” design — a word I use in quotes because the flat edges remind me of an older design, the iPhone 4 / iPhone 5 design that I loved so much — and the initial reviews seem to agree that it looks great and makes it much easier to hold an iPhone without a case. If you want to learn more about the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro from folks who have actually used them, here are the reviews that jumped out at me. Note that the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max don’t go on sale until next month so the smallest and largest new models have not been reviewed yet.
You need to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal to read Joanna Stern’s review, but anyone can view the video at the top of her review and I absolutely recommend it.
Matthew Panzarino of TechCrunch does a great job of explaining and showing off what is new and different about the cameras as well as many other new features such as MagSafe, but he didn’t test 5G. He noted that because of the magnets on the back of the iPhone 12, it may not be a good idea to put a hotel key card right next to the iPhone 12 in your pocket.
Dieter Bohn of the Verge prepared an excellent video review of the iPhone 12 along with his written review. He noted that the design of the iPhone 12 is better than any iPhone we have had in years. He says that, compared to the iPhone 11, the iPhone 12 has less noise and better colors in photos. And in challenging shots, the iPhone 12 is better than the iPhone 11 in every single shot. As for the new A14 processor, he says: “The real reason to care isn’t that the iPhone 12 is fast now, it’s that it will still be fast in three or even five years. That’s the kind of longevity that no Android phone can really match.”
Attorney Nilay Patel of The Verge produced a video and written review of the iPhone 12 Pro. I learned a lot from his description of the video features, including the new Dolby Vision feature.
Chris Velazco of Engadget says that the iPhone 12 line is the “beginning of a new era at Apple.” He adds: “The iPhone 11 was chunky in a cute way, but this year’s model is 11 percent thinner and 16 percent lighter, according to Apple. While those might not sound like dramatic changes, you can really feel the difference.” He also said that there are fewer differences between the iPhone 12 and the iPhone 12 Pro than in previous years.
Julian Chokattu of Wired says that LiDAR is the best feature of the iPhone 12 Pro because it “does a lot to improve the camera system on the iPhone 12 Pro.” He notes that “it enables faster autofocus and the ability to capture portrait photos in Night mode. The latter has been my favorite camera feature to test. I no longer encounter that ‘Not enough light’ message when taking a Portrait mode photo in low light.”
Todd Haselton of CNBC likes the new iPhone 12 line, saying: “The iPhone 12 has great cameras, an awesome screen, excellent battery life and future-proofs you with 5G.”
Raymond Wong of Input likes the new design of the iPhone 12 line. “I could spend all day waxing poetic about the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro’s gorgeous homage to the iPhone 4, but no amount of words or photos can replace the experience of holding them in your own hands. More than any iPhone in recent years, you really have to touch the materials to appreciate their balanced elegance. Making them thinner and shrinking their volume (compared to the iPhone XR/11) only adds to their luxurious look and feel.” I love the time-lapse video that he posted of Grand Central Station.
And finally, if you want to watch an excellent but extensive video review, Rene Ritchie prepared a 45 minute video that goes deep on every aspect of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro. Whether you watch the whole thing or skip around to the parts that interest you, you will learn a lot:
For the past 30 years, the ABA has conducted an annual survey of lawyers to find out what legal technology they use. These results are released every year by the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center. The 2020 report (edited by Gabriella Mihm) was just released. There are five volumes, and you can purchase a copy using this page of the ABA website.
I have been looking at these reports every year since 2010 because it has been the best source of statistics on the use of mobile technology by lawyers. (My reports on the prior ABA surveys are located here: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010.) Starting in 2011, the survey asked lawyers what smartphones they use, and from 2011 to 2019, we saw a steady increase in iPhone use, reaching a record high of just over 79% in 2019. Android use by lawyers started at 17% in 2011, reached a peak of slightly over 25% in 2018, and then was down to about 18% in 2019. During those same years, we saw the fall of the once-dominant BlackBerry along with all other smartphone brands other than the iPhone and Android.
Unfortunately, we don’t have updated numbers for 2020. The ABA has decided to switch each year between Life & Practice questions, including which type of smartphone a lawyer uses, and Litigation Technology & E-Discovery questions. This year is a Litigation Technology & E-Discovery year, so we will have to wait until 2021 to get updated information from the survey on which smartphones are being used by lawyers in their law practices.
Nevertheless, there are still lots of questions in this year’s survey that shed some light on how lawyers are using mobile technology in their law practice. Here are the survey results that jumped out at me.
Online research
About 77% of lawyers reported that they do online legal research when they are out of the office. The most popular way to do so is with a laptop or desktop computer (63%). But 20% of attorneys reported doing legal research in the web browser on a smartphone or tablet, and almost 13% reported using a mobile app for legal research.
Doing online research on an iPad works very well, and I do it all the time. Legal research on an iPhone is more difficult with the smaller screen, but sometimes that is the only device that you have with you when you have an immediate need to consult a statute or a case. The answers to the question of how often do you use a smartphone to conduct legal research while away from the office were:
Regularly: 23.8%
Occasionally: 25.9%
Seldom: 20.0%
Never: 30.3%
The iPhone and iPad in the courtroom
Speaking of legal research while out of the office, one such venue for doing so is the courtroom. But of course, there are many other reasons to use an iPhone or iPad in the courtroom, from consulting a calendar to scheduling upcoming dates to giving an appellate oral argument.
According to the survey, 83% of lawyers say that they use a smartphone in the courtroom. And for the last four years, the responses to that question have remained in the 80% to 84% range, so lawyers have been doing this for some time now. Lawyers at law firms with 100 or more attorneys are somewhat more likely to use a smartphone in the courtroom (90%) and sole practitioners are slightly less likely to do so (74%).
Here is a chart showing what lawyers report doing with their smartphone in court (click to enlarge). The most popular uses are email and calendaring. I was amused to see 21% of lawyers report that they use their smartphone in court to browse the web to kill time — something that I hope attorneys only do while waiting for the judge to enter the courtroom.
Far fewer attorneys report using a tablet device in the courtroom — about 33%. Having said that, while virtually every attorney has a smartphone (99% in the 2019 survey), only about 50% reported using a tablet device in their law practice in the 2018 survey (and we don’t have more recent numbers).
Mobile Device Management
Back when the Blackberry was practically considered part of a lawyer’s uniform, it was common for law firms to purchase a Blackberry and provide it to attorneys, which of course is still fairly standard for computers. But for many years now, law firms have embraced the BYOD (bring your own device) philosophy. Of course, law firms still need to worry about security, so many law firms implement some form of Mobile Device Management (MDM) software so that lawyers can use their personal smartphone to access a law firm’s network while also ensuring that certain security safeguards are in place (such as using a complex password). And MDM has other advantages, such as making it easier to install apps on every attorney’s smartphone.
According to the survey, only 33% of all lawyers say that they can access their law firm’s network without any restriction. That number rises to around 40% for smaller law firms, falls to 28% for law firms with 100-499 attorneys, and falls to about 14% for lawyers at law firms of 500 lawyers or more. What do the remaining lawyers report? About 54% are required to comply with certain restrictions and/or get pre-approval to use a personal device, whether it be MDM or something else. (And for law firms of 10 or more attorneys, that goes up to 68% or more.) About 10% say that they are not allowed to use a personal device to access their law firm’s network.
As of 5 Pacific / 8 Eastern this morning, you can pre-order an iPhone 12 or an iPhone 12 Pro to be delivered as soon as a week from today. If you want the smallest (iPhone 12 mini) or largest (iPhone 12 Pro Max) phones, you need to wait a few more weeks. I ordered an iPhone 12 Pro this morning, and I’m excited about this 2020 version of the iPhone for the reasons I noted a few days ago. And now, the news of note from the past week:
All of the new iPhones in the iPhone 12 line can record video using Dolby Vision. In an article for iMore, Rene Ritchie does a great job explaining what Dolby Vision means on the new iPhones.
In a post written in September that is incredibly relevant today as people decide whether 5G is a reason to upgrade to a new iPhone, Juli Clover of MacRumors does a good job of describing the two types of 5G that are supported by the iPhone 12: Sub-6Ghz and mmWave. Note that mmWave is only supported on devices sold in the United States.
Every year, Federico Viticci of MacStories writes an incredibly comprehensive review of the new version of iOS and iPadOS. It is always full of tips and tricks for doing more with your iPhone and iPad. This year’s review of iOS 14 and iPad OS 14 was just posted, and while I’ve only just started reading the over 60,000 words, I’ve already learned a lot. Plus, the images and videos included in the article are impressive. (If you do nothing else, check out the cool video at the top of the beginning of the article while you are using the Safari browser on an iPad or Mac.) I look forward to taking some time this weekend to finish reading this.
When Apple updated the Apple Watch operating system to watchOS 7, I noticed that I was running out of battery power before the end of the day. This week, Apple released watchOS 7.0.2 to fix the problem, and it has made a big difference for me. I still find that I have less battery power remaining when I take off my watch at the end of the day than I typically did with watchOS 7, but I now have enough to make it to the end of the day.
The new iPhones come with a Lighting-to-USB-C cord, but not a charging brick. In an excellent video and article for the Wall Street Journal, Joanna Stern recommends the best charging bricks for an iPhone, iPad, computer, and other devices. I’ve also heard good things about the $20 Anker Nano, which is the same size as the 5W charger that Apple used to include with the iPhone but it is 20W and thus can charge over three times faster.
And finally, Chris Rock stars in a new commercial for the iPhone 12 Pro and Verizon. It’s a funny commercial with even more outlandish excess in every scene:
If you were around in the 1980s like I was, you remember when MTV played music videos. This week, Apple began a new 24-hour stream of music videos called Apple Music TV. Jem Aswad of Variety 
