Last week I discussed the numerous reasons that I think that lawyers will love iOS 12, due out for the iPhone and iPad this Fall.  Apple will also update the operating system for the Apple Watch this Fall, and it looks like there will be some nice additions.  Here are the features that I am most looking forward to.

Notifications

When it comes to using my Apple Watch in my law practice, one of the things that I like best is using my Apple Watch to handle my notifications.  There are many ways to control which notifications are important enough to deserve a tap on your wrist, and it is quick and easy to glance at my wrist and see the notification without significantly disrupting whatever I am working on.

In iOS 12, notifications on the iPhone can be grouped, making them easier to manage.  The same is true for watchOS 5, which should make it faster and easier to deal with multiple notifications at the same time.

watchOS 5 will also add more advanced Do Not Disturb functions.  For example, you can tell your Apple Watch not to disturb you for a specific period of time, or until you leave the current location.

Additionally, apps will be able to create watch notifications that are interactive.  For example, Yelp can send you a notification that your table is ready, and right on the watch you can tap to extend the reservation for 20 minutes because you are running late.

Siri Shortcuts

Another feature that I mentioned when discussing iOS 12 is the new Shortcuts app.  It is an expanded version of the Workflow app already available for the iPhone, but the new version will allow you to create shortcuts that can be triggered by Siri using a voice command that you choose.  watchOS 5 will support this as well, which is convenient for those times when your iPhone is not in your pocket and you want to just talk to your watch.  And even when your iPhone is close by, just saying a command to your watch might be faster and easier.

For example, I can imagine creating a command triggered by me saying a phrase like “on my way” which will send a message to my wife which says something like “I’m leaving now, and I should be home in X minutes.”  All I would need to do is tell my Apple Watch “on my way,” and it will figure out where I am located, how many minutes it will take me to drive home, and then it will send the appropriate text message to my wife.

The ability to automate tasks, combined with the power to trigger those tasks using a phrase that you select, will be an incredibly powerful function on both the iPhone and the Apple Watch.

And by the way, speaking of Siri, there will be a new feature whereby you don’t have to first say “Hey Siri” before giving a command and instead can just raise your wrist and speak.  I’m curious how this will work in practice, and a little concerned about false positives when you lift your arm for some other reason, but if this works well it could be very useful.

Walkie-Talkie

The new Walkie-Talkie app will allow you to press a button on your Apple Watch and say a short message, and then the message will automatically play on an Apple Watch of a friend or family member.  And they can do the same thing to quickly respond.  Press to talk, let go to listen.  It’s a very simple way to communicate. 

Fitness Improvements

The Apple Watch does a great job of encouraging you to be more active and monitoring your workouts.  This will get even better in watchOS 5.  A new “Competition” feature will allow you to compete with another person in closing your rings every week.  The watch will be able to track new types of workouts, including yoga and hiking, and if you forget to press the buttons to start or stop a workout, the watch will detect when you have done so.  And if you have a target pace when you run or walk, the Workouts app will help you keep track with your desired pace.

Podcasts

You can currently use an Apple Watch to listen to music even without an iPhone nearby.  This Fall, you will also be able to listen to podcasts using only the Apple Watch.  Apple’s own Podcasts app will work, and it looks like it might be possible for third party apps — such as my favorite podcast app, Overcast — to do the same.

Safari on the Apple Watch?

Using a web browser on a watch seems silly, and no, Apple isn’t adding a Safari app.  However, in watchOS 5, when you get an email or text message with a website link, you will be able to tap the link on the watch to see a version of the web page optimized for the watch screen.  If you don’t have your iPhone with you and are just using an Apple Watch with cellular, and if you are just trying to get a quick piece of information from a website such as an address or phone number, this could be very useful.

In the latest episode of the Mac Power Users podcast, California attorney David Sparks and Florida attorney Katie Floyd discuss Apple’s announcements earlier this week at WWDC.  I recommend this episode if you want to hear some insight on the announcements while you are driving in your car, doing some chores this weekend, or otherwise looking for something interesting to listen to.  Like me, they were impressed with many of the new features coming to iOS.  However, Katie was less impressed with the new improvements to Animoji in the Messages app, including Memoji, saying:  “I was stunned when we went to the ABA TECHSHOW this past year, and the lawyers, the professionals that we entrust to secure our liberty and to save us from tyranny, were going crazy over the [Animoji].  I shudder for what is going to happen with the Memoji.”  I had not previously considered Memoji a threat to the foundation of this country, but I guess we’ll find out in a few months.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Kentucky attorney Stephen Embry shares his thoughts on Apple’s WWDC announcements.
• Virginia attorney Sharon Nelson discusses Formal Opinion 2017-5 from the New York City Bar, which was updated on May 9, 2018, and which discusses an attorney’s duty to keep client information on a mobile phone confidential when crossing the U.S. border.
• Ste Smith of Cult of Mac posted a video showing every new iOS 12 feature in action.
• Jeff Banjamin of 9to5Mac posted an even longer video showing off 100 new iOS 12 features.
• Jeff Benjamin also posted a video showing off 50 new watchOS 5 changes.
• Dan Thorp-Lancaster of iMore notes that Microsoft’s To-Do list sharing app now works on iOS, Windows. and Android, if you have a need to share lists with folks on other platforms.  Of course, if you just need to share with folks using an iPhone, you can easily share a note with a checklist or other list in Apple’s Notes app.
• One of the iOS 12 improvements that I am really looking forward to is the ability for password manager apps to integrate more directly with Safari, so that you can use them without having to leave Safari.  1Password (the password manager that I use) posted a short demo of how this could work, and it looks great.
• Another interesting iOS 12 feature is called Live Listen.  Steven Aquino describes the feature for TechCrunch.  In short, if you are in a situation in which you will have trouble hearing, you can put your iPhone near the audio source and then step away while you are wearing your AirPods, and your AirPods will play the audio that your iPhone is hearing.  There are some hearing aids that work the same way. 
• Graham Bower of Cult of Mac discusses an Apple Watch stat that I had never heard of before called Heart Rate Variability, which you can use to determine how hard you should work out and when you should slow down.
• John Sculley has been talking about the 10 years that he was CEO of Apple ever since he left in 1993.  Even so, in this article by Catherine Clifford of CNBC, Sculley reveals some interesting details that I had not heard before.
• Although this has nothing to do with the iPhone, if you find yourself getting hungry, I thought you’d want to know that TripAdvisor named New Orleans the best food city in the United States (and #5 in the world) and the best place in the United States for a foodie vacation.  Rankings were done using a “proprietary TripAdvisor algorithm which considers booking volume, traveler reviews, and traveler ratings based on all food tours and food-related experiences on our site.”  You can’t argue with science.  (And if you find yourself headed this way, feel free to ask me for restaurant recommendations.)
• And finally, the upcoming iOS 12 will include features which let you limit the amount of time that you spend using your iPhone.  But what if you need to REALLY limit the time that you use your iPhone?  Conan O’Brien came up with a solution — the new addiction-proof iPhone, shown in this video:

Last week, FX aired the final episode of The Americans, one of my all-time favorite television shows.  (There are no spoilers in this post, so read on without worry.)  The concept of the show is intriguing (especially considering that it is based in part on a true story), the spy adventures are exciting, the dynamics between the main characters are interesting and sometimes heartbreaking, the acting and writing are first-rate, and I enjoyed watching a show set in the 1980s.  On top of all of that, the music in The Americans is amazing, with great songs from the 1980s and others that fit in perfectly with each scene in the show.

I put together an Apple Music playlist of some great songs from The Americans, and everyone can enjoy these songs, regardless of whether you ever watched the show.  This isn’t every song that was ever used in the series; I just included my favorites, and I even left out a few which I like but which seemed out of character with the rest of the playlist.  At the end, I added a song by Sting that I was surprised to never hear on The Americans.  All of these are fantastic songs, and if you grew up in the 1980s like I did, you probably have specific memories of your own life associated with many of these songs.

If you want to listen to these songs on your iPhone, you can click here to get the Apple Music playlist.  In fact, even if you don’t subscribe to Apple Music, I believe that you can click that link and hear previews of every song, and you can also sign up for a free Apple Music trial.

The songs on the playlist are as follows, and I included an indication of the season and episode in which each song was used.  Total running time is 2 hours and 51 minutes.

1. Main Title from “The Americans” by Nathan Barr
2. Tusk by Fleetwood Mac (S1, E1)
3. Harden My Heart by Quarterflash (S1, E1)
4. In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins (S1, E1)
5. Roller by April Wine (S1, E1)
6. Queen of Hearts by Juice Newton (S1, E1)
7. Love Will Find a Way by Pablo Cruise (S1, E8)
8. Slap and Tickle by Squeeze (S1, E11)
9. Rough Boys by Pete Townshend (S1, E11)
10. Mississippi Queen by Mountain (S1, E12)
11. Games Without Frontiers by Peter Gabriel (S1, E13)
12. Passion by Rod Stewart (S2, E1)
13. Beer Bar Blues by Lloyd Conger (S2, E1)
14. Here Comes the Flood by Peter Gabriel (S2, E3)
15. I Melt With You by Modern English (S2, E4)
16. The Gambler by Kenny Rogers (S2, E5)
17. Rock This Town by Stray Cats (S2, E8)
18. It Must Be Done (from “the Americans”) by Pete Townshend & Nathan Barr (S2, E10)
19. Twilight Zone by Golden Earring (S2, E13)
20. Every Breath You Take by The Police (trailer for Season 3)
21. All Out of Love by Air Supply (S3, E3)
22. Don’t Go by Yaz (S3, E4)
23. Only You by Yaz (S3, E4)
24. Goody Two Shoes by Adam Ant (S3, E4)
25. I Ran (So Far Away) by A Flock of Seagulls (S3, E5)
26. The Chain by Fleetwood Mac (S3, E7)
27. Stand and Deliver by Adam & The Ants (S3, E10)
28. Tainted Love by Soft Cell (S4, E2)
29. Under Pressure by Queen & David Bowie (S4, E5)
30. Winter Kills by Yaz (S4, E9)
31. Major Tom by Peter Schilling (S4, E9)
32. Out of the Blue by Roxy Music (S4, E13)
33. That’s Good by Devo (S5, E1)
34. Old Flame by Alabama (S5, E3)
35. Slave by The Rolling Stones (S5, E5)
36. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John (S5, E13)
37. So. Central Rain by R.E.M. (S5, E13)
38. Don’t Dream It’s Over by Crowded House (S6, E1)
39. Louisiana Saturday Night by Mel McDaniel (S6, E1)
40. Gold Dust Woman by Fleetwood Mac (S6, E1)
41. Drivin’ My Life Away by Eddie Rabbitt (S6, E4)
42. With or Without You by U2 (S6, E10)
43. Russians by Sting

Enjoy the playlist.  And if you created your own playlist which is worth sharing with iPhone J.D. readers, feel free to post a link in a comment to this post!

Yesterday at its WWDC conference for app developers, Apple provided the first sneak peak of iOS 12, due out this fall.  This free update will bring lots of great new features to the iPhone and iPad.  It does not look like iOS 12 will include a heavy focus on iPad productivity features like iOS 11 did (the dock, multitasking, etc.), but there is still a lot in iOS 12 that lawyers and other professional users of the iPhone and iPad will love using to get things done.  Here are the highlights.

Performance

A common worry regarding iOS upgrades is that the new features will work well on newer devices but will cause older devices to run slower.  But the first thing that Apple said yesterday about iOS 12 is that it will increase performance.  iOS 12 should make every device that can use iOS 11 run faster at many tasks — including older devices like the iPhone 5s and iPad Air, which were released in 2013.  Apple says that on some tasks, the performance increase will be an impressive 40%. 

Better notifications

If your iPhone is like mine, then you are always getting notifications.  New emails, new text messages, various apps that want your attention, etc.  iOS 12 improves just about everything that there is about notifications.

First, when you get multiple notifications from the same app, they are now grouped together like a stack of cards.  The top card may tell you that you have 8 new emails.  Tap on that to get more specific information if you are ready to work with emails, but if not you can move on to the next stack.  You can even manage all of the notifications from a single app at once, such as marking all new emails read.

Second, you can now adjust the notifications when you get notifications.  If an app sends you a notification and no no longer want to hear from that app, swipe on it and tap Manage to turn off notifications without having to open the Settings app and then going to Notifications and then finding the settings for that particular app. 

Third, you can set some types of alerts to be “critical” alerts so that they always come on top, even when Do Not Disturb is engaged.  (I don’t yet know the details on this feature.)

Fourth, you can manage the notifications that you see during the night.  Apple has improved the Do Not Disturb features in iOS, and you can now turn on Bedtime Mode.  With this mode turned on, if you happen to look at your iPhone in the middle of the night (for example, to see what time it is) you won’t see any notifications on the lock screen.  Thus, you won’t be tempted to start looking at emails, only to realize that now you cannot go back to sleep.  In the morning, the first thing that you see is a friendly Good Morning message with the time and weather.  Once you are ready to move past that and start your day, then you see all of the notifications that came in during the night.

Fifth, you can use Do Not Disturb during the day, with new 3D Touch options.  For example, you can quickly turn on do not disturb for just the next hour or during the next even on your calendar to make sure that you are not bothered during an upcoming meeting, but then your notifications will return after the meeting is over.

Shortcuts

I am a big fan of the Workflow app, which I first discussed on iPhone J.D. back in 2015 after California attorney David Sparks crated a useful guide on using the app.  I’ve since expanded the number of automated tasks that I do with this app, but it always had inherent limitations because it wasn’t built-in to iOS.

Fortunately, those limitations may be going away.  In early 2017, Apple purchased the Workflow app and (more importantly) hired the team which created the app.  This team has been working in the Siri division of Apple.  Now we know why:  yesterday, Apple revealed the new Shortcuts app with Siri.  Individual app developers can now enable their apps to expose certain functions to Siri, and the Shortcuts app can now trigger one or more actions after a voice prompt that you give Siri. 

As an example of multiple steps, you can create a set of actions which occur when you tell Siri you are leaving work.  For example, that can trigger Siri doing the following:  (1) send a message to your spouse to say that you are on your way home, (2) tell you how long it will take to get home with current traffic, (3) start playing a song playlist in your car using CarPlay, and (4) tell the HomeKit thermostat at your home to adjust the temperature to something that will be more comfortable when you arrive at home.  The Shortcuts app comes with hundreds of workflows, and you can adjust them to meet your specific desires.

As an example of a single step, you can now interact with a single third party app using Siri.  Apple yesterday gave the example of an app containing your travel itinerary giving Siri access to the next item.  You might decide that every time you say “travel plan” to Siri it tells you what is next, without you even needing to open up that travel app.  That way, when your plane lands, just say “travel plan” and Siri will tell you the info on the hotel where you will be checking in so you have that information as you approach the taxi stand.

Siri will even recommend shortcut actions to you based upon your frequent activities.  If you start every day by using an app to order a specific type of coffee from a coffeehouse on the way to work, Siri can help you do so more easily.

The new Shortcuts app already looks like a big improvement on the Workflows app, and if Apple gives this app enough tools, it has the potential to be something really special.  I cannot wait to try this one out myself, and I look forward to Apple developing this app further over the next few years.

Screen Time

The new Screen Time tools in iOS 12 allow you to limit the way that you use your iPhone or iPad.  Do you feel that you spend too much time in Facebook, Twitter, reading the News app, etc.?  Screen Time will show you how much time you are spending using different apps on your device, and then you have the option to limit yourself.  Maybe you don’t want to use a certain app more than a certain amount of time every day.  Just set the limit, and your iPhone will alert you when you have hit that time limit.  You can choose to disregard the notification, but at least you’ll know that you should start to wrap things up.  The settings sync across your iPhone and iPad, so you cannot cheat yourself by looking at Instagram on your iPad instead of your iPhone.

If you feel that you are spending too much time on your iPhone or iPad on non-productive apps, the Screen Time app looks like a nice way to help you modify your behavior.

Note that you can use the same features to impose hard limits — which cannot be bypassed without explicit parental permission — on devices used by your kids.  No text messages after 8pm, only a certain number of hours spent on YouTube each day, etc.  Your child can request additional time or privileges, but you have to approve it.  As a father of a 12 year old boy and a 10 year old girl, I’m already a big fan of the feature by which a child has to request a parent’s permission before downloading an app from the App Store.  I look forward to having similar controls on many other aspects of a child’s use of a mobile device.

FaceTime

Currently, I only use FaceTime for talking with family members.  If I have to talk with attorneys in other cities or clients, I typically use expensive videoconferencing solutions that sometimes don’t even work very well.  With iOS 12, however, I will be tempted to start using FaceTime for my work-related videochat needs. 

Instead of being limited to you and one other person, iOS 12 lets you to have a FaceTime group videochat with up to 32 simultaneous participants.  Each person appears in a square tile which increases in size as a person is talking, and which moves the background or the bottom of the app when a person is quiet.  (But you can always tap on a specific square to bring that face to the forefront.)

I’ve used lots of multi-person videochat solutions in the the past, but after iOS 12 becomes mainstream and is used by a large number of folks, this free videochat solution might make it unnecessary to use other products, as long as you are talking with folks who have an iPhone or iPad.

Another nice feature — if you are in a Messages thread with multiple participants, you can initiate a FaceTime call for that entire group from within the Messages app.  Great idea.

New iPad gestures

In iOS 11, you need to remember different gestures for the iPhone X and the iPad.  A swipe up from the bottom of the iPhone X brings you to the home screen, but a swipe up from the bottom of the iPad brings you to the app switcher and control center.

In iOS 12, the gestures on the iPad will instead mimic the iPhone X.  For example, swipe down from the top right to see the control center.

There is nothing really inherently obvious about any of these gestures, so I think that it makes sense to have them unified as much as possible across the different devices.

CarPlay

If you have a CarPlay technology in your car, in iOS 12 you will be able to use third party navigation apps such as Google Maps or Waze.  It is nice to have more options when you are traveling to a deposition or a courthouse in a faraway town for the first time.

The fun stuff

Those are the primary new changes that will help you get more work done with your iPhone and iPad, but of course there are many other new features aimed at making the iPhone more enjoyable.  There are lots of improvements to the Photos app, including better search options.  For example, instead of just searching for pictures that include a dog, you can now search for pictures with a dog and a pig — or whatever other combinations are relevant to you.

There are new Animoji character, plus the ability to create “Memoji,” a cartoon character that looks like you, opens your mouth when you do, etc.  And you can even wear Animoji or Memoji cartoons like a mask when you are in FaceTime.  This reminds me of this classic clip from The Jetsons cartoon.

Improvements to ARKit will allow for even more sophisticated augmented reality on the iPhone and iPad.  For now, this is mostly just an entertainment feature, but as Apple continues to develop this technology I can see it being more useful for business applications in the future.

Conclusion

iOS 12 surely has other tricks up its sleeve that we haven’t heard about yet, but even based on just what we saw yesterday, I’m already eagerly looking forward to this software update in the next few months.

 

This week is the calm before the storm in the world of the iPhone, iPad and Mac.  On Monday, June 4, Apple begins its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Jose, CA.  The conference kicks off with a Keynote address on Monday at 10 Pacific / 1 Eastern.  Apple always uses this as an opportunity to preview the next version of the operating system for the iPhone and iPad, which I presume will be called iOS 12.  (This time last year, Apple previewed iOS 11.)  This is also an opportunity for Apple to make new hardware announcements, so perhaps we will see a new iPad Pro or a new Apple Watch.  With WWDC around the corner, there wasn’t much other iOS news this past week, but here is the news of note:

• About six weeks ago, I posted a review of the iPhone Field Guide by California attorney David Sparks.  It is a fantastic e-book (including tons of videos) with tips for how to make the most of your iPhone.  This week, David announced that he updated his book to version 1.1, adding new content and fixing some small typos.  David also announced that he plans to update this book “for a few years,” with the next update likely to come after iOS 12 is released.  If you think you might be interested and you haven’t yet purchased this book yet, I encourage you to do so now because David also announced that he is about to increase the price.
• Earlier this week, I discussed the new Messages in iCloud feature of iOS 11.4.  David Pogue of Yahoo provides much more information about how this feature works.  For example, he explains that photos, videos, and other large files in your Messages app are offloaded to iCloud, which means that turning this feature on can save lots of space on your iPhone or iPad, although it does use up your iCloud space.  But it is easy to increase your iCloud space by just paying a little bit more; you cannot increase your iPhone space without buying a new iPhone.  So if you are running low on iPhone space because of Messages, the new Messages in iCloud feature might be very useful for you.
• John Gruber of Daring Fireball notes that the Things app (a task management app) was updated to version 3.6 and adds tons of support for using a keyboard with an iPad.
• Gruber also encourages everyone to turn on the iOS feature that erases all data after 10 failed passcode attempts.  I have never enabled this feature on my iPhone because I was afraid that my kids might trigger it on accident.  John points out that it would take over three hours before there could be 10 unsuccessful attempts, which certainly does reduce the risk of it happening when you don’t want it, but I’m still on the fence.
• It’s now June, so one of the next special occasions to look forward to is Father’s Day on June 17.  Roger Fingas of Appleinsider recommends a dozen Apple-related gifts for dads.
• Guigherme Rambo of 9to5Mac discovered that a new Apple Watch face will go live on Monday, June 4 during WWDC.  It features strings corresponding to the LGBT pride flag, and it looks pretty cool.
• And finally, here is a short video from Apple with a few tips for using the on-screen keyboard on the iPad.

Yesterday, Apple updated the operating system for the iPhone and iPad to iOS version 11.4.  iOS 11.4 adds two more important features, plus it includes a few smaller features and bug fixes.

Messages in iCloud

We all know that you can check your email on your phone, your computer, or your iPad.  And deleting an email from one device will delete the email from all of your devices.  The system works because all of your devices talk to a single server to handle your email.  iOS 11.4 brings this same feature to your text messages.

Before iOS 11.4, if you deleted a message thread on one device it would still exist on other devices.  And while new text messages would normally show up on all devices, sometimes they would appear on one device but not another one.  And sometimes messages would display out of order on one device.  In iOS 11.4, once you turn on Messages in iCloud, iCloud acts as a central hub for all of your messages (both SMS text messages and iMessage messages) so that all of your devices can stay in sync.  And iMessage is encrypted end-to-end for your privacy.

To enable Messages in iCloud, open the Settings app, tap your name at the top, then tap iCloud and turn on Messages.

At least, that is how it is supposed to work.  Last night, the Messages app in iOS 11.4 worked great for me on my iPhone, but on my iPad the app seemed to get caught on the “Signing in…” screen, where it has been stuck for many hours.  I tried signing out of my iCloud account on my iPad and signing back in again, but that didn’t fix the problem.  I haven’t yet seen any other reports of something similar, so perhaps this was a hiccup unique to my iPad Pro.  I’ll update this post when I figure out how to get this working.

[UPDATE 6/6/2018:  It took about five days, but eventually the app started working correctly on my iPad.  I presume that there was some sort of bug on the Apple server that affected some devices such as mine, but now all is working great.]

Note that even though the messages are stored in iCloud, that doesn’t mean that you can see them at the iCloud.com website.  That website does give you access to other items synced via iCloud such as mail, contact, photos, etc.  But for now, at least, there is no Messages app on the iCloud website.

Also note the keeping your messages one the iCloud server uses up some of your iCloud data space.  If you are not paying Apple for additional iCloud space and if you have lots of pictures and videos in your messages, you might not have enough space on iCloud.

AirPlay 2

If you own an Apple HomePod, iOS 11.4 is an important update for you.  Especially if you own multiple HomePods.  With AirPlay 2, you can put two HomePods in one room for richer, stereo sound.  Or you can place them in different rooms and the music will stay in sync as you travel from room to room.

If you own a smart speaker from another company, it may also support AirPlay 2.  Apple has a page on its website listing dozens of devices from manufacturers like Sonos, Marantz and Devon that will also work with AirPlay 2.

Fixes and Security

Virtually every iOS update fixes various bugs and improves security in various ways.  iOS 11.4 fixes issues with CarPlay in which audio can be distorted.  I don’t yet know exactly what this means; I’ve noticed that CarPlay in iOS 11.3 would occasionally cause some popping noises for me, and perhaps this fixes this.  iOS 11.4 also fixes some issues that arose when accessing certain Google files in Safari including Google Drive, Good Docs, and Gmail.  Apple also fixed a bug that could cause Messages to crash if certain characters were sent in a text message.  And Apple will soon update this page with information on the security improvements in iOS 11.4.

Cybersecurity is never easy, and often there is a tradeoff between convenience and security.  That’s why I like services such as 1Password, which increase your security while also making it easier to use passwords.  This week, Eliana Johnson, Emily Stephenson and Daniel Lippman of Politico reported that President Trump uses at least two iPhones for Twitter and for making calls, but that he has resisted recommended security protocols such as swapping out his iPhone on a monthly basis because it is too inconvenient.  I that countless hackers are constantly trying to compromise mobile devices being used by world leaders, especially the President of the United States.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• California attorney David Sparks of MacSparky discusses Gemini Photos, an app that can look for duplicate (or very similar) photos on your iPhone to streamline your collection.
• Joel Rosenblatt and Mark Gurman of Bloomberg report that a federal court jury awarded Apple $539 million against Samsung for copying the iPhone design.
• Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac discusses some of the new features in the Dropbox app.
• If you are on an airplane and you want to use your AirPods to listen to the in-plane audio (for example to watch a movie), Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac reviews AirFly from Twelve South, a Bluetooth transmitter that you can plug into a 3.5mm headphone socket. 
• Jesse Hollington of iLound also posted a review of the AirFly.
• If you want a direct connection from a 3.5mm headphone socket without using Bluetooth, Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reviews the Belkin 3.5mm audio cable with Lightning connectivity.
• Buster Hein of Cult of Mac discusses Camera+ 2, the new version of the one of the best third party camera apps for the iPhone.
• Andrew O’Hara of AppleInsider reviews Logetech’s Logi Circle 2, a home security camera that works with Apple’s HomeKit technology.
• There are complicated rules on when it is permissible to record a telephone conversation, and even if it is generally legal in your state it may be unethical for a lawyer to do it.  But if you are in a situation in which a recording is appropriate (such as when you have the consent of all parties to the conversation), Elizabeth Stinson and Josie Colt of Wired give advice on how to record a phone conversation on an iPhone.
• And finally, here is a colorful new music video produced by Apple using Animoji, featuring the song Citizen Kane by South Korean band HYUKOH.  (The lyrics are in English.)  Apple calls the spot Taxi Driver, which frankly seems like a better title for this catchy song:

What is your teenager doing on his or her iPhone?  Many parents looking for answers to this question have turned to services that promise the ability to monitor an iPhone.  For example, TeenSafe offers a service called TeenSafe Monitor.  For $15 a month, parents can access a web-based dashboard to review their child’s text messages (both SMS and iMessage, and even if the messages were deleted from the iPhone), messages sent through WhatsApp, incoming and outgoing calls, a full list of contacts on the iPhone, the history of websites visited on the iPhone, and the current and historical locations where the iPhone has been.  How does it get access to all of this information?  The iPhone has to be configured to backup to iCloud, two-factor authentication has to be turned off, and you have to give TeenSafe your teenager’s Apple ID username and password. 

Those requirements may make you raise your eyebrows and bit, and for good reason.  If you are going to give any third party a username and password, you have to trust them.  Not only do you have to trust that they are going to use the information responsibly, but you also need to trust that they are going to safeguard this secret information.

Unfortunately, Zack Whittacker of ZDNet reported this weekend that TeenSafe wasn’t very careful in storing this information.  TeenSafe stored a file which had all of those usernames and passwords and other information in a place on the Internet where anyone could access it.  Even worse, the data was not encrypted and was instead stored in a plain text format.  The reporter contacted some of the email addresses in the file that anyone could download, and confirmed that, sure enough, the leaked passwords were accurate.  Ugh.  As you would imagine, TeenSafe is now taking efforts to secure the data again and to inform its customers of the leak.

Did any bad actors get access to the usernames and passwords before the story was published on ZDNet?  Perhaps we will never know.

The ZDNet story came just one day after an article by Jennifer Valentino-DeVries of the New York Times.  She reported that while these services say that they are for parents to monitor their teens, they are heavily used by people to monitor their spouses, especially when infidelity is suspected.  The report goes on to explain that some stalkers are using them to monitor their victims. 

I’m reminded of an incident about four years ago, when a hacker was able to trick celebrities through a phishing attack into providing their Apple ID passwords.  Once he had the username and password, the hacker was able to access their iCloud backups, find nude photographs, and then leak them to the Internet. 

We live in a digital world in which many aspects of our privacy are often protected by little more than a username and password.  Every time you give a password to someone else — your spouse, a co-worker, or a third party — you need to be sure that you can trust that they are going to protect your privacy just as much as you yourself would.