Three years ago this week, Brett Burney and I discussed the iPad during the very first episode of the In the News podcast. As we start the fourth year of the podcast, we have tons of new iPad-related news to discuss in a jam-packed episode. In fact, I already have one of Apple’s new products, so I was able to discuss it in detail during the episode. We also talk about the impressive new features of the iPad Pro, the reason that the iPad Air is better than ever, Apple’s iPad cases that come with or without keyboards, the new Apple Pencil, some of the interesting but more minor announcements from Apple, the controversy surrounding Apple’s new ad for the iPad, and more.
Instead of our traditional In the Know segment, we finish up this week’s episode by each selecting a favorite announcement made by Apple this week.
Did you watch Apple’s “Let Loose” iPad announcement on Tuesday morning (or did you watch the stream after the fact)? If so, you saw that the quality of the video that Apple streamed was amazing. Once again, it was shot using an iPhone, so a video that was ostensibly about the new iPads was indirectly about how impressive an iPhone is for recording video. Filmmaker Stu Maschwitz notes that for a few shots, Apple used Panavision lenses connected to an iPhone to achieve a beautiful shallow depth-of-field that go far beyond what Cinematic Mode can produce when you only use the iPhone’s built-in lenses, but I see nothing wrong with adding an accessory to an iPhone to get a better result. Heck, I had fun using a $10 solar filter with my iPhone 15 Pro when I took pictures of the recent eclipse, and I’ve long been a fan of using the Studio Neat Glif + Hand Grip with my iPhone when I take video. Maschwitz also notes that this was the first Apple event that was streamed in HDR. I watched the video stream on an inexpensive and boring Dell monitor connected to my boring Dell PC in my office at work, so while I enjoyed the content of the video, the video quality that I saw was far from color-corrected HDR. However, I just re-watched a few minutes of the video on my iPhone 15 Pro, which does a beautiful job showing HDR, and many of the shots are incredibly vivid (albeit small) on my iPhone’s screen. Now that Apple has streamed its first event video using HDR, I suspect that Apple will continue to do so going forward. Thus, if you purchase the new iPad Pro 13″ (M4), watching future Apple events on that impressive Ultra Retina XDR display featuring a Tandem OLED screen will likely be the best way to experience the full quality of Apple’s video stream. So now you have one more reason to purchase a new iPad. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Chance Miller of 9to5 Mac reports that if you purchase one of the new iPads, one thing that you won’t get in the box is a sticker with the Apple logo on it. I don’t know when Apple began this practice—at least the 1990s and maybe even the 1980s?—but apparently, it is now over. Miller reports that this is part of Apple’s environmental goals as it seeks to make its packaging plastic-free. And that makes sense, but the opposing view from John Gruber of Daring Fireball is: “Boo hiss. The fun of those stickers outweighs their environmental impact.” If you still want a sticker, fear not: you can ask for one at an Apple Store, although supplies are limited. If the Apple Stores run out, and as you can see from this photo I just took, I have what seems like thousands of them in my desk where I have stored them for decades without really doing anything with them.
One omission from the new iPads noted by Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac: support for 5G mmWave, presumably because carrier adoption has been so miserable.
Chris Welch of The Verge bids a fond farewell to Apple’s Smart Keyboard Folio, which Apple is no longer selling for the iPad Pro. It wasn’t the best keyboard because it was so thin, but it weighed far less than the Apple Magic Keyboard so it made it easier to carry around both an iPad and a keyboard.
The Smart Folio without a keyboard is still around, which is good news. I’ve been using either an Apple Smart Cover or an Apple Smart Folio since the very first iPad. It protects the screen and gives you a way to prop up an iPad on a table. However, as Dan Moren of Six Colors reported, the Smart Folio was updated this year to support multiple viewing angles.
Juli Clover of MacRumors discusses all of the new features in the Apple Pencil Pro. When I wrote my initial post earlier this week on Apple’s announcements, I neglected to mention that one of the new features is support for Find My. I edited my original post to add a reference to that feature and to explain that, as someone who previously lost an Apple Pencil in a hotel conference room, I wish that this feature had been available long ago.
William Gallagher of AppleInsider reports that the Apple Pencil Pro will come in five different artistic boxes that show the word “Pro” in different ways. Collect them all!
If you have ever walked through the French Quarter in New Orleans, you may have heard someone trying to hustle you by offering to bet you that they can tell you “where you got them shoes.” (Spoiler alert: their answer will be that you got them on your feet.) But as Gallagher of AppleInsider notes, you may be wondering where Apple CEO Tim Cook got them shoes that he wore during the recent Apple announcement, and it turns out that he was wearing one-of-a-kind Nike sneakers that were made especially for the launch.
The Apple Vision Pro needs to have additional fully immersive content, so it is always nice to learn that more is on the way. Marvel announced that it is releasing a “What If…” story as an immersive story coming exclusively to the Apple Vision Pro.
If I had released last week’s In the News post one day later, the video at the end definitely would have been this fun Star Wars-themed video focused on the precision finding feature called Find Your Friends.
And finally, you might want to watch the following video now because Apple may remove it soon. As a part of Apple’s announcement earlier this week, it showed a video called Crush! in which a large number of musical instruments and other devices are crushed together to produce an iPad. I thought that the video was moderately funny but others disagreed. For example, as reported by Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac, actor Hugh Grant interpreted the ad as Apple destroying traditional tools that allowed human creativity and replacing them with silicon. The backlash caused Apple to release an apology to Ad Age, reproduced by Chance Miller for 9to5Mac, and to cancel plans to run the video as a TV commercial. John Gruber said that now that Apple is at the top of our entire society, it needs to be ready for people to go after it and ought to predict this type of critique. The whole debate raises questions about the role of technology in society—questions that are far more interesting than the video itself, which is fine but nothing special. So if the following link doesn’t work because the video was pulled by Apple, I suppose you didn’t miss all that much.
I suppose one could joke that any lawyer looking to upgrade to a new iPad (or get a first iPad) was going to love the new models introduced yesterday no matter what they were just because it has been so long since Apple announced any new iPads (October 18, 2022). But fortunately, it looks like these new iPads were worth the wait. If you are a power user, the 2024 version of the iPad Pro is incredibly impressive for multiple reasons, so I’m going to start with that exciting announcement. The new Apple Pencil Pro, which works with all of the new iPads, also looks wonderful, so I’ll touch on that next. If you don’t need a high-end iPad, the iPad Air is the perfect iPad for most attorneys, especially since you can now get it in either the traditional size or a larger 13-inch size that will be the sweet spot for many. There is also a new Magic Keyboard. So let’s get to it then.
The iPad Pro M4
No longer talkin’ about my generation. Apple introduced the first iPad Pro in 2015. The next five times that Apple updated the iPad Pro, it referred to each model as a different “generation.” For example, I use the 5th generation iPad Pro 12.9-inch that was introduced on April 20, 2021, and the 6th generation was released on October 18, 2022, an upgrade that changed from the M1 to the M2 processor and added the hover function to the Apple Pencil.
The generations are over. Apple now identifies each model based on the processor and the size, such as the iPad Pro 13-inch (M4).
The iPad Pro used to come in an 11-inch and 12.9-inch size, and this year it comes in an 11-inch and 13-inch size. The difference between 12.9-inch and 13-inch seems pretty minor; you get an extra 20 pixels on the long end and an extra 16 pixels on the short end. But “thirteen” is easier to say than “twelve point nine” so even if this were nothing more than a name change to average up to the next inch, I’d be in favor of it. Thus, the two new iPad Pro models are the iPad Pro 13-inch (M4) and the iPad Pro 11-inch (M4).
I like this new naming method. I think it will make it easier to understand the differences between different models.
M4? Seriously? When Mark Gurman of Bloomberg reported recently that Apple was going to skip the M3 and have the iPad Pro leap from the M2 directly to the M4—a chip that Apple had not even announced yet—I was initially dubious. But the more I thought about it, the more sense it started to make. And now that we know that the rumor is true, I’m excited about what this could mean.
Any processor improvement is good because it makes the device faster, more responsive, and able to do more. And of course, that is true here. The M4’s CPU is 50% faster than the M2 in the last version of the iPad Pro—i.e., 1.5x faster. And the M4’s GPU is 4x faster than the one in the last version of the iPad Pro, something especially useful for 3D graphics and other complex processing. For this reason alone, this new device should feel more powerful.
But my gut tells me that there is more to this story. It has been all over the news that Apple is going to make AI a focus of its WWDC conference next month. And the rumor is that Apple will distinguish itself from other companies because Apple’s products will be powerful enough to run much of the AI on the device itself, which is good news for both speed and privacy. My theory is that Apple is going to have some big AI announcements this year and that Apple’s AI software will run best on an M4 processor—or the version of an M4 processor optimized for an iPhone that will start with the letter “A” and will be introduced this Fall in the 2024 version of the iPhone Pro. Before long, I suspect that the M4 (for the iPad and Macs) and what might be called the A18 Pro (for the iPhone Pro) will be considered the main platform for Apple’s AI efforts. And over the next few years, the M4/A18 may become the minimum required to use the newest AI from Apple.
If my gut is right on this theory, then it is fantastic that the M4 is available now for the iPad Pro. By skipping the M3 generation, Apple is future-proofing this device so that it will remain a high-end device for many years to come.
Thin and light. Another surprise was that the new iPad Pro is incredibly thin and light. The 13-inch model is 5.1 mm thick (.20 inch) versus the prior model’s 6.4 mm (.25 inch). The 13-inch weight is 1.28 pounds, compared to the prior 1.5 pounds. The 11-inch model is also thinner and lighter than the model it replaces.
Is this enough to notice? Apple says that it is, nothing that this is the thinnest product that Apple has ever made, even thinner than the iPod nano, if you can remember using that device long ago. And the initial reports confirm it, especially on the 13-inch model. For example, Federico Viticci of MacStories, who was able to try out the new model at an Apple event in London, said: “The first thing I noticed when picking up the new 13” iPad Pro wasn’t the new OLED display (more on this below); it was the thinness and lightness. It’s hard to convey in an article what it felt like, but I’ll try: the 13” model feels impossibly thin and light.” He says that the difference was one that he “felt right away when I picked up the larger iPad Pro” and he added that “I can’t get over how wildly thin and light the new 13” iPad Pro feels.” David Pierce of The Verge agreed, stating that “this new iPad is noticeably thinner and lighter than anything the company has made before.”
It has been almost a decade since I made the move from a “normal” iPad size to the large version of the iPad Pro, and I still remember when I first made the move that the larger iPad Pro was noticeably larger and heavier. I have gotten used to this change over time, but I often spend hours on end holding an iPad Pro as I read and annotate legal briefs, and I have often thought how nice it might be to have an iPad Pro that is thinner and lighter. So I think that having a thinner and lighter iPad Pro is a great change that professional users will greatly appreciate.
Vivid screen. When I take pictures on my iPhone 15 Pro, they often look considerably better on my iPhone versus any other device that I own (except perhaps for my LG 4K television) because the iPhone 15 Pro has 1000 nits, with the ability to go up to 1600 nits max for HDR content. The same pictures and videos look relatively flat on my computer and my iPad. The new iPad Pro looks like it has a screen that is just as good as a high-end iPhone—and considerably better because it is so much larger—thanks to a new display that uses OLED. In fact, it uses two OLED screens, a configuration that Apple calls Tandem OLED, to become what Apple is calling an Ultra Retina XDR display.
As a lawyer, I don’t need legal briefs to look this good. Having a home screen that is even more vivid is unnecessary eye candy. But I suspect that when you take a break from work and look at pictures and videos on the iPad that were taken with a modern iPhone, they will look stunning.
By the way, if you are annoyed with the glare that you see on an iPad screen—either because you are working outside or because lighting is an issue for you in your work environment—Apple will also let you purchase an iPad Pro with a Nano-texture display that has a matte finish and substantially reduces glare. Apple considers this a high-end feature, so it is only available as a $100 and-on for the most expensive models of the iPad Pro (starting at 1 TB).
A camera for video calls. I virtually always use my iPad in landscape orientation, which has traditionally meant that the camera is on the side. As a result, on a video call, it is difficult to appear to be looking at the camera. The new iPad Pro puts the camera on the long edge where it belongs while still having an area where you can charge an Apple Pencil on top. Thank goodness for this long-overdue change for the iPad Pro.
Adaptive True Tone flash. The new flash on the iPad works better when you are scanning documents because it can adapt the flash in different ways to avoid casting a shadow on a document that shows up in the scan. Without seeing this in action, I don’t yet understand how it works.
Cost. The iPad 13-inch M4 starts at $1299 for a model with 256 GB, which is sufficient for many lawyers. You have space to store even more documents and videos if you get the 512 GB model for an extra $200 at $1499. At the high end, $1899 for the 1 TB model and $2299 for the 2 TB model not only get you a ton of storage space but also these models (1) come with double the RAM and a slightly faster version of the M4 and (2) allow you to add the Nano-texture display for an additional $100. But the 512 GB model is likely the right size for many lawyers, even those who use the iPad enough to justifying splurging on the Pro model instead of the Air.
If the 11-inch” model is better for you, the iPad 11-inch M4 starts at only $999 for the 256 GB model, and then the price increases as you add more storage just like the iPad 13-inch M4.
Apple Pencil Pro
All of the new iPads support the Apple Pencil Pro. The Apple Pencil Pro takes everything that was great about the Apple Pencil second generation such as the ability to charge while attached magnetically to the top of the iPad and adds a few new features.
First, you can squeeze the Apple Pencil Pro, and this brings up a palette on the screen just above where the pen tip is located to make it quick and easy to change things like the color, tip size, type of pen, etc. Different apps can make the palette do different things. It looks like a nice and fast way to swap virtual pens.
Second, a gyroscope was added to the Apple Pencil Pro so that you can rotate the barrel of the pencil in your hands to change things like the brush thickness. This sounds cool if you are an artist, but I don’t yet know if it will make a difference if you are simply taking notes or annotating a document.
Third, a new haptic feedback engine provides feedback that you can feel. This makes it easier to confirm that the Apple Pencil Pro sensed a squeeze or a double-tap.
Fourth, you can use the Find My app to locate your Apple Pencil Pro if you misplace it. I remember many years ago leaving an Apple Pencil in a conference room after I gave a presentation to a group of lawyers. When I realized my mistake, the hotel told me that they had no idea where the Pencil ended up and I had to buy a new one. If the Find My feature had existed back then, I wonder if I would have been reunited with my Pencil. Hopefully, I won’t have to test this in the future, but it is nice to know that this feature exists just in case I need it.
With all of these changes, the Apple Pencil Pro adds quite a bit but remains at only $129. I had expected Apple to charge more for an Apple Pencil with “Pro” in its name. You cannot use an original and the second generation Apple Pencil with the 2024 iPad models, but you can use the $79 Apple Pencil (USB-C) that Apple introduced last year.
Magnetic charging is such a nice feature that even if that were the only difference, I would recommend spending the extra $50 for the Pro model of the Apple Pencil. Considering that you also get double-tap, squeeze, barrel rotation, haptic feedback, and Find My, the Apple Pencil Pro is the clear winner in my mind.
The iPad Air (M2)
The iPad Air (4th generation), announced on March 8, 2022, was the perfect device for most lawyers. It copied the key design features of the iPad Pro such as the thin bezels and the USB-C. And it was powerful enough that you could get real work done. Sure, the screen wasn’t quite as nice as the iPad Pro, but it was more than good enough for almost all tasks, and the price was right. For the past two years, whenever a lawyer has sought my advice on what iPad to get, as long as they were interested in the traditional iPad 11-inch screen size, I virtually always recommended the iPad Air (4th generation).
The new iPad Air (M2) is once again going to be the sweet spot for many lawyers. The M2 processor will be more than fast enough to get real work done, and the 11-inch model has all of the advantages of the iPad Air (4th generation) plus some cool new features brought to the iPad Pro such as (1) a camera on the long side that is so much better for videoconferencing, (2) support for the newest Apple Pencil Pro, and (3) the Adaptive True Tone flash.
By going with the 11-inch iPad Air (M2) instead of the same size iPad Pro (M4), you save $400 with a starting price of $599. And if you are not a power user, the features that you give up probably won’t matter to you:
• The nicer and brighter OLED screen: not a big deal because the iPad Air screen also looks great.
• The M4: not a big deal because the M2 is still plenty fast
• Face ID: not a big deal because you can instead use a fingerprint and use Touch ID
• Four speakers / four microphones: not a big deal because the iPad Air still has two speakers and two mics.
• Less storage capacity: not a big deal if you don’t need much space. And you can still pay more to get additional space on an iPad Air. For example, an iPad Air 11-inch M2 with 512 GB costs $899, so you save $300 versus the iPad Pro 11-inch M4 at $1199.
For a large number of attorneys, the extra features of the iPad Pro simply won’t matter, so the iPad Pro (M2) with its lower price will be perfect.
Better yet, you no longer have to pay more for an iPad Pro just because you want the larger 13-inch size. For the first time ever, the iPad Air now comes in a large size: 13-inch, just like the iPad Pro. Bravo!
When you are doing extensive work with documents—for a lawyer, this means reading briefs, highlighting caselaw, viewing exhibits and zooming in to see details, etc.—having a larger screen helps you to be so much more productive. It’s like the difference between working with standard 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper and the smaller paper that one might find on a notepad provided in a hotel room. Sure, you can still work with the smaller paper if you have to, but the larger size is so much nicer and feels right. Indeed, when you turn a 13-inch iPad to portrait orientation and account for the white space on the four sides, a 13-inch iPad is about the same size as a letter-size piece of paper.
In the past, when I have helped lawyers decide what iPad to buy, I have tried to temper my enthusiasm for the large screen because I felt bad talking a lawyer into an iPad Pro 12.9-inch when they didn’t need all of the power features that result in the higher price. That is no longer an issue. For only an extra $200, you can jump from an iPad Air 11-inch (M2) to an iPad Air 13-inch (M2) at $799. My only gripe is that the iPad Air starts at 128 GB, which I think might be a little tight on space. Spending an extra $100 for the $699 11-inch model or the $899 13-inch model is a wise upgrade.
Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro
Apple is continuing to sell the $299 Magic Keyboard and it works with the new iPad Air (M2). But if you buy an iPad Pro (M4), you’ll need a new and different model of the Magic Keyboard called the Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro. The cost is the same, $299, and as a bonus, you gain a function row across the top with 14 keys to control things like screen brightness, volume, media playback, and more.
I’ve never owned a Magic Keyboard so I cannot say much about this new model other than I’ve heard people say that a function row would be useful. So now you have it, if you go with the iPad Pro (M4). But it seems that folks who have been Magic Keyboard users in the past like the new design For example, Jason Snell of Six Colors wrote: “It retains the clever cantilever design but takes advantage of the lighter iPad Pro weight to slide it further back, adding room for a larger trackpad (with haptic click!) and a full row of function keys. Oh, to finally adjust my iPad’s volume and brightness without taking my hands off the keyboard.”
Conclusion
Yesterday was a huge day for iPad hardware. The new iPad Pro (M4) adds impressive new features that power users will love. But for most attorneys and other professionals who just want a solid tablet to use to get work done, the iPad Air (M2) is perfect, especially now that you can get a larger 13-inch model. Apple will continue to sell the low-end iPad and the iPad mini, but folks trying to get significant work done are likely to be disappointed with those limited models.
My hope is that at WWDC next month, Apple previews some great new iPad software to go with these impressive new hardware devices. And as noted above, I’m especially interested to see how AI factors into all of this.
Whether you are ready now or will wait until later this year, such as perhaps the holiday season, these new 2024 iPad models are really impressive. Lawyers and other professional users are going to love them.
This morning at 7am Pacific, 8am Mountain, 9am Cental and 10am Eastern, Apple will stream a video announcing new iPads and new iPad accessories. You can click here to watch it on the Apple website. Or you can click here to watch it on YouTube. If you have an Apple TV, you can also watch the live stream using the Apple TV app.
I’ll post my initial thoughts on the announcements on Wednesday morning, and Brett Burney and I will be discussing the announcements in the upcoming Episode 146 of the In the News podcast, which we will record this Friday.
A few days ago, Apple released the results for its 2024 fiscal second quarter (which ran from December 31, 2023, to March 30, 2024) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results. Unlike Apple’s Q1 which contains all of the holiday sales, Apple’s Q2 is usually not a particularly interesting quarter. Two years ago, Apple set a new Q2 record of $97.3 billion. Last year, earnings in this quarter were $94.8 billion. This year, earnings were $90.8 billion. However, if you look at multiple quarters over the last few years—which is easy to do using the graphs prepared by Jason Snell of Six Colors—the big picture is that Apple revenue rose in late 2020 into 2021 as people upgraded equipment during the pandemic, then Apple reached a new higher-than-even plateau in 2022 that has stayed roughly even since then, without dropping back down to the early 2020 and earlier levels. Suffice it to say that Apple’s revenue is just fine. If you want to get all of the nitty-gritty details, you can download the audio from the conference call from iTunes, or you can read a transcript of the call prepared by Jason Snell of Six Colors. Apple’s official press release is here. Here are the items that stood out to me.
iPhone
iPhone revenue for the quarter was just shy of $46 billion, lower than the record $51.3 billion this time last year. Apple explained that the results one year ago were particularly high (about $5 billion higher than normal) because of pent-up demand from the prior quarter (the 2022 holiday season) when there were COVID-related supply disruptions for the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. Apple says that if you ignore that bump from a year ago, the total company revenue would have grown from 2023 Q2 to 2024 Q2.
Apple CFO Luca Maestri said that the “iPhone active install base grew to a new all-time high in total and in every geographic segment, and during the March quarter, we saw many iPhone models as the top-selling smartphones around the world.”
iPad
iPad revenue for the quarter was $5.6 billion, lower than the $6.7 billion in 2023 Q2, $7.6 billion in 2022 Q2, and $7.8 billion in 2021 Q2. Of course, one might argue that it is amazing that there was significant iPad revenue at all in 2023 since no iPads were announced last year. I’ll be interested in learning what iPad revenue is in 2024 Q3 and Q4 in light of the new iPads being announced tomorrow.
Over half of iPads sales were to people who had not previously owned an iPad.
Other
Cook said that there has been great enthusiasm for the Apple Vision Pro, and he noted that more than half of the Fortune 100 companies have bought units and are “exploring innovative ways to use it to do things that weren’t possible before, and this is just the beginning.” As expected for a brand new device of this nature, there is not one single thing that people are doing, and instead people are kicking the tires on all sorts of ideas. Cook said: “People are using it for many different things in the enterprise, and that varies from field service, to training, to health care related things like preparing a doctor for pre-op surgery or advanced imaging, control centers, and so it’s an enormous number of different verticals, and our focus is on growing that ecosystem and getting more apps and more and more enterprises engaged, and the event that we had recently, I can’t overstate the enthusiasm in the room. It was extraordinary, and so we’re off to a good start, I think, with enterprise.”
Here is some anecdotal data on Apple Vision pro adoption. I work for a large law firm of around 300 attorneys, and to my knowledge, I am the only one in my law firm with an Apple Vision Pro. Also, a week ago, I gave a presentation at a large technology conference sponsored by the Virginia State Bar Association—so that was an audience with a special interest in technology—and of the attorneys in my session, I was the only one who had purchased an Apple Vision Pro. Don’t get me wrong: if anyone asks me, I actually tell them not to buy an Apple Vision Pro because it is still such early days. On the other hand, if they ask me if I enjoy using my Apple Vision Pro, my answer is a very enthusiastic yes, and it is going to be so amazing when this type of advanced technology becomes more common.
Cook acknowledged the fact that Apple will have a product announcement on May 7, saying that “we’re getting ready for an exciting product announcement next week that we think our customers will love,” and he also mentioned the upcoming WWDC conference in June.
Once again, Cook emphasized that AI will play an important role in Apple’s future. “We continue to feel very bullish about our opportunity in generative AI. We are making significant investments, and we’re looking forward to sharing some very exciting things with our customers soon. We believe in the transformative power and promise of AI, and we believe we have advantages that will differentiate us in this new era, including Apple’s unique combination of seamless hardware, software, and services integration, groundbreaking Apple Silicon with our industry-leading neural engines, and our unwavering focus on privacy, which underpins everything we create.”
There is a lot that makes up the services category for Apple. It includes Apple TV+, the App Store, the money that Apple makes from Google to use Google as the default search engine in Safari, and much more. But this is a killer category for Apple. For example, in this past quarter, Apple services revenue was an all-time high of $23.9 billion. Better yet, Cook said that about 75% of that was profit.Â
Speaking of Apple TV+, Cook announced that the compay would launch a movie called “Wolves” later this year “which reunites George Clooney and Brad Pitt.”
Masestri said that almost two-thirds of Apple Watch sales in the past quarter were to people buying their first Apple Watch. This is consistent with what I am seeing: I’m amazed to see so many people around me in different parts of my life wearing an Apple Watch.
With new iPads expected to be announced on Tuesday, Brett Burney and I begin this episode of the In the News podcast by speculating on what might be coming. Is it possible that Apple will surprise us all by using an M4 processor, or is that just silly? We also talk about some big Apple problems this week that we don’t really understand yet: alarms not working on some iPhones which is causing people to oversleep, and a small number of people, including Brett, being asked to reset their Apple ID even when they are away from home and thus it is more difficult to do this. We also discuss transcription of podcasts and audio that you record, default passwords on routers and other technology in your home, how the Apple Watch can save your life with AFib notifications, and much more.
In our In the Know segment, Brett and I share tips that work in two apps from Readdle, PDF Expert and Documents. Brett discusses offline sync, and I discuss customizing your toolbar.
In just a few days on May 7, Apple will stream an Apple Event during which I expect to see new iPads announced. What new features will Apple include in the new iPads being announced next week? Dan Moren of Six Colors has some ideas, which he shares in this article for Macworld. There is also a rumor that the new iPad Pro will use not the latest M3 chip but the M4 chip. Jason Cross of Macworld explains why that rumor might not be so crazy after all. For example, if Apple has access to M4 processors but only in a limited supply, a high-end product like the iPad Pro that doesn’t sell in huge quantities like some other Apple products might be a perfect place to debut this new chip. I’m incredibly excited to see what Apple will show us. And now, the news of note from the past week:
We have all heard stories about how the AFib feature on the Apple Watch can be life-saving. William Gallagher of AppleInsider reports that the FDA has now “approved the Apple Watch’s atrial fibrillation history feature under its stringent Medical Device Development Tools program that specifies what devices health professionals can rely on.”
For example, Gallagher also shares the tale of a woman who produces videos for Peloton who explains that an Apple Watch saved her life by alerting her that she may have AFib.
A number of iPhone owners across the country have been finding the alarm function on their iPhones did not work, causing some people to miss work. Andrew Cunningham of Ars Technica notes that Apple is aware of the problem.
As reported by Michael Simon of Macworld, you can now get the beautiful Apple Studio Display 5K monitor from Amazon for only $1,299.97, an all-time low and a $300 savings. I use this monitor with my Mac mini and it looks great, has great speakers, and has lots of other features. You can also use it as an external display for an iPad.
Christian Zibreg of iDownloadBlog reports that the Documents app by Readdle can now transcribe audio and video (such as interviews, lectures, podcasts, etc.).
Many consumer devices for the home such as routers and smart home devices come with dumb default passwords. And since many people never think to change the password, hackers can often guess the password required to undermine the security of devices in your home. Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac reports that new cybersecurity laws in the UK and EU will ban the use of dumb default passwords in these devices.
For all of the initial computers that I used in the early 1980s—my Sinclair ZX81, the Apple ][ computers that I used at school, and my second home computer, the Commodore 64—I programmed in BASIC. Benj Edwards of Ars Technica reports that BASIC is now 60 years old. I didn’t realize that the programming language started as far back as 1964. So I guess what I’m trying to say is: 10 PRINT “HAPPY BIRTHDAY BASIC” / 20 GOTO 10 / RUN.
If you want to use an iPhone 15 to take 4K ProRes video, it uses a ton of storage so you will probably need to save to external storage. Julie Strietelmeir of The Gadgeteer reviews a device from Hagibis ($36.99 on Amazon) that attaches to the back of an iPhone using MagSafe and holds an M.2 2230 NVMe SSD card (which is not included). Seems like an interesting solution that doesn’t add much bulk to the iPhone.
Two Apple TV+ shows that I enjoyed—Sow Horses and Silo—won BAFTA awards, which David Snow of Cult of Mac says is essentially the British Oscars.
And finally, it turns out that you can drop an iPhone from 300 feet, or even 16,000 feet, and it can still work. How is that possible? Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal shows you the answer in this video:
Tick tock goes the clock as the countdown begins for TikTok to either sell to a buyer in the U.S. or shut down the service in this country, and that’s the first topic that Brett and I discuss on this week’s episode of the In the News podcast. We also talk about what Apple might be planning for its upcoming announcement on May 7, more information about what Apple plans to do next with AI, HomeKit devices that you can use outside your house, small indoor chargers, a huge outdoor charger that top of your iPhone while also chilling your cocktail, using an Apple Vision Pro to conduct surgery, and more.
In our Where Y’At? segment, we discuss using an AirTag to chase down a car thief.
In our In the Know segment, Brett shares a fantastic tip about how you can use Keynote to work with images. I talk about how you can use your iPhone with a red tint at night so that it doesn’t destroy your night vision.
Yesterday, I took a vacation from work, and my wife and I attended the first day of Jazz Fest in New Orleans. This is a two-weekend festival that is at the end of April and beginning of May every year. If you haven’t been before, it gets my highest recommendation. There are over a dozen stages, so at any one time, there is always lots of good music to hear. Yesterday, I listened to some great Blues music and a little bit of Gospel, some swamp rock and roll, a great brass band, the legendary Dixie Chicks who celebrated 60 years of singing “Chapel of Love,” Zydeco music from Rockin’ Dopsie, and then a little band you may have heard of called the Beach Boys. It was an eclectic mix of music and I loved it all. Upcoming artists this year include The Rolling Stones, Foo Fighters, Jon Batiste, Vampire Weekend, Chris Stapleton, and many more. If you cannot be here in person, you can also stream some of the music live or after the fact on WWOZ. (For example, use this link and then jump to the 50:10 point to hear John Boutte playing yesterday his toe-tapping crowd favorite: At the Foot of Canal Street.) We also had some amazing food throughout the day including beignets (both sweet with powdered sugar and savory with crawfish), a turduckin po-boy, cochon de lait, soft shell crab, catfish, meat pies, crawfish enchiladas, the always refreshing Mango Freeze, and more. If you hear “festival food” and think corn dogs, this is the opposite of that, some of the best dishes that New Orleans has to offer. If you enjoy music, food, art, and having fun, this is my annual PSA that you owe it to yourself to attend Jazz Fest in New Orleans one of these years. And now, the news of note from the past week:
A podcast update: Brett Burney and I cannot record this week’s edition of the In the News podcast on Friday morning because of Brett’s travel schedule, so we will instead record on Saturday morning. Absent any hiccups, you should see the episode in your podcast player and the video on YouTube on Saturday afternoon.
The ultimate App Store rejection is the one that occurs when Congress passes a law, signed by the President, that essentially bans your app, and that is what happened to TikTok this week, as reported by Cristiano Lima-Strong of the Washington Post.
Some, such as John Gruber of Daring Fireball, have been arguing in favor of a ban for a long time. Others think that the new law is xenophobic, unconstitutional, and/or wrong. I’m not sure where I come out. It’s quite complicated, and there are interesting arguments on both sides.
After May 7, the next big set of announcements from Apple will come during the Keynote presentation at its WWDC developer conference on June 10. It seems certain that AI will be a part of that presentation. In the meantime, some of the AI researchers at Apple have been publishing academic papers on these topics. For example, Malcolm Owen of AppleInsider reports on new ways that Apple researchers have come up with to improve the accuracy and reliability of AI using large language models. The details of these advancements are way over my head, but it is good to see folks at Apple making progress.
Jason Snell of Six Colors thinks that when Apple announces new AI features, it will be a reason to upgrade your iPhone and other devices because you will need to have even more RAM to run the AI on-device.
Here is another story about a person recovering their stolen vehicle thanks to an AirTag. But this one is a little more dramatic because dashcam videos allow you to see much of the story, not just read about it. Mekahlo Medina of the NBC affiliate in Las Angeles has the story, and I recommend that you watch the video.
The crew at MacStories is back to make HomeKit recommendations, this time for devices that are outside of your home. It’s a great set of recommendations.
There are portable batteries, and then there are portable power stations. Eric Slivka of MacRumors reports on products in development by Bluetti including a portable cooler that looks like a regular ice chest but which works as a refrigerator for up to three days. It even works as a portable ice maker. And oh yeah, you can also use it to charge your iPhone.
Filipe EspĂłsito of 9to5Mac reports that a doctor in Brazil used his Apple Vision Pro to assist during a shoulder arthroscopy surgery. I guess if you are doing a surgery that uses a tiny camera, you might as well display it on a Vision Pro screen. There is also a YouTube video that lets you see what the doctor saw during surgery.
Before I used the iPhone, I was a big fan of Palm OS devices for a decade. My first was the Palm III in 1998 and my last one was the Palm Treo 650, which I used until I purchased an iPhone in 2008. Cameron Kaiser of Ars Technica wrote a great retrospective on all of the devices that ran Palm OS. I enjoyed the walk down memory lane.
And finally, I’ve embedded below the trailer for Season 4 of the Apple TV+ show called Trying. I’m mentioning it today because this is one of those shows that hasn’t gotten a lot of buzz but it is really good: both heartwarming and funny. The show is about a couple in England who are trying to adopt, and since the show is now about to start its fourth season, you can probably guess that the adoption story has a happy ending. But the series also explores the grief that typically goes along with the adoption process. The series especially hit home for me since my wife and I went through this process, and we also know so many others who have gone through the adoption process. But anyone who is a parent will find lots of humor in this series that hits close to home. If you haven’t started this one yet, go back to Season 1 and see what you think. I think you’ll like it. And if you have been watching, Season 4 starts on May 22:
Yesterday, Apple revealed that new iPads will be released on May 7, 2024. No, if you want to be technical about it, Apple did not actually use the word “iPad” when it said that it would have an announcement in two weeks on May 7. But it is clear that is what is coming.
First, Apple did not release any new iPads at all in 2023, so we are certainly due for a new iPad. The iPad Pro was last updated on October 18, 2022, and it was a minor update: a speed bump by going from the M1 to the M2 processor and a new hover feature for the Apple Pencil. There was a more substantial update to the entry-level iPad that same day. The iPad Air was last updated on March 8, 2022, a substantial update that brought many of the best features of the iPad Pro to the iPad Air.
Second, the main graphic associated with the event shows what is clearly a hand holding an Apple Pencil—a stylus that only works with iPads.
(If you were a high school debater like I was, you will especially appreciate the animated version of this graphic with the hand spinning the stylus.)
Those are not enough tea leaves for you? OK, how about this third one. On the service formerly known as Twitter, Tim Cook said yesterday: “Pencil us in for May 7! ✏️”
So new iPads are coming in two weeks. What will we see? The rumor is that we will see a new iPad Pro and iPad Air, but it wouldn’t surprise me to see the entire iPad line updated. It will be interesting to see whether the iPad mini also sees an update; it hasn’t been updated since 2021, and some folks believe that Apple may be done with that size of the iPad.
It also seems like it is time for a new version of the Apple Pencil. The original Apple Pencil was released in 2015 (replaced by a USB-C version in 2023) and the second generation came out in 2018. With the Pencil right there in the graphic, it makes you think that we could soon see a third generation.
One thing that surprised me about this announcement is the time: 7am Pacific. Apple usually does these at 10am Pacific. It makes me wonder if there will be some sort of live event in New York, where the event starts at 10am. We’ll see.
If you have been thinking about getting a new iPad, now is the time to wait to see what Apple announces in two weeks. If you are very happy with your current iPad—which describes me, because I still love the iPad Pro 12.9” (fifth generation) that I purchased three years ago in 2021—the question will be whether Apple has enough new features that even happy iPad users feel compelled to upgrade.
