Ordering an Apple Vision Pro is unlike ordering any other device that Apple has ever sold. What size bands do you need? What accessories should you buy? How do you order prescription lenses and what are the limitations? Brett Burney and I begin this week’s episode of the In the News podcast by describing everything that you need to know about the buying process for Apple’s newest product, the first new platform since Apple started selling the Apple Watch. We also talk about the new security features coming in a few days when iOS 17.3 is released, the difference between MagSafe and Qi2 products, changes on the Apple Board of Directors, a new milestone for iPhone sales, and much more.
In our Where Y’At? segment, Brett and I discuss the amazing story of a man in Toronto who tracked his stolen vehicle across the ocean to a used car lot in Dubai.
In our In the Know segment, Brett discusses the new Ember Smart Travel Mug 2+. I recommend a new video from Apple that shows you what it is like to use an Apple Vision Pro as well as a new technical specs page with tons of details on this upcoming device.
There is a lot going on in the world of Apple right now, such as the pre-orders for the Apple Vision Pro that started this morning. (I placed an order, and have an appointment at my local Apple Store at 8:30 on February 2 to pick it up.) But one news item that I don’t want you to miss is a change that is coming in iOS 17.3, which many expect Apple to release next week. This new feature will address a security issue that was exposed in early 2023 by Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal. I discussed it in this post. In short, if a criminal learns of your iPhone passcode (perhaps by having someone look over your shoulder as you type it in) and then steals your iPhone, they can then change the passcode and cause you a world of problems such as draining your bank account, forever deleting all of your photos, improperly using confidential information, etc. As Joanna Stern and Nicole Nguyen reported last month, and as discussed more extensively in this post by John Gruber of Daring Fireball, Apple has a number of solutions coming in iOS 17.3 that seem to be quite clever. But importantly, to take advantage of these solutions, you need to enable a new feature called Stolen Device Protection. So whenever you install iOS 17.3, please remember to consider enabling this new feature to give you additional protection against someone stealing your iPhone and taking over your Apple account. I’m especially sensitive to these issues because—like many readers of this website—I am an attorney with confidential information on my devices. But because of the chaos and potentially severe consequences that could come to anyone who falls victim to this scheme, I’m glad that Apple is doing something substantial to address this situation. I wish that Apple had acted more quickly, but I’m glad to have more protection soon. And now, the news of note from the past week:
If you plan to get an Apple Vision Pro, one thing that you can look forward to is a great way to enjoy 3D movies. In the past, I’ve been unimpressed by most 3D movies because in a theater or using home theater glasses, you typically need to sacrifice brightness for the added dimension. But it looks like the 3D movie experience will be substantially better thanks to the numerous features of the Apple Vision Pro. Apple issued a press release this week to describe some of the new entertainment features that will become possible with an Apple Vision Pro, and it is worth reading that release to learn about it all.
One entertainment feature that you will not have in the Apple Vision Pro, at least for now, is a Netflix app. Netflix provided a statement to Bloomberg to say that you can watch Netflix content in a webpage with the Apple Vision Pro (the same way that you can already view Netflix content on a Mac or PC), but Netflix does not currently plan to update its iPhone/iPad/Apple TV app to work with the Vision Pro. This means that you cannot download a show to an Apple Vision Netflix app to watch it on a plane, unless you are on a plane with sufficient Internet broadband for streaming. My hope is that at some point in the future, Netflix will expand its 3D streaming video offerings and at the same time bring an app to the Apple Vision platform for both 3D and non-3D movies.
Apple invited a number of journalists who had previously tried out an Apple Vision Pro to do so again this week. One resulting report that I found particularly interesting is this one by Chance Miller of 9to5Mac because he provides some new information on the optional Dual Loop Band, the keyboard, spatial videos and Immersive Videos, the impressive Disney+ app, and the EyeSight feature that displays a representation of your eyes and other information on the outside of the device to improve interaction with people who are around you.
Samantha Wiley of iLounge reports that the HBO Max app will fully support the Apple Vision Pro.
John-Anthony Disotto of iMore identifies the over 150 3D movies that you will be able to watch on the Apple Vision Pro when it launches.
Many years ago, Epic picked a fight with Apple because Epic wanted to be able to offer its own App Store on the iPhone and iPad. In the resulting antitrust lawsuit, Epic won some minor battles, but Apple was mostly successful. This week, the United States Supreme Court denied further review. John Voorhees of MacStories, who used to be a practicing attorney, explains what is next in this article. For one, Apple will start allowing app developers to provide users with a link for pay items on an external website instead of an in-app purchase, but because of various restrictions on the process, many developers may decide that it isn’t worth the hassle. Additionally, Epic will have to pay Apple $73 million in legal fees. And perhaps worst of all for Epic, and as noted in this post by John Gruber of Daring Fireball, I doubt that we will ever see Fortnight return to Apple platforms: “iOS Fortnite players are like the children in an ugly divorce.”
Speaking of Apple’s legal battles, while Apple pursues its federal court appeal of the ITC import ban, Apple announced this week that it will disable the blood oxygen detection feature in all new models of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 (because the appellate court denied Apple’s request for a stay pending the appeal). If Apple wins the appeal, I’m sure that it will issue a software update to restore the feature on those devices. If Apple loses the appeal, perhaps Apple will reach an agreement with Masimo pursuant to which Apple can re-enable the feature. If you already own an Apple Watch with a working blood oxygen detection feature, then this change will not affect you. Wesley Hilliard of Apple Insider provides further details.
I’m a big fan of 3-in-1 wireless chargers that work with StandBy mode and charge your devices at the maximum possible speed in the least amount of space. That’s why I gave the Anker 3-in-1 Cube with MagSafe such a glowing review a few months ago. Rikka Altland of 9to5Toys has tried out the new Anker MagGo 3-in-1 Charging Station and is a big fan. At $110 on Amazon, this product is a little cheaper than the Anker Cube (currently $135) but works much the same way. Instead of being an official Apple MagSafe product, this is a Qi2 product, which means that it charges at the same speed. I hope to see even more Qi2 products like this soon so that creative product designers can come up with even more useful products like this.
Apple announced this week that two members of its Board of Directors are retiring now that they have reached the age of 75. One of those people is former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, and John Gruber wrote a nice article about Gore and Apple.
For a long time now, Apple has received the most revenue in the smartphone market, but that is because it focuses on more profitable models and lets other companies sell less expensive smartphones. But according to a report discussed by Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac, 2023 was the first time ever that Apple sold more smartphones than any other manufacturer. With a 20.1% market share, Apple just barely beat out Samsung’s 19.4% market share.
Thomas Daigle of CBC reports that a man in Toronto had his GMC Yukon SUV stolen—the second time that this had happened to him this year. This time, he had an AirTag hidden in the vehicle. He was able to track his vehicle to a rail yard, then the Port of Montreal, then the United Arab Emirates, and finally to a used car lot near Dubai. The fascinating article has tons of details on how the man tracked his stolen vehicle and tried, without success so far, to get the police and even Interpol to help him.
If you watch the Apple TV+ show For All Mankind—and if you don’t, you should!—then you know that last week, Apple aired the exciting final episode of Season 4. For some great behind-the-scenes information about the show, I recommend that you listen to the latest episode of the NASA Vending Machine podcast by Jason Snell and Dan Moren because they interview the co-creators and showrunners Ben Nedivi and Matt Wolpert.
If you are a fan of musicals, I recommend the first two seasons of the Apple TV+ show Schmigadoon! However, if you are a fan of Schmigadoon!, I’m sorry to share this report from Zac Hall at 9to5Mac. Even though Season 3 has been written (with 25 new songs), Apple decided not to renew the show for a third season. That’s a shame because it was a good show, and I have no doubt that I would have enjoyed another season of it.
And finally, speaking of great looks, here is a preview of a new TV series coming to Apple TV+ called The New Look. Inspired by true events, it tells the stories of Christian Dior, Coco Chanel, and others in the Paris fashion scene near the end of World War II when the Nazis occupied Paris. The cast and (of course) the wardrobe looks amazing. I hadn’t heard anything about this show before this week, and based on this preview, it could be really great:
The Apple Vision Pro now has a release date, and so Brett Burney and I spend the first segment of this week’s episode of the In the News podcast discussing this interesting new product. We then discuss an initial review of the Click keyboard for iPhone, a new resource from David Sparks to help you to be more productive, why you should considering shuffling the photos on your iPhone’s lock screen, Find My devices that are slim enough to fit in a wallet, and more.
In our Where Y’At? segment, Brett and I discuss the iPhone that fell 16,000 feet from Alaska Airlines 1282 and survived to tell the tale.
In our In the Know segment, Brett recommends using Command-Tab on an external keyboard with an iPad, and I share a tip for playing a video in the background even when the app developer doesn’t make it easy for you to do so.
One week ago, on Friday, January 5, 2024, an Alaska Airlines plane left the airport in Portland, Oregon, and shortly thereafter a panel blew off of the aircraft, causing the cabin to depressurize. It is amazing that the pilot was able to get the plane back to the airport quickly and nobody died, but according to Lauren Rosenblatt of the Seattle Times, many of the 165 passengers are claiming injuries and have filed a class action lawsuit. Minyvonne Burke and Jay Blackman of NBC News reported that the FAA issued a statement yesterday saying: “This incident should have never happened and it cannot happen again.” No argument there. I mention all of this because there is actually an interesting and surprising iPhone angle to this story. As reported by John Gruber of Daring Fireball (and many others), game designer Sean Bates found an iPhone on the side of the road that had apparently fallen from the plane, and it was still working after a 16,000-foot drop. He says it was “[s]till in airplane mode with half a battery and open to a baggage claim for #AlaskaAirlines ASA1282.” Note that he was able to see the baggage claim information because the iPhone did not have a lock code on it. So I suppose the real lesson here is that you may not be able to do anything about the safety of the planes that you fly, but you can control whether your iPhone has a passcode so that it remains private no matter what happens—even things that should have never happened. And now, the other news of note from the past week:
I’ve frequently mentioned the fantastic Field Guides created by former attorney and current guru of all things Apple David Sparks. These online guides contain high-quality videos that teach you everything that you need to know about a topic: typically an app or a service. His newest Field Guide is called the Productivity Field Guide (affiliate link), and it is full of information on how to be more productive no matter what it is that you are trying to do. I’ve heard David talk about productivity topics for more years than I can count, so I know that this is something that he cares deeply about and has thought a lot about. Congrats to David for finishing this new guide, and I hope that it helps tons of people to be more productive.
This isn’t an iPhone topic per se, but it is a legal technology topic that is of interest to me. Many courts have been adopting, or considering adopting, rules that require disclosures when you use AI to help create a brief. I am opposed to these rules, and rather than list my reasons here, I’m instead going to just link to this fantastic post on LinkedIn by New Orleans appellate attorney Andrew Lee, where he links to the letter that he sent to the U.S. Fifth Circuit. Kudos to Andy for researching and writing that detailed letter and for sharing it with all of us. I’ll also note that I’ve been using the new AI legal research feature on Westlaw, and it is incredibly useful.
Last week, I mentioned the introduction of Clicks, an iPhone case that adds a hardware keyboard. Nick Wolny of CNet was at CES in Las Vegas this week and had a chance to try it out for about 20 minutes, and his preliminary review was that the product has some real potential.
Rikka Altland of 9to5Toys reports on lots of new chargers, power banks, and multi-device docks that were announced by Anker at CES this week.
Although we know that Apple Vision Pro pre-sales begin in one week, there is still tons that we don’t know about purchasing and using this new product. For example, what is the process if you wear glasses? As Dan Moren notes in an article for Macworld, this is a different kind of product, with a different kind of launch.
I’ve noted that I’m a fan of the MagSafe Battery Pack from Apple, but I guess that Apple itself doesn’t share my love since it no longer sells the product. However, Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac reports that Mophie revealed at CES that it is bringing back its Juice Pack, a somewhat similar product that attaches with magnets to the back of your iPhone and provides additional battery life.
Jason Snell of Six Colors writes about using the Photo Shuffle feature to cause pictures of friends and family—even our furry friends—appear on the iPhone lock screen. He notes: “One of the magical things about Photo Shuffle is that those obscure photos also keep floating to the top. They’re not necessarily the best or most polished, but they’re surprising and delightful.” I agree 100%, and I love this feature.
Apple announced this week that former Vice President Al Gore and former CEO of Boeing James Bell are retiring from the Apple Board of Directors now that both are turning 75, as reported by Chance Miller of 9to5Mac. Dr. Wanda Austin, former CEO of The Aerospace Corporation, has been nominated for election to Apple’s board of directors. If you are watching the current season of For All Mankind on Apple TV+, then you know why Al Gore has been on my mind for the last few weeks.
With more and more ways to use the Find My app to track items—such as the Eufy SmartTrack Card and Rolling Square AirCard devices I reviewed earlier this week—some folks may find themselves tracking many AirTags and similar products. Wesley Hilliard of Apple Insider reports that Apple recently raised the limit on items that you can track from 16 to 32. I didn’t even know that there was a limit.
If you use an Apple Magic Keyboard—I’ve been using one with my iPhone and iPad since 2010—Apple has released what it calls a critical firmware update to fix a Bluetooth security flaw, as reported by Oliver Haslam of iMore.
And finally, here is the opening title sequence for the upcoming Apple TV+ show Masters of the Air, a nine-part series that premiers on January 26. I was a big fan of Band of Brothers way back when, and I hope that this one is even better.
The next big thing from Apple is only days away. The Apple Vision Pro, first announced by Apple last year, will be available for pre-order starting at 8am Eastern on Friday, January 19, 2024. Two weeks later, on Friday, February 2, 2024, you will be able to schedule a demo of the Apple Vision Pro in an Apple Store to try out the product and purchase it if you like it. This is all in the United States; we don’t yet have a date for other countries.
Last year, we learned that the starting price would be $3,499. That remains true, and it is for a unit with 256GB of storage. I presume that Apple will also sell versions with more storage for a few hundred dollars more, but those specifics have not yet been announced.
If you have good vision, all you need is the device. If you wear glasses, you will need to purchase optical inserts made by ZEISS. If you just need something similar to reader glasses, that will cost $99. If you want to match a prescription, you will need to have a valid prescription and the lens cost will be $149. Apple has not yet provided details on how the process works for getting the prescription inserts. I believe that an eyeglasses prescription in the United States is valid for one year, so if your prescription is older than that, Apple may require you to get an updated prescription to order the lenses, but that is unclear.
I was a little surprised to see Apple provide all of this information yesterday in a mere press release. I thought that we might see another product video with more details on how it works. Perhaps Apple is saving that for February 2. The rumor is that initial supplies are limited, and those folks who are likely to be early adopters probably don’t need to get even more information from Apple to decide that they want to buy one. As you might have guessed, I fall in that category.
As we learn many more details over the coming weeks, it will be exciting to see this news unfold. If the early reports are accurate, this will be a fascinating device to use.
Here is a fun video called Get Ready that Apple released last night to build excitement. It reminds me of the fantastic Hello video that Apple released before the iPhone first went on sale:
I love having the power to find a lost or stolen object using Apple’s Find My technology, and I and the members of my family own multiple AirTags. But an AirTag is too big for your wallet. For the last six months, I’ve been trying out two products that work similarly to an AirTag but that are thin and flat enough to fit in a wallet. First, I started using the Rolling Square AirCard, which I originally backed in a Kickstarter campaign and which you can now purchase on Amazon for $29.90. More recently, I started using a Eufy SmartTrack Card, which is normally $29.99 but which you can currently buy on Amazon for only $16.99 — a fantastic price, so I urge you to buy one quickly before the price goes back up. The core features are similar, but there are some differences between the two products. I prefer the Eufy SmartTrack Card, but my 18-year-old son prefers the Rolling Square AirCard.
The key feature: find your wallet and get notified if you left it behind
The #1 reason to get either of these products is to find your lost wallet and be notified if you left it behind.
Both products let you use the “Add Other Item” feature in the iPhone’s Find My app to add the card so that it appears in the same place in the app as your AirTag and other trackers. Using a map, you can see where the card is currently located. Like an AirTag, these cards lack GPS, but they have Bluetooth, so if any iPhone is in the vicinity of the card, you can get a rough sense of where your card is located. For example, if you go to work and leave your wallet at home with one of these cards in the wallet, you can use use the Find My app to see (1) the last time that the wallet was seen at home (the time when your iPhone was last at home and the card could “see” it via Bluetooth) or (2) the last time that any other iPhone was in the vicinity of the card. So if someone else is in your house, or perhaps even if your wallet is near the front of your house and someone walks by your house with an iPhone, you may be able to see that your wallet was at your house as of just a minute ago.
Both products also help you to find your wallet if you are in the vicinity but cannot find it. Just the other day, I forgot that I had left my wallet in my study. When I went to leave my home and could not find my wallet, I opened the Find My app, selected the card that was in my wallet, and instructed the Find My app to make the card play a sound. My son, who was in the study at the time, immediately yelled that my wallet was in that room. But if he had not been around, I could have just walked around my house until I heard the beeps coming from the card.
Both products also help to prevent you from leaving your wallet behind. You can enable a function in the Find My app to give you a notification if you left the card behind where you are located (with “you” in this case being the place where your iPhone is located). The notification takes a few minutes, so you may be several blocks away before you are alerted that you left your wallet at a restaurant. But that is better than going home and not realizing that your wallet was left in the restaurant until after the restaurant has closed. You can designate certain locations—such as your home—so that you will not receive a notification if your card is left there.
These key features are great, and they work well with both of these products.
Size and weight
Everything that I just described can also be done with an AirTag. What makes these cards different from an AirTag is their size and weight.
A credit card and a driver’s license are mandated to use the dimensions 3.375 inches wide by 2.125 inches high. Both of these tracking cards are that same width and height. In the next two pictures, the Eufy product is at the top and the Rolling Square product is at the bottom:
The ISO requirement for credit card thickness is .76 mm (0.0299 inches). These tracking cards, however, are about three times that thick: about 2.2 mm / 0.09 inches. So by adding one of these tracking cards to your wallet, it is like adding almost three credit cards. By comparison, an AirTag is about 8 mm / 0.31 inches.
Credit card weight varies, with a plastic card around 5 grams and a metal card between 13 and 18 grams. This is a measurement on which these two tracking cards differ. The Rolling Square AirCard weighs about 20 grams whereas the Eufy SmartTrack Card weighs around 18 grams. More importantly, the Eufy card FEELS like it weighs even less, closer to the almost nothingness weight of a business card. I’m not sure why this is so noticeable if it is only a 2 gram difference. Perhaps it is because the Eufy card is surrounded by plastic whereas the Rolling Square product has a glass shell.
I want as little weight as possible in my wallet, and I like the reduced weight and the feel of the Eufy product. My son, on the other hand, also has a Rolling Square AirCard, and he told me that he prefers the feel and look of that product with its glass (see-through in places) and more of techno look to it.
Battery Life
One reason that these two products are smaller and lighter than an AirTag is that there is no replaceable battery. Both devices have a battery sealed inside that should last about 2.5 years or so.
When the Rolling Square AirCard dies, Rolling Square says that you can send back your dead AirCard and get a 50% discount on the purchase of a new one, plus they will recycle the unit you send in. Eufy doesn’t offer a similar service, but considering how inexpensive the product can be (currently $16.99) it isn’t very expensive to purchase a new one.
Additional features of the Eufy SmartTrack Card
If you download the free Eufy Security app—an app that I’ve been using for a long time to work with the Eufy security cameras outside of my home—you gain three more features.
First, if you have a SmartTrack Card but you cannot find your iPhone, you can double-tap the button on the SmartTrack Card to make the Eufy Security app on your phone make noise—even if your iPhone is in silent mode. It plays a version of the B-I-N-G-O song, and if there is a way to change that song, I haven’t found it yet. If you already own an Apple Watch, you won’t need this feature because the Apple Watch can be used to track down an iPhone.
Note that you don’t want to make your iPhone play noise by accident, so the app also has a False Press Prevention mode. This mode turns on automatically 12 hours after you connect the SmartTrack Card. In this mode, if you long press on the button—for example, you sit on your wallet in a way that causes the button to press in—then no sounds will play. This seems like a good precaution to add.
Second, the back of the SmartTrack Card has a QR code, and if you ever lose the card, perhaps someone will pick up the card and scan the QR code to see what happens. If someone does so, and if you have Lost Mode turned on in the Eufy app, then scanning the QR code will lead to a webpage that displays whatever information you choose to provide (if any) in the following fields: Name, Email, Phone, Message. Thus, you can provide your name and phone number and add a message to ask them to call you so that you can get your SmartTrack Card back—and hopefully, your wallet too if it was also lost.
Third, you can optionally choose to let other family members track the the SmartTrack Card using the Eufy app on their iPhone. Note that iOS 17 added the ability to share an AirTag or other item with another person, so this is similar to that except that it uses the Eufy app instead of the Find My app.
Note also that a Eufy SmartTrack card comes with a metal clip that you can (optionally) attach to the card. For me, that removes the key advantage of this product: it is similar to a credit card and can be slipped in a wallet with other cards. But if you want to attach the thin Eufy SmartTrack card to another item, you may find the clip useful.
Additional features of the Rolling Square AirCard
Like the Eufy SmartTrack card, the Rolling Square AirCard has a QR code on it that can be scanned. This is called the Advanced Lost Mode feature, and it allows someone who finds your AirCard and scans the QR code on it to contact you. Rolling Square uses the Sherr.it service for this, which provides certain information about you that you provide.
Second, there is an NFC tag built-in to the back of the AirCard. Tap that spot on your AirCard on top of someone else’s iPhone and that iPhone will go to the same Sherr.it website to get information on you. Rolling Square advertises this as a digital business card; you tap your AirCard with someone else’s iPhone and then they can add you to their contacts. This is somewhat similar to the NameDrop feature that Apple added in iOS 17.
Just like other NFC tags, this NFC tag can also be programmed to do other things, and my son likes being able to program the NFC tag to do various things.
Third, Rolling Square notes that the AirCard can act as an RFID blocker. If you place the AirCard as the outer-most item in your wallet with other credit cards beneath them, signals are blocked before they can get to your credit cards.
Conclusion
With the Eufy SmartTrack card currently almost half the price of the Rolling Square AirCard, it seems like an easy decision to get the Eufy product over the Rolling Square one. This discount may not last long, but I see from the Camel Camel Camel website that this same discount has been offered many times in the past, so I presume it will come back in the future. I also prefer the look and weight of the Eufy product, but consider whether you, like my son, prefer the look of the AirCard and the NFC and RFID features.
Whichever ever one you get, I strongly recommend that you get one of these products for your wallet—whether you carry it in your purse or in a back pocket or elsewhere. You know that, at some point, there is going to be a time when you cannot find your wallet, and this device can come to the rescue. Hopefully, it will just be misplaced in your own home or office while you are still in that location. However, if you left your wallet behind, after you left, either of these devices can notify you using Find My technology. And if someone finds your lost card and scans the QR code, maybe that will be how you recover your wallet. (Note that I use affiliate codes when I link to Amazon, so by using links in this post to make a purchase, a tiny portion of your sale price goes to help pay the costs associated with keeping the lights on here at iPhone J.D.)
Click here to get Eufy SmartTrack card from Amazon (currently $16.99).
Click here to get Rolling Square AirCard from Amazon (currently $29.90).
To start the new year, Brett Burney and I begin this week’s episode of the In the News podcast by discussing what we think will be the biggest Apple-related news of 2024: the Vision Pro headsets, new iPads, AI, and more. We also talk about the Double Tap feature of the Apple Watch Series 9, the new Clicks keyboard for the iPhone, using Shortcuts with the Action button on the iPhone 15 Pro, protecting your iPhone passcode, the fabulous Apple TV+ show Slow Horses, and more.
In our Where Y’At? segment, we discuss using crash detection on the iPhone, SOS on the Apple Watch, and Satellite Roadside Assistance on the iPhone to get assistance when you need it most.
In our In the Know segment, Brett explains why you might want to put a Shazam button on your iPhone Lock Screen, and I explain how you can add advanced filtering features to the Messages app and why it makes sense to do so.
By the way, my microphone settings were incorrect for the first segment of this episode of the podcast, but I fixed it after that. Sorry about the brief technical difficulties!
As we start a new year, one cannot help but think about all of the possibilities for the year ahead. In the world of the iPhone and related products, there is a lot to be excited about. Apple has told us that the Vision Pro headset is coming in early 2024, and there are rumors that might mean as soon as January or February. This will be Apple’s first new platform since the iPad was introduced in 2010, so this should be a very big deal. Like the iPad, I hope that it starts out good and then transforms into being great. And speaking of which, since 2023 was the first year since 2010 in which Apple did not introduce a new iPad, I’m sure that we will see new iPad models in 2024, and hopefully it will be something that we all agree was worth the wait. And I’m sure that we will see lots of other interesting new products, services, and more from Apple this year; here are Jason Snell of Six Color’s thoughts about what might be coming. It is exciting to start the year with so many interesting possibilities. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Before the iPhone, we had the Blackberry and the Palm Treo, both of which featured a small physical keyboard. John Gruber of Daring Fireball reports on a new iPhone case called Clicks that plugs into the USB-C or Lightning port and adds a hardware keyboard. Of course, that also makes the iPhone much taller, but I’ll still be curious to see what reviewers say after trying out this product. I sometimes find it useful to connect a keyboard to my iPhone, so I understand some of the appeal.
As I reported last week, Apple is once again—for now, at least—able to sell the Apple Watch Series 9 in its stores. Should you get one? Wesley Hilliard of AppleInsider has been using one for the last three months and he shares his thoughts on the Series 9. He likes it a lot, but says that the new double-tap features that is unique to the Series 9 has only limited utility.
In last week’s episode of the In the News podcast, I mentioned an interesting interview by Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal of a prisoner who stole hundreds of iPhones after getting the passcode. It’s a fascinating story and video that I recommend if you haven’t seen it yet. Let’s all be careful out there and protect your iPhone passcode like it is one of the most confidential and important things in your life. Because it is.
If you have an iPhone 15 Pro, I think that one of the most useful things that you can do with the Action Button is assign it to a simple shortcut personalized to your specific needs. That’s how I have mine configured. George Tinari of Make Use Of shares some great examples of shortcuts to use with the Action Button.
Three-in-one chargers that cost around $150 seem to be all the rage right now. Tyler Hayes of How-To Geek reviews the Mophie 3-in-1 Travel Charger, a compact device that unfolds to charge an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods.
This story is from around two weeks ago, but it is still worth noting. With Apple’s Satellite SOS service, you can obtain roadside assistance through AAA. That’s great if you are a member, and there is a charge if you are not. But what if you use a competitor service? One such competitor is the Verizon Roadside Assistance program, which Verizon sells to its subscribers for $4.99/month or as a pay-per-use option, and Juli Clover of MacRumors reports that the Verizon program now works with Apple’s Satellite SOS service.
Stephanie Stahl and Brad Nau of CBS News report on a woman in Delaware who felt herself starting to pass out due to what was later discovered to be carbon monoxide from a faulty heater. Fortunately, she was able to call 911 from her Apple Watch just before she collapsed, and firefighters were able to save her life, plus the life of her cat.
Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports on two recent instances in which Apple’s crash detection feature was used to help someone after a crash, including a severe crash in Tennessee on New Year’s Day.
One of my favorite Apple TV+ shows is Slow Horses, and I binged Season 3 during my vacation for New Year’s. It is so great! Season 4 has already been filmed and should come out later this year. And K.J. Yossman of Variety reports that Apple has just renewed the series for a fifth season. That makes Slow Horses the first show to ever get a fifth season on Apple TV+ since the service debuted in late 2019. Yossman says that the fifth season will be based on the fifth Slough House book by Mick Herron, and to answer your next question, Herron wrote eight of those books so I would certainly love to see eight seasons. If you haven’t started watching Slow Horses yet, it is a great spy thriller, and the episodes are not very long so it is easy to binge.
And finally, here is a really nice and touching tribute and look back at the best actors and shows on Apple TV+ from last year, a video from Apple called A Toast to 2023:
In our last podcast episode of 2023, there are a surprisingly large number of interesting topics to discuss. We start by discussing all of the legal drama surrounding the halt on sales of the flagship models of the Apple Watch. Next, we discuss the incredibly sophisticated ways that hackers can hack an iPhone, some favorite picks of 2023, using Apple pay at Lowe’s, Apple’s use of AI, the next version of CarPlay, the next version of the iPad, and more.
In our Where Y’At? segment, we discuss why the iPhone’s Satellite SOS feature helps to save so many lives.
In our In the Know segment, Brett and I both recommend some simple and important security tips for 2024. Brett recommends using a VPN product (like TunnelBear) and a password manager (like 1Password). I explain how to keep your iPhone passcode private so that you can avoid being a victim of someone like this criminal, now in jail, recently interviewed by Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal.
For the last two months, I’ve been keeping an eye on legal proceedings that made big news a few days ago when Apple provided a statement to Chance Miller of 9to5Mac saying that it would have to halt selling the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2. This grows out of a legal dispute between Apple and Masimo, a medical technology company that alleges that the way that Apple Watches shine a light on your arm to read blood-oxygen levels violates Masimo’s patents. Masimo says that Apple and Masimo had initial talks in 2013 (two years before the introduction of the Apple Watch), and then instead of forming a partnership, Apple hired away numerous Masimo engineers who brought Masimo’s technology to Apple. Apple disagrees, saying that its blood-oxygen feature was developed years after that and independently. Masimo first sued in federal court in California, but because that litigation took a long time (and subsequently resulted in a mistrial because of a hung jury in early 2023), Masimo filed another complaint in the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) in Washington, D.C. The ITC is a special type of court in which patent litigation is tried before an Administrative Law Judge (no juries), and the process is typically much faster than federal court litigation. A successful plaintiff is not awarded monetary damages but instead can obtain an order that blocks infringing products from entering the United States. The ITC judge ruled in favor of Masimo on January 10, 2023, which led to a review before the full ITC. The full ITC upheld that ruling on October 26, 2023, which resulted in a 60-day period during which President Biden could veto the decision; otherwise, Apple could take an appeal but the ban would go into effect. The president did not issue a veto, which is why you saw news reports that Apple had to stop selling the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 right after Christmas. And it was worse than that; if you owned an Apple Watch with this sensor and your watch broke, Apple wouldn’t be able to provide you with a replacement model. (The blood-oxygen sensor has been in the high-end version of the Apple Watch since the Series 6 that was introduced in 2020, but Apple no longer sells the Series 6, 7, or 8 in the United States, which is why you see news reports only mentioning the current flagship models.) Apple (represented by the law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr) then filed an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, an appellate court that has nationwide jurisdiction over certain types of federal cases including patent disputes. Apple also asked that appellate court to lift the ban during the appeal. On December 27, the appellate court granted Apple’s emergency request, providing the two sides a few weeks for further briefing on whether the ban should stay in effect pending the appeal. That is why there were only about 48 hours when the Apple Watch SE was the only Apple Watch model that you could purchase from Apple. But at some point in the future, the appellate court will decide whether to restore the ban pending the appeal, and then at some point, the appeal itself will be decided. If Masimo is ultimately successful on appeal, I’m sure that Apple will reach a settlement and pay Masimo, but for now, it appears that Apple is trying to win the case and/or keep leverage in settlement negotiations. Moreover, in the meantime, Apple might find some software solution that will allow it to argue that it can continue to sell the current Apple Watch models without infringing on Masimo’s patents—which of course, Masimo will dispute, resulting in more patent litigation. I’ve avoided writing about this dispute for many weeks now because I thought that Apple and Masimo would have settled by now, but the story continues, and now you are up to speed. And now, the other recent news of note as 2023 comes to an end:
Apple is constantly looking for ways to improve the security of the iPhone and other devices. To see how complicated this is, I recommend this article by Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac which describes a sophisticated, multi-step iMessage exploit used by hackers from 2019 until just a year ago.
Jason Snell of Six Colors shares his favorite apps, movies, TV shows, and books from 2023, and there are some great items on his list. One item he likes is Final Cut Pro for the iPad, and I really like the app too, but it seems that whenever I edit 4K HDR video, the app crashes when I try to export my video. My solution has been to open the final package in Final Cut Pro on my Mac and export from there, which works fine, but it is an extra step involving a second device that I’d rather avoid, so I hope that Apple fixes this soon. I also agree with Snell’s praise of the Mastodon client Ivory and almost all of his TV picks.
If you enjoy using Apple Pay to pay for items (like I do), it is nice that the number of stores that don’t take Apple Pay continues to decrease. Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports that Lowe’s has finally decided to roll out Apple Pay support.
It is clear that AI will have an even larger role in technology in the future. Sharon Goldman of VentureBeat reports that Apple is working with Columbia University and has released an open source multimodal LLM (large language model) called Ferret.
Greg Fink of Car and Driver reports that Aston Martin and Porsche have previewed the next-generation of Apple CarPlay, which will launch with certain models in 2024.
Considering that Apple did not introduce any new iPad models in 2023, you have to think that we will see new iPads in 2024. David Price of Macworld provides his thoughts on what he would like to see in a new iPad.
Chance Miller of 9to5Mac shares the stories of two people whose lives were saved thanks go an Apple Watch and the email exchanges that they had with Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac reports that the Lutron Caseta app added a cool new feature to Lutron devices that you cannot do with Apple’s own Home app. You can now instruct a light to automatically turn off a certain amount of time after it goes on: one minute to four hours. If you often forget to turn off a light in a closet, basement, or garage, this could come in very useful. There is a Home app timer feature but it only works when HomeKit itself turns on the timer. For example, I have an outside light that comes on when it senses motion at night and stays on for only five minutes. But this new Lutron feature works even if someone just touches the button on the wall switch to turn on a light.
Jake Kleinman of Inverse interviews numerous showrunners and producers who have worked on science fiction shows airing on Apple TV+ and reveals that one of the reasons that these shows are so good is that Apple is willing to spend series money on making these shows the best that they can be.
And finally, Apple came up with a cute way to highlight the long battery life you get with an Apple 15 Plus: a video starring singing outlets. Here is Apple’s newest ad called Miss You:
