In this week’s episode of the In the News podcast, Brett and I discuss batteries for AirTags, text messaging with Android smartphones, and why Google and Apple are not quite the smartphone competitors that you might have thought. We also discuss whether Apple will ever charge people for its Satellite SOS service, and taking spatial video that can be viewed in 3D in the upcoming Apple Vision Pro. Finally, we discuss the upcoming iOS 17.2, a new camera that supports HomeKit Secure Video, and the App Store Awards.

This week’s episode is sponsored by Lit Software, the company behind must-have apps for many lawyers such as TrialPad and TranscriptPad. In this episode, we discuss the advantages of the LitSuite Enterprise License. Learn more at the Lit Software website.

In our In the Know segment, Brett and I provide tips for using the Overcast app to listen to podcasts.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just listen using your podcast player of choice.  You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

Today happens to be the 15th anniversary of iPhone J.D. (woo-hoo!), but let’s hold off on the fanfare for a few days; I’ll have more to say about that next week. Instead, today’s In the News post is focused on the news of the past week. Perhaps the most surprising news of this week was that Apple revealed to Chance Miller of 9to5Mac yesterday that Apple is going to support the RCS messaging standard by the end of 2024 to improve the quality of text messages between Android and iPhone devices—something that many people have been requesting for years. I know that for many people, text messaging is a top use for the iPhone, and getting all of the advantages of Apple’s proprietary iMessage network is a key reason to use the iPhone over Android: encrypted messages, stickers and effects, read receipts, the ability to send large photos and videos, live typing indications, support for long messages, group chats, etc. Plus, for some folks, there is a status associated with being a blue bubble person instead of a green bubble person. Apple’s upcoming support for RCS won’t change some of those differences. For example, the current RCS standard is not encrypted (although that could change over the next year), and when an iPhone receives an RCS message, just like a traditional SMS message, it will still come in a green bubble. But after the details get ironed out over the next 12 months, it will be nice for everyone to get at least some of the advantages of iMessage even when texting with green bubble friends. For example, I’m sure that it will finally become much easier to share large images and videos with folks using an Android device. And now, the rest of the news of note from the past week:

• As we talk about iMessage versus RCS, one cannot help but think about the competition between Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android operating system, as if Apple and Google are polar opposites in the smartphone world. But that’s not really true. This week, during the ongoing antitrust trial between the U.S. Department of Justice and Google, it was revealed that Google gives Apple a 36% cut of search ad revenue generated through Safari, as reported by Leah Nylen of Bloomberg. (Apparently, the witness wasn’t supposed to reveal that percentage in open court, and Bloomberg reported that Williams & Connolly antitrust partner John Schmidtlein visibly cringed when the number was revealed during testimony.) As Rohan Goswami of CNBC reports, one estimate is that this 36% cut will net Apple a staggering $19 billion in revenue in 2023. That means that Google, at 64%, stands to make almost $34 billion in search revenue from people using an iPhone. So you don’t need to lose any sleep over buying an iPhone and depriving Google of money; Google is still making plenty of money off of you even if you purchase an iPhone instead of Android.
• When Apple introduced the iPhone 14 last year, one of the key new features was the ability to contact emergency services using satellites even if you don’t have a cellular connection. This feature is also in the iPhone 15 models. Apple said last year that the service would be free for the first year. Dan Moren of Six Colors reports that Apple is now extending the iPhone 14 free access for a second year. That means that between now and November of 2024, all iPhone 14 and 15 users can access the satellites in an emergency. What will Apple do after that? Will Apple charge folks to continue to have access to a service that nobody wants to have to use but that can be life-saving if you do need to use it? Tune in this time next year to find out.
• iOS 17.2 is still in beta but will come out in the next few weeks. As reported by John Gruber of Daring Fireball, if you have an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max, one of the new features of iOS 17.2 will be the ability to take spatial video that you will be able to view in 3D on the Vision Pro when it comes out in early 2023. Gruber got to test it out on a prototype of the Vision Pro, and he said that it was “astonishing.” When you turn on this mode, the iPhone takes video using both the main (1x) and ultra wide (0.5x) lenses to capture the perspective from your left and right eye. You can view the video on an iPhone or a computer and it looks like normal video (in 1080p, 30 fps format). But when you view the same video on a Vision Pro, you will feel almost like you are there again. I’m not sure that iOS 17.2 will be out for Thanksgiving, but certainly for all of the December holidays, people with an iPhone 15 Pro will be able to preserve memories of times with friends and family that will come to life in a brand new way starting next year.
• Other people who were able to record spatial video with an iPhone and view it using an Apple Vision Pro include Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal, Jacob Krol of TheStreet, Lance Ulanoff of TechRadar, and Scott Stein of CNet.
• The ability to record spatial video is just one of 43 new features coming with iOS 17.2 that are identified by Justin Myers of Gadget Hacks.
• One of my biggest gripes with watchOS 10 is that I cannot simply swipe left and right to change watch faces. Juli Clover of MacRumors reports that the beta version of watchOS 10.2 includes the ability to turn that feature back on. Which I will do so immediately, assuming that the feature is included in the final version of watch OS 10.2.
• Bradley Chambers of 9to5Mac reviews the Aqara E1 camera ($60 on Amazon), an indoor camera with an adjustable viewing angle that works with HomeKit Secure Video as well as storing to a local micro SD card so you don’t have to worry about video of the inside of your home ending up on a website that can be easily hacked.
• Apple announced the 2023 App Store award finalists this week. There are some great apps on the list that I know and love, and many, many more that I’ll have to check out.
• Do you like word games, like Scrabble or crosswords? (I do!) How about jazz music, like the Vincent Guaraldi soundtrack to a Peanuts movie? (Love it!) And are you OK with being a little silly? (That’s me!) Then you should check out a new game called Gubbins, which was reviewed by Brent Dirks of AppAdvice. I’ve only spent a few minutes with the game so far, so I haven’t yet figured out all of the features, but it definitely looks to have potential.
• And finally, Apple released a cute video called On with the Show to demonstrate that the iPhone 15 Pro is so powerful that it can be used to shoot a big budget Hollywood movie. There is so much going on in this video that once you watch it you’ll probably want to watch it again:

About sixteen months ago, I wrote a post warning that if you replace the CR2032  battery in an AirTag with a battery that has a bitterant coating on it, it won’t work. I learned this lesson the hard way when I traveled to Italy and discovered while abroad that I had the wrong type of battery. The bitterant coating makes the battery taste bad if you put it in your mouth, and thus it discourages kids from swallowing them, but they somehow also caused a problem with an AirTag.

I’m happy to report that you can now have the best of both worlds. The page on Apple’s website that previously warned you not to use these batteries now actually encourages you to use a battery with a bitterant coating as long as it says that it works with the AirTag:

To further discourage accidental ingestion, use a bitterant-coated CR2032 battery, like the Duracell 2032 Lithium Coin Battery with Bitter Coating. Look for packaging that states “Compatible with Apple AirTag”. Some CR2032 batteries with bitterant coatings might not work with AirTag or other battery-powered products.

I first learned about this change only recently when Schlick Jones posted a comment on my original post saying that the batteries were working great for him even though I had such trouble with them last year. That led me to check out the Apple website and find the above new language.

Thus, you can now purchase a CR2032 battery that is both child-safe and AirTag-safe, such as this pack of 9 batteries from Amazon for only $12.28. You can easily tell that you are using the right kind of battery by looking at the package. It will say at the top that it is Compatible with the Apple AirTag:

I presume that Duracell and Apple worked together on this solution, and it is great that they did so.

 

There were a few small but important software updates over the last few days, so Brett and I start this week’s episode of the In the News podcast by telling you what you need to know about that. We also discuss Barbra, the iPhone 15 Pro Max, HomeKit, Taylor Swift, and the best options for a budget iPad stylus.

In our Where Y’at segment, we discuss three examples of an Apple Watch being a lifesaver. We also talk about why you might want to get an AirTag for your car.

This week’s episode is sponsored by Lit Software, the company behind must-have apps for many lawyers such as TrialPad and TranscriptPad. I discuss a great new feature in Lit Software that lets you incorporate video with a transcript and why this can be truly game changing, a topic that I also addressed in this post. Learn more at the Lit Software website.

In our In the Know segment, Brett discusses the Veteran’s Day Challenge Badge, and I discuss using iKlear to keep all of your Apple products clean.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just listen using your podcast player of choice.  You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

I often link to news stories that share the tell of someone whose life was saved by an Apple product, such as an Apple Watch. Just this week, for example, Ambar Rodriguez of KSNV in Las Vegas shared the story of a man who credits his Apple Watch with saving his life after his blood sugar got low and he fell unconscious. And Destany Fuller of KSWO News in Oklahoma shares the story of a woman who received an Apple Watch notification that she was in AFib; she decided to go to see a doctor and learned that if she had not come in, she probably would have died within days. But only rarely is the author of the story also the subject of the story. Daniel Eran Dilger has been writing about Apple technology for decades; I first linked to one of his articles in the tenth edition of In the News back on June 12, 2009. The title of his latest article for Apple Insider is Apple’s Crash Detection saves another life: mine. He crashed while using a rental scooter and ended up knocked unconscious on the side of a bridge and losing blood. Fortunately, his Apple Watch called for help, and when he regained consciousness, he found himself in a hospital. Check out the story for more details. Reading his story makes me happy that my wife, my two kids, and I all wear an Apple Watch. And now, the other news of note from the past week:

• Paul Thurrott has been covering Microsoft and writing about Microsoft Windows since the 1990s, and he has switched back-and-forth between the iPhone and Android and other smartphone platforms over the years. This background provides him with a unique perspective for reviewing the iPhone 15 Pro Max, and sure enough, he wrote a very interesting review. I don’t agree with all of his opinions—for example, he thinks Apple should have done more with the camera, whereas I’m loving the results I have been getting with both the regular and the 5x zoom lenses—but I do agree with his conclusion: “Apple still delivers the best overall smartphone experience available today, as always. Whether you’re a convert or not, you will not be disappointed.”
• Apple released iOS 17.1.1 this week to fix a few glitches, as noted by Zac Hall of 9to5Mac.
• Apple updated other operating systems this week as well. For example, Juli Clover of MacRumors notes that watchOS 10.1.1 fixed an issue that caused some Apple Watches to drain the battery more quickly than expected.
• Clover also reports that the new HomePod 17.1.1 makes Siri more responsive.
• If 17.1.1 doesn’t solve your problems with Siri, and if you happen to be Barbra Streisand, you can always just call Tim Cook for tech support. Zac Hall of 9to5Mac reports on an appearance by Barbra Streisand on the BBC in which she explains that after Siri kept mispronouncing her name, she simply called Tim Cook and had it fixed.
• Ashley Belanger of Ars Technica reports that cops in Washington, DC, are handing out free AirTags (and Tiles) so that folks can hide them in their vehicles and use the devices to try to recover the cars after they are stolen. You may recall that six months ago, I reported that New York City had done the same thing. I haven’t been keeping an AirTag in my car, but in light of this report, I’m going to start doing so.
• If you are interested in getting started with using Apple HomeKit devices in your home, or you just want to learn more about it, Paul Lamkin of The Ambient wrote a great, comprehensive guide to everything you need to know about Apple’s HomeKit smarthome technology.
• Apple announced that Taylor Swift is the 2023 Apple Music Artist of the Year. My home certainly contributed to the play count, especially after my daughter and wife recently went to the movie theater to watch The Era Tour concert.
• Andrew O’Hara of Apple Insider reviews the new Apple Pencil (USB-C).
• If you don’t want to pay $79 for the new Apple Pencil (USB-C) you can instead pay $69.99 for the Adonit Note+ 2. Both of those devices attach by magnets to an iPad for storage, and for both you need to plug-in a USB-C cord to charge them. However, as noted by Rael Hornby of Laptop, the Adonit stylus lacks the hover feature of the low-end version of the Apple Pencil, but it adds support for pressure sensitivity, comes with interchangeable nibs, and has a shortcut rocker switch for switching between tools or colors. As much as I love my Apple Pencil, I’ve also had great experiences with Adonit styluses over the years, so it seems like a decent alternative choice.
• Would you rather use a high-tech pin on your chest instead of carrying around a smartphone or Apple Watch? Stephen Hackett of 512 Pixels discusses the $699 Humane AI Pin, which was announced this week, a product developed by two former Apple employees.
• Season 4 of For All Mankind starts today on Apple TV+. This is one of my absolute favorite shows on any network, and I cannot wait to start watching it. The third season ended in 1996 and the fourth season begins in 2001, so as Amber Neely of Apple Insider reports, Apple released a number of fake news clips to explain what happened in the fictional world of the series between those two years. The show did the same thing for prior seasons, and it is always interesting to see the alternative takes on significant events that did happen in the real world.
• And finally, Apple TV+ also released a trailer for the new show Hannah Waddingham: Home For Christmas, which premieres November 22. I have no idea if this show will be worth watching, but I do know that on the few occasions when Hannah Waddingham sang on the Ted Lasso show, her voice was excellent. I’m sure that other Ted Lasso cast members will show up in her holiday special, so for now at least, this is the closest that we have to a Ted Lasso spin-off show.

A few days ago, Apple released the results for its 2023 fiscal fourth quarter (which ran from July 2, 2023, to September 30, 2023) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results. The fiscal fourth quarter is typically a less important quarter for Apple. It is the first fiscal quarter—the one that we are in now—that is traditionally Apple’s big revenue quarter because of holiday sales. Nevertheless, there are always a few interesting items whenever Apple announces quarterly results. This year, the revenue for the quarter was $89.5 billion, down slightly from $90.1 billion this time last year. If you want to get all of the nitty-gritty details, you can listen to the audio from the announcement conference call on the Apple website, or you can read a transcript of the call prepared by Jason Snell of Six Colors.  Apple’s official press release is here.  Here are the items that stood out to me.

iPhone

• Apple’s iPhone revenue for the quarter was $43.8 billion, which is 3% better than the $42.6 billion this time last year. This was a new record for iPhone revenue in a fiscal fourth quarter.
• Apple CFO Luca Maestri said that the number of iPhones in active use “grew to a new all-time high” and added that “fiscal 2023 was another record year for switchers,” but he didn’t provide specific numbers for either statement.
• People are ordering the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max faster than Apple can currently make them.

iPad

• Apple’s iPad revenue for the quarter was $6.4 billion, which is down 10% from $7.2 billion this time last year.
• Maestri said that the reduction in iPad sales was a “function of a difficult compare from the supply disruptions in the June quarter a year ago and the subsequent fulfillment of pent-up demand in the September quarter.” In my opinion, the fact that Apple didn’t come out with a new iPad in 2023 probably had a lot to do with it too.
• Maestri said that over half of the customers who purchased an iPad during the past quarter were purchasing their first iPad.

Other

• Cook said that the upcoming Apple Vision Pro, which will go on sale early next year, has gotten “an amazing response from developers who are currently creating truly incredible apps.”
• Services revenue for Apple set an all-time record of $22.3 billion, a 16% year-over-year increase.
• Maestri said that there are over 2 billion Apple devices in active use that can stream Apple services.
• Cook announced that since Apple TV+ launched four years ago, its shows have earned nearly 1,600 award nominations and nearly 400 wins.

Brett and I start this week’s episode of the In the News podcast by discussing Apple’s announcement from earlier this week. Yes, there were new Macs introduced, and that is of interest to some, but the most surprising announcement was that Apple shot the entire thing on an iPhone. We also discuss the 40th birthday of Microsoft Word, how to get the most out of watchOS 10 on an Apple Watch, getting information about your iPhone battery (if you have a new iPhone), the latest-and-greatest eero and whether you need it, HomeKit devices to sense motion and turn on lights, and more.

In our Where Y’at segment, Brett talks about the role that his AirTag played when someone walked off of an airplane with Brett’s luggage. It’s quite a story.

In our In the Know segment, Brett explains why you should consider getting the Bartender app if you use a Mac laptop. I discuss the long and winding road of the relationship between Apple and The Beatles, which led to the release of the band’s final song on Apple Music this week.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just listen using your podcast player of choice.  You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

“The year was 1983. Never Say Never Again was the top movie in the land. Total Eclipse of the Heart was the #1 song, and the most popular show on TV was Dallas. A gallon of gas cost 1.59 cents.” So begins this post on the Microsoft 365 Insider blog, a post announcing that Microsoft Word is now 40 years old. When first introduced in 1983, it was actually called “Multi-Tool Word” and an article in InfoWorld that you can still read on the Internet explained that the program worked with a mouse (which the article helpfully described for those unfamiliar with such a device). That article also notes that it would be a “‘see what you get’ word processor, which means text appears on the screen just as it will appear when it is printed on paper.” The original versions of Word ran on Xenix and MS-DOS, but as noted by Adam Engst of TidBITS this week, it was ported to the Mac in 1985. I started using Word on my first Mac in 1988 (a year before it was ported to Windows in 1989) and I have been using Word virtually every week, if not every day, since then. The release of Microsoft Word for the iPad on March 27, 2014, was one of the most important app releases of all time for lawyers who use an iPad. Later that year, the app was updated to work with the iPhone as well. Over the last forty years, Microsoft has certainly made some decisions about the Word app that I disagreed with (yes, I’m thinking about you, Word for Mac version 6.0 released in 1993), but I cannot deny how consistently useful this software has been for me ever since the 1980s. So happy birthday to Word, and thank you to the fine folks at Microsoft for the efforts over the last forty years. And before I leave the topic of birthdays, I’m happy to note that you are reading the 700th edition of the In the News post on iPhone J.D. If you are interested, I explained the origin of In the News back in 2011 when I published the 100th edition. Okay, enough about the past. Let’s turn to the present and the top news of note from the past week:

• I cannot say enough good things about this review of watchOS 10 by Alex Guyot of MacStories. Reading that review made me realize that there are tons of new features in watchOS 10 that I really wasn’t taking advantage of yet. Now that I have taken the time to edit my Smart Stack and remember that I can double-click on the digital crown to see and switch to recently used apps, I’m getting much more out of my Apple Watch.
• If you are interested in a leather case for your new iPhone, John Gruber of Daring Fireball recommends models from Ryan London and Bullstrap.
• Jason Cross of Macworld identifies six hidden features of the iPhone 15 line, including the ability to find out the date that your battery was manufactured and first used.
• If you are looking to upgrade the Wi-Fi in your home or office, this article from Darrell Etherington of TechCrunch makes me think that the eero Max 7 is about as good as you can get. It is expensive, so it will be more than many folks need, but combining the ease of use of eero with the advances of Wi-Fi 7 sounds pretty nice for those who already pay for super-fast Internet and want to turn that into super-fast Wi-Fi. Having said that, if $1,149.99 for a two-pack seems like too much money for you, eero is also selling cheaper models with fewer features. The eero Pro 3-pack that I reviewed in 2020 continues to work amazingly well for my home.
• Peter Cohen of Apple Insider reports that Apple’s tap to pay feature on the iPhone is coming to Ukraine for the first time now that it is being supported by PrivatBank, the country’s largest bank. I’m sure that this will be useful for many folks in that country, and it sure is nice to be able to report on good news from Ukraine.
• I’ve been using an Eve Motion sensor since I reviewed it in 2018, and it works well for me. Mine is in my TV room, and whenever I enter the room and the lights are off, the motion sensor sees me and triggers a shortcut to turn on the lights in the room. Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac explained this week why the Eve Motion is the best HomeKit motion sensor. He is using a more advanced model than the one that I reviewed in 2018, so I’m sure that the new version ($49.95 on Amazon) works even better.
• Megan Wollerton of The Verge recommends some of the best smart plugs for your smart home.
• Two years ago, Apple introduced the Apple Music Voice Plan. It provided access to Apple Music for only $5 a month, but the catch is that you could only use Siri to access music. I guess the idea is that if you only wanted music on a HomePod, you were going to use Siri anyway. The idea never made sense to me—I use my iPhone to pick music to play on a HomePod—and as noted by Roman Loyola of Macworld, Apple cancelled that plan this week.
• Derek Wise of 9to5Mac notes that you can use the new app from NASA called Spot the Station to learn about the International Space Station and get alerted when you can see it in the sky.
• And finally, this past Monday night, Apple streamed a 30-minute presentation to announce new Macs using the new M3 chip—which is similar to the A17 Pro chip used in the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. The most amazing thing to me about the presentation was not the new hardware but the quality of the video. I watched it at home on my 4K HDR television by LG, the C1 model, and I was amazed at how good everything looked. And then I was truly amazed when the very end of the video said that it was shot using an iPhone 15 Pro Max, the same iPhone that I use. Obviously, Apple used sophisticated equipment to hold the iPhone and move it around, much like anyone shooting professional video would do with any camera, but even so, I thought that it was neat that the hardware being used to take that amazing video was the same hardware that I use to create home movies. We’ve come a long way from the very first edition of In the News in 2009 when I said that it would be nice if Apple would introduce an iPhone “with video recording capabilities.” Apple can check that one off of its to do list. Apple created a two-minute behind the scenes video to provide a peak at how the iPhone was used to create the video it streamed a few days ago:

Brett and I start this week’s episode of the In the News podcast discussing the technology that made it possible for The Beatles to release one last song, and then we turn our attention to the Apple event planned for Monday night. Neither of us has a good idea for why Apple made the change to an after-hours event. Maybe Apple is just trying to mix things up? We also discuss the recent release of iOS 17.1 and what is coming next in iOS 17.2. We also discuss iPhone sales, what is coming in smart home technology, Apple services price hikes, USB-C cables, and more.

In our Where Y’at segment, we share the story of a man who recovered his Apple Watch Ultra after being at the bottom of a lake for three months.

This week’s episode is sponsored by Lit Software, the company behind must-have apps for many lawyers such as TrialPad and TranscriptPad. Today, we discuss a way that a law firm can purchase 10 or more licenses at once, which can not only provide a significant discount but also makes it easier to manage all of the different licenses. Learn more at the Lit Software website.

In our In the Know segment, Brett explains what happens when you press your fingers on the end of AirPods Pro and how you can adjust that as a result of recent changes. I explain a new feature in iOS 17.1 that makes it easy to extend a picture so that it works great for wallpaper or a contact photo on the iPhone.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just listen using your podcast player of choice.  You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

On the list of things that I expected to happen this past week, there are two items that were way down near the bottom of my list and yet, to my surprise, they occurred. First, The Beatles announced that they have a new song coming out next week. No, you are not reading this website from the 1960s; there is a partial song recorded by John in the 1970s that George, Paul, and Ringo tried to turn into a song in the 1990s. They couldn’t do so at the time because the recording was too hard to work with; John recorded the piano and vocals on the same track and there was a loud hum on the recording. But as Mike Spohr of BuzzFeed explains, Peter Jackson was able to use sophisticated AI technology to clean up John’s track, the part that George recorded in the 1990s is still usable, and Paul and Ringo were able to finish the song. Thus, after being worked on for multiple decades, the song “Now and Then” will be released on November 2 as the very last song by The Beatles. I should have realized that anything was possible this week because just a few days before the Beatles announcement, Apple announced that it will stream a product release video on October 30. That’s a little late in the year, but not unprecedented. But what is unprecedented is that the event will occur at 8pm Eastern. I’ve been following Apple for decades and I cannot think of any precedent for an event like this at nighttime. What will Apple announce on the Eve of Halloween as the sun sets across this country? The page on Apple’s website for this event shows the Finder logo, so I’m sure that new Macs will be announced. But Apple hasn’t introduced a single new iPad in all of 2023, so I guess there is the slight possibility of an iPad announcement. (But probably not, because if Apple was going to do that, it probably would have waited instead of releasing the new Apple Pencil last week.) And now, here is the other news of note from what has been an extraordinary week:

• Apple released iOS 17.1 this past week, along with similar updates for other devices. Federicco Viticci of MacStories explains what is new. The promised improvement to AirDrop is now working: start sharing while you are close to someone else, but then the download can continue using the Internet if you go farther apart. There are also improvements to StandBy mode if you use an iPhone 14 Pro or 15 Pro with an always-on display; you can now control in Settings when the display should turn off. As I noted in this post, I’m a huge fan of StandBy, and I want to give another big shout-out to the Anker 3-in-1 Cube with MagSafe ($149.95 on Amazon) because everything about it works so incredibly well. There are also improvements to Apple Music and more.
• Now that iOS 17.1 is out, Apple is working on iOS 17.2, and beta versions are available. Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports that one feature coming in iOS 17.2 is Apple’s new Journal app.
• That new iPhone is apparently a hit. Apple doesn’t have its next quarterly earnings call until November 2, but AT&T had it call recently and said the carrier saw “the strongest iPhone pre-orders we’ve had in years” thanks to the iPhone 15 lineup, according to Chance Miller of 9to5Mac.
• The Matter standard has been updated to version 1.2, and Jennifer Pattison Tuohy does a great job in her article for The Verge describing what this means. On the plus side, it allows your Apple device to control refrigerators, robot vacuums, smoke alarms, room air conditioners, laundry washers, air purifiers, and more. But as the second half of that article notes, this open standard only works with manufacturers update their devices to work with Matter and Apple updates the Home app to support the new standard. Hopefully, this will all happen soon.
• Brent Dirks of AppAdvice describes updates to the Google Maps app that make it easier to preview a route in an immersive view before you take a trip.
• Apple is raising the prices for some of its subscription services including Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple News+, and Apple One. John Gruber of Daring Fireball discusses the implications of these price hikes.
• Filipe Espósito reports on a lost Apple Watch Ultra that was found at the bottom of a lake. A person whose watch fell in a lake hired a scuba diver to try to find it (after dropping a marker) but had no luck. Three months later, another diver found it, and the Apple Watch Ultra is back in the owner’s hands and still works.
• Why is it that USB-C cables can vary so much in price, from a few dollars to over $100? The folks at Lumafield used an X-ray CT scanner to provide part of the answer. (Spoiler alert: you get what you pay for.)
• And finally, here is a silly new video from Apple to celebrate the power of the A17 Pro chip in the iPhone 15 Pro.