What should you do when you are driving on the Interstate and Apple Maps or Google Maps suddenly suggests that you exit the highway to take some small, local roads? Brett Burney begins today’s episode of the In the News podcast by explaining why he should have taken the road less traveled. We then talk about getting up-to-date sports scores on your iPhone, using an Apple Watch Ultra to track bullets, and situations in which you should consider turning off crash detection on your iPhone and Apple Watch. We also talk about using Apple Maps to find a parking spot and updating business information on Apple Maps.
In our In the Know segment, Brett and I share some 1Password tips. Brett explains how you can get 1Password to pay off what you owe on your current password manager if you switch to 1Passsword, and I provide tips for making it faster to get the information that you need out of 1Password.
A few weeks ago, I discussed how much I have enjoyed watching lots of different TV shows and movies on Apple TV+. But that is just one of Apple’s services, and there have been a lot of good things to say about all sorts of services offered by Apple. Apple Vice President Eddy Cue, who is in charge of many of these services, wrote an interesting article on the Apple website about the past year of entertainment services at Apple. He’s the boss, so you expect him to say good things, but I was still impressed by the sheer volume of high quality offerings that he was able to mention from 2022. I encourage you to check out his article because you might be surprised too. And now, the news of note from the past week:
I wasn’t able to read this article because it is beyond a paywall, but the title sounds interesting: Exemplary Evidence: Proving distracted driving using iPhone forensics, by John J. Carney for The Minnesota Lawyer. The iPhone can keep people safe while they are driving, but if a driver gets into an accident, that driver’s iPhone could contain evidence that could be used against him in court.
Michael Simon of Macworld explains how to use the Live Activities feature of iOS 16 and the Dynamic Island on the iPhone 14 Pro to see live sports scores from NBA and MLB games.
Here’s an advantage of the Apple Watch Ultra that I didn’t anticipate: it works great for detecting gunshots when strapped to a drone. Oliver Haslam of iMore explains that a Norwegian company is using the Apple Watch Ultra, because of its longer battery life and better built-in microphones, to detect gunshots for security services and law enforcement.
If you are using a snowmobile, skiing, or doing some other activity that has a lot of sudden stops, quick turns, or jumping or traveling over rough terrain, consider disabling your iPhone and Apple Watch’s crash detection features. As Dan Kraker of MPR News from Minnesota warns, keeping crash detection turned on while doing these sorts of activities can trigger unintentional calls to emergency services. On the iPhone, open the Settings app, go to Emergency SOS, and turn off Call After Severe Crash. To turn off crash detection on the Apple Watch you need to open the Apple Watch app on your iPhone, then go to the My Watch tab, tap Emergency SOS, and turn off Call After Severe Crash.
Chance Miller of 9to5Mac writes that Apple Maps is rolling out a partnership with SpotHero to help you find available parking spots from within the Maps app.
Joe Rossignol of MacRumors reports that businesses can now customize their location card in the Apple Maps app by using a free Business Connect tool.
And finally, Apple created a funny, 30-second video to show off the new unsend message feature of the Messages app. It is called R.I.P. Leon. Just keep in mind that this feature only works if both you and the person you are messaging are using iOS 16 or later, iPadOS 16.1 or later, or macOS Ventura or later. If the other person is using an Android phone, then you will have some explaining to do about Leon.
I had the best time recording this week’s episode of the In the News podcast because Brett Burney was in New Orleans so we could record together! I know that most folks just listen to the audio version of the podcast, and that’s how I normally listen to most of my podcasts too, but for this episode, I recommend that you also check out the video version on YouTube. My law firm, Adams and Reese, has a small recording studio that we use for lots of different purposes for our clients and for internal communications, and Brett and I took advantage of that to record this episode in the same room, which was a first for us.
After beginning the episode with a short recap of what Brett has been doing in New Orleans this week, we then discuss the upcoming Qi2 standard which will take advantage of Apple’s MagSafe wireless charging technology. It is fun to speculate on what great new products we will be seeing soon as a result of this move. We then discuss an oven that connects to your iPhone, GPS in the new Apple Watch models, games that you can play on an Apple Watch (and which are better than you might think), one of the latest examples of using an AirTag to track down lost luggage, Wi-Fi on plane flights, Apple TV+ shows, and more.
In our In the Know segment, Brett and I share tips that you can use when traveling. Brett explains how you can share your iPhone’s Internet with others in a family and explains why you might want to do so, and I discuss the great Flighty app that I reviewed a few days ago.
I hope that you have been having a Happy New Year so far this week. One thing that we may start to see more of in the coming years is MagSafe wireless charging. I saw that because, as Jason Cross of Macworld reports, Apple is sharing its Magsafe wireless charging technology with the Wireless Power Consortium, which maintains the Qi wireless charging standard. The implication is that MagSafe will be used across the industry for future generations of Qi charging. I’m sure it will take some time to develop, but down the road, ths has the potential to make MagSafe-style charging more common and less expensive. Hopefully, this will result in more, better charging options for iPhone owners. And now, the news of note from the past week:
In an article on Law.com, Isha Marathe analyze how Apple’s new Advanced Data Protection option for iCloud might complicate some e-discovery efforts in litigation.
When the iPhone 14 Pro uses its always-on display, how much battery power does it drain? Michael Potuck of 9to5 Mac reports on a study finding that it drains less than 1% of the battery per hour. It’s great to learn that it really doesn’t make much of a difference on battery life.
Amber Neely of AppleInsider reports on a story that went viral over the holidays. United Airlines lost a woman’s luggage, but she was able to track it and locate it using an AirTag, which revealed that the luggage was not at a distribution center but instead, bizarrely, at an apartment complex.
If you want a refresher on all things HomeKit, Bradley Chambers of 9to5Mac wrote a beginner’s guide to HomeKit.
Eli Blumenthall of CNet reports that, starting February 1, everyone who is a Delta SkyMiles member will get free Wi-Fi on Delta flights thanks to T-Mobile—even if T-Mobile is not your cellphone carrier.
Zac Hall of 9to5Mac reports that one of the changes in the new Apple Watch models (Ultra, Series 8, and SE 2) is that they use their own internal GPS to determine their location, even when an iPhone is nearby. Older models use the iPhone’s GPS when possible to save battery life.
Speaking of the future, will Apple release an AR/VR (augmented reality/virtual reality) headset in 2023? All we have are rumors for now, but Wayne Ma of The Information provided a detailed report on what he thinks Apple has planned. If you don’t subscribe to The Information, you can read a summary of the article by Hartley Charlton of MacRumors.
One of the newest iPhone accessories is an oven. Mitchel Clark of The Verge reports that Samsung has a new oven called the Bespoke AI Oven that uses an internal camera to recognize certain foods and help you cook them. You can also use your iPhone to watch a live stream of what is inside of your oven on your iPhone, set timers, and preheat the oven.
During last week’s episode of the In the News podcast, my co-host Brett revealed that his favorite Christmas present was an Ember Mug2 that his daughter got him—a coffee mug that keeps your beverage at a precise temperature, which you can set with your iPhone, for a very long time. Andrew Orr of AppleInsider reports that Ember has unveiled an updated model of the travel version of that mug, the Ember Travel Mug 2+, which works with Apple’s Find My app so that you can locate your mug and even make it play a noise so that you can find it. I’d love to see more products with built-in Find My support.
And finally, I just finished watching the second season of the show Slow Horses on Apple TV+ and it was excellent. I loved the first season as well, and I think that the second season was even better. Here is a very short video showing a short discussion about the show between two of the stars—Gary Oldman and Jack Lowden—which doesn’t contain any spoilers for season 2 or season 1, but does give you a little of a sense of the show. If you haven’t watched this one yet, I recommend that you put it on your list.
There have been times during my career as a lawyer when I needed to do a lot of airline travel. Fortunately, those days have been behind me for a while, but even for more occasional travel, I still appreciate tools that improve the experience of airline travel. One of my favorite such tools is TripIt, which I first reviewed a decade ago. Even if you just use the free version of TripIt, it is a fantastic resource for managing all of a travel itinerary: flights, hotels, restaurants, car rentals, etc. I reviewed TripIt Pro back in 2017, and it offers even more features, including useful and quick notification of airline cancellations and delays. I consider the service so valuable that I have paid for it ($50/year) ever since then.
Flighty is another travel app that I’ve heard good things about since it debuted in 2019, and the app received lots of buzz over the last few months because of its improved notification features that make the app even more useful on your lock screen or in the Dynamic Island at the top of the iPhone 14 Pro screen. You can download the app for free, but as I explain below, you need to make an in-app purchase for the Pro version to take full advantage of what makes this app special. The Pro version is $50/year, but you can also subscribe for just $5.99 a month through an in-app purchase, which means that you can choose to only pay for the app during the months that you are traveling. There is also a $90 Flighty Pro annual plan for an entire family. The rest of this review assumes that you are using the Pro version of Flighty.
I used both Flightly and TripIt Pro during recent trips to and from New York for the holidays. No, I didn’t fly Southwest and experience that disaster in late 2022, but I did have my return trip on a Delta flight canceled, so I was able to see how Flighty handles travel disruption.
Getting data into Flighty
TripIt is great because you can forward to plans@tript.com the booking confirmation email from your airline, hotel, etc., and TripIt will automatically decipher the key detail and create an itinerary for you. I was delighted to learn that Flighty works with TripIt and quickly imported all of my current and past trips. If you don’t already use TripIt, you can configure Flighty to import that information from an email, or you can add trips manually.
Notably, Flighty does not keep track of hotels, restaurants, meetings, car rentals, etc. Thus, Flighty does not in any way replace TriptIt as a service for managing itineraries. Flighty’s focus is only on your flights.
Once Flighty knows about your flights, you can see your upcoming flights in a list.
Flighty also shows you information about your historical flights. You can see the information either in a list or in a fun “passport” mode. It was interesting to learn that over the past decade that I’ve been putting data into TripIt, I’ve flown the equivalent of going around the world 7.6 times.
Flight information
When it is time to travel, the information that Flight provides is excellent, and better yet, the way that it presents the information is fantastic.
When I am waiting for my plane to arrive at an airport, I often find myself wondering where the plane is coming from and whether it is on-time. Flighty provides this information for the past 25 hours, so you can start to see where your plane is—and whether or not it is on schedule—the day before you leave. This is a great way to get an early indication if there may be a delay or other problem with your flight.
Flighty also gives you an incredible amount of detail about your plane flight. The key information like flight number, gate, and scheduled/actual times is prominently displayed at the top. But other information is included like weather forecasts, detailed information about the plane, a detailed timeline, your travel history on the same plane, etc.
The information that you can get from Flighty is more detailed than what you get from TripIt Pro, although both services provide you with the most important information.
Notifications
As I noted in my review of TripIt Pro, that service often sends you useful information in an email, such as a connection summary so that you can the gate where you are landing and the gate to which you need to travel for your connecting flight. TripIt Pro also uses the iPhone’s notification system to push certain information to you. It works well.
But Flighty notifications are much better. First, Flighty doesn’t use email at all, which I consider a plus. When I am traveling, I often receive a large number of emails while I am in the air, so an email from TripIt Pro can sometimes get lost among the other emails. Also, it can be cumbersome to have to open the Mail app to see the information that TripIt Pro has sent to me.
Flighty’s notifications are all iPhone notifications: both traditional iPhone notifications and the new Live Activities notifications on the iPhone. And these notifications typically contain more information than TripIt Pro’s notification. For example, when I landed in New York before Christmas, TripIt’s traditional notification told me my gate of arrival and the baggage claim number, which is the most important information. But Flighty’s traditional notification also told me how long my taxi to the gate would be (which can sometimes be lengthy at an airport like LaGuardia) and told me how early I was arriving (nice to know if someone is meeting you at the airport). Flighty’s Live Activities notification provides even more information in numerical and graphical format, including a countdown timer until gate arrival.
Let’s talk about those Live Activities notifications from Flighty. They are amazing. If you have an older iPhone, as soon as you turn on your screen, the Live Activities notification will provide you with the key information about your flight right on your lock screen. If you are using a new iPhone 14 Pro with an always-on screen, you can clearly read that information even if the screen is dimmed. Flighty is even smart enough to put things like your next gate number in a yellow box that is obvious even on a dimmed screen.
Better yet, if you are using an iPhone 14 Pro, the Live Activities information goes into the Dynamic Island. Thus, while you are doing other things on your iPhone such as looking at email before you get on your plane, you can easily glance up and see key information such as how long before your plane leaves and the gate number. Hold down your finger on the Dynamic Island and the notification will expand to show you even more information.
I really cannot emphasize enough how useful this multitasking feature is. I love the ability to work on something else on my iPhone while always being able to glance up and see details on the upcoming flight.
It even works while you are on the plane. During your flight, you can see how long you have until you land in the Live Activities notification in the Dynamic Island. Hold down on the Dynamic Island for more information.
Live Activities also show up on your lock screen, so you can see them even if your iPhone doesn’t support the Dynamic Island.
If you are connected to the plane’s Wi-Fi system, this information is updated during your flight. Better yet, for airlines such as Delta, you don’t even have to pay for in-flight Wi-Fi to keep Flighty up-to-date. Delta offers a free in-flight tier that lets you text message someone using the Messages app. Because that service communicates with Apple’s servers, and because those same Apple servers handle app notifications, If there is a change in your flight arrival time while you are in the air, Flighty’s Live Activities notifications will update as well. That’s a nice feature.
It was interesting to see that both Flighty and TripIt Pro are excellent at providing updated information. If something changes about your travel such as a gate change, both Flighty and TripIt Pro provided me with the update at the same time, and they did so before—sometimes long before—the airline’s own app did so.
Both apps also notify you immediately if your flight is canceled. I had originally planned to fly home from New York on December 26. On the afternoon of December 25, after I had already checked-in for my flight and gotten my boarding pass, both Flighty and TripIt Pro simultaneously told me that my flight had been canceled. In this circumstance, Delta also alerted me via text message at about the same time. However, I have had situations in the past when TripIt Pro told me several minutes before I was alerted by my airline, and that extra time can be critical when you want to be among the first to book an alternative flight. I presume that Flighty is similar to TripIt Pro in this regard because I suspect that they get their information from the same sources.
One can argue that perhaps Flighty gives you too much information in notifications. For example, two days before one of my flights, I received a notification that my airplane was still an Airbus A220-100, but a different plane with a different tail number would be used. At the time that I received that notification, that change didn’t seem all that important to me. That turned out to be the flight that was cancelled, but I have no idea if the tail number change had anything to do with the cancellation less than 24-hours later.
Free vs. pay
You can use Flighty for free without paying for a Pro subscription. And if you do so, you can look up live information on flights for unlimited flights with no ads.
But you need to pay for the Pro subscription to get the standout features that make this app so special such as the amazing notifications, information on your plane’s prior locations 25 hours before your flight, lock screen widgets that update live (the free version has limited refreshes), TripIt sync, email forwarding, etc. If you are looking to check out Flight, my recommendation is that you don’t pay much attention to the free version and instead just pay for one month of the Pro service.
Conclusion
I was incredibly impressed by the Flighty app. It provided all of the key and latest information about my flights, just like TripIt Pro. It also provided additional information not provided by TripIt Pro, some of which you might not use, but other information that is incredibly valuable such as the past few flights of your upcoming plane. And best of all, the way that Flighty uses the iPhone’s notification system is best-in-class, including the app’s fantastic use of the Live Activities feature. This makes Flighty a fantastic app because the information that you need is always and quickly accessible. If you are using the iPhone, you can just glance at it. If you are not using your iPhone, just glance at the lock screen.
Flighty doesn’t replace the TripIt service because it doesn’t seek to manage your entire itinerary. But it does replace many of the best features of the TripIt Pro service. If it wasn’t for the fact that I already have a paid TripIt Pro yearly subscription, I would seriously consider using the free TripIt service and then paying for a monthly subscription to Flighty only during the months that I am traveling.
Having said that, it seems obvious that TripIt could update its TripIt Pro service to match the superior notification features provided by Flighty. I hope that it does so soon. For now, however, Flighty is the app that I recommend using for the best flight notifications on your iPhone.
Happy New Year’s Eve! Whether you are getting dressed up tonight to celebrate the end of the year in style or just taking it easy and watching TV until midnight, I hope that you enjoy this last day of 2022, and I wish you nothing but the best in 2023. Brett Burney and I finished up the year by recording Episode 81 of the In the News podcast. We start the episode by explaining the problems with the LastPass password manager in light of recent reports that the hack from a few months ago was even worse than previously revealed, and we explain why 1Password is a safe alternative that we recommend for storing your passwords and other important information. Then we talk about the iPhone 14 Pro, using an Apple Watch as a remote control for the iPhone’s camera, the FindMy system, the Apple TV+ streaming service, and the Apple Watch Ultra.
In our In the Know segment, Brett and I share Christmas stories. Brett discusses his favorite Christmas present: the Ember Mug2. I discuss a HomeKit problem that I encountered while I was traveling for Christmas and provide a tip for solving similar HomeKit errors in the future that you might encounter.
As we look back on the year 2022, I realize that I have been incredibly impressed by the content on Apple TV+ this year. It may have even been my favorite of all of the streaming services because it was where I watched my two favorite shows in 2022: Severance and the third season of For All Mankind. And while the pitch for Apple TV+ has always been quality over quantity because it did not start with a back catalog, the number of shows that I have enjoyed watching on Apple TV+ this year is huge. In addition to Severance and For All Mankind, I enjoyed watching (roughly in the order of how much I enjoyed them) Slow Horses Seasons 1 and 2, Shining Girls, Tehran Season 2, Causeway, Spirited, Trying Season 3, Five Days at Memorial, The Afterparty, Black Bird, WeCrashed, Mythic Quest Season 3, Loot, Physical Season 2, See, and Suspicion. I watched the movie Palmer in 2022, although it came out in 2021, and I enjoyed it. I was so-so on the anthology Roar, but there were some specific episodes that I particularly enjoyed including The Woman Who Was Kept on a Shelf and The Woman Who Disappeared. If you have been focused on other services like Netflix in 2022 and haven’t signed up for Apple TV+, Sami Fathi of MacRumors reports that you can now watch the first season of a number of Apple TV+ shows for free until January 3, 2022. The list includes four shows that I enjoyed: Ted Lasso, Trying, Mythic Quest, and The Morning Show. Kudos to Apple for doing such a great job with the programs on Apple TV+. I look forward to seeing what new content we see in 2023. And now, the news of note from the past two weeks:
Let’s start with something serious and important. I believe that anyone comfortable enough with technology to be reading iPhone J.D. should be using a password manager to protect themselves from the bad guys looking to take advantage of you. For a decade, my password manager of choice has been 1Password because it seems to do just about everything right and performs especially well on the iPhone and iPad. Full disclosure: 1Password was a monthly sponsor of this website a few years ago, but I was a fan long before that. A major competitor to 1Password is LastPass, but LastPass has had issues over the years, including a major security breach this year. We first found out about it months ago, and then more recently we found out that the breach was even worse than many had suspected. As Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac reports, 1Password has now addressed the issue and has pointed out that as a result of LastPass’s recent breach, a hacker would only have to spend about $100 on password-cracking tools to start decrypting passwords. Now obviously, 1Password is a competitor of LastPass so you don’t expect them to say something nice about a rival, but 1Password fully explains its reasoning and also points out why 1Password is designed differently to avoid the problems of LastPass. I realize that some people will read the news about LastPass, assume that all password managers are the same and thus all are equally vulnerable, and use this as a justification to not use any password manager at all. I hope that folks reading this are smarter than that. Password managers are essential for anyone who takes their security seriously, and in this day and age, you need to do that. If you are ready to start using a password manager now, I recommend that you start with 1Password because there is nothing else out there that offers the same features and security. It is not just me saying that; in the Wirecutter review of password managers that was written by Andrew Cunningham and Thorin Klosowski a few months ago, 1Password was their recommendation as well. Moreover, if you have been using LastPass, and you used it to store passwords that you created yourself instead of passwords with random letters and numbers created by LastPass, in light of the recent news I recommend that you change your passwords.
Password security is not the only technological concern in the news. After recent admissions by the Chinese parent company of TikTok that some of its employees were spying on users, including spying on journalists who were reporting on TikTok, many folks have concluded that the Chinese government itself is collecting data on folks around the world who use TikTok. Is this true? I don’t know, but the threat is serious enough that the federal government and many states are now banning the use of TikTok on government-issued phones, as reported by Mike Pearl of Mashable. Virtually every teenager that I know uses TikTok, and John Hanna of the Associated Press reports that the actual number is about two-thirds of American teenagers. I sometimes use it as well; it doesn’t take long for the impressive algorithm to start showing you just the types of videos that interest you—which for me largely consists of jokes from stand-up comedians and people playing music (including amateurs who are incredibly talented)—so it is easy to understand why the service is attractive. Unlike password managers, I currently don’t have any recommendations for TikTok. I see some smart folks like John Gruber arguing that TikTok should be banned in the United States, and while I’m not there yet, I am keeping an eye on this one.
After those two heavy stories, let’s turn to some happier news. Yang Jie of the Wall Street Journal reports that iPhone 14 Pro supply is improving and starting to catch up with demand. If your Christmas or Hanukkah present was a picture of an iPhone 14 Pro to be delivered in the future, it may be in your hands soon.
Attorney John Voorhees of MacStories analyzes why the Apple Arcade service has been successful so far and what it needs to do to remain desirable.
Voorhees also posted a short review of the Belkin Mount with MagSafe that works with monitors, so that you can use the superior iPhone camera instead of the built-in webcam on an iMac or other monitor.
Jason Snell of Six Colors also wrote an excellent review that does a great job of showing how that new Belkin product works. To my knowledge, this product isn’t shipping yet (except for review units given to folks like Voorhees and Snell). I ordered one from the online Apple Store, and it is scheduled for delivery between January 20 and February 3, 2023. I don’t yet see it available on Amazon.
Dan Moren of Six Colors reminds us all that while the Camera Remote app on the Apple Watch may not be something that you use often, it is incredibly useful when you want to be included in a photo with friends or family members. I agree 100%.
I’m a big fan of Apple’s AirTags. For example, I had to check a bag on a flight home to New Orleans this week, and it was nice to be able to confirm that my luggage had also arrived in New Orleans before I even exited my plane. But there are times when I get alerts about an AirTag or other item using the FindMy service being left behind when no alert was necessary. Zac Hall of 9to5Mac came up with some good ideas for how the FindMy system could get even smarter when you leave an item in your car.
And finally, if you are trying to decide whether the Apple Watch Ultra is right for you, a number of folks at The Verge created a fantastic 23-minute video showing that watch being used in all sorts of situations: on a hike, when skiing, when running, when scuba diving, and more. The production value for this video is excellent:
I did not expect for there to be so much to talk about this late in the year, but Apple’s huge iOS 16.2 release this past week gave us lots to discuss. Brett and I start by talking about Freeform, Apple’s new whiteboard app, and we also discuss Apple Music Sing and other new features. We also discuss European Union requirement that Apple allow alternate app stores and rumors of how Apple might do that. We discuss the newest example of the iPhone 14 Emergency SOS via Satellite feature being used to save someone, and we also discuss a new iPhone mount for use with the Continuity Camera feature.
In our In the Know segment, Brett and I go deep on two new features. Brett discusses a new feature in watch OS 9.2 that lets you sort your workouts, including a way to see your prior outdoor running or walking routes so that you can try to beat your own best time. I discuss the somewhat complicated process of turning on Advanced Data Protection on your iPhone. There are more steps than you might think, but you get a nice boost in security if you go through them.
Apple’s new Continuity Camera feature lets you use the superior camera on your iPhone instead of your lackluster webcam so that you can look better on videoconferences when you use a Mac. If you use a laptop, Belkin makes a simple mount that you can use to hold your iPhone in the right position ($19.99 on Amazon). But if you use an external monitor or an iMac, then you—like me—have been waiting for a similar mount that you can use. I’ve tried other ways to prop up my iPhone next to my iMac and they haven’t done a great job of holding the iPhone in the right position (although I can attest that the camera quality was vastly better than my iMac). Wesley Hilliard of AppleInsider reports that Belkin is now supposed to be selling a $29.95 MagSafe Mount that works with monitors. As I’m typing this, it is not available on the Apple Store, and it is not yet even listed on Belkin’s own website. I’m not sure if the Apple Store sold out quickly before I first checked or hasn’t yet started selling them. Regardless, I plan to buy this as soon as I see that it is available. I’ve heard from folks using prototypes of the Belkin product, and they have said that it works well. I see that Chance Miller of 9to5Mac is reporting that the first orders won’t ship until mid-to-late January, so getting this simple device might be about as difficult to purchase as an iPhone 14 Pro right now. It doesn’t seem like this mount is all that complicated of a device, so it is a shame that we have had to wait to get this device from Belkin and there are no alternatives from other retailers. But once mounts like this are widely available, I think that these will become must-have products for anyone who uses a Mac to videoconference. And now, the news of note from the past week:
One of the new features of iOS 16.2 is the new Freeform app. Jason Snell of Six Colors provides a good review of what this app can do, as well as thoughts on what could be added in future updates.
Snell also offers a good take on the rumors that Apple will soon allow third-party app stores other than its own App Store to comply with certain EU regulations.
iOS 16.2 wasn’t the only update this week. If you are still running iOS 15, Michael Simon of Macworld reports that Apple also released iOS 15.7.2 with a dozen critical security updates.
Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports on a mac in Iowa who tried to use AirTags to stalk a woman but was caught because of Apple’s built-in safety features. Unfortunately, stalkers can purchase similar technology from companies other than Apple that lack these safety features.
If you use the Microsoft Authenticator app on your iPhone, you may have also used the companion app on the Apple Watch to authenticate a login. Filipe Espósito of 9to5Mac reports that the Apple Watch app is being discontinued next month.
Whenever I am looking to edit photos on my iPad and I want something more powerful than the built-in Photos app, the first app that I use is Pixelmator Photo. It is easy to use but packed with powerful features, including a great repair tool that I use with my Apple Pencil. Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac reports that the app now has new tools for enhancing sharpness and details in shadows, plus the subscription is now 50% off for your first year. I pay $23.99/year for this app and I consider it to be well worth it.
Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports on what is new in watchOS 9.2, including a Race Route feature that lets you compete against your previous runs, HomeKit improvements, Crash Detection optimization, and more.
Amber Neely of AppleInsider reports on the second time (to my knowledge; I’m sure there have been others) that the iPhone 14 satellite feature was used to rescue someone. This time, the victims were stranded 300 feet in a canyon in Southern California after their vehicle went off the side of the road. They were rescued with the aid of a helicopter.
Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac discusses the new Advanced Data Protection feature of iOS 16.2, a great new feature that I discussed last week.
And finally, Mike Fleming, Jr., of Deadline reports that the movie Spirited on Apple TV+ is the biggest movie ever released on the platform. I watched it with my wife and daughter last weekend, and we all give it a big thumbs up. If you enjoy big Broadway-style musicals with lots of songs, skilled and fun dancing, and a huge cast, then I suspect that you will love this movie. It was much better than I had expected, with a clever plot that provides a great twist on the familiar story of A Christmas Carol. And the songs are both funny and catchy. If you want to get into the spirit of the holidays, check this one out. Here is the trailer:
Yesterday, Apple released a pretty major update to the iPhone and iPad: iOS 16.2 and iPadOS 16.2. Going from 16.1 to 16.2 may not seems like a big increase just based on the number, but there are a large number of new features in this early Christmas present from Apple. I’m sure I’ll be discussing them in much more detail in the future, but here are the highlights:
Built-in Whiteboard
Freeform is a new built-in (and free) whiteboard app. You have a huge white canvas, and you can write or draw whatever you want. It is easy to add shapes, change your pens, insert pictures, etc. The tools are all familiar to anyone who has used other Apple apps like Notes, Keynote, etc., except for a neat new drawing tool called Blotch that lets you draw the outline of a shape and then it fills it with color that appears behind text.
Better yet, there are lots of sharing tools. For example, much like you could previously share Notes with others, you can share a Freeform board with someone else and, if you let them, they can make edits. Or you can show off the whiteboard to others in a FaceTime call, perhaps as you explain what is going on.
I can envision lots of uses of this for lawyers and others who collaborate on projects.
Karaoke
As I previewed last week, if you subscribe to Apple Music and you have a new enough device, you can now use Apple Music Sing to see improved lyrics on songs and to sing along, even turning down the vocal track as you do so. It’s an interesting feature that my daughter instantly started using as soon as I showed it to her last night … and then I had to hear her complain that her iPhone SE isn’t new enough to use this feature.
Better encryption on iCloud
Another new feature that I discussed last week is Apple’s new Advanced Data Protection. Once you turn this on, your information on Apple’s servers—such as the iCloud backup of your iPhone and iPad—can be encrypted in a way that not even Apple can access your data.
New options on the iPhone 14 Pro Lock Screen
If you use the always-on display on the new iPhone 14 Pro, iOS 16.2 adds new options such as new widgets you can use. Also, there is a new option to not display the wallpaper when the screen dims; only the time (plus widgets if you have them enabled) against a black background. This is a neat look, and I may consider turning this mode on while I’m sleeping.
AirDrop privacy
The change to AirDrop in iOS 16.2 is either a feature or a restriction, depending upon your perspective. Before iOS 16.2, you could enable AirDrop for only folks in your Contacts or you could enable it for Everyone. The Everyone function made it very easy for someone else to send you a file, which is useful when you want to use AirDrop. However, it also meant that a stranger could try to send you a file, which you could reject.
Now, when you turn the Everyone function on, it only stays on for 10 minutes. This is good for your privacy. However, if you liked the way it worked before, it is more cumbersome to have to turn on Everyone so that someone you know can send you a file. I may just switch to the Contacts selection since most folks who AirDrop files to me are in my Contacts.
There are also many smaller improvements and bug fixes in iOS 16.2. For example, once you update to iOS 16.2 and your iPhone finishes indexing your Messages app, you can search for photos that you sent or received in Messages based on the content of the photos, such as photos showing dogs. I can see this being useful when you know that a friend sent you a picture but you cannot remember when and you didn’t save the picture to your photo roll. Also, the crash detection feature for the new iPhone 14 models was once again improved.
With a brand new app, several big new features, and some nice small new features, this is a packed update for the iPhone and iPad.
