This time last week, the lead story concerned AirTags.  I am starting with the AirTag again this week because of an excellent article by Kashmir Hill of the New York Times called I Used Apple AirTags, Tiles and a GPS Tracker to Watch My Husband’s Every Move.  (Gift link, so even non-subscribers can read it.)  The article does a great job of explaining the pros and cons of using different devices to track a person and demonstrates that the AirTag is far less concerning than an inexpensive GPS tracker like the LandAirSea.  As the author’s husband explains:  “For all the bad press the AirTags have gotten, and as flaky as the detection mechanisms were, at least I was consistently getting notifications they were following me. … The privacy dangers of the other trackers were way worse.”  There are lots of other interesting details in that article, so whether you own a tracking device or simply want to learn more about them in case someone else tries to track you, I recommend that you read it.  And now, the other recent news of note:

• Illinois attorney John Voorhees discusses a number of solutions that he uses to manage email in this long post.  The part that jumped out at me is a discussion of the Triage 2 app (near the end of the article).  Triage 2 doesn’t replace a normal email app, but instead, it gives you a quick way to triage your messages: decide what to toss and what to keep.  Each new message is displayed as a card.  Swipe one way to archive or delete, swipe the other way to keep (either marked read or unread, which you configure in the settings).  That way, when you use the email app to go to your real mailbox, all of the junk is gone and you can focus on the messages that matter to you.  I just tried it with my Gmail account, and it seemed to work quite well.
• California attorney David Sparks discusses options for keeping an AirTag in your wallet, such as the Wallet Holder for Apple AirTag by Elevation Labs ($10 on Amazon).
• In an article for Macworld, Jason Snell argues that Apple should allow iPhone owners to install apps from a source other than Apple’s App Store, much like one can do so on a Mac.  I’m not as enthusiastic about this idea as Jason is.  I’m concerned about the risks associated with an app that can bypass Apple’s review and can thus invade your privacy and security in lots of different ways, which is especially dangerous for a device that is always with you.  Nevertheless, Jason does raise some interesting points.
• Oliver Haslam of iMore reports that when Apple releases iOS 15.4, Apple’s Podcasts app will add filtering features.  Thus, you can select a podcast, and then filter episodes by played, unplayed, downloaded, or saved.
• If you use Shortcuts automations, they will be much better in iOS 15.4 because, as Chaim Gartenberg of The Verge explains, you will be able to turn off the notifications that currently pop up every time you run them.
• If you want to use your iPhone with CarPlay in your car but do so wirelessly (and don’t have one of the few car models that supports the feature), you can use a dongle to achieve the same thing.  Anthony of CarPlay Life has a good article and video review of the Ottocast U2 ($89 on Amazon).  One disadvantage of this approach is that your iPhone isn’t charging while you are using the CarPlay, which I find useful.  But for some folks, I’m sure that a wireless solution is desirable.
• Opensignal, an organization that studies mobile networks, reports that 5G speeds are increasing quite a bit around the world.  For example:  “In South Korea average download speeds were 129.7 Mbps at the end of 2021, up from 52.4 Mbps at the start of 2019, before 5G. Similarly, our users’ speeds more than doubled in Germany rising from 22.6 to 48.7 Mbps, in the Philippines (from 7 to 15.1 Mbps), Saudi Arabia (13.6 to 31.1 Mbps), and in Thailand (5.7 to 17.4 Mbps) — all of which are 5G markets.”
• Nick Guy of Wirecutter provides tips on keeping your iPhone clean.
• Jennifer Pattison Tuohy of The Verge wrote a comprehensive review of the Belkin Wemo Video Doorbell, which works with Apple’s HomeKit and seems to have a lot of good features.  ($250 on Amazon.)
• Bruce Crumley of 9to5Mac reports on an Australian health insurance company, AIA Health, that provided an Apple Watch Series 7 to its customers and told them that if they exercised 4 or 5 times a week, the Apple Watch would be free.  The result was that activity rates jumped 35%.  This probably says more about human psychology than it does about the Apple Watch, but it is interesting nonetheless.
• One of the commercials during the Super Bowl that made me smile was the Cutwater Spirits commercial called “Here’s to the Lazy Ones.”  It’s funny because it is a pretty good parody of Apple’s Here’s to the Crazy Ones commercial from 1997.  How fascinating that a company can run a commercial in 2022 that is a parody of another commercial from 25 years earlier and enough folks will remember the original to justify spending the big bucks necessary for a Super Bowl commercial.  That tells you something about the success of Apple’s Think Different campaign.
• And finally, here is a video from Apple that shows how two people in two locations can use their Apple TVs and SharePlay to watch a TV show or movie at the exact same time.  You start by initiating a FaceTime call with one or more other people, and then you just press a few buttons.  I haven’t tried this feature myself, but this video makes it look like it is really easy to do.

Twenty-eight years ago today, at the Tokyo MacWorld conference on February 17, 1994, Apple introduced the QuickTake 100, a digital camera.  It went on sale for $749 on June 20, 1994.  There was no autofocus.  There was no zoom.  There was no way to delete a specific photo.  It could only store eight pictures at 640×480 resolution—or, if you opted for 320×240 resolution, 32 photos.  After taking pictures, you had to connect it to a Mac to download your pictures and see how they came out (because there was no way to view the photos on the QuickTake).  It all sounds horrible today.  At the time, it was groundbreaking because it was essentially the first consumer digital camera.  (There were a few earlier digital cameras from other companies, but they were far more expensive and sometimes limited to black and white.)  Going straight from a camera to a computer, without having to develop film and then scan it, was amazing at the time.  In 2010, when Time magazine selected the 100 greatest and most influential gadgets since 1923, the QuickTake 100 made the list.

(Picture from Hannes Grobe on Wikimedia Commons)

Apple eventually updated the camera to the QuickTake 150 and the QuickTake 200.  However, shortly after Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, the Quick Take line was discontinued, as were many other Apple products, so that the company could focus on its computers.  It was ten years before Apple introduced its next consumer product that could take pictures: the iPhone.  Since then, as the camera has improved with each model of the iPhone, taking pictures with the iPhone has become so good that most folks do not even bother purchasing a digital camera anymore.  Indeed, although I have Nikson DSLR camera that uses nice lenses to take great pictures, I typically just use my iPhone because the pictures and videos come out great and it is a bit of a pain to carry around the larger Nikon camera.  Plus, as photographer Chase Jarvis said, the best camera is the one that’s with you, and that is typically the iPhone.

In 2019, Apple introduced the iPhone 11 and came up with a new use for the name “QuickTake.”  Now, it refers to a feature of the iPhone’s camera app.  If you are in the Photo mode but you want to start taking a video very quickly, just hold down the volume up or down button and the iPhone will immediately begin taking a video for as long as you hold down the button.  When I discussed the iPhone 11 in 2019, I mentioned that I had previously used a QuickTake 100.  My law firm purchased one to get a sense of what lawyers might do with digital photography, and I took it home for a weekend to try it out.  Here is a picture that my wife took of me using the QuickTake 100 on April 2, 1995:

The quality of that picture is bad by today’s standards, but that was cutting edge digital photography back in 1994-1995.

The iPhone’s ability to take video is so good that I no longer see a need to use any other device for home videos, even though I previously owned dedicated video cameras.  As the iPhone’s ability to take photos improves, we may not be far from a day when I will no longer see a need to use my Nikon DSLR.  I always marvel at how the engineers at Apple can come up with new ways every year to get more out of a tiny iPhone camera.

And it all started 28 years ago today.

In this week’s episode of the In the News podcast, Brett Burney and I discuss Apple’s upcoming changes to its Find My service, which reduce the risk of an AirTag or other device being used to stalk someone.  We discuss using Celeebrite to hack into an iPhone and a new software update that protects your iPhone from hackers.  And we discuss using headphones as a sleep aid, using a cat filter in court, and using an iPhone for payments.

In our In the Know segment, Brett Burney provides tips for paying for an item with an iPhone.  I discuss Picsew, a fantastic app for stitching together iPhone screenshots and for merging other pictures.

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

In response to concerns that AirTags and other devices using the Find My network can be used to stalk people, Apple announced a number of changes this week.   First, Apple will add new privacy warnings during AirTag setup, letting folks know that an AirTag is meant to track belongings, not people.  Apple will also remind folks that law enforcement can request from Apple identifying information about the owner of the AirTag, which I would hope would be a strong deterrent to improper use. As Michael Kan of PCMag puts it, “If you abuse AirTags for stalking, expect police to come knocking.”  Apple will also adjust alerts so that if unknown AirPods have been traveling with another person, that person will receive an alert that explains that.  Apple will also adjust the precision finding feature.  Right now, if you are trying to find your own AirTag, you can see the distance and direction to the AirTag (if you are using an iPhone 11 or newer).  In the future, Apple will let the recipient of an unwanted tracking alert do the same thing so that they can locate the AirTag that a stalker tried to hide on their person or elsewhere.  Currently, when an AirTag is moving with someone besides its owner, it will eventually make a sound.  What if a hacker disabled that speaker or did something to muffle the sound?  To address this, Apple will also play an alert on a nearby iPhone.  And Apple’s announcement mentions other changes to make AirTags safer for everyone.  Apple says that it has been “working closely with various safety groups and law enforcement agencies” to come up with these changes.  I’m sure that some will be critical that it has taken time to make these changes, but these changes seem to be good ones.  Also, remember that while there are stories of some folks using Apple’s Find My network for bad deeds, there are also good stories, such as one this week from Jessica Schladebeck of the New York Daily News, who explains how former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s housekeeper was kidnapped by someone searching for the billionaire’s daughters at a Colorado ranch, but the armed suspect was located because the housekeeper’s iPad was in her possession and it was tracked to a motel room.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• Hard to believe that it has already been a year since Texas lawyer Rod Ponton uttered the words heard around the world:  “I’m here live.  I’m not a cat.”  The judge who presided over the Zoom civil forfeiture hearing in which the cat filter was used, Judge Roy Ferguson, celebrated the anniversary by posting the full 41 second Lawyercat video to Twitter, including the ending that I had never seen.  Thank you to all involved for teaching the rest of us the importance of checking our video settings before starting a Zoom hearing with a court.
• Lafayette attorney Claire Roubion reports on the Louisiana Legal Ethics website that an Arizona lawyer was suspended from the practice of law for using the chat feature to communicate with his client while the client was being cross-examined via GoToMeeting during trial.  Don’t do that.
• California attorney David Sparks of MacSparky discusses the new features in Fantastical 3.6, including a Quarterly View in the iPad app that makes it easy to see at a glance lots of your upcoming activity.  He also includes videos showing off the new features.
• Illinois attorney John Voorhees of MacStories discusses the new features in Tweetbot 7, including a great Stats view, which had been missing from the app for three years.
• New Orleans attorney Ernie Svenson explains in this video why TextExpander is so useful for lawyers and others.
• Yesterday, Apple issued an update to the iPhone and iPad to fix a critical security vulnerability in Safari that hackers may be using right now.  Jason Cross of Macworld explains the details, and while you are reading that, why don’t you go ahead and install iOS 15.3.1 and iPadOS 15.3.1.
• In another article, Cross laments the errors in autocorrect on the iPhone.
• Filipe Espósito of 9to5Mac reports that, based on a new study by Statista, Apple leads the headphone market in the United States “by a considerable distance” thanks to the success of the AirPods and Beats brands. 
• Cellebrite is a hardware and software solution used by law enforcement and others to unlock smartphones.  Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac reports that Celebrite can still collect data from an iPhone if the Cellebrite customer knows the password, but if the iPhone is locked, the Celebrite hardware can no longer crack the device—although Cellebrite customers can still send an iPhone to the company and pay $4,000 to unlock a device.
• For seven years, Jason Snell of Six Colors has surveyed a set of people who follow Apple to produce a report card on how Apple is doing in several areas.  This year’s report card is now out. 
• If you have trouble going to sleep, Julian Perry of The Gadgeteer recommends Kokoon Nightbuds, a $224 pair of headphones that is designed for you to go to sleep with while you listen to soothing sounds produced by an app on your iPhone.  I’ve also heard good things about Bose Sleepbuds II, which are $249 on Amazon.  I think that I would prefer the Bose design because it doesn’t wrap around the back of the head, but I haven’t tried either product.
• Up until now, if a merchant wanted to accept payments using an iPhone, they would need to add external hardware such as a Square credit card reader.  Apple announced this week that the iPhone will soon handle this without any external hardware using tap to pay.  The purchase can simply tap their credit card or smartphone on the merchant’s iPhone.  The merchant will still need to sign up with a third-party company to handle the payments, and Apple says that Stripe will be the first payment platform to offer this new Tap to Pay on iPhone feature.  My guess is that this will be part of iOS 15.4, which I’m guessing will be available in March, but we’ll see.
• iOS 15.4 will also enable Universal Control, which lets you use the same keyboard and mouse with both a computer and an iPad.  David Nield of Gizmodo explains the difference between Universal Control and Sidecar and recommends the times when you might want to use one or the other.
• Sebastiaan de With, one of the developers of the Halide app, wrote a comprehensive analysis of the cameras on the iPhone 13 Pro.
• When I was in college and planning to one day go to law school and become a lawyer, one of the books that I loved reading was Presumed Innocent, the first novel by Scott Turow.  Turow also wrote One L, which was an essential book for new law students in the early 1990s, and I know that many still read it today before starting law school.  A few years after Presumed Innocent was released, the book was turned into a movie starring Harrison Ford.  I mention all of this today because, according to Joe Otterson of Variety, David E. Kelley—a former attorney who created numerous TV shows such as Doogie Howser, M.D., Ally McBeal, Chicago Hope, Boston Legal, and many more—is turning Presumed Innocent into a TV show with J.J. Abrams as the executive producer, and it will run on Apple TV+. Turow, Abrams, Kelley, Apple… this one ticks a lot of the boxes for me, so I’m excited to see this one.
• And finally, Oscar nominations were announced this week, and I was happy to see that the Apple TV+ movie CODA received three nominations:  Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor for Troy Kotsur (who played the father), and Best Adapted Screenplay for writer/director Siân Heder.  CODA was one of my favorite movies in 2021, and I’m still running into people who haven’t seen it yet, so clearly, not everyone knows how good this one is.  A few of the scenes with Troy Kotsur had me and my wife laughing out loud, and the other actors are also fantastic, especially Emilia Jones and Marlee Matlin.  Even if you don’t subscribe to Apple TV+, you should spend $5 for a one-month subscription just to watch this movie, and then you can spend the rest of the month watching lots of other great titles like Ted Lasso, For All Mankind, Foundation, On the Rocks, Mythic Quest, The Morning Show, and so much more.  Or just watch CODA, and you will more than get your $5 worth of laughs, and perhaps a few tears.  Here is the trailer for CODA if you want to watch that first, but frankly, I recommend that you skip the trailer and just watch the movie.

In this week’s episode of the In the News podcast, Brett Burney and I focus on tracking.  We talk about how Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature has had a significant negative impact on Facebook’s ability to sell advertising based upon your personal information.  We talk about tracking your kids (or pets) using an AirTag.  And we talk about the surprisingly small number of third-party products that work with Apple’s Find My network to help you track the item if it is lost.  We also discuss secret links to unlisted App Store apps and the Apple iPhone Dock, a product that I have used virtually every day since 2008 but Apple is no longer selling.

In our In the Know segment, Brett Burney talks about using the mute button during a phone call on the iPhone.  I discuss the KeyPad app and how it compares to the Universal Control feature that is coming in iOS 15.4 / macOS Monterey 12.3.

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

Last week, I started to report in iOS 15.4, the next version of the iPhone operating system that I expect to see released in a few weeks or so.  I mentioned last week that in iOS 15.4, you will be able to unlock an iPhone while wearing a mask even without using an Apple Watch.  But I subsequently learned that this new feature does even more.  It also lets you use Face ID with any app on your iPhone even if you are wearing a mask.  It also works with Apple Pay.  José Adorno of 9to5Mac provides lots of details on this upcoming feature.  I’ll be curious to learn what impact this has on security.  Apple says that the odds of guessing a 4-digit passcode are 1 in 10,000, the odds of the wrong person unlocking using Touch ID is 1 in 50,000 (for a single feature), and the odds of the wrong person unlocking using Face ID is approximately 1 in 1,000,000.  I presume that Face ID with a face mask will be less secure than 1 in 1,000,000, but will it still be more secure than Touch ID?  Hopefully, Apple will explain all of this whenever iOS 15.4 is released so that people can make informed decisions on whether the convenience is worth it.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• California attorney David Sparks went to Disney World last week and he reports that he saw lots of AirTags.  On kids.  I understand the logic of doing that.  There is always a risk of a young child running away in an amusement park, and with so many people walking around with an iPhone, it should be possible to locate a child with an AirTag no matter where they are in the park.  Nevertheless, Apple has previously told reporters, such as Michael Grothaus of Fast Company, that “the company designed the AirTag to track items, not people or pets” and that “an Apple Watch with Family Setup might be a better choice” for tracking young children. 
• The CARROT Weather app was updated to version 5.5 this week — just in time for the severe cold weather sweeping part of the United States.  Attorney John Voorhees, who lives in the Chicago area and knows something about cold weather, discusses the new features.
• Many people use an access card to gain entrance to office buildings.  For a few months now, the iPhone has had the ability to act as an access card.  Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports that the World Trade Center in New York City now lets you use an iPhone or Apple Watch to access any location where an access card is accepted.  I would love to see this implemented at my office building in New Orleans.
• I’ve discussed the NSO Group in the past, an Israeli company that sells incredibly sophisticated software at a very high price to governments that can be used to hack into some iPhones.  Ronen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times wrote an incredibly detailed report on NSO Group after an extensive investigation.
• Along with improvements to Face ID, iOS 15.4 will contain a large number of new emoji.  Keith Broni of Emojipedia shows off what the new characters will look like.
• The Shortcuts app currently gives you lots of notifications when shortcuts are being run, and sometimes those just get in your way.  Matthew Cassinelli reports in an article in iMore that you will have the ability to turn off those notifications in iOS 15.4.
• Although this is not a feature iOS 15.4 announced by Apple, apparently another advantage of that upcoming update is that you will be able to download the popular Wordle app into a shortcut so that you can play it whenever you want—playing the same words that others are playing on the webpage version—and this offline version will continue to work no matter what the New York Times does with the game now that it has purchased it.  This is all thanks to a shortcut created by Federico Viticci of MacStories.  And if you cannot wait for iOS 15.4, Dave Mark of The Loop explains how you can do the same thing right now on a Mac.
• Zac Hall runs through the useful voice commands that you can use with a HomePod.  I have my HomePod minis for a while now, and I had forgotten about some of these commands until I read this post.
• When I first saw that Gucci released a $980 case for the AirPods Max, I must admit that I rolled my eyes a bit.  On further reflection, people spend lots of money on other luxury items, so if this one floats your boat, I guess go for it.  David Price of Macworld explains why for some people, this product makes perfect sense, even if it doesn’t appeal to many others. 
• Emma Rich of The Verge reports that Apple is now allowing unlisted apps in the App Store.  For example, if your company has an app used by its employees, the app can now be in the App Store and accessible by any employee with a specific link while remaining hidden from a search in the App Store.  I can see lots of circumstances in which this makes lots of sense, such as a private app for folks who attend a conference.
• I’ve been using a version of the Apple dock in my office since 2008, the same year that I started using an iPhone.  Over the years, I’ve reviewed the iPhone 3G Dock (12/5/08), the iPhone 4 Dock (8/9/10) the iPhone 5s Dock (11/26/13) and the iPhone Lightning Dock (6/16/15).  I use it for my iPhone and also for my AirPods Pro (much like I previously did for my AirPods).  Suffice it to say that I’m a fan.  Thus, I was disappointed to see Filipe Espósito of 9to5Mac report this week that Apple has discontinued the Lightning Dock.  And sure enough, I no longer see it on Apple’s website or on Amazon.  I guess Apple is encouraging folks to instead use MagSafe chargers, but I prefer a dock that physically connects to the iPhone (and charges it much faster).  Hopefully, the dock that I’ve been using since 2015 will continue to work for many years.
• José Adorno of 9to5Mac identifies third-party accessories that work with Apple’s Find My network.  What I find most interesting about that list is that it hasn’t really changed very much since Apple announced last year that companies outside of Apple could use Find My.  I’m curious why that is.  I don’t know.
• Greg Fink and Duncan Brady of Motor Trend speculate on what an Apple Car might be.  There isn’t much substance to that article, but I don’t get to link to Motor Trend very often so I couldn’t resist.
• As long as we are speculating about possible future Apple products, Jason Snell discusses what an AR headset from Apple might include in this article for Macworld.
• The App Transparency feature that Apple introduced last year allows iPhone owners to decide whether apps can track them in certain ways, a change from the past when you could be tracked without knowing it.  Kif Leswing of CNBC reports that Facebook said this week that this feature will reduce Facebook revenue by $10 billion in 2022.  And John Gruber of Daring Fireball notes that this announcement from Facebook resulted in a $200 billion drop in Facebook’s market cap, the biggest one-day drop in market value ever.
• And finally, speaking of Apple’s focus on privacy, it doesn’t just come by accident.  Apple focuses on privacy throughout every stage of product development.  Rene Ritchie interviewed Erik Neuenschwander, the Head of User Privacy at Apple, to discuss some of the ways that Apple works to protect your privacy.  It’s an interesting video.

California attorney David Sparks has been sharing tips on using technology to be more efficient since at least 2009, when he started the Mac Power Users podcast with Florida attorney Katie Floyd.   I met computer programmer Rosemary Orchard in early 2018 at a Mac Power Users meet-up in Chicago that took place while I was attending ABA TECHSHOW.  A few months after that, I was delighted to see Rosemary and David start the Automators podcast, a podcast dedicated to providing useful tips for automating tasks using a computer, iPhone, hardware accessories, etc.  I’ve been a fan of the show since Episode #1, so I was honored when they invited me to be a guest on Episode #94, which is now available.

In this episode, I talk to David and Rosemary about how I currently use automation tools.  We start by discussing text expansion, both what is built-in to the iPhone/iPad and also the more advanced things that you can do with TextExpander.  Next, we talk about Keyboard Maestro, a sophisticated app on the Mac.  Then we talk about automating lights and more in a smart home.  We finish up by discussing the Shortcuts app on the iPhone. 

During each of these discussions, David and Rose shared fantastic ideas for improving upon the automation techniques that I discussed.  Thus, I myself learned a lot by being a guest on this episode, and I am positive that you would learn some great tips by listening.  If any of these topics interest you, I recommend that you check out the episode in your podcast player of choice.  (Here is a link for using Overcast, my favorite podcast client app.)

A big thank you to David and Rosemary for giving me the opportunity to join them on their excellent podcast.  It was great fun.

Click here to listen to Automators Episode 94.

A few days ago, Apple released the results for its 2022 fiscal first quarter (which ran from September 26, 2021, to December 25, 2021, and did not actually include any days from calendar year 2022) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results. This is typically Apple’s best quarter of the year because it includes holiday sales.  This year, it was the best quarter in the history of the company, with an all-time revenue record of $123.9 billion, up 11% from the previous year.  Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the quarter was even better than Apple had predicted at the beginning of the quarter.  As impressive as this number is, the real reason that I report on Apple’s quarterly earnings is not to report on the numbers but to share any interesting tidbits related to the iPhone or iPad that Apple executives mentioned during the financial call that Apple holds with analysts every quarter.  There were a few such items this year, although fewer than in some other calls.  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

• iPhone revenue for the quarter was $71.6 billion.  This was an all-time record, a 9% increase from this time last year (which was a record $65.6 billion).  Even so, Apple CFO Luca Maestri said that Apple was supply constrained on the iPhone during the past quarter, so there was demand for even more.
• Apple CEO Tim Cook noted that the iPhone was now 15 years old, stating:  “A few weeks ago, we marked the fifteenth anniversary of the day Steve revealed iPhone to the world.  We knew that we had the beginnings of something fundamentally transformative, though none of us could have predicted the incredible and meaningful impact it would have on all of our lives.  The creative spirit that made the first iPhone possible has thrived to Apple every day since.  We never stop creating.  We never stop innovating.”
• Even though the iPhone is already very popular, Cook said that it appears that the iPhone is gaining in worldwide market share.  Cook also stated that the “iPhone has become an integral part of so many people’s lives, now more than ever.  And the active install base of iPhone continues to grow and is now at an all-time high.  And during [the 2022 fiscal first quarter], as we had mentioned, we had a record number of upgraders and switchers, strong double digit, which I think speaks to the strength of the product.  And that’s all in addition to an enormous customer satisfaction rating of 98% and doing well throughout the” different parts of the world.
• To give you some context for the increase in iPhone revenue this past quarter, here is a chart showing the year-over-year percentage change since fiscal 2013 Q1, which is when Apple started reporting this type of revenue in this form.  As you can see in this chart, Apple has had impressive iPhone revenue growth for five quarters in a row1.  You have to go back to 2014-2015 to see revenue jumps like this, and of course, the iPhone is much bigger now than it was then.

iPad

• iPad revenue was $7.2 billion.  This was down from a year ago when it was $8.4 billion, but Apple has warned that this was likely to happen because Apple said that it would be “supply-constrained.”  In other words, Apple wasn’t able to get all of the parts that it wanted, so it wasn’t able to keep up with demand for new iPads.
• One analyst asked whether the supply constraints for the iPad was due to Apple having a limited number of the parts that work in both the iPhone and iPad and Apple deciding to allocate more parts to the iPhone.  Cook said that there was a little of that, but it was mostly because of what Cook calls “legacy nodes,” the parts that are made by suppliers other than Apple and which are not the latest-and-greatest technology.  These are the basic computer parts that lots of different manufacturers use in lots of different products.  Cook said that he believes that these supply shortages are now starting to improve.
• Cook stated that even though Apple couldn’t make as many iPad as it had hoped, demand remains strong:  “Despite the constraints I mentioned earlier, our iPad lineup continues to be indispensable to tens of millions of people, from teachers and students to artists and creators.  Customers are eager to get their hands on our ninth generation iPad, which features a beautiful display and double the storage capacity, as well as the new iPad mini with its ultraportable design.”
• Even though the iPad has been on sale since 2010, Maestri said that about half of all iPad customers in the past quarter were purchasing their first iPad.
• Here is a chart to show the year-over-year percentage change in iPad revenue since fiscal 2013 Q1, which is when Apple started reporting this type of revenue in this form.  After six quarters in a row in which iPad revenue was higher than the same fiscal quarter in the prior year, Apple has now had a quarter in which revenue dropped year-over-year.  Time will tell whether this is a one-time thing due to supply constraints specific to the last quarter or whether this is the start of a return to a time period when iPad revenue growth was more modest or even negative.

Other

• Cook emphasized the health advantage of owning an Apple Watch, stating:  “Nearly every day, I get notes from customers who share how a heart alert led to a life-saving appointment with a cardiologist.  And more recently, I’ve been hearing from people who tell me that their Apple Watch saved their lives by calling 911 when they couldn’t.  As I’ve said, we’re still in the early innings with our health work, but every day I am encouraged by our positive impact.”
• Maestri said that over two-thirds of Apple Watch customers in the past quarter were purchasing their first Apple Watch.  (The Apple Watch first went on sale in 2015.)
• Cook said that since the App Store first launched in 2008, Apple has paid developers more than $260 billion.
• Cook said that Apple is already carbon neutral in its own operations, and it hopes to be carbon neutral across its supply chain and the life cycle of its products by 2030.
• The current fiscal quarter ends in March, and Maestri predicted that it would be a record fiscal second quarter.

In this week’s episode of the In the News podcast, Brett Burney and I start by discussing iOS updates: this week’s iOS 15.3, plus the new features that we might see in iOS 15.4.  Then we talk about using an iPhone to test for COVID using an inexpensive (and free after reimbursement) On/Go test that I reviewed this week or a more expensive at-home molecular test.  Next, we turn back the clock about a dozen years to when the iPad was born and the iBeer was flowing, plus we discuss blurring your home on Apple Maps and Google Maps. 

In our In the Know segment, Brett Burney and I share some iPad tips.  Brett discusses the Scribble feature, and I give tips for choosing the right app to annotate a PDF document—it might not be the one that you normally use!

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

A few days ago, I explained why I recommend that you purchase the On/Go at-Home COVID-19 Rapid Antigen Self-Test.  The iPhone app makes that COVID test super easy use, and because you can get reimbursed for up to four boxes (two tests per box) every month per person, the On/Go is essentially free if you live in the United States.  Around the same time that I published that post, Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal wrote a similar article comparing antigen tests to the more expensive at-home molecular tests, which is basically a PCR test that you can do in your own home with the aid of an iPhone.  Her article is good (and you can read it if you subscribe to the Wall Street Journal or subscribe to Apple News+), but the associated video that she produced is even better and is available for anyone to watch.  You can watch the video at the top of her article or on YouTube.  She explains that the Cue is easiest to use, but the reader costs $249 and a pack of three tests is $225.  The Detect is more complicated to use, but the starter kit is $75 (one test), and each additional test costs $49.  Thus, those tests are much more expensive than a $12 antigen test (and health insurance only reimburses $12/test), but Joanna explains that these molecular tests can detect COVID earlier than an antigen test—approximately six hours to two days earlier.  Joanna also notes that once you have COVID, an antigen test like the On/Go is better for telling you when it is safe to be around other people again; the molecular tests will continue to give you a positive result long after you are contagious because they are so much more sensitive.  Even if you decide not to get the more expensive molecular tests right now, it is great to have a better understanding of tests and how they can work with your iPhone.  Over time, all of these tests should become less expensive, making it easier to use your iPhone to detect COVID, the Flu, and perhaps other medical conditions without having to go see a doctor.  All of this medical technology is really fascinating.  And now, the news of note from the past week:

• My podcast co-host Brett Burney created a fantastic video this week, showing you how you can use the Stitch It! app to combine multiple screenshots into one long picture, a useful way to show a long text message conversation.  I can definitely see lawyers using this to prepare a trial exhibit and/or demonstrative.
• In a post on the Lit Software blog, Oklahoma attorney Nicole Snapp-Holloway explains how she uses her iPad and the LIT SUITE apps in her practice as a plaintiff attorney handling nursing home cases.
• California attorney David Sparks explains why the iPhone is often the best device for taking videos—and it gets better every year.  I’ve been using my iPhone 13 Pro to take 4K videos of my daughter’s basketball games this season, and the quality has been fantastic.  I especially like being able to switch between the normal wide lens to see a large part of the court and the 3x telephoto lens to get closer to the action.
• I mentioned yesterday that iOS 15.3 is now available, an update that contains no new features but some pretty important security fixes.  Apple subsequently released the beta version of iOS 15.4, and it has the potential to contain lots of new features.  (Remember, however, that there are no guarantees that everything in the beta will be part of the iOS 15.4 final release.) 
• As John Gruber of Daring Fireball explains, one of the new features is the optional ability to use Face ID while wearing a mask.  As I’m sure you know, currently the only way to unlock an iPhone using Face ID when you are wearing a mask is to also wear an Apple Watch.  That feature is amazing and I use it all the time.  But it looks like in iOS 15.4, you will be able to tell your iPhone to use Face ID just by checking your eyes if you are wearing a mask.  I’m sure that decreases security somewhat, but it will make it much more convenient for folks who are, for example, trying to read a grocery list on an iPhone while wearing a mask at a grocery store.  I wish that we could move past the point of needing to wear a mask at all, but until that happens, it is nice to see improvements like this.
• Chance Miller of 9to5Mac describes some of the other features currently in the iOS 15.4 beta.  Some that jumped out at me include: (1) Universal Control, so you can put an iPad next to a Mac and use a single keyboard and mouse with both devices; (2) thirty new emoji; (3) the ability to connect an Apple TV to a captive Wi-Fi network with a sign-in page (often found in hotels) by using an iPhone with the Apple TV; (4) support for vaccination records in the EU Digital COVID Certificate (EU DCC) format; and (5) a better floating card on the iPhone to show the state of AirPods when the buds are in different states.
• If you own an Apple Watch, a new watch face showed up this week: the Unity Lights watch face to celebrate Black History Month.  It looks really cool, although I find that it makes it more difficult to tell the time.  But for those times when you decide to go for form over function on your watch face, it is pretty neat.  You can also purchase a neat-looking Black Unity Braided Solo Loop.  More information on this and everything that Apple is doing for Black History Month is available here.
• Yesterday was the 12-year anniversary of the announcement of the iPad.  Twelve years ago today, I wrote about the new iPad in this post.  In that post, I focused on the impact that the iPad might have on the iPhone, but soon after I started using my first iPad, I realized that the iPad is a very different device than the iPhone, useful for all new reasons.  Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac explains twelve reasons to love the iPad on its 12th birthday.  I agree with almost all of his reasons, but I also love the iPad because it is the best way to read and annotate documents, and also a fantastic way to take notes.
• Oliver Haslam of iMore reviews Note Yourself, an app that lets you send notes to yourself as messages to remind you to do something.  I do the same thing by just asking Siri to remind me at X time about doing Y, but if you prefer to get a message instead of a Siri alert, this app may be for you.
• Tamara Palmer of Macworld provides tips for squeezing more battery life out of an iPhone.
• I don’t know the home address of Apple CEO Tim Cook, but if you do, and if you look at his home on Apple Maps or Google Maps, the home itself is completely pixelated.  Killian Bell of Cult of Mac reports that this was done recently because of an unfortunate incident with a stalker.
• I also learned this week that anyone can ask Apple Maps and Google Maps to blur out their home.  In a separate article, Killian Bell explains how to do that.
• In early December, I wrote that the Razer Phone Cooler Chroma looked like the craziest MagSafe-compatible accessory ($59.99 on Amazon).  Jason Cross of Macworld got his hands on this external fan for the iPhone and concludes in his review that it is “well-built but so ill-conceived on every level that it makes me mad just to know it exists.”  Ouch.  I encourage you to read his review just to see all of the different ways that Cross concludes that this product does not make sense.
• Quinn Myers of MEL Magazine interviews Steve Sheraton to share the story of how his iBeer app made millions of dollars.  It was one of the first iPhone apps, and it used the accelerator to make it look like the iPhone in your hand was a glass of beer that you could pretend to pour.  Back in 2009, I noted that it was #5 on the list of all-time most profitable apps.
• Joe Plumb fell down during a diabetic episode and passed out.  Fortunately, he was wearing an Apple Watch, and it called for help and saved his life.  He explained the full story in this post on the British website Metro.
• Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports that AT&T is now starting to offer fiber optic internet plans at speeds of 5 Gbps.  Wow.  That service is supposedly available in New Orleans, but the AT&T website says that the fastest internet speed offered at my house is 18 Mbps, which is a tad slower than 5 Gbps.
• And finally, when Apple TV+ debuted, it only offered a few shows.  But the content has increased substantially over time, and you can now see lots of different actors in shows … except for one.  Apple has been running this Everyone but Jon Hamm commercial for the past week, and I think it is really funny.  Definitely worth watching if you haven’t seen it yet, and probably worth watching again if you have: