Using AirTags to keep track of your stuff, using AirPods to call for help, blue bubbles versus green bubbles, the Thread smart home protocol tested in the real world, a look forward to 5G expansion and a look bag at the introduction of 3G … there are so many interesting topics discussed in the latest episode of the In the News podcast!
In our In the Know segment, Brett Burney and I hit the books. Brett recommends the Five Books website for finding something new to read. I recommend two ways to read great stuff on your iPad for free thanks to your local library: the Flipster app (for magazines) and the Hoopla app (for books, graphic novels, and much more). I even recommend four fantastic graphic novels that are worth checking out if you are not sure were to get started, starting with the great Saga series by Brian K. Caughan and Fiona Staples.
There have been articles in the news for the last few weeks raising concerns that AirTags could be used improperly to stalk people—even though Apple has lots of built-in protections to make AirTags poor devices for that task, unlike similar products sold by other companies. For a more positive story about the use of AirTags, I recommend that you read this article by Sarah Sicard of Military Times in which she shares the story of Valerie McNulty. As a part of a military PCS (Permanent Change of Station, a move between one duty station and another), McNulty’s military family had to ship all of their belongings from Colorado to New York. In light of bad shipping experiences during prior PCS moves, McNulty attached an AirTag to one of her son’s toys that was with all of the other items being moved. And thanks to that AirTag, she knew exactly where all of her items were located, even when the mover himself fibbed about the location and status of the items being moved. If you ever find yourself shipping something to yourself, or to a friend or family member that you trust to collect the AirTag for you, adding an AirTag to your shipment is a pretty clever way to give yourself an independent source of information for tracking progress. Kudos to McNulty for her creativity. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Ben Lovejoy of 9to5Mac discusses a recent lawsuit by Ericsson against Apple alleging patent infringement and a counterclaim filed by Apple against Ericsson. One of the interesting aspects of that article is the note that while Apple in the past has tried to avoid patent litigation in the Eastern District of Texas—going to so far as to close Apple Stores in that district to reduce the risk of being sued there—Apple is now embracing that jurisdiction for this litigation. I’m sure that there is a lot more going on in that lawsuit than what is discussed in that article, but it definitely looks interesting.
I wrote about Mobile Transcript back in 2010, a service that formats depositions so that they can be read on the iPhone or iPad. Although I see no mention of this on their website, I received an alert that the service is shutting down on January 25, 2022. If you want to work with deposition transcripts on your iPad, I urge you to look at the excellent TranscriptPad app, which is part of LIT SUITE.
I often see articles about people who say that an Apple Watch helped to save their lives. Julie Mazziotta of People shares the story of Susan Putman, who says that her AirPods saved her life because they allowed her to use Siri to call 911 after she fell.
Andrew O’Hara of AppleInsider reviews the Weemo Stage ($50 on Amazon), a remote that can change the state of HomeKit devices. In other words, you can turn lights on and off using the multiple buttons on the Stage instead of needing to use an Apple device like an iPhone or Apple Watch. O’Hara says that the Stage previously relied on Bluetooth and was slow and undependable. But it was recently updated to support Thread, and he says that this resulted in a dramatic improvement.
In the United States, AT&T and Verizon are turning on their new C-band 5G spectrum in select cities. You can tell that your iPhone 12 or newer is using the system because your iPhone will show 5GUW (Verizon) or 5G+ (AT&T). Phillip Tracy of Gizmodo wrote a helpful article explaining what this all means and why it has the potential to vastly increase your network speed—as long as you are not near an airport.
And finally, Joanna Stern of the Wall Street Journal prepared this amusing video now that U.S. cellular carriers are shutting down the 3G network—the same network that helped the iPhone to become far more usable back in 2008:
Brett Burney and I covered lots of topics in the latest episode of the In the News podcast. We start with the new iOS 15.2.1 update. Next is the second part of our discussion of CES 2022, where quite a few HomeKit products were introduced. We then discuss the NighWatch watch stand, which seems overpriced but pretty neat. Next, we discuss Locket, the #1 app in the App Store, a way to share your photos directly to the front of someone else’s iPhone. We end up with a discussion of AirTags and using Siri for reminders.
In our In the Know segment, we both share tips related to photos. Brett explains how to change the cover photo of an album. I explain why I have been using SmugMug for a decade to share photos with friends and family members.
Lit Software makes some of the best iPad apps for litigators: DocReviewPad, TranscriptPad, TrialPad, and ExhibitsPad. The subscription cost for these apps is easy to justify if you have paying clients, but what if you don’t? This week, Lit Software announced a new program called LIT SUITE For Good, designed for “legal advocates who offer their services to the vulnerable or under-served people in our community.” What a great way to promote the critical goal of justice for all. Bravo to Ian, Tara, and the rest of the team. If you want to apply for free annual license codes, go to this page on the Lit Software website and fill out the form. I look forward to hearing the war stories from advocates who used their iPad with TrialPad or one of the other Lit Software apps to achieve justice for their clients. And now, the news of note from the past week:
South Carolina attorney Justin Kahn reminds of all of how useful it is to ask Siri to remind you to do something. I use this tip almost every single day, telling my iPhone or my Apple Watch something like “remind me at X time on Y day to do Z.” I cannot even begin to count the number of times that Siri has been incredibly helpful when I’ve done so.
Apple released iOS 15.2.1 and iPadOS 15.2.1 this week. As Josh Centers of TidBITS explains, the update addresses numerous bugs, including: (1) sometimes the Messages app would not load photos sent using an iCloud link, and (2) sometimes third-party CarPlay apps would not respond to input. The update also includes important security updates, including a HomeKit vulnerability that a hacker could use to crash your device and, perhaps, do even more. I had no issues installing the updates, and I encourage you to do so.
Sarah Perez of TechCrunch discusses Locket, a new app that places a widget on your iPhone’s home screen that displays photos. The twist is that other folks (to whom you gave permission) can make their photos appear on your home screen and vice versa. It’s a social network app that lives in a widget. It launched on New Year’s Day and now has more than two million users, making it the #1 free app on the App Store. I love the serendipity of Apple’s Photos widget; it is fun when it surfaces a great picture that I haven’t seen in a long time. Thus, I can appreciate how it might be fun to be surprised by pictures that your friends send to your iPhone — assuming, of course, that they don’t abuse the privilege. Although I suspect that, for some, that is precisely what makes the app fun.
There have been some recent news stories about folks reporting that an Apple AirTag was being used to trace them. Some of these stories have discussed what seems to be a true misuse of the product, but other stories have left me scratching my head because there simply wasn’t much evidence of what happened. Glenn Fleishman of TidBITS wrote the best discussion of the supposed risks from AirTags that I have come across. He dives deep into all of the reports to date, explains what seems to be real and what does not, and offers practical advice.
I don’t use ride-sharing services very often, but if I did, I would think that it would be useful in many circumstances to call for a ride using an Apple Watch. But as Parker Ortolani of 9to5Mac reports, Uber has now abandoned its Apple Watch app, directing users to use the iPhone instead.
Here is an interesting idea for an Apple Watch stand: NightWatch. As Jason Snell of Six Colors explains and shows in his review, it is sort of like a big clear globe that magnifies your Apple Watch screen so that you can see it better at night next to your bed. My words are not doing it justice … just click the link to see the picture and you’ll understand what it does.
Back in 2017, I reported that Apple acquired a Finnish company called Beddit that sold sleep-tracking devices. At the time, I thought that Apple would use the acquisition to improve sleep tracking in the Apple Watch. Apple kept that company running for five years, but as Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reported this week, Apple has stopped selling the Beddit hardware. Is this an indication that Apple is now poised to take some big step in the field of sleep-tracking? I guess we’ll see.
A few months ago, I reviewed the Satechi 108W USB-C 3-Port GaN Wall Charger, an incredibly useful device that provides all the power that you are likely to need to three different USB-C ports. I use that product every day and I highly recommend it, although I see that for some reason it is currently unavailable on Amazon. If you want something somewhat similar, Satechi currently sells a 100W desktop charger with two USB-C ports and one USB port, and Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac reports that the company unveiled at the end of CES last week an upcoming version with four USB-C ports and 165W of power. I hope that the model I recently reviewed is restocked soon because it has worked so well for me. During the holidays, it was the only charger I used while I traveled across the country, and it was everything that I needed. And now that I’m back in my office, I love that it takes up very little space but provides me with the maximum power I need for my iPad Pro, iPhone/AirPods Pro, and my Apple Watch (with fast charging).
And finally, multitasking with side-by-side windows on the iPad is incredibly useful. It’s not something that I do every day, but I do use the feature often, and it makes me much more productive when I can see something on one half of the screen while I am writing or doing something else on the other side of the screen. This short video from Apple Support was released a few months ago but it does an excellent job of walking you through all the parts of the process.
There are lots of iPhone apps that will tell you the weather in your city. If you want to know the weather at your specific house, you need a device that can provide you with temperature and other readings. Back in 2015, I reviewed a device called Eve Weather that checked the temperature, humidity, and air pressure. That product was discontinued and replaced by the Eve Degree, which I reviewed in 2018. The Eve Degree was an improvement because it was smaller and it displayed the temperature right on the front of the device, making it possible to learn the temperature without having to open an app on an iPhone. The Eve Degree is now discontinued and its replacement is (once again) called Eve Weather. Eve Systems sent me a free review unit of this device ($79.44 on Amazon) and I’ve been putting it through its paces. Like its predecessors, this device does a great job of telling you the weather at your home (or wherever you place the Eve Weather). And this new Eve Weather is the best version yet.
Hardware
Like the prior two generations, the new Eve Weather measures the temperature, humidity, and air pressure. Unlike those prior units, the new Eve Weather displays all of that information on the front of the device. (The prior Eve Degree displayed the temperature, but not the humidity or air pressure.) In the following picture, the new Eve Weather is on the left, and the older Eve Degree is on the right.
As you can see, both the Eve Degree and the new Eve Weather are the same size: 2.1" x 2.”1 x 0.6".
Temperature is a number that we all understand, and I suspect that most folks understand the humidity percentage as well. However, air pressure is often measured in inches of mercury (inHg) or millibars of mercury (mbar), and I suspect that most of us don’t understand the significance of any specific number. Plus, to really know the significance of an air pressure number, you need to know not just what it is now but how it has changed. Thus, instead of displaying a specific, current value for air pressure, the Eve Weather smartly uses the barometer information to predict the 12-hour weather trend (such as sunny, partly cloudy, rainy, etc.) based on the current barometric pressure and how quickly it has changed over the prior few hours. An icon corresponding to that weather trend is displayed on the front.
The Eve Weather is designed to be placed outside. The Eve website says that the Eve Weather is IPX4 water-resistant, which means that it is fine for water to splash on the device, but you should not spray a water jet at the device, and it is best to avoid direct rain. (Note that the Eve manual says that it is IPX3, but I reached out and a representative of the company told me that the correct number is IPX4.) There is a hole on the back that can be used to hang the Eve Weather on a wall.
You should not place the Eve Weather in a location where it will receive direct sunlight. If you do that, the sun will heat up the housing and make the temperature readings too high. Instead, you want a spot that is always in the shade, such as a location on a porch or a place on the north-facing side of a home. The device works best if it is about six feet above the ground level. At my house, the Eve Weather sits in the corner of a window sill that is on my back porch, the same place that an Eve Degree used to sit. There have been rare occasions, such as during Hurricane Ida last year, when it was blown down, but otherwise, that location has worked well for me for many years.
The device comes with a CR2450 coin cell battery. You can replace it as needed by twisting off the battery cover on the back of the device. I don’t remember how often I replaced the battery on the Eve Degree, but it was fairly rare. Maybe once every year or so?
Software
Although it is nice that you can get information from the Eve Weather by looking at it, the real advantage of this device is that it works with your iPhone — both with the built-in Home app and with Eve’s own free app.
In the built-in Home app, you can see the temperature and humidity. However, the Home app does not show the barometer reading or the associated weather forecast.
The Eve app provides you with more information. First, you can easily see not only the current temperature but also the high and low temperature for the past 24-hours. Second, you can see the current barometer reading and the icon indicating the 12-hour forecast.
Additionally, with the Eve app you can tap to get even more information. If you tap the line with the current temperature, you can also see a chart showing the temperature for the past hour, day, week, month, or year. You can swipe to see older information.
For example, using the year view, I can easily see that the coldest day at my home last year was Mardi Gras day, February 16 — a day that would normally be devoted to parades, but instead the streets were quiet because of COVID-19. (Although it was a very cold Mardi Gras day, it was not the coldest: that was in 1899 when it was 22 degrees.)
Even though I was using the former Eve Degree back in 2021 instead of the new Eve Weather, the Eve app can migrate data from an older device so that you can continue to track weather even as you upgrade to a new Eve device.
If you tap even further, you can see the specific measurements that are recorded in the app every ten minutes.
Seeing all of this information, including trends over time, is nice. But note that the Eve Weather itself, like the Eve Degree, can only hold past data for about two weeks or so. Thus, you need to open up the Eve app on your iPhone at least once every two weeks for the most recent data to be copied into the app.
Eve Weather, like Eve Degree, uses Bluetooth. Thus, one way to see the latest temperature is to get within Bluetooth range of the Eve Weather. Eve Weather is more useful when it is within Bluetooth range of a HomeKit hub, such as an Apple TV or a HomePod mini. That way, you can access the latest weather information from Eve Weather from any location — either at your home or away from home.
Eve Weather also supports Thread, which is an open protocol that Apple and other manufacturers are supporting. Right now, there are very few Thread-compatible devices, but I suspect that number to increase in the near future. Once you have a Thread network at your house, you won’t have to worry about keeping an Eve Weather within Bluetooth range of a HomeKit hub, and instead you just need to keep it in the general area of a device that supports the Full Thread protocol.
Automation
You can use the information provided by Eve Weather to trigger home automation. For example, if you have a HomeKit-compatible blue light somewhere in your house, you can create a simple automation to make that blue light turn on any time the weather gets below a certain point, such as below freezing. HomeKit automations options are rather limited right now, so you currently cannot do much more than turn other HomeKit devices on or off. In the future, I’d like to see more advanced options, such as the ability to send yourself a text message if it gets below or above a certain temperature. But those limitations are due to Apple, not Eve.
Conclusion
Eve Weather gives you an easy way to see the current and past temperature at your house. It works so well with the Eve and Home apps on your iPhone that you may never look at the face of the Eve Weather itself, but if you do, it is nice that you can now see all of the data, not just the current temperature like you could on the Eve Degree. And if you want to use the weather at your home to trigger HomeKit automations, the Eve Weather can help you do that as well. The features are similar enough to an Eve Degree that if you are still using that now discontinued device, I don’t see much reason to upgrade for the sake of upgrading. But if you need to replace an Eve Degree or if you are ready to start using a weather station at your house, the Eve Weather works great.
The first episode of the In the News podcast for 2022 is now available. After talking about Apple’s 15 years of supporting PRODUCT(RED), Brett and I discuss one of the big themes from CES this past week: new home automation products, including products that work with the new Matter and Thread protocols. Brett and I look forward to a day (hopefully soon!) when all of your home devices can talk to each other regardless of whether they are part of the Apple, Amazon, Google, or Samsung world. We also discuss the latest news on Find My with new ways to find lost AirPods, backpacks, and wallets. We then discuss Apple’s latest video, showing that an Apple Watch can help you call 911 in an emergency. And we also discuss a brand new feature for the Readdle’s PDF Expert: conversion from PDF to Word and other formats.
In our In the Know segment, Brett shares a tip for sending a PDF file via the Messages app. I share a tip for quick access to the most important folders and mailboxes in the Mail app.
Apple has now been working with PRODUCT(RED) for 15 years, making special versions of its products that are red. When you buy these products, a portion of what you pay goes to fight AIDS. According to this page, Apple has raised nearly $270 million for (RED) during the past 15 years. A new short video celebrates that partnership and notes that part of fighting AIDS today is fighting COVID, which I suppose makes perfect sense when you are trying to treat people around the world. And now, the news of note from the past week
Mobile, Alabama attorney Carter Hale wrote an excellent article on using technology to give presentations at trial in the Winter 2021 edition of the Tennessee Defense Lawyers Association Journal, and his article is packed with tips for using TrialPad on an iPad. You can click here to see an electronic version of the issue, and the article starts on page 8.
I often link to articles written by California attorney David Sparks of the MacSparky website. In this post, David explains that he has decided to stop practicing law so that he can devote 100% of his time to helping people use technology, through his MacSparky site, his video field guides, etc. That should mean that there are even more interesting articles written by David for me to mention here on iPhone J.D. Good luck to David as he begins this new chapter of his life.
Federico Viticci of MacStories reviews Remind Me Faster, an app that helps you to very quickly add an entry to the built-in Reminders app.
At the CES convention this week, Belkin announced that its upcoming smart home products would work with Matter and the Thread mesh protocol, a new smart home standard that Apple created with Amazon, Google, and Samsung to eventually replace Apple’s HomeKit and other technologies. Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac shares some of the details.
I’m typically a big fan of Apple’s Memories feature. It almost always shows me pictures and videos that bring a smile to my face, and thanks to the Photos widget, I don’t even have to open the Photos app to know that there is something new to see. But as Stephen Hackett of 512 Pixels notes, sometimes Memories can be less desirable, such as when it resurfaces a painful event such as January 6, 2021, or when it shows pictures of someone who you no longer want to see.
I’ve heard of some people placing an Apple AirTag in a wallet to find it if you lose it. I understand the desire to do that, but the AirTag is rather large for that purpose. Chance Miller of 9to5Mac discusses the new Chipolo Card Spot, a thin card that works like an AirTag (including Find My compatibility) but is easier to fit in a wallet.
Speaking of Find My, Glenn Fleishman explains in an article for Macworld that if Find My indicates that a device is in one location but that seems wrong, it may be because a Wi-Fi router was relocated.
Patrick McGee of Ars Technica notes that this past week, Apple became the first company to ever hit a market capitalization of $3 trillion (the price of a stock multiplied by the number of outstanding shares). Just as impressive, Apple’s value rose by $1 trillion in less than 16 months. Even if you don’t own Apple stock (I don’t), this matters to users of Apple products because it helps Apple to retain its best employees, who receive a significant portion of their income through stock options that vest over time. Thus, this milestone is indirectly responsible for us getting even better products from Apple.
Dave Mark of The Loop shares a video from Apple with advice for finding lost AirPods. As he notes, there are lots of details in that video that you probably didn’t know about.
And finally, here is a powerful ad produced by Apple called 911 about three people who were able to get critical help during an emergency because they called 911 using their Apple Watch. Federico Viticci’s tongue-in-cheek proposed title for this video is “you’re gonna die if you don’t buy an Apple Watch.” Of course, we all hope that none of us ever need to call 911, but the reality is that if you do, there are circumstances in which having an Apple Watch makes that much easier.
Weather apps are great when you want to know the forecast, but only if you will remain in the same location. What if you are driving across the country on a road trip? To find out what the weather will be like in a few hours, you need to know where you will be in a few hours. And while you could do all of this manually—guessing at the city where you will be and then looking up the forecast for the hour that you think you will be there—that is a lot of work. The Weather on the Way app does all of this work for you.
I mentioned this app about 18 months ago in an In the News post, noting that I would use the app the next time that my family takes a road trip. Because of COVID and a number of other reasons, my wife and I decided to drive from New Orleans to New York to visit family for Christmas instead of flying, and it was a perfect reason to use this app because of the dramatic change in temperature along the way.
When you start using the app, it works like a map app. Your current location is listed in “A” (change that if you want) and then you place an ending location in “B”. The app shows the most direct path from A to B along with the weather at selected locations along the map and the approximate time you will be in each location.
You can tap an icon to choose whether the map shows you the temperature, amount of precipitation, wind speed, or wind gusts at each location.
What if you have multiple stops? That works too. Just enter another stop as “C,” “D,” etc., and that will be added to your route.
If you want more details about the weather on the way, tap the Show Timeline button.
An icon at the top left of the map lets you update the radar so you can see where the bad weather is located in relation to your route.
If you have flexibility on when you leave, you can use this app to plan the best time/day to leave to get the best weather along the way, up to seven days in advance. Simply tap the departure time just above the map and then a slider appears at the bottom of the screen. Slide to adjust your departure time and you can see what impact that has on the weather at the different locations on the route.
The Weather on the Way app is free to download, and for your first five trips, you get all of the PRO features of the app for free—features like changing the departure time and alternate routes. After that, you pay either $2.99/month or $16.99/year for the PRO features. This generous pricing model makes it easy for you to try out the app for a number of different road trips before paying anything at all. And then when you do want to use the app, you only need to pay $3 for each of the months in which you will be on a road trip, or $17 for a full year if you plan to take lots of trips. You can also pay $39.99 for a lifetime subscription.
I’m very impressed by the Weather on the Way app and I found it useful during my recent road trip. I’ve tried out lots of different weather apps on my iPhone, but I haven’t seen any other app that does with this app does. The next time that you take a road trip, I encourage you to try this one out.
To help ring in the new year, Brett Burney and I released a new episode of the In the News podcast, one in which we look back and look forward. We look back 25 years to when Apple first acquired NeXT … although in retrospect, it was almost like NeXT acquired Apple. We also discuss the rise and fall of BlackBerry. Looking forward, we talk about what might be coming to AirPods in the future, improvements to Apple Maps, and issues related to COVID.
In our In the Know segment, Brett shares a tip for the Microsoft To Do app that you can probably use with any task manager. I provide tips for using the text replacement feature of the iPhone and iPad.
Just about 25 years ago, on December 20, 1996, Apple purchased NeXT, a company that made computer hardware and software. In retrospect, Apple didn’t get NeXT as much as it got the founder of NeXT, Steve Jobs. As the headline for an article by Dawn Kawamoto of CNet accurately stated at the time: “Apple acquires Next, Jobs.” Joe Rossignol of MacRumors recently discussed the significance of that acquisition with the benefit of hindsight. It is no exaggeration to say that this acquisition saved Apple from bankruptcy and led to the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and the iOS, iPadOS, and MacOS operating systems. Who knows what kind of smartphones and other portable technology we would be using today if things had turned out differently 25 years ago. And now, the news of note for the end of 2021:
New York attorney Nicole Black discusses the top five legal technology stories of 2021 in an article for ABA Journal. Perhaps obviously, the remote work revolution is #1 on her list.
Tom Parsons of What Hi-Fi? interviewed Gary Geaves, VP of Acoustics at Apple, to discuss Spatial Audio for the AirPods and related topics. It is an interesting interview. For example, Geaves explains that Spatial Audio works differently when you are listening to an Apple TV than when you are listening to an iPhone so that the virtual speakers seem further away on an Apple TV but closer on an iPhone.
Throughout this pandemic, one of the ways to keep track of the seriousness of the spread of COVID is to look at what local Apple Stores are doing. Filipe Espósito of 9to5Mac reports that Apple has closed all of its stores in New York City because of COVID.
Mark Gurman of Bloomberg reported other Apple Store closings on Twitter. For example, here in New Orleans where I live, Gurman reports that our local Apple Store is closing temporarily starting today because of nearly 30 employees with COVID. Gurman also reported that two Florida Apple Stores closed because of potentially hundreds of positive tests or exposures.
COVID isn’t the only thing that we need to be concerned about. Hacking remains a constant problem for all of us—I just heard yesterday about a major law firm being hacked—and nothing is more scary that hackers breaking into a password manager. But as Michael Simon of Macworld reports, hackers were able to access some part of the LastPass password manager system, although LastPass believes that no individual accounts were compromised.
Have you ever typed 20 on your iPhone or iPad and had the device automatically change that to 2.0? It has happened to me, and I could never figure out why. John Gruber of Daring Fireball figured out what is going on and provides a workaround.
And finally (for this past week), Apple recently released three short videos to show off the iPhone 13 Pro’s video capabilities. One called Pavel addresses the 3x optical zoom. One called Basement addresses taking video in low light. But my favorite is called Detectives and it addresses Cinematic Mode in a very humorous way:
And finally (for this past year), Apple TV+ created a new Peanuts holiday special, this one for New Year’s Eve. And to celebrate that new movie, you can now have a For Auld Lang Syne sing-along with your favorite Peanuts characters:
