As we start to get deep into the holiday season, it is time to gather your family around the fire and listen to the latest episode of the In the News podcast. Brett and I start with a deep dive on iOS 15.2 and iPadOS 15.2. There is more in there than you might think. Then we discuss the new Pixelmator Photo app for the iPhone and why you should strongly considering using it, along with some other topics.
In our In the Know segment, we both have photo-related tips. Brett recommends an app called Stitch It! to create very long screenshot pictures, such as a string of text messages. I discuss the ML Super Resolution feature on Pixelmator Photo.
With the holidays approaching, many of us will be using an iPhone to take a lot more pictures of friends and family. And if you need to touch up some of those pictures, I have good news. This week, the fabulous Pixelmator Photo app came to the iPhone. I’ve been using this app on the iPad for a while now, and it is great. John Voorhees of MacStories shows off how the app works on the iPhone. And despite the small screen, it works quite well. For example, as Jason Snell of Six Colors points out, Pixelmator Photo has a particularly good retouch tool, a tool that doesn’t exist in the Photos app on the iPhone (although it does exist in the Photos app on the Mac). If you need to quickly fix a blemish on a face or remove a distracting object from the background, Pixelmator Photo’s eraser feature is what you need. The app is currently on sale for $4 (50% off the normal price), and if you already own the iPad app, you won’t get charged for the iPhone app. If you use your iPhone to take photos, I highly recommend the new iPhone version of Pixelmator Photo. And now, the news of note from the past week:
California attorney David Sparks discusses the new features that are in iOS 15.2 and iPadOS 15.2, which were released earlier this week. One new iPad feature David noted that I missed is that you can now set separate actions for a swipe from the lower-right and lower-left corners of the iPad screen. On my iPad, the lower-left swipe only works when I’m using my Apple Pencil, not with my finger, but perhaps I have more to figure out on that.
Jordan Hobbs of Uptime Legal Systems shares tips on creating legal symbols—such as ¶, §, Π, Δ, and more—using the iPhone, PC, and Mac. I’ve addressed this topic in the past, but I now see that it was back in 2014. Time flies.
Readdle updated Scanner Pro this week to add a Magic Eraser feature, perfect for removing your finger or other marks that you don’t want to appear on your scans. In my tests, the new feature works well, and this tool for PDFs is similar to the tool I discussed above for photos in Pixelmator Photo.
Apple created an AirTags app for Android. The app is called Tracker Detect, and it is designed to be used by someone with an Android phone to check and see if they are being tracked, without their knowledge, by an AirTag. (iPhone users already get those alerts automatically.) Ian Sherr of CNet describes the Tracker Detect app—one of the rare Android apps developed by Apple.
Before there was an iPhone, there was the Palm and Handspring—pioneers of what would become the smartphone. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this high-quality 30-minute video on the history of Handspring by Dieter Bohn of The Verge. I especially recommend this to folks who, like me, used a Treo before using an iPhone.
And finally, Apple released a new episode of Ted Lasso this week! Well, a new short at least, featuring claymation versions of your favorite Ted Lasso characters. It is called The Missing Christmas Mustache. Enjoy:
Apple updated many of its operating systems yesterday, including iOS 15.2 and iPadOS 15.2. There are some nice new features in this update. I’ll start with the one that wll be the most significant for some people: Legacy Contacts.
If you pass away and a family member or close friend knows your iCloud username and password, then they can access lots of information from your account such as photos, notes, email, and more. But what if they don’t? With the new Legacy Contacts feature, you can identify up to five people as your Legacy Contacts. When you die, once they establish that fact to Apple by providing a death certificate, then the person you designate will be able to access your iCloud data. Apple explains on this webpage what can be accessed.
To use this feature, both you and the other person must update to iOS 15.2 (or later). Then, in the Settings app on your iPhone, tap your name (very top of the Settings app) and then Password & Security. Then tap Legacy Contact. On the next screen, tap Add Legacy Contact.
You will need to provide that person with an access key that they will use, along with your death certificate, to get access. You can print that out, useful if you want to place it in a secure place like a safe. Or you can send it via text message, in which case your iPhone automatically drafts the message for you.
That’s just one of the new features added yesterday. Some of the others:
Apple Music Voice Plan. If you don’t want to pay for a full Apple Music subscription for $9.99/month, you can now purchase a $4.99/month plan that only works when you ask Siri to play songs. For most folks, I think that the full plan is well worth the extra money, but I guess it is nice to have options.
Communication Safety in Messages. For children in your family, you can optionally turn on a feature that blurs incoming text messages containing nudity and provides a warning, although the child can decide to view the picture anyway. When Apple originally announced this feature, it said that parents could also be notified if the child is under 13, but Apple decided against adding that in favor of privacy.
App Privacy Report. In Settings, go to Privacy, then App Privacy Report to see how apps are accessing private information such as your location, photos, camera, microphone, and contacts.
Track the Trackers. In the Find My app, tap Items. If there are nearby items (like AirTags) belonging to someone else that could be used to track you, you’ll see an option called Items That Can Track Me. Tap that to learn more.
Five More Hours to Find. If you lose your iPhone and the battery runs down to zero, the iPhone will go into Power Reserve mode. In iOS 15.2, even when in that mode, you can still use Find My on another device to find your iPhone for up to five hours.
Security Improvements. Every time Apple releases an update, they always enhance security, and I presume they have done the same this time.
The latest episode of the In the News podcast is now available. This is a really fun episode because Brett Burney and I discuss lots of interesting topics. First, we discuss the lawsuit between Epic and Apple and the impact of the stay that was just granted by the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal. Next, we talk about using your iPhone or Apple Watch as a hotel key. We then discuss the great pictures and information in this article by Jonathan Bell of Wallpaper, with photos by Jason Schmidt, regarding how Apple designs new products at its Apple Park campus.
Next, we discuss third-party tips for the Apple AirPods Pro, a new stylus from Adonit that works for the iPad and iPhone, putting a digital fireplace on your Apple TV, and the unexpected Razer Phone Cooler Chroma ($59.99 on Amazon).
In our In the Know segment, we focus on the web browser. Brett shares a tip for hiding your IP address when using the Safari browser on the iPhone and iPad. I discuss the first stand-alone web browser for the Apple Watch: the µBrowser (“Micro Browser”).
If you are looking for a present idea for anyone who has an Apple Watch (a growing population), I recommend finding a way to give someone an Apple Watch band—or, perhaps an Apple gift card so that they can pick out a specific color. Which band should you give? I recommend the Solo Loop, which I reviewed earlier this year. At $50, it is one of the least-expensive bands made by Apple, but it is also one of the best. I love wearing my Milanese Loop band at work and when I want to dress up, but after work and on the weekends, the Solo Loop is my go-to band because it is so comfortable. This week, Eric Brain of Hypebeast released an article based on his interview of Stan Ng (Apple’s VP of Product Marketing) and Evans Hankey (Apple’s VP of Industrial Design) to discuss Apple Watch bands. Hankey specifically praises the Solo Loop, saying that it is “without a doubt the most simple and most ambitious watch band we have made” because “[f]or possibly the first time in the history of watchmaking, we have eliminated all buckles, clasps, and the excess material necessary for size adjustment” and thus it is “the most comfortable band we’ve made.” I agree with this 100%. I love how comfortable this band is, and because there is no clasp, it feels incredibly secure on my arm. And now, the news of note from the past week:
Although Apple has been winning most aspects of the lawsuit filed against it by Epic arising out of Epic’s bait-and-switch (the company secretly added in-app payment options in violation of Apple’s rules), there was one aspect on which Epic prevailed, and because the trial court declined to grant a stay, there was a risk that Apple was going to have to change certain aspects of its in-app payment system this month. But as John Gruber of Daring Fireball reports, the federal Ninth Circuit granted a stay until the merits of that part of the trial court’s ruling are reviewed on appeal. if you haven’t been following this lawsuit closely, all that you need to know is that, for now, nothing is changing.
This one is really just for the appellate lawyer nerds like me, and this one has nothing to do with the iPhone (except that I learned the news while reading this tweet by Prof. David Ziff in the Tweetbot app), but Ziff reports in that tweet that the West publication Federal Appendix ceased publication this year after a 20-year run, with 861 being the final volume. Whether you cited it as F. App’x or Fed. Appx., it was nice to have a short and official-looking citation for those unpublished federal opinions. On well, now we have to use the long WL and LEXIS cites. (As Ziff also tweets, it doesn’t appear that West published an official announcement of this. So yes, that means that the decision to end the F. App’x is, ahem, unpublished.)
Speaking of Twitter and appellate nerds, I can’t stop laughing at this video by Alexis Gay praising the em dash.
OK, let’s get back to the iPhone. One of the features that Apple announced for iOS 15 is the ability to use your iPhone or Apple Watch as a room key at a hotel. Benjamin Mayo of 9to5Mac reports that the feature is now starting to rollout at a few Hyatt Hotels. This reminds me of the early days of Apple Pay, and I look forward to this feature being widely available.
Alan Sepinwall of Rolling Stone picks the 20 best TV shows of 2021, and it made me smile to see For All Mankind Season 2 grab the #1 slot. Ted Lasso gets all of the (well-deserved) acclaim on Apple TV+, but For All Mankind is truly excellent. There are lots of other good shows on his list, plus quite a few that were not previously on my radar screen.
Jonathan Bell of Wallpaper wrote an interesting article—featuring great photographs by Jason Schmidt—of the inside of Apple Park and some of the design folks who work there.
Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac reviews the Adonit Dash 4, a stylus that works with both the iPad and the iPhone.
Nicole Nguyen of the Wall Street Journal (Apple News link) compares the Apple Watch to other wearable devices to track your body’s trends over time.
The iPhone J.D. award for the craziest MagSafe-compatible accessory goes to the Razer Phone Cooler Chroma ($59.99 on Amazon), which adds a 7-blade fan to the back of your iPhone to keep it cooler even as you push the iPhone’s processor to the limits, plus 12 colorful LED lights to give your iPhone some bling. Thanks to Michael Simon of Macworld for noticing this critical product.
And finally, I love using asking Siri to perform certain functions in my house, such as turning on the lights on my Christmas tree. But I never expected to see Siri control a VCR. However, Siri can do that too, as this video from the Will It Work? channel demonstrates.
I love my AirPods Pro, and I use them every day. They work great for conference calls in my office (connected to my PC or my iPad), phone calls, listening to music, listening to podcasts, watching videos, and more. The noise cancellation feature is fantastic, as is the Transparency Mode for when I want to hear the outside world. Nevertheless, my one complaint has always been that the tips are not as comfortable as I would like for my ears. They work fine when I first put them in, but then they tend to move around and feel like they are going to fall out. Thus, over the years, I’ve tried many alternative eartips including adding memory foam to the Apple eartips and purchasing Foam Masters Hybrid Silicone-Memory Foam Ear Tips. The Foam Masters tips have been a good choice for me, but they no longer appear to be for sale on Amazon, and I’ve always been curious about other options.
One option I had heard good things about is COMPLY’s memory foam replacement tips. Unlike the prior replacement tips I had been using, which put memory foam inside of silicone, these tips are just memory foam. I’ve been using them for about six weeks now, and I like them about the same as the Foam Masters tips, which I say because they are both a little bit better and a little bit worse.
When you purchase the “assorted” version of this product, you get three different tip sizes, just like you do with Apple’s tips. That’s nice so that you can pick what feels the best for you.
These tips connect to the AirPods Pro the same way that Apple’s tips connect. They just snap on.
Because the COMPLY tips are virtually all memory foam, you need to use them in a special way. You cannot simply put them in your ears. Well, you can do that, but you won’t get the full effect. The correct way to put these in your ears is to squeeze them between your fingers so that the foam compresses. Then you put one in your ear and hold it there for a few seconds as the memory foam expands to fill your ear. Then you do the same thing with the second one.
This process of inserting them in an ear is my big complaint about this this product — this entire class of products, not just the ones made by COMPLY. A few seconds may not seem like much, but I often find that I want to put my AirPods Pro in my ears quickly. For example, when someone calls my iPhone and I want to wear them for the conversation, I don’t have time to pinch ear tips. And even if I am just listening to music, I don’t want to wait. I’ve gotten more use to this process over time, but it is still annoying.
On the other hand, the advantage if that once the foam expands to fill your ears, these tips work better than the tips that come with the AirPods Pro. First, I find them to be more comfortable. Second, the foam improves the noise cancellation ability of the AirPods Pro. And for what it is worth, my AirPods Pro pass the iPhone’s Ear Tip Fit test when I use these tips.
These replacement tips are about the same size as Apple’s tips. Thus, you can use these tips and you won’t have trouble fitting your AirPods Pro into the charging case.
[UPDATE 5-22-2022: After using a set of these ear tips daily for about seven months, they started to fall apart. Thus, I ordered a replacement pair, and they are working great. When I ordered my original set, I ordered the version with a small, medium, and large size so that I could figure out which size worked best. The large size worked best for me, so when I ordered the replacement, I made all three of the tips large. Hopefully, these three will last me another year and a half or so. The fact that I ordered replacements should tell you the most important thing: I really like this product, and I gave it a high recommendation. Everyone has different ears, but for my ears, these are wonderful.]
Conclusion
Everyone has different ears, so no one product will work best for everyone. Nevertheless, if you are looking for replacement tips for the AirPods Pro that provide a better fit, I consider these to be an improvement, and hopefully you will as well. And if you are looking for replacement tips to provide better noise cancellation, this is definitely a good product. Unfortunately, to get these benefits, you have to get used to spending a little more time putting your AirPods Pro into your ears.
After a week off for Thanksgiving, the In the News podcast that I co-host with Brett Burney is back with a great new episode. Brett and I start by discussing Apple’s new lawsuit against NSO Group, the company that sells hacking software to governments. Next we discuss my recent upgrade to a 4K HDR television. Finally, we discuss two recent examples of using technology to make things more convenient: using HomeKit to control your Christmas Tree lights, and ordering coffee from a CarPlay screen.
We also have a good In the Know segment this week. Brett recommends some somewhat hidden features in CarPlay, and I recommend some somewhat hidden features on the Apple TV.
In a press release, Apple announced the best and most popular podcasts of 2021. I’m thrilled that the In the News podcast that Brett Burney and I produce almost every Friday is on the list. At least, I assume that it is somewhere on the list, if the list runs from #1 all the way to last place. We didn’t make the Top 10, but if you want to see what did, click here. Apple also announced the best apps and games of 2021, including the excellent CARROT Weather app for the Apple Watch. It is funny to see Myst as the Mac game of the year considering that I played Myst the first time that it came out on the Mac, back in 1993. Apple also announced the most downloaded iPhone and iPad apps, and Juli Clover of MacRumors shared those lists. Apple also announced the Apple Music Award winners. I only recognize a few of the music winners, but I definitely know the Drivers License song by Olivia Rodrigo (who won Breakthrough Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, and Song of the Year) because my daughter played it frequently in my car. And now, the recent news of note:
I’ve mentioned NSO Group many times this year, an Israeli company that sells hacking tools to governments. The company claims that the tool is only supposed to be used against even criminals, but there are many reports of it being used against civil rights activists and reporters. Apple has had enough and this week filed suit against NSO Group. John Gruber of Daring Fireball provides some details.
Apple’s lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. How does it have personal jurisdiction there over an Israeli company? As reported by Mitchell Clark and Richard Lawler of The Verge, the complaint alleges that NSO Group “created more than one hundred Apple IDs to carry out their attacks and also agreed to Apple’s iCloud Terms and Conditions (‘iCloud Terms’), including a mandatory and enforceable forum selection and exclusive jurisdiction clause that constitutes express consent to the jurisdiction of this Court.” Or, as John Moltz tweeted: “Finally a good use for a EULA.”
I may not recognize many of the songs that won an Apple Music Award, but Apple’s Shazam service certainly does. In fact, it now recognizes even more songs, as reported by Chance Miller of 9to5Mac, because Shazam will now spend more time trying to identify a song.
Bradley Chambers of 9to5Mac provides tips for automating your Christmas decorations using HomeKit. My Christmas Tree is connected to a Lutron lamp dimmer, and it is nice to be able to ask Siri on any device, such as the HomePod mini in the same room, to turn the tree on or off.
Michael Simon of Macworld made a big switch. Literally. After using the iPhone 12 mini, he upgraded to the iPhone 13 Pro Max, and he describes the experience.
John Gruber of Daring Fireball recommends Vinegar, a $2 Safari plug-in for Safari on the iPhone and iPad (and Mac) that replaces embedded YouTube videos on web pages with HTML 5 video tags, which means that it is easier to play videos right on the web page. I’ve been trying it for several days now, and it is a very nice improvement.
Zac Hall of 9to5Mac reports that we now have the first food ordering app for CarPlay. Using the Dunkin’ app you can order your favorite or recent orders using your CarPlay screen.
iOS 15 will eventually include the ability to store a state’s driver’s license in the Wallet app, but Joe Rossignol of MacRumors reports that this feature has been delayed until early 2022.
And finally, I always love watching the holiday ads that Apple makes every year, and this year is a great one. The video is called Saving Simon, it was filmed using an iPhone 13 Pro (using many features such as macro mode and cinematic mode), and it was directed by Jason Reitman (Juno, Thank You For Smoking, Up in the Air, etc.) and his father Ivan Reitman (Meatballs, Stripes, Ghostbusters, etc.). The video is embedded below, and I also enjoyed watching the behind the scenes video.
In the review I posted yesterday of the LG OLED C1 Series TV, I pointed out that when I originally connected it to my Apple TV 4K (2nd generation), I sometimes encountered an error message that my HDMI cable did not support HDCP, even though it should have had that support. Here are some additional details on that problem and how I solved it by purchasing a Belkin Ultra HD High Speed HDMI 2.1 Cable.
HDMI cables have been around since 2002, but the technology has changed over the years. Thus, two HDMI cables that look the same may support different features. You can read about the evolution on Wikipedia, but the current standard is HDMI 2.1, released in 2017. It supports both 4K and 8K resolution, and it supports a high 120 Hz screen refresh rate. It also supports eARC, which I described in yesterday’s post. HDMI 2.1 cables can also support Ultra High Speed of 18 Gigabit per second to 48 Gigabit per second.
When I purchased my new LG television, I knew that the older HDMI cables that I had been using would not fully support 4K, so I needed something new. I read good things about Monoprice brand cables, and they seemed to have all of the features that I wanted: HDMI 2.1 and 48Gbps. So I purchased a 5-pack on Amazon.
For most of my content — including everything that I streamed from Apple TV+ — the Monoprice cables worked great. But when I tried to watch movies that were in the highest-quality version of 4K on some other services, I ran into problems. For example, The Matrix movies are available on HBO Max, and a few months ago, HBO started to offer versions in 4K Ultra HD with Dolby Vision HDR and Dolby Atmos audio. But when I tried to play those movies using the Apple TV 4K hooked up to my LG C1, I could hear the audio but got only a black screen. And then, after a while, I would get an error message telling me that my HDMI cable did not support HDCP – a form of digital copy protection that is supposed to block you from creating a pirate copy of a movie that you download in 4K. That made no sense to me because the Monoprice cables were supposed to support everything that I needed. If I watched the same movie using the HBO Max app on the LG’s own webOS — in other words, bypassing the Monoprice HDMI cord connecting my Apple TV to the LG television — the movie played great.
I encountered the same problem with other Ultra HD movies on HBO Max, Hulu, and Netflix when using my Apple TV, but those movies played fine when I used the apps on the LG television itself.
After doing some additional research, I found folks online saying that the cord that Apple sells at Apple Stores to go along with the Apple TV 4K is the Belkin Ultra HD High Speed HDMI 2.1 Cable. At $39.99 on Amazon, it is about four times as expensive as the Monoprice HDMI cord. But folks who posted comments on Amazon said that this cord solved issues that people had been having with the Apple TV, so I figured I would give it a try.
And sure enough, this Belkin HDMI cable works great. As soon as I replaced the Monoprice HDMI cord between my Apple TV 4K and my LG C1 television with this Belkin HDMI cord, everything worked perfectly. I’m still using the Monoprice cords for my other connections, including the eARC connection from the LG C1 television to my receiver.
I don’t know why the Belkin cord works when the Monoprice cable does not, but I guess I’m just happy that I found a solution. If you are in the market to purchase an HDMI cord to use with your Apple TV — and especially if your existing HDMI cable is resulting in HDCP errors — I recommend that you purchase this Belkin cable and see if it solves your problems, as it did for me.
I recently purchased a new television sold by LG, the C1 model. The quality of this television is unlike anything that I’ve ever seen before, and it is a perfect companion to my Apple TV 4K, iPhone, and iPad.
For the past eight years, I’ve been using a 65" Panasonic plasma television in my home theater room. It was a fantastic TV when I bought it in 2013. It supported 1080p HD, and because it used plasma technology, the blacks on the screen were pitch black, resulting in very nice color contrast. That was the last year that Panasonic made a plasma TV, and many in the industry were upset to see that TV go because the picture quality was so good. But a lot has changed in the TV world since 2013. Televisions with 4K have improved while also becoming more affordable. Better yet, TVs that support high dynamic range (HDR) along with 4K can produce pictures that look truly lifelike.
What prompted me to upgrade was actually my iPhone and iPad. As I have upgraded those devices over the last eight years and I’ve seen their screen quality improve over time, I’ve noticed more and more what my Panasonic TV was lacking. For example, I’ve been able to record 4K video on my iPhone for some time now. Recording 4K at 30 fps was introduced with the iPhone 6s in 2015, and recording 4K at 60 fps (which looks even more realistic) was introduced with the iPhone X in 2017. Thus, I’ve been taking video at 4K for my home movies for many years, but I haven’t had a good way to view that video at its full quality. That has changed recently as the screens of the latest models of the iPad Pro and the iPhone have improved to the point where you can really see the difference in 4K HDR video. For example, when I look at these home movies on the 2021 models of my iPad Pro and my iPhone 13 Pro, they looked so much better than they did on my Panasonic 1080p TV. And all of this made me wonder if I would appreciate the difference when watching movies and TV shows that were created to take advantage of the latest 4K HDR TV technology.
As a result, I’ve been in the market for a new TV for a few months, and after reading tons of reviews and talking to lots of people who use different types of 4K televisions, I finally decided to get the 2021 version of the LG C1 series TV. And boy am I happy that I made this decision. This TV is simply stunning.
LCD/LED or OLED
For most consumers, the only televisions worth considering right now either use LCD/LED or OLED technology for the screen. LED is a type of LCD screen, and while LCD televisions previously used multiple methods of producing light, I believe that all current LCD televisions use LED technology. Thus, for the purposes of buying a new television today, there is no difference between an LED or an LCD television. The major advantage of LCD/LED over OLED is that LCD/LED is cheaper. Additionally, in some circumstances, LCD/LED can be brighter (which is useful if you are watching TV in a room that has lots of light, such as light coming through windows). The disadvantage of LCD/LED is that HDR is far less dramatic, with less of a difference between dark areas and bright areas on the screen. LCD/LED can still look quite good — for example, the high-end fifth generation (2021 model) 12.9" iPad Pro uses an LED screen and it is very impressive — but it is still not OLED quality.
OLED provides a superior picture. All of the iPhone 13 models use an OLED screen. If you look at something that should be black on both an iPad’s LED screen and an iPhone’s OLED screen, the iPad screen ends up looking gray by comparison. Similarly, rich colors look better on an iPhone’s OLED screen. There is more contrast between light and dark colors on an OLED screen.
So why isn’t OLED the best technology for everyone? The problem is that it can be much more expensive, and the price difference is especially substantial with larger TV sizes. For example, because my Panasonic TV was a 65" TV, I decided that I wanted to get the next size up for a new TV. One of the best LCD/LED televisions is the Hisense ULED Premium 75-Inch U7G. A 75" model of that TV costs $1,199.99. On the other hand, the 77" LG C1 TV that I purchased, which uses OLED, costs over twice as much, about $2900. Because I plan to use this new TV for many, many years, I decided that the price premium was worth it for me, but I know that it will not be worth it for others.
The best type of room to use for any OLED television is a room where you can control the light. We use the back room in my house as a home theater room, and while there is a single window in that room, we have long had that window covered with a black-out shade and then covered with a dark curtain. Thus, the only light in that room comes from the sconces on the walls, which I can dim. (I use a Lutron dimmer switch that is HomeKit compatible, so it is easy to dim the lights from my iPhone, Apple Watch, Apple TV remote, etc.) With this setup, I can easily get that room very dark or completely dark, so I can take full advantage of an OLED screen.
If you want an OLED television but you need to use it in a room that you cannot get completely dark, you may want to consider an OLED television that can get especially bright, such as Sony’s Bravia XR Master Series A90J. As Chris Heinonen of Wirecutter explains, “Sony added an aluminum sheet to the OLED panel to dissipate heat more effectively, a design change that allowed the company to increase the panel’s brightness. As a result, the A90J produces brighter highlights than any other OLED TV we’ve tested, so images really pop off the screen.” But you pay quite a bit for this improvement. The 65" model costs $4000, and the next available size is 83" which costs $8200.
Picture quality
Although not as expensive as that Sony model, this LG television is still expensive. As a result, even though all of my research told me that this TV would be perfect in my home theater room, I still had some hesitation. Would I decide that the substantial price was only a minor improvement over my Panasonic plasma television?
No. Not at all.
The picture quality on this LG television is stunning. Amazing. Lifelike. Incredible. Suffice it to say that if I had truly appreciated how much of an improvement this would be, I would have started looking into a TV upgrade long ago.
Most of what I have been looking at on this LG television comes from my Apple TV 4K. (I also have DirecTV.) Of course, not all content is in 4K, and not all 4K content uses impressive HDR. But one of the first things that I watched on this new TV was one of the best shows you can watch to push any screen to its limits: the show Tiny World on Apple TV+. I already knew how amazing that show looked in HD on my plasma television. But the same show on this LG C1 is one of the most incredible things I’ve ever watched in my life, on any screen. Everything looks ultra-realistic. The colors pop. The details are incredible. But it is not just nature shows that look great; lots of other shows on Apple TV+ also look amazing, such as the show Foundation.
I initially ran into problems viewing some high-end 4K content on other services such as HBO and Netflix, but I solved that by changing the HDMI cord that connected my Apple TV 4K to this LG television to a Belkin Ultra HD High Speed HDMI 2.1 Cable. (For more details, see this post.) Once I changed the HDMI cable, I was able to appreciate amazing shows that support Dolby Vision on other services. For example, this past weekend, I started watching Cowboy Bebop and The Witcher on Netflix, two shows that look fantastic on this television.
The home movies that I take are no match for the production quality of these movie and TV shows, but they feature my family and friends, so in my heart, they are better. And they have never looked better. The new iPhone 13 models, including my iPhone 13 Pro, support Dolby Vision Video up to 4K at 60 fps. I can take videos on my iPhone, load them into Final Cut Pro on my Mac to select the best clips and add some transitions and titles, and then export the final movie to my Apple TV library on the iMac in my study. The Apple TV 4K in my TV room can stream that video so that I can watch it on the LG C1. And the results are great. For example, I know that I’m biased, but my videos of my daughter’s 8th grade volleyball games are almost ESPN quality. OK, maybe ESPN2.
Inputs
Whenever you get a new television, you want to make sure that you have all of the inputs that you need. The television includes four HDMI inputs. Three of them are on the right if you are looking at the back of the TV (the left when you are looking at the screen). A fourth HDMI input is a little closer to the middle.
My current system setup is to have three video sources (Apple TV 4K, DirecTV, a Blu-Ray DVD player) connected to the LG TV using three of the four rear HDMI inputs. I use the fourth input to connect to my receiver, which connects to my speakers.
Sound
If you are going to spend the money to buy an LG C1 television of any size, but especially a larger size such as the 77" I purchased, you probably won’t be using the built-in speakers on this TV. Having said that, for the first few days that I had this TV. I didn’t have my sound system hooked up yet, so I used the built-in speakers. And they were fine, with nice stereo separation.
One of the four HDMI inputs on the back of this TV supports eARC (HDMI 2). This refers to Audio Return Channel, and it means that a single HDMI cord can send video/audio to the TV but can also send audio out from the TV to a receiver. I have an HDMI cord running from this LG TV to an Onkyo TX-SR494 AV Receiver, a receiver that supports 4K Ultra HD and Dolby Atmos. The speaker setup in my TV room is only 5.1 — the left, center, and right speakers, a rear left and rear right speaker, and a subwoofer (an Energy 5.1 Take Classic Home Theater System that I’ve been using since 2014). Thus, I don’t have overhead speakers to support some of the more advanced configurations such as 5.1.2 or 7.1.2 or 9.1.2, which I’m sure allow Dolby Atmos to really shine. (The final “.2" on those refers to two speakers on the ceiling.) Having said that, movies and TV shows that support Dolby Atmos sound great on my 5.1 system, and are noticeably better than shows that don’t use Dolby Atmos.
Dolby Atmos isn’t just good for movies and TV shows. It is also great for music. As an Apple Music subscriber, I have access to a huge library of songs that support Spatial Audio, which is really just Apple’s version of Dolby Atmos. I’ve known for some time that Spatial Audio sounds great on my AirPods Pro. But with my new TV and receiver, I’m also appreciating Spatial Audio in my home theater, and songs sound great. For some songs, I actually prefer using Spatial Audio on AirPods Pro with noise cancellation because the experience seems more immersive. But with other songs, it sounds better using this TV sending Dolby Atmos to my receiver — and of course, that is better when you want to share music with someone else sitting on the couch.
Suffice it to say that while the reason to get the LG C1 is the screen, it also does a great job passing along audio to a receiver to pass along to speakers. Whether you have a somewhat older and more simple audio configuration like I do or you have the latest-and-greatest audio gear, this television will fit right in.
The LG interface — webOS 6
The LG C1 is a smart television and contains its own interface. I typically just ignore it because when I press the power button on my Apple TV 4K, it turns on the LG television and also turns on the receiver, so all that I see is the Apple TV interface. But let me say a little about the LG interface because you will use it sometimes.
LG televisions use an operating system called webOS. That operating system was originally designed for the Palm Pre, an early iPhone competitor. When Palm went away, LG purchased webOS, and that means that something originally designed for a tiny smartphone screen is now used to control what is sure to be the largest screen that you own.
webOS 6 supports apps, just like an Apple TV. For example, webOS includes a web browser app — and after using it for a little bit, you will likely realize that navigating web pages on a TV interface is far inferior to using Safari on your iPad and simply sharing the screen to the TV. There are also apps for many popular streaming services such as Netflix, HBO Max, and even Apple TV+. Because of these apps, you could use this LG TV without connecting it to any external streaming devices. And for my first few days with this TV, that’s exactly what I did.
But it didn’t take me long to miss the superior interface on the Apple TV 4K, which is much faster and easier to navigate when you want to jump around from app to app. The LG interface is also quite busy and uses lots of space to display information that I deem irrelevant. Including ads, although you can turn many of those off if you dig down into many levels of the TV’s settings.
You cannot move or change the order of most of the interface. That’s a shame because some of the most useful elements are the apps that you use to launch services like Netflix or HBO or Apple TV+, but those app icons are very small compared to the other items on the screen. Fortunately, you can reorder the apps to keep the most relevant ones near the front of the list.
Navigating the webOS interface using the LG remote is rather cumbersome compared to the current version of the Apple TV remote. The LG remote has tons of buttons, but for many functions you need to control a cursor on the TV screen by moving around the remote in mid-air, something that I had never experienced before with a remote. At first, it seemed neat. But after a few days, it became somewhat clunky to have to move my wrist around to move a cursor. I often found myself moving the cursor too far over or not far enough.
I realize that I am being somewhat harsh on webOS, but that’s really just in comparison to the Apple TV. I’ve seen much worse interfaces on other streaming devices and cable boxes. As noted above, I also use DirecTV, and its interface is nothing special although I’ve learned to live with it. If you need to use the LG’s native interface, it is fine, but it is not great.
One more note about the interface: it supports AirPlay. Thus, you can share the screen of your iPhone, iPad, or Mac directly to this TV screen. Of course, if you have an Apple TV hooked up to this TV, the Apple TV itself also supports AirPlay, but it is nice to see AirPlay built-in to this device.
Price
I bought this TV from Amazon. The buying experience was unlike anything else I’ve ever purchased from Amazon. I picked a delivery window, and on the delivery day, the Amazon app on my iPhone gave me updates on how close the truck was to my house. When they arrived (right at the beginning of my delivery window), a huge moving truck-style vehicle pulled up at my house, not a typical Amazon delivery van. As an Amazon Prime member, for no extra charge, the folks who delivered this TV actually brought it into my house and placed the TV (still in its box) in my home theater room in the back of my house. That was nice because this is a big TV and you need two people to move it around.
The current prices for this TV on Amazon are as follows. 55": $1,296.99. 65": $1,796.99. 77": $2,896.99. 83": $4,996.99. When I looked around, the Amazon price was as good or better than any of the other stores selling this television.
Conclusion
I’m not a fan of the webOS interface on this television, but if you have another streaming device such as an Apple TV, you can mostly ignore webOS. And that’s the only part of this television that didn’t blow me away. The reason that you buy a TV like this is for the picture quality, and I cannot emphasize enough how amazing this television looks. Whether I’m watching blockbuster movies, nature shows, TV series, or my own home movies that I shot with my iPhone, everything looks incredible. I still remember when I purchased my first HD television back in 2002 (a rear-projection, 57" Toshiba 57HDX82). HD looked so much better than standard definition that I found myself seeking out HD content to watch, no matter what it was, just because HD looked so much better than anything I had previously seen on a television. It’s almost two decades later, and I’m once again having the same feeling. I’m seeing content on my TV screen that is so amazing that I find myself once again seeking out more 4K HDR content just for the eye candy.
If you are like me, buying a big screen TV is a once every 8-10 years purchase. Thus, when you decide that it is time to upgrade, you want to get something that you are going to enjoy for a long time. I have no doubt that this is a TV that I will enjoy for a long time. If you are in the market for a new television, I give the LG C1 my highest recommendation.
