Yesterday, Apple announced the 2025 models of the iPhone. For many years now, in the Fall, Apple has released an entry-level iPhone, a high-end iPhone Pro, and something in between. In 2020 and 2021, that in-between model was a smaller version of the entry-level iPhone: the iPhone 12 mini and the iPhone 13 mini. In 2022 through 2024, that in-between model was a larger version of the entry-level iPhone called the Plus model: the iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 15 Plus, and iPhone 16 Plus. This year, that in-between model is the iPhone Air. It is the thinnest iPhone ever made, and it is the lightest iPhone since the iPhone 13 mini. Each of these new models has its advantages. If you are a lawyer or other professional and you are ready for an upgrade, the 2025 models of the iPhone look to be excellent.

iPhone 17

Most people opt for the entry-level iPhone because it has a good set of features at a nice price, and that remains true this year. This is not the cheapest iPhone; Apple is still selling the iPhone 16e, which was released earlier this year, starting at $599, and perhaps in early 2026, Apple will release an iPhone 17e. And the iPhone 17 is arguably a little more expensive than last year’s iPhone 16, depending upon how you look at it. The iPhone 16 was $699 for the 128GB model and $799 for the 256GB model; for the iPhone 17, there is no 128GB model, and the cheapest version, the 256GB model, costs the same as last year, $799. But the iPhone 17 is cheaper than the other models released yesterday and still has lots of great features.

Last year, you got a slightly smaller iPhone screen with the iPhone 16, 6.1 inches, whereas the iPhone 16 Pro had a 6.3-inch screen. This year, both the iPhone 17 and the iPhone 17 Pro have a 6.3-inch screen. And it is a nice screen. Advanced features like an always-on display and ProMotion (which makes everything look smoother because the screen refreshes at up to 120Hz instead of 60Hz) now come in the entry-level iPhone 17 as well as the Pro model. And while the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro models could increase the screen brightness to up to 2000 nits when outdoors, the iPhone 17 (and iPhone Air and iPhone 17 Pro) can go up to 3000 nits. This could be very useful when you are outside on a sunny day.

All of the 2025 models, including the iPhone 17, use Apple’s latest A19 chip, so everything can run a little faster and processor-intensive tasks like on-device AI can be even more responsive.

That new chip also helps to improve battery life. When playing back video, the iPhone 16 would last up to 22 hours, whereas the iPhone 17 can last up to 30 hours.

Just like the iPhone 11 through the iPhone 16, you get three camera lenses: the one on the front (the selfie camera) and two on the back (one normal, one Ultra Wide). But two of those cameras are now better. On the back, the Ultra Wide camera used to be 12 megapixels, but now, both of the back cameras are 48 megapixels. You cannot always say that a smartphone camera with more megapixels takes better pictures, but the move from 12 to 48 is substantial, so I have no doubt that this will be a nice improvement.

The front-facing camera—the selfie camera—is also better in multiple ways. First, it is an 18 megapixel square camera instead of a 12 megapixel 4×3 camera. I don’t believe that you can actually take square pictures with this new camera. But what you can do is hold your iPhone in portrait orientation, making it easier to hold in your hand, and take a landscape photograph. And this camera really shines when combined with a new software feature: Center Stage. In the past, Apple has had Center Stage on certain Macs and iPads. It means that the camera can essentially “zoom in” on you, unless multiple people are in the frame, in which case it will “zoom out” to show everyone. You may start taking a selfie picture in the traditional portrait orientation mode, but then if others join you in the picture, the Camera app is smart enough to switch to a landscape orientation mode to keep everyone in the picture.

That better front-facing camera has another trick up its sleeve. If you are taking a video with a camera on the back of your iPhone, you can simultaneously take a video with the front-facing camera. Thus, not only can you have a video of your daughter shooting a three-pointer in a high school basketball game, but you can also film your reaction at the same time. (My daughter’s varsity basketball team just started practices for the 2025-26 school year, so you can understand why that is on my mind.) I want to learn more about how this works. Can I take video with both cameras but then choose only to use the video from the back camera, either some of the time or all of the time? We’ll have to see how it works, but it is an interesting idea. Note that this improved front-facing camera on the iPhone 17 is also used on the iPhone Air and the iPhone 17 Pro models.

The iPhone 17 can also charge even faster than previous models. If you use the right adapter—such as Apple’s new 40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max—you can charge up to 50% in only 20 minutes. You can also use Qi 2.2 fast charging devices, which is the latest wireless charging standard that is just as fast as the latest version of MagSafe charging.

Just like the iPhone 16, you get an Action button and a Camera Control button.

The iPhone 17 comes in five colors: Lavender, Mist Blue, Black, White, and Sage.

In sum, the iPhone 17 is a very capable model. The nicer screen that used to only come with the Pro model is now available for this entry-level model, plus you get better cameras, better battery life, and other features that make this a better device. If you want a model that does a good job of handling your work tasks, like reading emails and documents (even when it is bright outside), and you just have basic needs for taking pictures, this is likely to be the model that you will want to get.

iPhone Air

If you are willing to pay an extra $200, you can get the iPhone Air instead of the iPhone 17. And the main reason that you would want to do so is to have the thinnest iPhone ever made.

How thin is it? Unlike the iPhone 17 (0.31 inch thick) or the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max (0.34 inch thick), the iPhone Air is only 0.22 inches. I look forward to holding one in my own hands to see how it feels, but this seems like a noticeably thinner iPhone.

One of the tricks that Apple used is that this model still has a plateau at the top. That is where the camera is housed, but Apple put a lot of other electronics in that part as well.

The thin size is the primary reason to spend an extra $200 for the iPhone Air over the iPhone 17, but there are other advantages as well. The device is a little bit taller and wider, which means that there is enough space for a 6.5-inch screen, just like the iPhone 17 Pro, whereas the iPhone 17 has a 6.3-inch screen.

You also get more durability: a frame made of titanium instead of aluminum, and it uses Ceramic Shield technology not only on the front of the iPhone (like the iPhone 17) but also on the back, making the back stronger and more resistant to cracks.

You also get a faster device. Like the iPhone 17 Pro, the iPhone Air uses the A19 Pro chip instead of the A19.

With the thin size, I expected far less battery life. Instead, there is only somewhat less battery life: 27 hours of video playback instead of 30 hours. Part of the reason for the surprisingly good battery life is that instead of using a Qualcomm modem (which is more powerful but more power hungry), Apple is using a modem it designed itself, called the C1X, which is more efficient.

Moreover, if there is a specific circumstance in which you want extra battery life, Apple has reintroduced the $99 MagSafe battery pack that I love so much, and this time it has a USB-C connector instead of Lightning. Keep that in your pocket or purse, pop it on when you need a boost, and Apple says that you can get another 65% of charge (so I suppose another 17 hours of video playback). Note that the new iPhone Air MagSafe Battery only works with the iPhone Air (it is too tall to fit below the camera bumps of other iPhone models), so I guess I’ll have to keep using my old model (with its Lightning connector) with my iPhone Pro.

The front camera on the iPhone Air is the same, improved front camera that you get with the iPhone 17. On the back, there is only a single camera, so you don’t get the Ultra Wide camera (which is useful not only when you want to zoom out and see more but also when you want a Macro camera).

The iPhone Air comes in four colors: Sky Blue, Light Gold, Cloud White, and Space Black.

For the past few years, you could pay a little bit more than the entry-level iPhone and get a “Plus” model with a larger screen that was otherwise the same. This year, if you pay more, you get an iPhone that has a somewhat larger screen but also a new, incredibly thin body. Plus, you get a little more power, a little more durability, and a surprisingly good battery that you can easily supplement with the new iPhone Air MagSafe Battery. The only downside, besides the additional $200, is that you don’t get the Ultra Wide camera, but I suspect that if the camera really mattered to you, you would be getting an iPhone Pro.

I’m sure that many people will want the iPhone Air because they want the best iPhone. Based on the early feedback I’ve seen from people who held one on Apple’s campus yesterday, it looks and feels great in your hand. On the other extreme, if you just want an iPhone to get your work done, the iPhone Air may still appeal to you because this thin, light model is less intrusive. I look forward to reading the review from folks who have lived with this model for a while, but I suspect that this model will be popular and have lots of fans.

One last note: I’m surprised that it is called the “iPhone Air” and not the “iPhone 17 Air.” When it is improved in the future, I guess the next model will be called the iPhone Air 2?

iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max

The iPhone Air is a substantially new design, but the Pro models also get a new design this year. I think it looks great, and it is very functional. Apple is using a heat-forged aluminum unibody enclosure that is optimized for performance and battery life. And it features a vapor chamber with deionized water sealed inside to move heat away from the A19 Pro chip. My current iPhone 16 Pro can get noticeably hot when it is doing processor-intensive tasks, and when an iPhone gets too hot, it has to throttle down performance. Hopefully, this new design will mean that the iPhone 17 Pro stays cooler in your hand and has sustained performance.

The new unibody design also improves durability. Plus, like the iPhone Air, the iPhone 17 Pro has a Ceramic Shield on the back and the new Ceramic Shield 2 on the front, all of which should be more resistant to cracks and scratches.

The iPhone 17 Pro has a 6.3-inch screen. With the iPhone 17 Pro Max, you get a 6.9-inch screen. Those are the same screen sizes as last year’s iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max. However, Apple says that these new screens have better anti-reflection.

The processor in the new Pro models is the new A19 Pro, the same chip used in the iPhone Air. But the Pro models are slightly better because they have a 6-core GPU versus the 5-core GPU on the iPhone Air. How much of a difference that makes in real life remains to be seen.

I like to take pictures and videos, so a major reason that I pay more for a Pro model is the better cameras. Last year, the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max featured three cameras on the back: a 48MP (megapixel) Ultra Wide camera (for 0.5x), a 48MP Fusion Main camera (for 1x and 2x), and a 12MP Telephoto camera (for 5x). This year, the main camera stays the same. The Ultra Wide camera now gains “Fusion,” which is the term Apple uses when the camera takes both a 12MP picture (to maximize light capture) and a 48MP picture (to capture fine detail) and then fuses those into a single 24MP image. In other words, photos that you take with the 0.5x lens should be better with this model.

Instead of last year’s 5x camera, this year there is a 4x camera. But that’s not a step down; it’s actually a step up. That’s because the telephoto camera on the iPhone 16 Pro was only a 12MP camera. The new iPhone 17 Pro telephoto camera is a 48MP camera. What this means is that the iPhone can use all 48MP to give you a 4x zoom, or can focus on just the 24MP in the middle to give you an 8x zoom. Yes, it is true that is cropped from the 4x image, but the 8x 24MP photo should be a step up from last year’s 5x 12MP photo. I often find it very useful to have a zoom lens. A zoom lens that is both better quality (48MP or 24MP versus 12MP) and a higher magnification (8x versus 5x) sounds great to me, and I cannot wait to try it out. The range from 0.5x to 8x is 16x, so you get a ton of flexibility on how you want to frame your shot.

Apple says that the 8x mode is equivalent to a 200mm focal length. Before I shifted to the iPhone for virtually all of my photography, I previously used a Nikon DSLR camera, and I really loved Nikon’s Superzoom lens, which went from 18mm to 200mm. When David Pogue was writing for the New York Times, he would frequently praise that lens, such as in this article from 2007. While I enjoy the 5x zoom on my iPhone 16 Pro (120mm equivalent), going up to 8x (200mm equivalent) seems like a substantial improvement. Of course, with that much zoom, it will be even more important to hold the camera very steady, but Apple has always done a great job with image stabilization software, and I’m sure that Apple has incorporated that into the 8x mode.

The Pro models also give you the best battery life. For example, video playback on last year’s iPhone 16 Pro was 27 hours, and last year’s iPhone 16 Pro Max was 33 hours. The new iPhone 17 is 30 hours. The new iPhone 17 Pro is 33 hours—just like last year’s Pro Max. And the new iPhone 17 Pro Max is 39 hours. Other tasks will result in different battery life, of course. I know that whenever I take 4K HDR video of my daughter playing basketball and she has multiple games in a single day, it can eat up a lot of my battery on my iPhone 16 Pro Max. With an iPhone 17 Pro Max, I should be able to do more without running out of battery life.

When you do need to recharge, if you use a 40W adapter, you can charge up to 50% in only 20 minutes. (Last year’s iPhone 16 Pro could use a 20W adapter to charge up to 50% in 30 minutes.)

And you get other various advantages with this Pro model. It has more memory than ever before. Just like last year’s model, the iPhone 17 Pro has USB-C that supports USB 3, allowing up to 10 gigabits per second transfer speed (if you use a cable that supports that speed). That can make it much faster to transfer video or other large files to and from the iPhone. And if you need tons of space for those large files, you can get a version of the iPhone 17 Pro Max with 2TB of capacity. That costs $1999, so it is the first iPhone to ever cost (essentially) $2000, but if you need to keep a ton of files on your iPhone, now you can do so. My current iPhone 16 Pro Max is the 512GB model, and I love being able to load it up with anything that I might want—whether it is a very large file associated with a lawsuit or tons of home videos that I might want to view or share with others. But I’m currently getting close to that 512GB limit, so I’m currently weighing whether to spend $1399 for the iPhone 17 Pro Max 512GB model or $1599 for the 1TB model.

As an Apple Vision Pro user, I like that my current iPhone can record spatial video at 1080p and 30fps, but I had hoped for something more in the iPhone 17 Pro, such as spatial video at 4K. But unfortunately, that wasn’t changed this year.

The iPhone 17 Pro models come in three colors: Silver, Cosmic Orange, and Deep Blue. Many people will love the new orange color because it is so different from all prior iPhones. Since 2008, I’ve been purchasing black iPhones, and for the first time, I’ll need to select a different color this year. I think I’m going to get the Deep Blue.

The Phone 17 Pro has 256GB and starts at $1,099. That is $100 more than the cheapest iPhone 16 Pro, but that model had only 128GB, and it is the same price as the 256GB iPhone 16 Pro. The iPhone 17 Pro Max also starts at 256GB, which costs $1,199.

If you want the most performance, the best battery life, and the best cameras, the iPhone 17 Pro or Pro Max is the model to get.

Conclusion

This is the strongest iPhone lineup that I’ve seen in a long time. There is so much to love here: a fantastic entry-level model, a great new thin design with the iPhone Air, and two powerful Pro models. Choice is a good thing, but I’m sure that many will have difficulty choosing between models. Pre-orders start this Friday, September 12, and these models will be available in stores one week later on September 19.

Like many of you, Brett Burney and I are wondering what Apple will announce on Tuesday. As we look for hidden meaning in Apple’s invitation to that event, we look at prior invitations and the hidden messages that were sometimes contained in them. After that vigorous Kremlinology, we discuss ways that the upcoming iOS 26 can protect your privacy, the new iPad app from Instagram that was 15 years in the making, the new app from I’m-not-practicing-law-anymore-and-the-rest-of-us-are-a-little-jealous David Sparks, AirPods and Find My, spreadsheets, internet outages, taking a break from the iPhone, Apple Arcade, and more. We also discuss the Apple Vision Pro, CarPlay Ultra, and the upcoming new season of Slow Horses.

In our In the Know segment, Brett talks about installing and uninstalling iOS betas. I provide tips for coming up with good names for the objects in your home–at least, the ones that are connected to smart home devices. If you want to give cute names to any other objects, you are on your own.

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

Sometimes, good things come to those who wait. Other times, well… As John Gruber of Daring Fireball notes, the Instagram app first shipped in 2010, the same year that the iPad debuted. It has taken 15 years, but Instagram finally noticed that iPads exist and updated its app to support the iPad. But the Instagram app is different on the iPad. The default view, what you see when you start the app, is Reels, not the pictures from the people you follow. And the default view is not even videos from the people who follow, but instead just the random videos that the algorithm thinks that you might want to see. It’s like the company thought that it was releasing an iPad app for TikTok instead of Instagram. I’ve already heard people say that it would have been better if they had kept it the same as before, where you could use the app on an iPad in iPhone mode. But have no fear, I’m sure that they will fix this in, umm, maybe in 2040? And now, the news of note from the past week.

• “Awe Dropping” is the tagline for Apple’s September 9 iPhone announcement event. Is there any hidden meaning in there? To try to figure that out, Alex Blake of Macworld takes a look back at the teasers for every prior iPhone announcement, starting in 2007.
• If you are watching the show Dexter: Resurrection, currently streaming on Paramount+, then you saw an episode this season in which someone is able to track the location of a car by intentionally leaving their AirPods in the car. That would definitely work. AirPods are a little expensive as a tracking device, but for someone who is up to good, they may be easier for a victim to overlook than a dedicated tracking device like an AirTag. In an interesting article for Six Colors, Glenn Fleishman discusses how to remove tracking from AirPods, an issue that arose when someone bought a used AirPods Max from Amazon but learned that they could still be tracked by the prior owner, who didn’t disable Find My before selling the device.
• I’m a big fan of the relatively new Anker charging devices that feature screens on them so you can get all sorts of useful information, such as how much power is going in and out. The Anker Laptop Power Bank (my review) has become an essential item for me, and it is currently only $94.99 on Amazon. Juli Clover of MacRumors reports that Anker has announced new products in its Anker Prime lineup that provide lots of different charging options, all of which feature a useful display.
• Although I’ve never owned any Philips Hue smart home devices, I know that there are lots of fans. Juli Clover of MacRumors reports that a number of new Philips Hue devices are coming out this Fall.
• Microsoft Excel is the #1 spreadsheet program, and it is more powerful than Apple’s Numbers app. Nevertheless, there are some features that work better in Numbers. William Gallagher of AppleInsider compares these two spreadsheet apps.
• Apple recently announced that it has now shipped over 3 billion iPhones. Based on that number and other historical data, Horace Dediu of Asymco was able to estimate the sales numbers over time and create some interesting charts.
• David Sparks of MacSparky released his first app. It is called The No List, and it helps you to track the occasions when you turned down a project as a way to help you distinguish opportunities that are worthwhile from those that are not. It is an interesting idea. In this post, he explains the thinking behind the app and how he created it.
• Arin Waichulis of 9to5Mac reports on some of the new privacy features that are coming soon in iOS 26.
• I use Eero devices (my review) to provide mesh WiFi throughout my house. I virtually never have any issues with the Eero units, but it is frustrating that my internet connection sometimes stops because of issues with my Internet provider (Cox). Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports that a new product called Eero Signal gives you a cellular backup for whenever your wired internet is down. It appears that the product costs either $99.99 for 4G LTE or $199.99 for 5G, and then you also need to pay for a data subscription that costs either $99.99/year for 10GB of data each year or $199.99/year for 100GB of data each month. You will be able to buy it on Amazon, and I’m thinking about it.
• Do you feel like you use your iPhone too much? If so, Christina Caron of the New York Times shares a number of tips from different people on how to curb your smartphone use.
• Dan Moren of Six Colors notes that it was almost six years ago (September 19, 2019) when Apple launched its Apple Arcade service: pay one subscription price to get lots of games. Although Moren is right to question how deeply committed Apple is to games, I’ve actually been impressed by Apple Arcade over the years. Now to be fair, I play very few games on my iPhone and iPad, but I like that there is always something new to try in Apple Arcade. For example, just this week, Apple released a new title called Jeopardy! Daily, a daily puzzle game with clues written by the folks who make the Jeopardy! TV show, and I think that the game is fun. And some older titles that I still enjoy playing are Flipflop+ and Good Sudoku+. Apple Arcade is part of the Apple One service, and it is certainly a part of the reason that I consider Apple One to be worth paying for.
• Steven Rosenbush of the Wall Street Journal reports that while the Apple Vision Pro is currently too expensive for many consumers at $3,500, there are certain businesses where the device is gaining traction. I don’t think that law is one of those right now, but I see tons of potential for lawyers in the future using a next-generation version of the Vision Pro.
• There will soon be twice as many options to get Apple’s new CarPlay Ultra, in the sense that two is twice as many as one. When Apple announced CarPlay Ultra earlier this year, the only car to support it was an expensive model from Aston Martin. But Paul Horrell of Top Gear reports that Hyundai will launch a new small EV car, the Ioniq 3, on September 9 at the IAA Mobility car show in Munich, Germany, and it will include CarPlay Ultra.
• It could be even more than that. Zac Hall of 9to5Mac reports that it is possible that other car manufacturers may make the same announcement in Munich. It is interesting that the Munich car show begins on September 9, the same day as Apple’s new iPhone announcement.
• And finally, this week, Apple released the trailer for Season 5 of the fantastic Apple TV+ show Slow Horses. The first four seasons were incredible, and this trailer makes me think that the next season will be just as much fun. The new season starts on September 24.

As St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital says: “Childhood cancer remains the leading cause of death by disease for children under the age of 14. When St. Jude opened in 1962, childhood cancer was largely considered incurable. Since then, St. Jude has helped push the overall survival rate from 20% to more than 80%, and we won’t stop until no child dies from cancer.” And as the late entertainer Danny Thomas (founder of St. Jude) famously said: “No child should die in the dawn of life.”

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. For the fourth consecutive year, iPhone J.D. is proud to join the community that is working with the Relay podcast network to raise money for St. Jude. You know this community. You are part of it, too. This is the community of people who have enough of an interest in technology to read tech-related websites and listen to tech-related podcasts. And this is a community that, over the last few years, has come together to raise over $4 million to help cure and treat cancer.

Donating is simple. I just did it. Simply go to the page, click the big green DONATE button, decide if you want to select a Reward (that part is optional), then checkout and pay.

Some rewards are directly related to St. Jude. For example, a donation of $50 or more can help provide art supplies for St. Jude patients, allowing them to explore their creativity and have fun. Two rewards are specific to the Relay network, and you can get things like stickers and a digital screensaver. Additionally, I am offering a special, limited-edition reward for iPhone J.D. readers: high-quality microfiber cloths featuring the iPhone J.D. logo, which I have previously given away on rare occasions in the past. If you donate at least $100, you may select this as your reward. These cloths are excellent for cleaning iPhone or iPad screens, and I personally use one daily to clean my eyeglasses. This is a limited-time offer, as I do not have many left, and the manufacturer is no longer in business.

Whether you donate $5 or $500, your donation will make a meaningful difference. A special thanks to those of you who contributed in the past and will contribute again this year!

This week’s episode of the In the News podcast was recorded on the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, so I share a few thoughts and stories about that to start us off, including some that are quite positive. Next, we look to the future. Specifically, September 9, when Apple will announce the 2025 version of the iPhone along with other new devices. We also discuss the history of Apple’s successful relationship with the advertising folks at TBWA, a reason that AppleCare One may not be for you, using the Invites app to count down the days to an event, a new camera app from Adobe, what to do about the increase in iPhones being inspected by customs agents when anyone enters the United States notwithstanding any confidential information that might be on that device, and how the shutdown of the TypePad service serves as a warning to all of us.

In our In the Show segment, we discuss Apple sharing the excellent show Trying with the BBC and the upcoming Apple TV+ limited series Savant.

In our In the Know segment, Brett shares a fun tip for changing the avatar when you are using the Google Maps app to navigate a route. And I explain what it means when you see a status icon at the top of your iPad that Apple doesn’t identify on its support page devoted to status icons.

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

It is now official. Apple announced this week what some of us have suspected for a long time: on September 9, 2025, at 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern, Apple will have a big event. And we all know what an Apple event in September means: the introduction of this year’s version of the iPhone. The graphic that Apple is using for the event is interesting, and you can see it right now at the top of the Apple website. It is a glowing, fluid, Apple logo. If you move your cursor over the logo (or, on a touch device like an iPhone or iPad, if you touch the logo), you can move the heat map effect around on the Apple logo. I suppose this animation is a sort of a nod to the new Liquid Glass interface that is coming in iOS 26. There are lots of rumors on what Apple might announce—an iPhone with a camera bump that stretches across the entire top of the back of the iPhone, a version of the iPhone that is very thin and that might be called the iPhone Air, a case from Apple made from a new fabric, lanyards that work with that new case, and more—and we will all know for sure in 11 days. And now, the news of note from the past week:

• In an article for Six Colors, Joe Rosensteel discusses a new iPhone app from Adobe called Project Indigo. Adobe calls it an experimental camera app, and as Rosensteel shows, it sometimes can produce a picture with color that is more true-to-life.
• The free Invites app for the iPhone from Apple gained a new feature this week. As noted by Zac Hall of 9to5Mac, create an event in the app, and then you can put a countdown widget on your home screen so that you can count down the number of days until an important event. It’s a great way to know how many shopping days you have before Christmas or how many days you have before your current iPhone starts to seem like yesterday’s news, starting on September 9.
• As Tim Cook begins his 15th year as Apple’s CEO, Jason Snell of Six Colors reflects on his impressive run so far.
• Andrew O’Hara of AppleInsider reviews the latest generation of the Level Lock Pro, a smart lock for a door that works with Apple Home and the Home Key feature. This product looks to be feature-rich while not looking at all like a smart lock.
• Jonathan Reed of MacStories reviews the Aqara G410 Video Doorbell. He concludes that it is a solid product at a reasonable price. (It is $129.99 on Amazon.)
• Brittaney Kiefer of Adweek reports on the very long relationship between Apple and TBWA\Media Arts Lab, the agency that produces much of Apple’s marketing.
• I’m a fan of the new AppleCare One program, which allows you to protect three or more of your devices under one plan. It is cheaper than what I used before and offers more protection. But John Siracusa notes in a post on Mastodon that the service doesn’t work on a Mac if you have multiple user accounts enabled. For now, only use the service with products on which there is only a single Apple account enabled. Jason Snell notes that this seems to be “another reminder that Apple launches all sorts of products without anything but a surface consideration of the Mac.”
• Matt Burgess of Wired reports that smartphone searches by U.S. Customs and Border Protection when people enter the United States are now at a record high. These searches do not require a warrant, and anyone can be subject to smartphone search, regardless of whether they are a U.S. citizen. This practice is particularly problematic for attorneys who have confidential and privileged information on an iPhone, as I have discussed in the past.
• At the end of 2024, I decided to move this website from TypePad to the WordPress platform. After 16 years and 2,608 posts, it was a long and difficult transition, and I needed to hire an expert to help me with a lot of the technical details. After a few months, the transition was finally complete. This week, TypePad announced on its blog that the service is shutting down completely on September 30, 2025, as reported by Andrew Cunningham of Ars Technica. As a result, all existing TypePad websites have to move or they will be gone forever. I feel bad for all of the people who now have to accomplish in just a few weeks what took me a few months.
• Apple is trying something new with one of its Apple TV+ shows. As reported by Max Goldbart of Deadline, Apple has sold rights to the first three seasons of the show Trying to the BBC. This is the longest-running comedy on Apple TV+ (with four seasons already and a fifth season in the works), and it is a fantastic show that my wife and I have enjoyed. I suppose that Apple hopes that if people watch the first few seasons for free on BBC, they will subscribe to Apple TV+ to see the rest of the series.
• Nancy Tartaglione of Deadline reports that Apple’s F1 movie (my review) is not just Apple’s most successful movie ever, it is also the top-grossing movie for Brad Pitt, with over $600 million in revenue.
• And finally, Apple released the trailer this week for a new eight-part limited series called The Savant. It features Jessica Chastain as an undercover agent who tries to stop domestic terrorism attacks, and it looks like it could be good. The first episode comes out on September 26, 2025. Here is the trailer:

Brett and I begin this week’s episode of the In the News podcast with a quick PSA on a recent security update, and then we discuss Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who recently declared to CBS News that he is the happiest person alive. He certainly does a lot to try to make other people happy. Next we discuss a device that has made a lot of people happy—AirPods—including ways to make them more comfortable in your ears and the amazing details on how they work. Next, we discuss using passkeys instead of passwords, the cost of Apple TV+, the benefits of being an Apple One subscriber, how an Apple Watch might help you detect a brain tumor, and the latest immersive environments for the Apple Vision Pro including a really cool one with a Harry Potter theme. We also discuss the Action Mode in the iPhone’s camera app.

In our In the Know segment, Brett shares some a tip for using the wonderful Live Photo feature in the Camera app, and I explain why you should consider using Apple’s Final Cut Pro app for the iPad—even if only for a month.

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

Steve Jobs gets all of the attention when people talk about the history of Apple, but there were two men in the garage who started the company, and the other founder was Steve Wozniak, who everyone calls Woz. John Gruber of Daring Fireball reports that Wox turned 75 years old this week. He also explains how Woz has tried to devote his entire life to the simple concept of making people happy. We can use more of that in this world, so Happy Birthday to Woz. And now, the news of note from the past week:

• It was just last week that Apple released iOS 18.6.1. Nevertheless, as reported by Juli Clover of MacRumors, this week Apple released iOS 18.6.2 and iPadOS 18.6.2. Apple says that these updates provide important security fixes and are recommended for all users.
• William Gallagher of AppleInsider shares the tale of a woman in the UK whose Apple Watch kept reporting a low heart rate. That led her to seek medical attention and discover that her heart was having ectopic beats, perhaps as a result of stress. And then subsequent tests discovered a brain tumor. No sensor on the Apple Watch discovered the tumor, but the fact that it encouraged her to seek medical attention turned out to be important for multiple reasons.
• Do you use AirPods but find that they sometimes fall out of your ears? (I’m talking about AirPods, not AirPods Pro.) If so, Amber Neely of AppleInsider recommends trying silicone covers ($8.99 on Amazon) to see if that keeps them from falling out.
• Do you wonder how AirPods work? A new video from Real Engineering does a great job of explaining the technology.
• In an article for Six Colors, Glenn Fleishman does a great job of explaining why passkeys are better than passwords. He also recommends using Apple’s own Passwords app to store passkeys if you primarily use Apple devices and to use 1Password if you want to use passkeys on multiple platforms. (I’ll add: if you already use 1Password, it makes sense to also use that app for your passkeys.)
• When the Apple Vision Pro was released last year, the HBO Max app included an immersive environment that made you feel like you were in the Iron Throne room from Game of Thrones. This week, HBO Max added another immersive environment: Hogwarts Great Hall from Harry Potter. As Chance Miller of 9to5Mac notes, there is both a day and a night mode, and it features floating candles and ambient sound effects. This makes sense because HBO Max recently started filming a new TV series based on the books, but since that new series does not debut until 2027, I’m a little surprised that this immersive environment was released now.
• Malcolm Owen of AppleInsider notes that Disney+ has a new immersive environment for the Vision Pro based on content from the new show Alien: Earth.
• If you like the Apple TV+ show Severance, there is a video episode of the Severance Podcast out this week. It features most of the cast members playing a silly game and trading jokes, and I enjoyed seeing the actors have fun.
• Apple TV+ is getting more expensive if you get it as a stand-alone service and pay monthly. As Joe Rossignol of MacRumors notes, when the service launched in 2019 (with very few shows), the monthly cost was $4.99. In 2022, Apple increased the price to $6.99. In 2023, the price increased to $9.99. This week, Apple announced that the monthly price is going up to $12.99. (The annual price remains the same at $99.99.) Virtually every other streaming service has also had price hikes, and I still think that Apple TV+ is a great value. Indeed, if you get Apple TV+ through the Apple One bundle, the price is staying the same—even though Apple did increase the price of Apple One back in 2023 at the same time that it last raised the price of the Apple TV+ service.
• John Gruber of Daring Fireball believes that the change in the monthly, but not the annual, price for Apple TV+ and other streaming services reflects the rise in short-term customers.
• Ryan Christoffel notes that the Apple One service is becoming more worthwhile for two reasons. First, the price increase of Apple TV+ means that the price difference between that service and Apple One (which starts at $19.99) is even less. Second, another part of Apple One—the Apple Music service—is about to get much better in iOS 26 with cool new features like AutoMix, full-screen animated artwork on the lock screen, and much more.
• Speaking of Apple One, I’ll note that if you get the Premier package ($37.95 a month), you can share with five other people, plus you get Fitness+ and News+, two services that I use frequently and really enjoy. Plus, you get 2TB of iCloud storage for your family, which is really useful. (I see that my iCloud Photos library alone is over 800 GB right now.)
• And finally, in 2022, Apple released Action Mode, a way to reduce shakiness in handheld videos, which is especially handy if you are moving around a lot while you take a video. This week, Apple released an uplifting and tear-jerking video called No Frame Missed to show how the Action mode on an iPhone is also a great feature for people who have hands that shake because of Parkinson’s. Very cool.

Thank you to Sanebox for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month. In previous posts, I’ve discussed how SaneBox vastly improves an inbox by letting you see just the good stuff. This month, however, I want to focus on security.

Cybercriminals are becoming more sophisticated every day, sending you emails that seem legitimate in the hopes that you will click a link and be tricked into providing personal information and/or a login password. Every email service includes a spam filter that analyzes message content and attempts to block malicious emails. While you should take advantage of these filters, unfortunately, they are never enough. The bad actors can take advantage of AI to draft emails that, at first blush, may seem entirely legitimate.

That’s where SaneBox can help. For privacy reasons, SaneBox never looks at the content of any of your emails. (Which, by the way, I consider a great feature.) Instead, SaneBox examines the sender and subject lines of your messages. It intelligently keeps the emails you are most likely to want in your inbox, while moving less important messages to folders such as @SaneLater. This makes a huge difference. It means that when I’m working with my inbox throughout the day, there are relatively few emails in there. About once a day, I review the messages SaneBox has placed in the @SaneLater folder. When I do, I naturally adopt a more critical mindset, evaluating whether each email is important to me. Some of these messages are legitimate, but others are either spam that slipped past the spam filter or emails that simply do not deserve my attention. Or, they are emails that are improperly trying to attract my attention, something sent by a malicious actor. That is because typical phishing emails are sent by someone unknown to me, so there is a high chance that they are automatically sorted by SaneBox into my @SaneLater folder, not my regular inbox.

Another risk is known as spearphishing: an email that comes specifically to me, perhaps from the email of someone I do know, because that person’s email was compromised. But here again, SaneBox helps. Those rare emails may end up in my Inbox, but because SaneBox vastly limits the number of emails in my Inbox, each of them gets more of my attention, making it easier for me to spot something that isn’t quite right.

When I see an unwanted email from a sender that I don’t want to deal with again, I don’t bother using something like an “unsubscribe” link in an email. I rarely trust those to work—especially if the email came from a less reputable source. In fact, some companies may use your click to confirm your email address is valid, allowing them to sell your email address to others for misuse. Ugh. Instead, I just move the email into my @SaneBlackHole folder. With that one move, SaneBox will forever move all emails from that sender into that folder. They can send me as many annoying emails as they want in the future; I don’t care, because I never see them. It is awesome.

The primary reason I have subscribed to SaneBox for so long is that it provides a superior inbox experience. But I also very much appreciate that it enhances my email security—an increasingly important benefit.

If you would like to experience the difference SaneBox can make, click here to get a 14-day free trial with no credit card required. If you don’t like having a clean and tidy Inbox that is even more secure and decide to return to how you had it before, no sweat. But if you appreciate having a better way of working with email, using this link in this post will give you a generous $25 credit for when you pick a plan—and there are lots of different plans offered so that you can choose the one that gives you just what you want.

Thanks again to SaneBox for sponsoring iPhone J.D. this month and for giving all of us a better and safer way to work with email.

Apple’s traditional September presentation is just around the corner, so Brett and I begin this week’s episode of the In the News podcast discussing the latest speculation on what Apple may announce. After discussing upcoming hardware, we then discuss upcoming software, including the great new features coming to watchOS 26 and the changes coming to the Messages app in CarPlay. We also discuss the return of the blood oxygen sensor feature to the Apple Watch, the latest shows on Apple TV+, and the end of using a dial-up modem to access AOL or a BBS.

In our In the Know segment, Brett discusses the low power mode on the Apple Watch and iPhone, and I discuss some additional reasons to check out the new app called Cassette that I reviewed a few days ago.

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