The iPhone is a great videocamera. The quality is excellent and has virtually always been cutting edge. For example, I took 4K home videos with my iPhone for many years before I had a television or other device that could show the videos in 4K because I knew that in the future I would appreciate taking the best quality video possible. (I love that I have some digitized VHS-C videos from the 1980s and 1990s and some digitized Super-8 videos from even earlier, but the quality is poor by today's standards.) The one downside of taking lots of the highest quality videos with your iPhone is that they take up a large amount of space. As a result, for many years now I've moved most of those large videos off of my iPhone and on to my computer ... or more accurately, to an external drive connected to my computer. I was thinking about that this week when I saw Kevin Purdy at Ars Technica report that Drobo has stopped sales and is moving from a Chapter 11 bankruptcy to a liquidation-focused Chapter 7 bankruptcy. When I bought a Drobo in 2015, I considered it to be an amazing external storage device because it was safe and secure and easily expandable. I wrote about my Drobo when the company subsequently became a sponsor of iPhone J.D. in late 2015 and 2016, but I stopped using it last year when the future of the company become so uncertain. I moved to two Western Digital 18TB external drives (one for backup) which cost only $299—an amazing price for that much storage. In addition to that second drive for local storage, I also have an online backup on BackBlaze. I have no doubt that at some point in the future, I'll move from those 18TB drives to something better. We all know that no technology lasts forever, but it is important to keep that in mind when it comes to your important videos, photos, and documents that you want to retain for many decades. This means making backups today and being ready to move to new storage technologies from time to time. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- Twenty years ago, Apple and Pepsi announced a promotion where randomly selected Pepsi bottles had a code in the cap that would give you a free song on iTunes with 100 million songs given away. That resulted in me buying some Pepsi products to get some free songs. Evan Selleck of AppleInsider reports that there is a new Apple and Pepsi promotion this Summer: certain bottles will have a QR code you can scan for different prizes including three months of free Apple Music. Unlike twenty years ago when I got lots of free songs, this time there is a limit of one redemption per person.
- Tammy Rogers of iMore notes that the most-streamed song on Apple Music is Ed Sheeran's song Shape of You, which has been streamed 930 million times.
- By the way, Sheeran performed a concert that Apple live-streamed May 10. You can still watch the concert on Apple TV+. Sheeran sounds great, and the video quality is fantastic.
- Attorney John Voorhees of MacStories reports that Apple has added some new music-related features to Apple Music and to Apple Maps. In the Apple Music app you can now see information about major artist tours including a playlist of the set list. The Apple Maps app now includes guides for watching live music in some top cities—guides that you can also view in a browser by clicking here. Given how important music is to New Orleans, I hope the Apple adds a music guide for New Orleans when it next expands the list of cities.
- Erica Werner of the Washington Post reports that Montana became the first state to ban an app—specifically, the TikTok app. Obviously, legal challenges are expected.
- Everyone is talking about AI right now, and in large part that is because of the ChatGPT website. Yesterday, OpenAI launched a ChatGPT app for the iPhone, as reported by James Vincent of The Verge.
- Aaron Tilley and Miles Kruppa of the Wall Street Journal report that Apple has restricted the use of ChatGPT by Apple employees because Apple is concerned about confidential data being released. Remember, whatever you type in ChatGPT is forever known by ChatGPT; don't type anything that is private.
- Apple announced this week that its App Store security methods have prevented $2 billion in App Store fraud.
- Griffin Jones of Cult of Mac identifies some features in Messages that you may not have known about, such as the ability to write a message in bold text by turning on the Show Subject Field setting.
- As Apple announced it would do last week, Apple released iOS 16.5 this week. Michael Potuck of 9to5Mac reports that it fixes a number of security flaws, including three that had been actively exploited. Ouch.
- Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reports that iOS 16.5 also enhanced sports news in Apple News and fixes some issues in Spotlight, Podcasts in CarPlay, and Screen Time. It also includes Apple's new Pride wallpaper for the Lock Screen.
- Miller also notes that watchOS 9.5 was released, which supports the new Pride Celebration watch face.
- If a loved one has passed away and they gave you Legacy Access, you can access data on their Apple devices such as pictures. But if not, Glenn Fleishman explains in an article for Macworld how you may still be able to unlock a deceased person's device. You won't see the data, but you may be able to wipe the device clean and use it.
- Malcolm Owen of AppleInsider reports that this week Apple expanded its iPhone 14 Emergency SOS via Satellite feature to Australia and New Zealand. Based on what I saw of the New Zealand countryside in the Lord of the Rings movies, which I presume is 100% realistic, I can easily imagine getting lost there when I'm outside of cell tower range.
- Eric Slivka of MacRumors reports that Georgia is the fourth U.S. state to support adding a digital drivers license to Apple's Wallet app.
- I often link to stories in which people used an AirTag to find a thief. But Alex Cabero of KSL-TV in Salt Lake City reports that police were able to track down a thief to a Motel 6 because one of the items that he stole from a yoga studio was a pair of AirPods.
- In a somewhat similar story from Julia Backley of CNN from two months ago, a woman who flew from Tokyo to San Francisco discovered that her AirPods Pro were stolen from her jacket while on a United flight. Because of Find My and the assistance of the local police, she was able to track the AirPods Pro to a person's house—who it turns out was an employee of a company that loads food onto United planes. After CNN contacted United, the airline paid for her to get new AirPods Pro (because of the poor condition of the ones eventually returned to her) and gave her 5,000 miles as an apology.
- With all of that money you are saving thanks to three free months of Apple Music from Pepsi, you can consider buying the Hermès luxury leather AirPods Pro case, which costs only €780 (about $840). Felipe Espósito of 9to5Mac has the details.
- This October, Apple TV+ will release a movie written and directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, along with Jesse Plemons, Brendan Fraser, John Lithgow and many other well-known actors. That's pretty much all I need to hear to know that this might be a movie that I want to see. It is called Killers of the Flower Moon, and it is a Western crime drama based on true events in Oklahoma in the 1920s. Apple will release this movie in theaters before the movie streams on Apple TV+. Mike Fleming, Jr., of Deadline wrote an extensive article about the making of the movie, and the article includes an interesting interview with Scorsese. Here is the trailer:
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