Support the life-saving work of St. Jude→

September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness month. This topic is near and dear to my internet pal Stephen Hackett of 512 Pixels and the Relay.FM podcast network. Stephen’s oldest son, Josiah, was diagnosed with brain cancer at age 6 months. Thanks to the miracle that is St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Josiah is 12 now. Read more about Josiah’s incredible story on Stephen’s site.

Stephen’s network, Relay.FM, raises money every September for St. Jude. This year’s goal was $315,000, and they blew past that last night. I’d like to see if we can help get them to half a million.

Not only does St. Jude provide medical care and research for kids, they do this without ever charging the families a dime. This is truly a miracle. And this is where you and I come in. St. Jude is only able to do this because of donors like us.

There are so many things clamoring for our dollars — especially this year. Local businesses need our support throughout the pandemic, politicians want us to donate to campaigns, and we may even want to do a little retail therapy with shiny new gadgets this fall.

If you can afford to part with money for either or both of those last two, then I’m going to ask you to give some of that money to St. Jude first. St. Jude is a worthy cause that has a tangible effect on so many lives.

My family is in for $100. Will you match that? Honestly, even if you can pitch in $5, that adds up. The donation page even allows anonymous donations if you prefer, and also convenience of mobile payment systems like Apple Pay.

Let’s help out kids fighting cancer, and bless the families of St. Jude.

Apple delivers a new redesigned Maps for all users in the United States→

Apple has been gradually rolling out their re-built Maps data across the United States for the past year or so. Today, Apple announced that work is complete.

Apple today announced that all users in the United States can now experience a redesigned Maps with faster and more accurate navigation and comprehensive views of roads, buildings, parks, airports, malls and more, making it easier and more enjoyable to map out any journey. Apple completed the rollout of this new Maps experience in the United States and will begin rolling it out across Europe in the coming months.

I will say the new Maps data is terrific. It is a huge upgrade over the old data. While most buildings in my area are represented by fairly generic boxes, there is a good deal of detail in important landmarks such as Memorial Stadium (of Cornhusker fame) and the Nebraska State Capitol building. They even got a good representation of the statue of the Sower on the top of the building.

Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska

Nebraska State Capitol in Lincoln, Nebraska

But today is not the first I have seen of this new map data. Apple began a soft rollout for the new maps in my region (Nebraska) last month, and they were active on my iPad Pro, but not my Mac or iPhone. And then last week the new maps reverted back to the old maps on my iPad Pro, which was odd.

One change that came today — for everyone in the US, from what I can tell on Twitter — is the addition of stoplights and stop signs when getting directions. This is represented nicely, and Siri will even tell you to “turn right at the stop sign”. It’s a subtle way of telling the driver about traffic signs and signals, which also sounding more natural.

Directions showing traffic signals and stop signs along the route.

Apple also highlighted a few more features of the new Maps in their press release today, many of which have been around since earlier releases of iOS 13:

• Explore major cities with Look Around
  This is basically Apple’s answer to Google Maps’ Street View. It only works in a few cities, currently: New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Houston and Oahu.

  If you zoom into one of those areas and tap the binoculars icon that appears, you can try it out for yourself. It seems a lot nicer than Google’s Street View, and I can’t wait for that to roll out to more places.

• Users can share places they love with collections
  These are simple collections of places you can create and share. My only complaint is that when you share a collection, the recipient’s copy is standalone — meaning if they add something it doesn’t sync back to you. This feature would be more useful if it allowed collaboration, much like Notes and Reminders does.
• One-tap navigation to frequent places with Favorites
  Pretty much what it says on the tin. Pretty handy for places you frequent.
• Real-time transit information
  This is active in my city and appears to work pretty well.
• Share ETA
  This is a really nice feature. When you start directions, you can tap a Share ETA button, and choose a recipient. They will then be able to see you in Maps and see your estimated time of arrival. This worked a treat earlier this month when I needed to rendezvous with my dad for a road trip.
• Flight status
  Siri intelligences does a bunch of on-device processing, looking at Mail, Calendar, and Wallet passes for flight info, then keeps you up to date on terminal, gate, or departure changes. I’ll give this a go in a couple weeks.
• Indoor maps
  Zooming in on some airports and malls with now have a Look Inside label, and shows you the interior of the locations. This can come in handy when you need to find a certain shop, or plan out your rush through an airport between flights.

All in all, I’m really excited about the future of Apple Maps. If you are in the United States and the previous incarnation of Apple Maps left a bad impression, it’s worth your time to give it a fresh try.

¶ Returning to 1Password

Today I am rejoining the incredible team at 1Password. I will be serving as the Client Apps Product Manager, and I am ecstatic to work with the various teams within 1Password to deliver security you can trust and actually use.

I’ve used 1Password for over a decade, well before I worked with them the first time. Even though they supply my paycheck, I want you to know my recommendation of them in the past, present, and future is completely unbiased by that. It’s a top-notch product and you should use it.

¶ The Gift of Geek, 2019 Edition

It’s been a long time since I’ve written about the role we geeks play in the larger family unit, and there’s no better time for a refresher course than today, the day before Thanksgiving.

You see, I am the Family Geek. It is my solemn duty when surrounded by family to check on how everyone is doing with their computers and gadgets. Are there any problems I can solve? Any questions I can answer? Of course there are. And I shall.

So, to quote 2011 me, here is how to give the Gift of Geek.

Some things to be prepared for:

1. Be available. Set aside some time for one-on-one walkthroughs, or time to talk on the phone if your relative isn’t with you this holiday. That doesn’t mean you have to give up your entire holiday, but set aside a few hours for lending a helping hand.
2. Be patient. Your relatives aren’t as nerdy as you are. Keep that in mind, and don’t treat them like an idiot. It’s new to them, and it takes time to learn new things. Also, don’t rush through so much to point of making it impossible to retain. Start with the basics. There can always be more phone calls.
3. Run updates on their devices. One of the things I like to do is make sure everything is up to date on my relatives’ devices. There’s a few of them who never run updates, and there’s a lot that piles up over 6 months.
4. Backups. On the same note, make sure to set up your relatives for data backup in one way or another. This will save you a headache later.

All four of those tips are as evergreen today as they were years ago. Out of all of those, number 4 is the most important. Do whatever you can to make sure your loved ones have some sort of automatic backup in place.

On iPhones and iPads, that is iCloud backup. You may have to convince your relative to spend a few bucks per month to increase their iCloud storage. 50 GB can be had for 99¢ per month, and 200 GB for $2.99 per month. That is a small price to pay for peace of mind.

On a Mac, Time Machine is the easiest option, and it is built into the Mac. But it does require plugging in a hard drive regularly. Also, a decent portable hard drive can be found for under $80, usually. Might be a good idea for a gift. For a more automatic solution, you can’t go wrong with Backblaze, which costs $5 per computer per month for unlimited storage.

Remember to enjoy yourself this holiday, too. Don’t spend the entire time solving problems, but try to do a checkup on your loved ones to make sure the basics are being met.

And if you are a loved one who is on the receiving end of the Gift of Geek, be sure to show your appreciation to your Family Geek. A genuine thank you goes a long way, and the willingness to heed advice does as well.

And in those days Caesar Augustus decreed that all must return to the town of their birth, that they might sort out their parents' computers

— Phil Rodgers (@PhilRodgers) December 24, 2012

How to Take Great Holiday Photos→

The Sweet Setup asked Erin Brooks, a fantastic photographer whose photos have been featured Apple ad campaigns, to update her guide on how to take great holiday photos for 2019. Erin’s advice is extremely practical and can be used by anyone with any camera — from a DSLR with great glass to an iPhone.

In the guide Erin covers pragmatic tips including lighting, composition, location, and how it all can affect the mood of a photo. One I hadn’t thought of before is her tip to get a neat indoor shot by going outside and taking the photo through a window.

By far her best tip, though, is the final one: get in the frame. This is one I am terrible at, and I think many of us are. It is all too easy to be so wrapped up in taking the photos that you end up with none of the photos having you in them. It’s makes me sad in retrospect how few photos there are of me at key family moments.

One way I have tried to do this recently is setting up my iPhone on a small, discreet tripod combined with the Studio Neat Glif, and then using my Apple Watch as a camera remote. If you don’t have an Apple Watch, you can also set up the self-timer on your phone, but it’s a bit harder to get casual photos that way.

The important thing is to have fun, be creative, and get yourself in some of the photos this holiday season.

George Lucas Needs to Keep His Filthy Paws Off Star Wars

The Verge:

Disney+ arrived with seven chapters of the Skywalker saga, but people have started to notice something strange about the first Star Wars film, A New Hope: it has an entirely different edit than the ones fans have seen before.

The change was “made by George made prior to the Disney acquisition,” a Disney representative told The Verge. […] The famous scene, which depicted the two characters having a tense conversation about the money Solo owned, was originally filmed and edited to feature Solo shooting Greedo first. The Special Edition release of A New Hope in 1997 was edited to feature Greedo shooting first. The edit became one of the most controversial moments in Star Wars history.

Any respectable Star Wars fan knows that Han shot first.

In the newly edited scene, Greedo says something to Han before shooting (Maclunkey!), although no subtitle appears at the bottom of the screen. Han proceeds to shoot once. This is followed by “a new explosion [that] covers a transition from them shooting to Greedo hitting the table, removing the Greedo dummy altogether.”

Just…someone please keep George Lucas away from these films. Jiminy.

¶ Daylight Saving Time Is A Menace to Society

If you live in the US, you — if you got the memo — rolled your non-smart clocks back an hour before you went to bed. You did this in honor of Daylight Saving Time ending. Welcome back to Standard Time.

Returning to Standard Time has one benefit — an extra hour of sleep. Except that you likely squandered it by staying up later than usual last night, or you still woke up when your biological clock said it was time (because you biological clock did not get the memo).

Also, it got dark really early tonight. Sunset was officially at 5:21 PM here in Lincoln, Nebraska. By 6:00 PM it felt like 9:00 PM. It’s…not great.

I think we can all agree that in the 21st century Daylight Saving Time is a menace to society when it comes knocking twice per year. You lose an hour of sleep in the spring, but it’s daylight longer into the evening. You gain an hour in the fall (if you don’t squander it) but it’s pretty much dark all the time you’re not at work.

Personally, I’m all for bumping an hour ahead next spring and then staying on that track. I’d rather have more daylight in the evening. At the very least, let’s just pick one and stick with it. Humans weren’t meant for time travel. And we all know children and pets don’t get it right away.

What do you think? Should we continue this madness of traveling an hour through time twice per year, or should we choose one and call it good?

¶ When You Should Upgrade to iOS 13 [UPDATED]

iOS 13 is scheduled to be released on Thursday, September 19th. But you should wait until September 30th 24th to update your iOS devices to iOS 13, if possible.

Why? Because Apple’s development cycle of iOS 13 has been, well, all over the map this summer. The betas over the summer have been particularly shaky, and it sounds like the public release of iOS 13.0 will have some hiccups in it. From John Gruber’s iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro review, regarding iOS 13:

I ran into a handful of bugs over the last week. One time Messages completely froze, and the phone started getting very warm. Force quitting Messages didn’t help — I had to power-cycle the phone to get Messages working again. Several times the keyboard in Messages went entirely white. I could actually still type, but I couldn’t see the keys I was pressing. With iOS 13.1 coming just 10 days after iPhone 11 units get into customer hands, I don’t see the point in belaboring this, but 13.1 needs to be a lot more stable than 13.0. 13.0 feels like a late stage beta.

The most notable sign that something was amiss for the initial launch of iOS 13 was right after iOS 13 beta 8, when Apple released iOS 13.1 beta 1. I noticed many of my developer friends scratching their heads over that one. Also, a number of features that had been pulled in the later iOS 13 betas had returned for the first beta of iOS 13.1.

On top of all that, when Apple announced iOS 13 would be available on September 19th, they simultaneously announced that iOS 13.1 and iPadOS would be available just 11 5 days later on September 30th 24th. iPadOS will never see a public release of 13.0, instead it will pass Go and collect a higher version number with 13.1.

Apple was put between a rock and a hard place. New iPhone hardware means that the new version of iOS needs to ship in tandem. And the full feature set of iOS 13 was running behind schedule. So they made a call — and I believe it is the correct call — to strip out the extremely buggy features, get 13.0 usable enough for the iPhone launch, and follow it up with a 13.1 release just over under a week later. I maybe would have held off on releasing 13.0 to existing devices and just have shipped it on the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro, but I imagine watchOS 6 being tied to the iOS 13 made that unavoidable. People with existing iPhones will still buy new Apple Watches on launch day.

My Advice

I think the only reason you should endeavor to run iOS 13.0 is if you buy one of the new iPhones 11/11 Pro, or a new Apple Watch Series 5. For the former, iOS 13 will come pre-installed, and for the latter, it will have watchOS 6 and probably needs iOS 13 on the iPhone it will be paired to.

For everyone else with existing iPhones, just wait for iOS 13.1 on September 30th 24th. It is likely to be far less buggy, and will have more of the features initially promised for iOS 13. Finally, no matter when you upgrade your device, make sure you have a backup.

[UPDATE]: Apple has moved up the release date of iOS 13.1 and iPad OS from September 30th to September 24th. This article has been updated to reflect that.

Apple Heart Study launches to identify irregular heart rhythms→

The old saying goes, “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.”

But how much better would it be if an Apple device alerted you that you need to see a doctor, and it ended up saving your life? That’s now a reality, thanks to Apple Watch and Apple Heart Study, a joint study with Stanford Medicine.

Apple today launched the Apple Heart Study app, a first-of-its-kind research study using Apple Watch’s heart rate sensor to collect data on irregular heart rhythms and notify users who may be experiencing atrial fibrillation (AFib).

AFib, the leading cause of stroke, is responsible for approximately 130,000 deaths and 750,000 hospitalizations in the US every year. Many people don’t experience symptoms, so AFib often goes undiagnosed.

…

Apple is partnering with Stanford Medicine to perform the research. As part of the study, if an irregular heart rhythm is identified, participants will receive a notification on their Apple Watch and iPhone, a free consultation with a study doctor and an electrocardiogram (ECG) patch for additional monitoring. The Apple Heart Study app is available in the US App Store to customers who are 22 years or older and have an Apple Watch Series 1 or later.

I think this is a fantastic initiative. My mom has experienced AFib, as well as a dear mentor of mine. The idea that wearing an Apple Watch could detect this condition and alert you of it goes to show how advanced the heart rate sensor is in the device.

Features like this are why I think wearable technology like the Apple Watch can have a positive life altering — and even life saving — effect.

If you have an Apple Watch, meet the eligibility requirements, and are interested in participating, go download the Apple Heart Study app.

How to Shoot on iPhone 7→

Apple built a terrific page on its website with a variety of short videos showing how to take better photos with iPhone 7. Each of the 16 videos focuses on one brief lesson, demonstrating a photography tip in 3-5 steps.

The videos are produced well, fun, and above all practical. I think there is at least one technique everyone with an iPhone will benefit from in these videos.

Many of the videos illustrate the use of exposure control, which is a technique I think many people don't know about on iPhone. It is easily one of the best things for anyone to learn to make their photos better, and these videos explain the benefits very well.

My favorites of the videos are How to shoot without flash and How to shoot with street light. They both show how a great photo can be taken in low light without using the obnoxious flash.

Check out the videos and then put them into practice. If you shoot something you are especially proud of, let me know on Twitter.