Opinion pieces & commentary

It’s officially been one year since I became an Apple user. Now, as an Apple blogger, it felt like the right time to reflect on the experience as I come from a unique perspective.

One of the things Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported in his latest newsletter is that Apple is working on a new HomePod model, which will look and sound similar to the original.

That’s somewhat surprising, as Apple discontinued the 1st-gen model well over a year ago, though it took quite some time to sell its existing stock. So why would Apple relaunch a commercially unsuccessful product, and what could have a similar one succeed? I suspect three factors …

The scale and reach of Chinese surveillance of its own citizens is well documented, but a new piece shows that the country’s government is now trying to use this vast trove of data to predict crimes and protests before they happen.

The Supreme Court ruling on abortion is also raising fresh concerns about the way that personal data may be used to prosecute women. We’re increasingly living in a world where Apple’s decision to have privacy be a major focus is looking increasingly prescient – but even the Cupertino company may now need to do more …

We’ve seen some baby steps towards using our iPhone for proving our identity. But a couple of recent developments point to a future in which an iPhone – plus biometrics – could let us use our phone as a single means of verifying our identity, both online and in face-to-face interactions.

In all, Apple provides support for four initiatives which I think provide a clear pointer to a future in which the iPhone will be our one-stop device for ID …

Editing iMessages was one of the new features introduced by Apple in iOS 16, along with the ability to completely ‘unsend’ a message. While these are long-awaited features which will be welcomed by most, some have expressed concern about the potential for abuse.

Fortunately, it would be easy for Apple to solve this problem in a way that works for all, and I have a few suggestions for how this might be achieved …

The Stage Manager controversy doesn’t look to be going away anytime soon, despite Apple’s attempts to explain its reasoning for limiting the feature to M1 iPads.

I expressed my own disappointment that my 12.9-inch 2018 iPad Pro won’t get the feature, but it’s an even bigger blow to those who bought a 2020 model, only to discover that it is excluded from the headline iPadOS 16 feature just two years later …

When Apple announced AFib History as part of watchOS 9, it sounded like a kind of useful feature to have, but not really relevant to most people. But stated quietly within the announcement was something that I think will be absolutely huge, as the Watch gains the ability to detect more health conditions.

The Watch is going to play a massive role in helping you and your medical professionals to identify the role that lifestyle factors may have on your health …

A sketchy report dating back to July of last year suggested that we’d see a new range of MacBook Air colors this year. This was given new life a month later when it was backed by Ming-Chi Kuo.

The pastel colors offered by the new iMac rekindled excitement about the idea, and many of us could see the merits in Apple offering same color choice for the MacBook Air. But Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman recently warned not to get too excited …

There’s been a lot of speculation about the timing of Apple’s mixed-reality headset launch – and in particular whether the company will announce it at WWDC 2022.

The smart money seems to be saying that it won’t go on sale until next year, with some suggesting that this means no mention at WWDC. Personally, though, I don’t buy this argument …

As regular readers know, I’m a huge fan of smart home tech. But there’s a trend we’re increasingly seeing with this and other technology where we never fully own the product.

That’s true in a couple of ways, and there’s both an upside and downside to that – each illustrated by a different story I spotted this morning …

A report yesterday noted clues to a new ‘iPad multitasking mode’ in iOS 16, which appears to reference the ability to create arbitrarily sized windows rather than the limited, fixed options currently available.

We’ve been calling for a more powerful operating system on the iPad for years now, and have made a number of specific suggestions …

Apple has long been expected to transition to fully portless iPhones at some point, and for most users that makes perfect sense. But we’re seeing growing reports that the iPhone maker is first going to switch from Lightning to USB-C, and that raises a key question.

Is USB-C just a brief interim stage before iPhones go fully wireless, or do USB-C iPhones have a longer future … ?

For years now, Google hasn’t seemed particularly interested in the tablet market, but yesterday the company announced that it’s working on what might be the company’s first real iPad alternative – a new Pixel tablet due for launch sometime next year.

Apple getting some serious iPad competition could be just the thing we need to finally spur the company into taking iPadOS more seriously, and having the software catch up with the hardware …

We’ve been seeing growing interest in the formation of Apple Store unions by retail staff, frustrated by stagnant wages at a time of rising inflation, or other working conditions issues.

The prospect of unionization is one which often fills management with fear. This isn’t surprising given the confrontational nature of most management-union relationships. But there is a much more cooperative model out there, and Apple currently has a golden opportunity to adopt it …

Apple’s antitrust mess keeps getting worse, with today’s Apple Pay announcement as the latest example. The company is now under fire on so many flanks in so many countries that it spends half its PR life trying to defend its stance – and legislation is ultimately going to force it to change anyway.

To me, the most baffling thing about the company’s stubbornness on this issue is that the mess could so easily be resolved, and my bet is that it wouldn’t even cost the company much money.

Studio Display webcam complaints were one of the standout things from early product reviews. The WSJ’s Joanna Stern took the turn-of-phrase prize for her description of the image quality, describing it as reminiscent of the camera on a BlackBerry.

The complaints were allayed for a time, when it appeared that the issue could be fixed in software, but are back with a vengeance now that we know that’s not the case …

A rumored new MacBook Air design looks set to see the biggest shakeup to the look of Apple’s cutest laptop since it was launched in 2008.

If the reports are true, it strikes me as a doubly clever move by Apple: a new look that will appeal to many, and encourage them to update, while being actively off-putting to others, effectively pushing them to buy a MacBook Pro even if they don’t need the power …

Messaging interoperability – in which it would be possible to send a message to someone without knowing or caring which chat service they use – finally made it into the European Union’s Digital Markets Act.

It was one of the most controversial elements of the upcoming legislation, with some arguing that it would be a technological nightmare to implement, and others that it would benefit both startups and consumers …

A new report yesterday said that Apple is working on a new 15-inch MacBook Air, for potential release in 2023.

There are no further details at this stage, but to me such a machine makes a huge amount of sense, and could be the perfect MacBook model for many users …

The Ukraine crisis has cast a new spotlight on an issue I’ve been raising for several years now: Apple’s unsustainable dependence on China.

With Russia, Apple can afford to take a stand against the country, and it is doing so. It has suspended sales in the country; stopped all exports to Russia; blocked access to state media apps from outside the country; disabled live info in Apple Maps; is donating to humanitarian work; and is effectively tripling employee donations …

The Apple system status page is best known not for displaying the actual status of Apple services, but rather a pageful of green indicators that only change once a problem is so widespread and severe that the company can no longer hide it.

I mean, I get it. There will always be minor and temporary glitches affecting a tiny number of people, and it’s not realistic for Apple to update the page to reflect each one of these. But I think there’s no denying the fact that the page currently has its own reality distortion field …