In addition to Apple Intelligence and the new hearing health features for AirPods Pro 2, iOS 18.1 also brings changes to Control Center, upgrades to iPhone Mirroring, and call recording and transcription features. With iOS 18.1, Apple is also opening up the iPhone’s NFC chip to third-party developers for the first time.
You’ll need a quiet space when taking Apple’s hearing test. Before getting started, your iPhone will do a quick analysis of ear tip fit and environmental noise to ensure you’re good to go. All of these hearing health features are calibrated for Apple’s stock silicone tips, so if you’re using aftermarket third-party tips (including foam), there’s no guarantee you’ll get the optimal experience. Once the test begins, you just tap the screen whenever you hear any of the three-beep tone sequences.
There are a few key things to know about Apple’s hearing test. For one, it’s designed so that you can’t predict or game it. The test can play any frequency at any time, so no two are the same. Apple tests your left ear first, and here’s something I wish I’d known going in: it’s completely normal to hear nothing at all for several seconds at a time. It was in those moments, when five, six, or even 10 seconds would pass by without an obvious tone sequence, where I’d start feeling pretty anxious.
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Being able to use Apple’s $250 earbuds as a hearing aid is a huge deal for those who can benefit from this capability. But they won’t be right for everyone. People with more severe hearing loss will still need to seek other solutions. And the main tradeoff with the AirPods Pro 2 is battery life: they can last for around six hours with the hearing aid engaged, which doesn’t match what you’ll get from many OTC and prescription hearing aids.
I tested the hearing aids in various settings, from one-on-one conversations and bingeing media to standing in the thick of a Chappell Roan concert. Overall, I experienced very good results. Conversation was easy and clear, even at low volumes, and I had less trouble with TV dialog and other often indistinct sounds. My initial settings generated a fair amount of hiss, akin to a distant, droning air conditioner. After updating the tuning with my professional audiogram settings and continuing to tweak settings, that hiss became less pronounced, though it was still noticeable.
A bigger issue I encountered was that the AirPods often boosted the volume on the things I least wanted to hear: a window air conditioner, water running from the faucet, keyboard clacks, or the fan on my PC. Sure, conversations sounded good, but the air purifier behind my desk sounded great.
One of the peculiar things about Apple is how many of its most successful products once appeared to be failures. Maybe you’ve forgotten this, now that it seems crazy anyone thought there wouldn’t be a market for them. Apple’s executives haven’t. They remember when the company was ridiculed for reasons that sound totally ridiculous. The iPhone didn’t have a physical keyboard. The iPod cost $399 when CD players were $39. AirPods looked funny and would fall out of your ears. Who would wear an Apple Watch or use Apple Pay or watch an Apple TV+ show about an American football coach hired by a British soccer team? By now, they’re used to it. “It’s predictable in some ways,” Cook says.
Some devices that are now like bodily appendages were underwhelming at first and improved with time. Others were simply ahead of their time. Elsewhere in Silicon Valley, patience has the approval rating of carrier pigeons. But for every product that began slowly, Cook says he was confident it would eventually catch on. “It’s not that people are wrong and we’re right,” he says. “We have enough faith that if we love the product, there will be enough other people out there that love it too.”
Over the past 19 years, Cook has carved out a role as one of Nike’s closest outside advisers and is the company’s lead independent director. During his tenure, he’s been a sounding board on issues ranging from China to technology operations to appointing key new executives, according to current and former Nike and Apple employees. They declined to be named discussing sensitive corporate matters.
Now Cook, through his director position, is helping steer Nike through its biggest upheaval in decades. Sales fell 10% last quarter and the company withdrew its full-year guidance, hoping to wipe the slate clean for Hill. It pushed back an investor day scheduled for November to give more time for the new CEO to devise a turnaround strategy, which Cook and his board peers will need to approve.
Apple has another advantage as it tries to catch up: the ability to roll out features to a massive base of devices. As showcased with the iPad mini, Apple can quickly equip its current products with the technology needed to run new software. We’ll see this again soon with the M4 Mac rollout, which will further speed up AI tasks.
When Apple announced its AI features in June, the software was only compatible with two iPhone models and a couple of iPads, as well as Macs with its in-house silicon. Now, the four newest iPhones, almost every iPad and all the Macs can support it. By 2026, nearly every Apple device with a screen will run it: The iPhone SE will gain the features in March, and the entry-level iPad will probably get updated later in the year.
I think that with all things considered, a base model iPad refresh while also supporting Apple Intelligence was probably improbable to pull off this year, which is why Apple skipped updating its most popular iPad for the second year in a row.
Here’s hoping that “Apple Intelligence” lives up to its name. The technology should be able to create playlists without breaking a sweat, offer sensible grammar suggestions and perhaps even surprise us with capabilities we haven’t yet imagined.
The world of AI isn’t slowing down for anyone. Come on, Apple. The clock is ticking.
Microsoft Threat Intelligence uncovered a macOS vulnerability that could potentially allow an attacker to bypass the operating system’s Transparency, Consent, and Control (TCC) technology and gain unauthorized access to a user’s protected data. The vulnerability, which we refer to as “HM Surf”, involves removing the TCC protection for the Safari browser directory and modifying a configuration file in the said directory to gain access to the user’s data, including browsed pages, the device’s camera, microphone, and location, without the user’s consent.
After discovering the bypass technique, we shared our findings with Apple through Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure (CVD) via Microsoft Security Vulnerability Research (MSVR). Apple released a fix for this vulnerability, now identified as CVE-2024-44133, as part of security updates for macOS Sequoia, released on September 16, 2024. At present, only Safari uses the new protections afforded by TCC. Microsoft is currently collaborating with other major browser vendors to investigate the benefits of hardening local configuration files.
By answering a few questions about your trip, PackPoint, can check the weather forecast, consult its databases of common items to pack, and generate a complete list of everything you need. Say goodbye to guesswork!
One of the coolest things about the Go Portable SSD is its size and weight -- it's tiny and lightweight, making it perfect for attaching to your iPhone without messing up the balance of any gimbals you might be using.
Apple's website is different for different countries, and I noticed that the AirPods Pro 2 Hearing Aid web page is not available in the country where I am. Maybe this feature will arrive soon after. Maybe this feature will also be available where I am, but it is not called Hearing Aid.
Or maybe I will be disappointed for quite a while.
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On the other hand, Mr Tim Cook, take your time for Apple Intelligence. It needs to be good, not early.
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Thanks for reading.