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The Update-Within-Five-Minutes Edition Thursday, April 21, 2022

MagSafe Battery Pack Now Able To Charge At Faster 7.5W Speed After Firmware Update, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

Apple yesterday released a firmware update designed for the MagSafe Battery Pack, and it turns out the new firmware enables 7.5W charging while on the go, up from the previous 5W limit.

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Updating the ‌MagSafe Battery Pack‌ can be done by attaching it to an iPhone and waiting (a process that can take up to a week), or using a Mac or an iPad to update within five minutes. Apple suggests users attach a Lightning cable to a ‌MagSafe Battery Pack‌ and then plug in the USB side to an ‌iPad‌ or Mac to initiate the update process.

Apple To Roll Out Child Safety Feature That Scans Messages For Nudity To UK iPhones, by Alex Hern, The Guardian

A safety feature that uses AI technology to scan messages sent to and from children will soon hit British iPhones, Apple has announced.

The feature, referred to as “communication safety in Messages”, allows parents to turn on warnings for their children’s iPhones. When enabled, all photos sent or received by the child using the Messages app will be scanned for nudity.

Contactless

Criminals Abuse Apple Pay In Spending Sprees, by Joseph Cox, Motherboard

Recently criminals have started using bots that automatically place phone calls to victims and trick people into handing over their multi-factor authentication codes. Now, various fraudsters selling access to these underground bots are highlighting a particular money making scheme: using the bots to link stolen credit cards to contactless payment systems like Apple, Samsung, and Google Pay and then buying items at the victim’s expense.

Apple Adds New Fraud Prevention Features To Apple Pay, by Dennis Seller, Apple World Today

Apple is upgrading its Apple Pay fraud prevention features for cards stored in the Wallet app on the iPhone and Apple Watch. However, there’s a downside: the features are, for now, only for Visa cards.

Stuff

Learning To Love Ecamm’s Live, by Jason Snell, Six Colors

While it’s true that you never get a second chance to make a first impression, I’m glad I revisited Live two years on. In the intervening time, Ecamm has removed every stumbling block that made it an impractical app for me. Live is now my live-streaming app of choice. It feels good to add a new, Mac-only app to my toolbox.

Pok Pok Playroom iOS App For Kids Gets New Content And Experiences For Earth Day, by Michael Potuck, 9to5Mac

Today’s release brings fresh content and experiences in Pok Pok’s Town toy to celebrate Earth Day and help kids learn about things like urban gardening, recycling and composting, and even beekeeping.

Runance Is A Simple, Free Running App For Apple Watch, by Brent Dirks, AppAdvice

While running you can view live metrics on the watch screen including heart rate, training zones, distance, tempo, and elapsed time.

Notes

Why Doesn't Apple Music On iOS Have Crossfade, But The Android App Does?, by Filipe Espósito, 9to5Mac

I was a bit afraid about what to expect from the Apple Music experience on Android – after all, we all know that using Apple Music on Windows is a nightmare. Luckily, everything works quite well. I haven’t had any issues other than those I also have using Apple Music on iOS – like having to constantly confirm that I allow explicit songs on my device.

But here’s where things start to get interesting. In some cases, it seems that the Apple Music app for Android has more features than the iOS app, which is a native app with access to all of the iOS private APIs.

Apple Store In Atlanta First To File To Form A Union, by Reed Albergotti, Washington Post

An Apple retail store in Atlanta filed a petition to unionize Wednesday, becoming the first of the iPhone maker’s locations to undertake an official attempt to do so.

The store, in the Cumberland Mall, has been gathering support for unionization for months, according to an employee at the store working to organize the effort and others familiar with the effort.

The Original HomePod’s Demise Is A Slow And Sad One (Despite Appreciating Value), by Chance Miller, 9to5Mac

The HomePod sound quality is still excellent today, but that A8 processor inside shows its age when it comes to things like Siri requests, HomeKit control, and AirPlay playback with multiple speakers.

Furthermore, during the last several months, we’ve seen a growing number of reports of HomePod units failing completely, with a so-called “popping” sound now infamous among users. If your HomePod starts making popping noises, chances are it’s about to bite the dust.

Bottom of the Page

I miss reading user manuals of new software that I've purchased. A lot of times, I have to figure out how things are done in the software by actually trying out different settings and see what happens.

(Quick: If you want to only download new podcast episodes on Wi-fi, except when you've listening to a podcast playlist and you've reached the point of the new episode, and then you are okay for that episode to be downloaded by celluar -- do you know if your podcast player can do that, and if so what settings to toggle?)

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Thanks for reading.