MyAppleMenu

The Dropped-Everything Edition Sunday, September 25, 2022

My iPhone 14 Fell Off My Motorcycle And Told My Family I Crashed, by Douglas Sonders, Jalopnik

As we were cruising at around 60 miles per hour, I hit a big bump and my phone flew off its handlebar mount. My Cardo bluetooth helmet speakers announced “your phone has been disconnected” and my music stopped playing as I looked down to see no phone on my handlebars. I should have known better. [...]

My buddies and I went to the nearest Apple store to buy a cheap iPhone SE to use while I dealt with Apple Care to replace my brand-new phone. As I’m standing in the Apple Store, my friend Tim Harney, a natural comedian, walks in and tells me my entire family thinks I was in a horrible accident. I thought he was joking, but what he said was true. My lovely and supportive girlfriend had dropped everything and was driving from four hours away to come find me; she, my brother, and my mom were calling all the New York City hospitals looking for my body.

What Makes The AirPods Pro 2's Noise Cancelling So Good? A Billion Transistors, by Lance Ulanoff, TechRadar

The most obvious result is the touted six hours of AirPods Pro 2 life (a total of 30 hours with the redesigned charging case). That number, however, is with the more powerful active noise cancellation (ANC) turned on; turn it off, and the number reportedly goes up to seven hours for the buds and 35 with the case.

It's not just power management, though – the H2 chip's new architecture is behind most, if not all, the performance gains Apple is touting in the AirPods Pro 2.

I Just Ran 10 Miles With The Apple Watch Ultra — And This Feature Is A Game Changer, by Jane McGuire, Tom's Guide

Starting a run without being sure your watch is connected to GPS makes zero sense, especially on race day or when running in the city when crowds and skyscrapers can interfere with your watch's GPS. Plus, it makes sense when Apple has added dual-frequency GPS to the watch, integrating L1 and L5 algorithms. Apple says this allows the Ultra to “deliver the most accurate GPS of any Apple Watch to date.”

Stuff

Yale Assure Lock 2 Review: A Promising All-rounder, by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, The Verge

There are three things I want from a smart lock: an attractive design, more than two ways to control it, and the ability to connect directly with my smart home, with no single-purpose Wi-Fi bridge taking up an outlet in my house. Yale’s newest smart lock series, the Yale Assure Lock 2, ticks all those boxes. Plus, it works with all the major smart home platforms if you add the right networking module — and it can support Matter, whenever that finally arrives. (Soon, people. Soon).

Notes

I’m Convinced The AirPods Max Active Noise Cancellation Has Gotten Worse, by Umar Shakir, The Verge

The active noise cancellation (ANC) in my one-week-old AirPods Max has gone soft. After updating to the latest firmware, version 4E71, I am convinced the ANC is no longer as strong or effective as it originally was out of the box.

[...]

I reached out to the company about what changes came in the latest firmware and if ANC really was affected but haven’t heard back. I just wish Apple added different ANC levels so people can find one that best works for them.

Bottom of the Page

Do we know if the AirPods Pro rattling sound -- in the first generation version (only, hopefully) -- was also caused by a bad firmware update?

~

Thanks for reading.