It is always delightful to try a product and realize it is much better than you expected. That’s been my experience over the last few weeks as I have tried the Snap Grip Stand, a new $40 product from ohsnap! This small device attaches magnetically to the back of an iPhone and provides a grip so you can hold your iPhone more easily with one hand. PopSockets invented this category in 2014, and ohsnap! has been making these types of devices since 2019. But even if—like me—you have never wanted to use this type of device regularly, the Snap Grip Stand is different because it’s incredibly well engineered and useful. It is so thin that it adds no bulk or noticeable weight to your iPhone. Yet it is so strong that the MagSafe connection stays secure. It is easy to hold, with two different ways to hold it. It also contains a clever stand. You can use it while charging your iPhone via MagSafe, and it is also very easy to remove. As a result, I find myself keeping this product on my iPhone almost all the time. When I want to use any of its features, it’s right there. When I don’t, I barely notice that it is there.

The grip

The primary use of a product like this is to make it easy to hold an iPhone with one hand. The grip on this device works very well.

Lightly press one of the two small raised areas on the ring, and a series of very thin plastic strips in a diagonal design makes the circle pop out. This gives you two different ways to hold the grip.

First, you can place two fingers around the grip, which I suspect is the traditional way to use a device like this.

Second, you can slide a finger between the thin plastic strips. I prefer this second method, although I use both methods frequently. It is nice that you have a choice.

The device spins, so once you decide which method you want to use, you can place your iPhone in the perfect orientation.

Although the thin plastic strips are comfortable, they are also very durable. This is a design ohsnap! has used for many years in its products, and it is an engineering feat.

Thanks to the grip, I now find it much easier to hold an iPhone. Sometimes I hold the iPhone and use it with a single hand. Other times, I appreciate having my iPhone more secure in my left hand while I interact with it using the fingers on my right hand. If I don’t feel like using the grip at all, I just snap it back into place.

A thin design that improves the back of the iPhone

One of the most impressive things about this product is how incredibly thin it is. It sits nearly flush with the back of the iPhone. That means that when you are not using it, you barely notice that it is there. This is exactly why I have never been a fan of other products in this category. I don’t want something that adds obnoxious bulk to my iPhone. This product does not. I don’t know how they designed this product to be so thin while also working so well, but kudos to ohsnap! for doing so.

In fact, this product actually improves the back of the iPhone. I use an iPhone 17 Pro Max, and like many modern iPhones, it has a raised plateau at the top of the back to house the cameras. That means that when I place my iPhone on a table, the side with the cameras is slightly higher than the other side. But the Snap Grip Stand is the perfect width, so it makes the iPhone flatter and more stable when it sits on its back. It is such an improvemet that it sometimes makes me wonder if Apple itself should have created something like this to eliminate table wobble.

The stand

If that was all that this product did, I would like it. But wait; there’s more. You can also extend this device to turn it into a kickstand. This can be useful for watching videos on it, using FaceTime, etc.

This isn’t a feature that I use every day, but I do use it once or twice a week, and it is nice to have.

MagSafe

Perhaps the best part of this device is its MagSafe compatibility. It uses the MagSafe magnets to securely attach to the back of the iPhone. It is a very strong connection. I have never felt like the magnetic connection would fail in a way that would make the iPhone drop out of my hand. Yet it is also very easy to remove the device whenever you want.

Additionally, this is pass-through MagSafe. That means you can keep the Snap Grip Stand on the back of your iPhone and still attach it to a stand, such as the Anker Prime Wireless Charging Station (my review). This means that while I am in my office and not using my iPhone, I can still attach my iPhone to a MagSafe stand and take advantage of Stand By mode. This is fantastic.

Moreover, you don’t need to remove the Snap Grip Stand to charge an iPhone with MagSafe. The charge passes right through this product. However, it doesn’t charge nearly as well. First, it takes longer to charge the iPhone. Second, sometimes it stops charging completely. For example, when I keep the Snap Grip Stand on the back of my iPhone and charge it at night using the Twelve South HiRise 3 Deluxe (my review) that is on my nightstand, sometimes I will wake up in the morning with my iPhone 100% charged, and other times, it is not. Am I bumping into my nightstand at night and making the MagSafe connection slightly less secure? I don’t know.

If your goal in using MagSafe is to prop your iPhone on a stand and use Stand By mode, it works great. If your goal is to charge your iPhone as fast as possible, remove the Snap Grip Stand. In fact, if your goal is to charge an iPhone as fast as possible, you shouldn’t use MagSafe at all; plugging in a USB-C cable is faster.

Fidget Spinner

I’ll share one other thing I’ve noticed during the last few weeks. I often find myself just playing with the Snap Grip Stand as a way to keep my hands occupied, the same thing that one might do with a traditional fidget spinner. Sometimes I do so when it is attached to my iPhone. Other times, I remove the Snap Grip Stand and just fidget with it in my hands. If you are the type of person who appreciates having something to fidget with—and I guess that applies to me—it’s always nice to have the Snap Grip Stand around.

Price

The MSRP is $49.99. It is not sold on Amazon, but if you buy it directly from ohsnap!, it is currently on sale for $39.99 for one or $71.98 for two.

Conclusion

The best thing that I can say about any product is that I want to keep using it even after I finish reviewing it. That is definitely true for the Snap Grip Stand. It adds lots of great features to my iPhone, and because of its clever design, it has no real downsides. Even if you have never felt compelled to try a PopSockets-type device, I recommend you consider this one. It is excellent.

Click here to get the Snap Grip Stand from the ohsnap! website ($39.99).

We are less than a month out from Apple’s September product announcements, so Brett and I start this week’s episode by talking about what could be announced. A foldable iPhone seems likely, and people are saying it will be called the iPhone Ultra. An iPhone 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max seem likely, but perhaps not an iPhone 18. New Apple Watch models? A new device for the home, like a HomePod with a screen or security cameras? There are lots of possibilities. We also discuss the upcoming changes to Apple’s Wallet app, which is becoming even more useful. We also talk about bands that can spruce up your Apple Watch.

In our In the Vision segment, we discuss immersive Friday Night Baseball.

In our In the Show segment, we discuss Ted Lasso.

In our In the Know segment, Brett shares a fun sight with a new puzzle each day called Poople.io, and I discuss tapping your fingers to display seconds on the Apple Watch and get other useful information.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just listen using your podcast player of choice. You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

Horace Dediu of Asymco wrote this week that one of the biggest innovations of the Apple Watch was user-replaceable watch bands. Do you ever change the band on your Apple Watch to dress it up (or down)? In a Wirecutter article, Haley Perry of the New York Times recommends five elegant Apple Watch bands that cost less than $350. Most of the ones on her are geared toward women, but not all. When I dress up and/or go to work, I virtually always wear the same Milanese Loop band that I’ve been using for over a decade (my review). I’m still a fan because it looks nice and is very comfortable. But when I get home after work and on weekends, I typically switch to a Braided Loop (my review) or a Solo Loop (my review), and I have both of those styles in multiple colors. There are rumors that the 2026 version of the Apple Watch, which may be introduced next month, will be a more significant upgrade, but I hope that it maintains compatibility with the bands that have been available since 2015. Of course, there may be times when an Apple Watch is not appropriate, regardless of the band, which is why I’m curious about speculation that Apple might also introduce a device with many of the features of the Apple Watch but without a screen. Victoria Song of The Verge discusses wearable devices that lack a screen and why they are becoming popular. And now, the news of note from the past week:

• I think one of the best things Apple can do to encourage people to purchase an Apple Vision Pro or future devices that use visionOS is to let people experience live, highly desirable, immersive content. Let people experience front-row seats at a Taylor Swift concert, and Apple won’t be able to keep the devices in stock. Apple has been experimenting with this. Earlier this year, you could watch live NBA games on the Apple Vision Pro. As I wrote at the time, it was an incredible experience, but unfortunately, you could only watch the games live if you were in Spectrum’s Los Angeles market. This week, Apple announced that four of the Friday Night Baseball games that Apple airs for Apple TV subscribers will be available in immersive video. The first game is on August 28, and it should be a great one: Boston Red Sox at New York Yankees. Those teams have loyal fans, and the teams are traditional rivals. For the three Fridays after that, you can watch the Los Angeles Angels at Pittsburgh Pirates, the San Diego Padres at San Francisco Giants, and the San Francisco Giants at Los Angeles Dodgers. I’m very curious to see what Apple does in light of what they learned from the basketball games, especially considering that these baseball games will be shown on Apple’s own Apple TV network. I can’t wait to check it out, and I guess I need to buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack.
• When Apple announces the 2026 iPhone models—as noted last week, I predict that will take place on September 9—Apple is widely expected to introduce a foldable iPhone. As Hartley Charlton of MacRumors reports, Mark Gurman of Bloomberg says that “everyone” inside Apple refers to this device as the “iPhone Ultra.”
• Stevie Bonifield of The Verge predicts that Apple will introduce the iPhone 18 Pro next month but will wait until early 2027 to introduce the iPhone 18, iPhone 18e, and a new iPhone Air. I can see some logic to this speculation given the worldwide shortage of RAM. It could also convince some people to pay more for the Pro model rather than wait for the cheaper non-Pro model.
• In an article about FileVault on the Mac, Glenn Fleishman of Six Colors discusses how Apple handles end-to-end encryption on its devices.
• Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac discusses new features coming to Apple’s Wallet app in iOS 27.
• Hartley Charlton notes that anyone with a subscription to Apple TV can now watch 19 classic movies: 21 Jump Street, Arrival, The Aviator, A Beautiful Mind, The Bourne Identity, Charlie’s Angels, E.T., Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Gone Girl, I, Robot, Looper, The Martian, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, The Proposal, The Rookie, The Sixth Sense, Titanic, Zodiac, and Zoolander.
• Katie Campione of Deadline reports that the Season 4 premiere of Ted Lasso was the biggest ever for Apple TV.
• Armando Tinoco of Deadline reports that it appears Apple has agreed to Seasons 4, 5, and 6 of Ted Lasso, and notes that recent comments by Apple VP Eddy Cue seem to be consistent with that.
• And finally, I like this video that Apple created to welcome back Ted Lasso in which Ted appears to show up in multiple popular Apple TV shows:

We are now just one month away from 9/9, the date when I predict Apple will debut the 2026 version of the iPhone, and Brett and I start this week’s episode of the podcast by discussing why I predicted that date for this year, as well as my predictions for the next few years. We also discuss trading in an old iPhone to get a new iPhone, the Apple Newton in the 1990s, CarPlay on a boat, scrubbing through a podcast in CarPlay, and more. We also discuss my recent post analyzing whether using the 1Password Travel Mode feature could violate federal law, a post that generated a lot of feedback this week. Unfortunately, none of you seem to have better answers than I do.

In our In the Vision segment, we discuss surgeons using an Apple Vision Pro.

In our In the Show segment, we discuss Ted Lasso. Neither Brett nor I had seen the first episode of Season 4 when we recorded the podcast, but we both watched it Friday night, and we both loved it! It is great to see that Ted Lasso is back and as funny as ever.

In our In the Know segment, Brett shares a useful tip for saving photos in a shared album in the Photos app, and I explain how to highlight text in yellow using Apple’s Mail app for the iPhone or iPad.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just listen using your podcast player of choice. You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

Are you ready for a new iPhone? Two years ago, I predicted that Apple would announce the 2026 iPhone on Wednesday, September 9, 2026. My prediction was based on Apple’s pattern for selecting the date for iPhone announcements since 2013. This week, Andrew Orr of AppleInsider reported that, based on an internal memo seen by Bloomberg, Apple is giving its U.S. retail employees the opportunity to enter a lottery to come to Cupertino, California, to assist with the next iPhone announcement event, and Bloomberg believes that this event will take place on September 9th. I’ve had my calendar marked on September 9, 2026, for a while now, and you may want to do the same. If you want to plan even further ahead, I’d earmark Wednesday, September 8, 2027, and Tuesday, September 12, 2028. And now, the news of note from the past week:

• If you purchase a new iPhone after the announcement on September 9th, you may want to trade in your current model to reduce the overall price. William Gallagher of AppleInsider noticed that Apple has just increased what it is willing to pay you if you trade in a device. For example, Apple is now offering you an additional $70 (up to $630) if you trade in an iPhone 16 Pro.
• Marcus Mendes of 9to5Mac reports that, according to Counterpoint Research, an all-time high of 29% of the smartphone market is comprised of smartphones that cost $600 or more. And of that premium smartphone market, Counterpoint Research believes that 65% of it is the iPhone.
• Long before the iPhone, Apple sold the Newton. William Gallagher of AppleInsider wrote about the Newton’s history in a post that he wrote a while back but I saw linked to this week. It’s a good read.
• Juli Clover of MacRumors reports that SpaceX is planning to create its own cellular service to compete with Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. Instead of cell towers, the company will use base stations paired with Starlink dishes. Interesting.
• I was surprised to see this article from John Gruber of Daring Fireball, based on a report from James Hibberd of The Hollywood Reporter, that BMW is showing an ad for the new Spider-Man movie on car dashboards. That is the last thing I would want to see, and it is an example of why I trust Apple’s CarPlay more than I trust car manufacturers. That said, it was just a week ago that I was talking about how Apple has been slowly increasing ads on its platform (such as the upcoming ads coming to Apple’s Maps app), so maybe Apple would consider doing this, too. Although I hope not.
• What if you want to use CarPlay but you are on water instead of land? Juli Clover of MacRumors reports that MasterCraft Boat Holdings is adding CarPlay to its upcoming Crest and Balise Pontoons.
• What if you are listening to a podcast in CarPlay and you want to jump ahead or back? Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac reports that, in iOS 27, you will be able to drag the playhead forward or backward to scrub through the podcast—a feature long supported on other platforms.
• A study reported in AJO International (a companion title to The American Journal of Ophthalmology) found that when surgeons wore an Apple Vision Pro while performing eye surgery, they were able to perform the surgeries 19% faster. Additionally, the surgeons preferred performing surgery with these devices because they made surgery more comfortable, as they could maintain a more neutral head and neck posture. If I were having an eye operation, I would definitely want my surgeon to be more comfortable and for the surgery to take less time.
• If you use a Fitbit, you can now sync the data to Apple Health. Juli Clover of MacRumors reports that the latest update to the Google Health app for iOS—the app that syncs with the Fitbit—can now sync to Apple Health.
• The first episode of the new season of Ted Lasso is now available on Apple TV. I haven’t watched it yet—my wife and I are saving it for tonight—but Jason Snell of Six Colors has seen the first half of Season 4 and says that “each episode made me laugh out loud, a lot.” It looks like new episodes are released every Wednesday.
• In other Ted Lasso news, there was a look-alike contest in New York last night. Here are some videos from the event on Instagram.
• In other Ted Lasso news, although I haven’t watched Season 4 yet, I did do an Apple Fitness+ workout this week in which all of the instructors were dressed up like members of the team in Ted Lasso, and many of the songs were related to the show. It was fun.
• And finally, I loved the Apple TV show Margo’s Got Money Troubles, and this video showcases the incredible actors in that show. I don’t recommend this video if you haven’t watched the show yet because it contains spoilers. But if you have watched the show, this video is fun, and it reminds me how much I enjoyed the series:

I’ve previously discussed the difficult situation that you can face when you cross the border into the United States with an iPhone or other electronic device, especially if you are an attorney. A recent news item in the New York Times has me thinking about this again.

Adeel Hassan of the New York Times reports that when a U.S. citizen was asked by customs officers upon entering the country to hand over his Android smartphone and its password, he gave them a special “password” that wasn’t a password at all. When typed, that word activated software to erase his smartphone. This isn’t something that the Android (or iPhone) can normally do, but he installed an open-source operating system on his smartphone to add this feature.

The government responded by prosecuting him under 18 U.S.C. § 2232, a statute that—among other things—makes it a felony to destroy evidence. Section (a) of the statute is titled “Destruction or Removal of Property To Prevent Seizure.” It provides:

Whoever, before, during, or after any search for or seizure of property by any person authorized to make such search or seizure, knowingly destroys, damages, wastes, disposes of, transfers, or otherwise takes any action, or knowingly attempts to destroy, damage, waste, dispose of, transfer, or otherwise take any action, for the purpose of preventing or impairing the Government’s lawful authority to take such property into its custody or control or to continue holding such property under its lawful custody and control, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.

As I read the statute, I find myself thinking about 1Password’s Travel Mode feature on the iPhone, a feature that has been available since 2017. This is a feature that you enable using the 1Password website (not your iPhone app), and here is how 1Password describes the feature: “It enables you to temporarily remove vaults that contain sensitive information. The vaults you choose aren’t just hidden – they’re entirely removed from your devices, including the 1Password browser extension. If a police officer or customs agent asks you to unlock your phone, they will only see the vaults you’ve marked as safe to travel. When you turn off Travel Mode, the removed vaults will automatically reappear in the 1Password app the next time you connect to the internet.”

I can imagine an argument that this is a feature that “destroys, damages, wastes, disposes of, transfers, or otherwise takes any action” on a vault on an iPhone, and thus if the feature is utilized because a person intends to “prevent[] or impair[] the Government’s lawful authority” to look at the contents of the 1Password vault, using this feature could expose someone to a fine or imprisonment of up to five years, or both, under 18 U.S.C. § 2232.

Of course, I can also see arguments to the contrary. One might argue that the data hasn’t been destroyed; it still exists on the 1Password website. Thus, one might argue that turning on Travel Mode is like deciding to leave something at home rather than taking it while traveling. A person might also defend the use of Travel Mode by explaining that they used it for a different purpose, such as to prevent a thief from stealing the iPhone at an airport or to prevent access by a government official from another country. Moreover, one might argue that the statute does not apply in a particular circumstance because there was no lawful authority to look at the contents. According to the New York Times article, that is an argument that this person asserted; he argued that “he was targeted because of his political activism against Atlanta’s plan to build a police and fire training center within a 1,000-acre stretch of urban woodland.” And as Gaby Del Valle of The Verge notes, courts are split on whether customs agents can conduct searches without a warrant. Additionally, an attorney might also argue that there was no lawful authority because a vault contains confidential attorney-client communications or attorney work product. I suspect that there are other possible defenses.

Do I think that the use of 1Password’s Travel Mode always implicates this statute? Absolutely not. But can I imagine an argument being made that it does apply in certain circumstances? I can, especially in the current political climate. I understand why some people might prefer to just use a burner phone when traveling internationally, one that doesn’t contain private data at all, so there is no need for a Travel Mode feature.

When you believe that you have a right to privacy and the government disagrees, things can become complicated.

A few days ago, Apple released the results for its 2026 fiscal third quarter (which ran from March 29, 2026, to June 27, 2026) and held a call with analysts to discuss the results. Apple’s fiscal third quarter is usually a less interesting quarter for Apple—it’s not like we often see interesting new products released in April, May, or June—but this call was notable. First, it was the very last earnings call overseen by Apple CEO Tim Cook: his 90th call. Starting September 1, John Ternus takes over as Apple’s CEO. Second, it was a record third quarter for Apple. They may not sound notable because, for many years now, Apple’s financial results have been excellent virtually every quarter. But it was notable this time because Tim Cook is going out on top. The first time that Tim Cook led one of these calls as CEO was the 2011 fiscal third quarter. As I noted in my report at the time, Cook announced a record-setting quarter for Apple with sales of $28.57 billion. It is now fifteen years later, and this time Cook announced a record-setting quarter for Apple with sales of $109.4 billion. To put this in perspective, Apple’s 2011 revenue was $108 billion for the entire fiscal year; now, Apple is making more than that in a single quarter—and not even the fiscal first quarter, the one that is typically the highest because of holiday sales. Those numbers are pretty impressive, but the main reason I’ve been reporting on these calls for so many years is that the calls often provide insights into Apple products such as the iPhone and iPad. If you want to get all of the nitty-gritty details, you can listen to the audio from the announcement conference call on the Apple website, or you can read a transcript of the call prepared by Jason Snell of Six Colors. Apple’s official press release is here. Here are the items that stood out to me.

iPhone

• iPhone revenue for the quarter was $54.3 billion. That’s up 22% from a year ago, when it was $44.6 billion. And it is a new record for an Apple fiscal third quarter.
• Apple CFO Kevan Parekh noted that the number of iPhones in use worldwide is now at an all-time high.
• Parekh also noted that Morgan Stanley has deployed over 20,000 iPhone 17 devices to its employees as part of a shift from employee-owned to corporate-owned devices for liability and security.
• Prices for iPhones and other Apple products are rising due to shortages and price increases in the memory market. Cook said that, at this point, he expects memory prices to continue rising, and Apple is evaluating what to do about it.

iPad

• iPad revenue for the quarter was $6.2 billion. That’s down slightly from a year ago, when it was $6.6 billion, and down even more from two years ago, when it was $7.2 billion.
• Parekh noted that the number of iPads in use worldwide is now at an all-time high. He also noted that over half of the people who purchased an iPad this quarter were purchasing their first iPad.

Other

• Apple’s improved AI is coming out very soon—I presume next month. Cook said: “I think it’s a very big idea to have AI that’s private, that’s based on your personal context, and that’s integrated across the operating system, and so we couldn’t be happier with how things are going.”
• Cook said revenue for the category Apple calls Wearables, Home, and Accessories was $7.9 billion, up 6% from a year ago.
• Cook said that this past quarter, Apple saw a record number of people upgrading an Apple Watch compared to any other fiscal third quarter.
• Cook said that services revenue was $30.7 billion, which is up 12% from last year and a record for a fiscal third quarter. However, that is less than last quarter, when it was $31 billion, and as noted by Jason Snell of Six Colors, this is the first time in more than three years that Apple’s services revenue was not up sequentially.
• Cook noted that Apple TV has now earned an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony—sometimes called an EGOT—and said Apple reached that milestone faster than any other streamer in history. The show that earned Apple a Tony was the Broadway version of Schmigadoon!, and I think Apple TV canceled the TV version of that show way too early. Is it too much to hope that the success on Broadway will cause the show to come back to TV?
• Cook noted that Widow’s Bay earned 19 Emmy nominations, more than any other new show this year.

Before long, you are going to pay for a new Apple product: an iPhone, an iPad, an Apple Watch, or even a Mac. How should you do so, and does the new Apple Upgrade program make sense for you? That’s the first topic that Brett and I address in this week’s episode of the podcast. To our surprise, the new Apple Upgrade program is better than we expected and will make a lot of sense for many people. We also discuss efforts that some notable people are making to convince John Ternus to take a new approach to in-app ads when he takes over as CEO of Apple one month from today. Next, we discuss Find My products, why the best feature in the brand-new iOS 26.6 is something you cannot use right now, some notable third-party products, and more.

In our In the Show segment, we discuss the enthusiasm for the return of Ted Lasso in just a few days.

In our In the Know segment, we focus on the Apple Watch’s Digital Crown. Brett explains why and when you should switch the orientation, and I discuss using it to trigger Siri.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just listen using your podcast player of choice. You can also watch the episode on YouTube:

This week, Apple unveiled its new Apple Upgrade program, which replaces the former iPhone Upgrade program. As the name implies, one change is that the program now applies to more than just iPhones. This program lets you lease a new iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch. You can select a 12- or 24-month lease for iPhone and Apple Watch, or a 24- or 36-month lease for iPad and Mac. The word “Upgrade” is in the title because the idea is that at the end of that period, you give back your device and start a new lease for a new one. Juli Clover of MacRumors lists the details of the program. Ryan Christoffel of 9to5Mac emphasizes that this is a lease and not financing, so at the end of the period, you don’t own your device. However, you can pay a buyout fee at the end of the period to purchase the device, and there are no extra fees for doing so; if the device cost was $1,000 and your monthly payments over the period added up to $600, just pay the additional $400 at the end, and the device is yours. John Gruber notes that if you get an iPhone through this program, you are required to use one of the big three carriers: AT&T, T-Mobile, or Verizon, but other than that, he says that “there seemingly is no catch with the new Apple Upgrade program,” so it is worth considering if you don’t want to (1) pay the entire cost up front or (2) finance the purchase over 12 months using an Apple Card, which Apple lets you do with no extra fees. There are other options that can often reduce what you have to pay for a new Apple product: you can trade in an older device (and Apple sometimes gives you a pretty good value for that), or you can look for sales at stores like Amazon or when Apple offers very occasional sales, such as Black Friday, or you can often find a good price when you purchase a device from a cellular carrier and you agree to stay with that carrier for a period of time. Even so, the Apple Upgrade program looks like something that will be a good option for many folks. Paying over time is often easier than paying up front, and being able to do so without paying any fees is fantastic. And now, the news of note from the past week:

• This past Sunday, my wife and I decided to start watching the Apple TV show Lucky, but when we selected the first episode, there was no button to play the episode. Indeed, there was no button to play anything. It was almost like I wasn’t an Apple TV subscriber. It turns out that Apple was having a widespread outage affecting lots of different Apple services. And as Marcus Mendes of 9to5Mac reports, Apple had a second, similar outage on Wednesday, July 29. Apple’s network services have been so stable for so long that this really surprised me when I saw it on Sunday—I assumed that I was doing something wrong or experiencing some error on my end. Hopefully, Apple has now figured out the problem, and it won’t happen again.
• My daughter is about to start college. To help her keep track of her items, I purchased some Find My products for her. First, I purchased a four-pack of Apple’s AirTag (second generation) (my review), which is currently at an all-time low price on Amazon of $89.00. Second, for her wallet, I purchased a eufy SmartTrack card (my review), which is also at an all-time low price on Amazon of $16.88. If you need Find My devices, whether for yourself or someone else, these are great deals on great products.
• As Apple prepares the CEO transition from Tim Cook to John Ternus on September 1, a number of people are hoping Ternus reverses Apple’s decisions to add advertising to many of its services. John Gruber of Daring Fireball discussed this a few weeks ago. This week, Jason Snell of Six Colors shared an interesting analogy to hotels that choose to offer the “good soap” because they know that, in the long run, it is better to offer customers a higher-quality product even if they give up some short-term profit. And Gruber noted this week that ads in software are like the Intel stickers on laptops: something that Steve Jobs refused to allow because it degraded the customer experience, even though Intel surely would have paid money to Apple had it included them. Leadership transitions provide an opportunity for change, and like Gruber and Snell, I hope that Ternus makes this change.
• When iOS 27 comes out later this year, it will let you use AI to give you answers based on information on your device while keeping that information private. Similarly, app developer Joshua Langberg reached out to me this week to tell me about a new app he created called Bibliome. It is a Mac app that uses on-device AI to organize and answer questions about your PDF library, and it is private because it runs entirely on your device. It also has an iPhone app that can scan documents and add them to the library. While I haven’t used this app, I like the idea of what it is doing, and I hope to see more products like this in the future that take advantage of AI to surface useful information while preserving privacy.
• For the improved AI in iOS 27 to understand what is on your iPhone, the information on your iPhone is indexed. This week, Apple released iOS 26.6, and as Zac Hall of 9to5Mac notes, one feature is that it is starting to index your iPhone now. That way, when you upgrade to iOS 27, the index will be ready, and you won’t have to wait to take advantage of the improved AI. What a clever idea.
• William Gallagher of AppleInsider shares the story of a Cincinnati man whose life was saved due to the Apple Watch’s fall detection feature.
• Andrew O’Hara of AppleInsider reviews the Twelve South Valet mini, a good-looking leather-lined tray that can hold and charge an iPhone along with other items: keys, a wallet, etc. It is $129.99 on Amazon.
• Ed Hardy of Cult of Mac recommends the Aecooly USB-C Phone Fan, a device that connects to your iPhone’s USB-C port and uses a fan to cool you off. It is $12.99 on Amazon.
• Season 4 of Ted Lasso begins in a week, on August 5th. But the premiere was held this week in Los Angeles, and as Nellie Andreeva of Deadline reports, it was attended not only by the actors but also by Apple’s current CEO, Tim Cook, and its CEO starting next month, John Ternus. Cook said that he plans to watch this season just like he watched the last season: using his Apple Vision Pro. Ternus stated: Season 4 of Ted Lasso begins in a week, on August 5th. But the premiere was held this week in Los Angeles, and as Nellie Andreeva of Deadline reports, it was attended not only by the actors but also by Apple’s current CEO, Tim Cook, and its CEO starting next month, John Ternus. Cook said that he plans to watch this season just like he watched the last season: using his Apple Vision Pro. Ternus stated: “There’s so much great content on Apple TV, and now is just the perfect time for us to keep the momentum up, keep bringing in incredible storytellers and creative folks to keep making it better.” Ternus added that he is looking forward to his new role: “I’ve been at Apple for 25 years, I love Apple, and to have this opportunity is beyond words.”`
• And finally, here is the new trailer for Season 4 of Ted Lasso. Not really many spoilers here for those who have any idea what this next season is about, but if you want to watch something with zero spoilers, you can instead watch a video showing every shot on goal from the first three seasons of Ted Lasso. The trailer:

Do you purchase a new iPhone every year? If so, is the Apple Upgrade program right for you? That’s the first topic that we discuss in this week’s episode of the podcast. We also discuss the reasons for Apple’s new lawsuit against OpenAI, the good and the bad of AI services that provide summaries of your conversations, three incredibly useful new features in iOS 27, a cute eReader, the status of Apple’s blood oxygen patent lawsuit, new prices for Apple One, and more.

In our Where Y’At segment, we discuss the Notify When Left Behind feature of the Find My app and how the Apple Watch came to the rescue for yet another person in an accident.

In our In the Show segment, we discuss the new movie on Apple TV, The Dink, and the upcoming Season 4 of Ted Lasso. (Last night, my wife and I watched The Dink; she thought it was just so-so, but I enjoyed it because it made me laugh.)

Finally, in our In the Know segment, we discuss the Apple Notes app. Brett discusses different ways to lock a note, and I discuss the two different ways to find information in a note.

Click here to listen to the audio podcast, or just listen using your podcast player of choice. You can also watch the episode on YouTube: