The Apple logo on the back of the iPhone 17 Pro might go lower.

Majin Bu:

Apple is planning a significant change in the design of its upcoming iPhone 17 Pro, repositioning the Apple logo. Currently located slightly off-center and below the camera module since the iPhone X, the Apple logo will be moved lower, toward the center bottom of the phone. This recent discovery, reported by direct sources among case manufacturers, marks an evolution in Apple’s aesthetic language. An company we collaborate with, specialized in producing cases for the iPhone 17 Pro line, has confirmed they are already working to start production of cases with the updated design. Let’s explore the details of this recent finding, the reasons behind this choice, and the solutions the industry is developing. […]

This move toward the center bottom could alter the traditional symmetry of Apple devices, paving the way for further innovations. Specifically, the MagSafe system, essential for magnetic charging and accessory attachment, requires precise alignment with the back of the device.

Of course this is speculation, but it begs the question if Apple is revamping MagSafe to make it more versatile as I mentioned in a previous post:

The charging coil diameter will probably not change since it is part of the Qi2 standard, but more magnets can be added in the bottom two-thirds of the iPhone to give accessories more stability, using the 6.3 inch iPhone as the new lower limit.

This can lead to a whole slew of new accessories, such as iPad-like folio cases, ultra-sturdy car mounts, and thinner battery packs.

Lowering the MagSafe ring would throw off its overall symmetry, but maybe Apple will compensate with corner magnets top and bottom.

The vivo X Fold5 - tell me you want an iPhone, without telling me you want an iPhone.

Hadlee Simmons from Android Authority about the vivo X Fold5:

For starters, the company says it’s the first Android phone that can connect to the Apple Watch, supporting phone calls, texts, notification mirroring, synchronization of health/fitness data, and more. However, there are a couple of caveats to this integration. Your Apple Watch needs to be paired with an iPhone first. Furthermore, vivo says this functionality will come via a system update.

Let’s look at the fine print translation at the bottom of Vivo’s main landing page referring to the Apple Watch:

The relevant functions may change due to third-party services. vivo will update the description on the function publicity page according to the actual situation. Please refer to the actual use.

Looks like vivo is taking one out of Apple’s own playbook, but at least they’re letting you know in advance they might change the information on the product page website “according to the actual situation,” because these features might not work as intended and won’t ship out of the box.

Sound familiar?

Once again, don’t buy a device with the promise of new features that are not already baked into the device.

Let’s continue.

Seamless AirPods compatibility with - shoddy translation - “full-link native experience?” Let’s read the fine print once again:

All native function experiences of AirPods pairing with iPhone are not supported for the time being. Please refer to actual use.

I wouldn’t bet on getting all the advanced AirPods functions such as Adaptive Audio and Hearing Aid functionality.

Of course, there’s also “full-compatibility” with the iPhone, with chatGPT translating this quote from this image with two alternate translations:

"Perfectly in sync with Apple, Seamlessly across ecosystems."

"Works flawlessly with Apple, Smooth across ecosystems."

"In perfect harmony with Apple, Effortless cross-ecosystem experience."

In order for your iPhone to work properly, you must do the following “effortless” work (from the same landing page):

It means that the phone on the iPhone can be answered on vivo X Fold5, and the information and notifications on the iPhone can be transferred to vivo X Fold5 for viewing. The conditions of use are as follows:

(1) Download the "vivo mutual transmission" application on the iPhone (iOS system needs to be version 15.0 or above; "vivo mutual transmission" on the iOS terminal needs to be version 5.2.30 or above);

(2) vivo X Fold5 You need to log in to the same vivo account as the iPhone, and there are no other devices at both ends;

(3) The dual-end Bluetooth needs to be paired, and the distance requirement is within 10 meters;

(4) The notification flow needs to turn on the three-party application notification permission and the notification flow switch. iOS needs to turn off the [Filter Unknown Contacts] switch to experience the flow of verification codes.

The interface UI is for reference only, please refer to the actual use. This function needs to be implemented with third-party services. The relevant functions may change due to third-party services. vivo will update the description on the function publicity page according to the actual situation. Please refer to the actual use.

I think I now how to solve all these compatibility issues and how to avoid all these hoops and hurdles:

Get an iPhone.

Regarding CarPlay Ultra, car maker says, “Don't try to invade our own systems.”

Tim Hardwick from MacRumors reporting from a paywalled Financial Times report:

Apple is facing mounting resistance from automakers over CarPlay Ultra, the next-generation version of its CarPlay software system for vehicles that was announced last month.

A new (paywalled) Financial Times report claims several major brands are walking back their earlier commitments to support the upgraded dashboard software. German luxury manufacturers Mercedes-Benz and Audi have both distanced themselves from the system, along with Volvo, Polestar, and Renault.

It's a major retreat from Apple's 2022 announcement, which originally named 14 automakers as future CarPlay Ultra partners, including all of those mentioned above.

CarPlay Ultra goes far beyond traditional CarPlay by taking control of the entire dashboard experience. The system displays vehicle information like temperature, speed, and fuel levels alongside iPhone apps, creating what Apple calls "a unified and consistent experience across all the driver's screens."

Mercedes-Benz had previously expressed reluctance to cede dashboard control to Apple. Now other premium brands are following suit, citing concerns about maintaining their own software experiences and revenue streams from in-car services. From the report:

Some companies have found Apple's foray into driver screens as over-reach. One executive at Renault, which is developing a vehicle mainly controlled by software with Google and Qualcomm, said the French carmaker told Apple: "Don't try to invade our own systems."

My take a few months ago:

But it begs the question for car manufacturers:

Why go through a redundant process and work with a second UI that is less reliable?

The car manufacturer already has to make a UI with all of its features for their vehicles, so why try to reproduce that same experience with CarPlay 2 that requires phone projection? Phone projection or tethering (call it what you want) will always have a less reliable connection than the car’s built-in software. It just seems like a waste of resources for automakers in an already low-margin industry, not to mention a safety concern if an entire dash filled with CarPlay 2 projection all of a sudden disconnects from your phone because of some bug. […]

With Apple’s huge stance on privacy, there has to be some friction with how deeply CarPlay 2 integrates into a manufacturer’s system, and how much of that data Apple doesn’t want to be made available for sale.

There’s a tug of war between automakers and Apple. If something goes awry, who is to blame for an accident? Likewise, if data is being sold without people knowing about it, who is to blame? Neither party wants to bear the brunt of bad news, but if accidents happen, both the automaker and Apple will be blamed. [...]

As the industry moves towards more automation, CarPlay 2 will be even less relevant since there are huge safety concerns and no manufacturer wants to rely on software that is not 100% in their control.

Most automakers will stick to regular CarPlay and treat it as a built-in app, but don’t put all your hopes in CarPlay Ultra making it into your next vehicle unless you’re buying an Aston Martin.

New alarm design in iOS 26 might make you oversleep.

Tim Hardwick from MacRumors (click link to see the controversial change):

In the iOS 26 beta, Apple has redesigned the alarm screen in the Clock app, giving it a cleaner look with a larger time display and significantly bigger buttons. When the alarm goes off, you'll now see two large, equal-sized buttons for Stop and Snooze placed side by side at the bottom of the screen.

While the redesign fits with Apple's broader visual refresh in iOS 26, it also seems to address a problem the company had already solved: reducing the chances of you hitting Stop instead of Snooze when you're half-awake and fumbling for your phone. Ironically, internal testing once showed that making both buttons the same size actually made that mistake more likely.

According to Jack Fields, a former Apple engineer and head writer at Kernel Extension, the new layout contradicts internal research he was involved in during his time at the company. That testing included a version of the Clock app that logged user interactions to a heat map, tracking exactly where people tapped the screen upon waking.

"It was recording where our sleepy hands were smacking around on the screen in order to see how accurate we were in turning off the alarms," says Fields. What they found was perhaps counterintuitive: when Stop and Snooze were made the same size and placed close together, users were 30% more likely to hit Stop by accident. In other words, it actually increased the chances of oversleeping.

This will change 100%. Apple should keep the fat SNOOZE button and place it higher, and make the STOP button small and lower like it was before.

Another reason why I have 5 or 6 alarms for my unorthodox sleeping pattern.

Cure your smartphone addiction with the methaphone.

Arielle Pardes from WIRED (also News+ link):

Eric Antonow was in a coffee shop with his family when he felt the familiar, twitchy urge to reach for his phone. He patted his pockets for relief—the cool, thin slab was still there. He joked to his family that, like an addict jonesing for a hit, he would one day need a medical-grade solution to detox from his phone. Opioid addicts had methadone. iPhone addicts would need … methaphones.

“It was a joke, but I got two laughs from my two teenagers, which is gold,” Antonow says. “I was like, ‘I’m going to commit to the bit.’”

Here’s a description from the product page at Mindless Toys:

For 60 years, heroin addicts have used methadone to help break their addiction. Now you can step down your dependency on your mobile device with this: methaphone.

Leave your phone without the cravings or withdrawal

We carry our phones everywhere. It feels strange and unsettling when we can't feel them. We twitch, worried we've lost something.

methaphone can help you manage cravings and withdrawal symptoms. It can fill that hole in your back pocket. It can fill that hole in your hand. Opioid addicts have used methadone to help step down from dependency, and now you have this. 

The product does look impressive.

Liquid Glass to the next level.

Although the website is obviously a gag like rentahitman.com, I would say the analogy is more like:

smartphone is to methaphone as an antidepressant is to placebo.

watchOS 26 doesn’t come with new watch faces, for now at least.

The only “new” watch face in watchOS 26 is an enhanced Photos watch face:

The popular Photos watch face is enhanced with numerals made of Liquid Glass, allowing users to see even more of their photo.

That’s it. Unless you’re a Series 10 user who is obsessive about the fine details, that’s the only benefit you’re getting from a watch face point of view. Series 10 users get to enjoy an always-on display with ticking seconds hand for many older watch faces. To make things even worse for non-Series 10 users, Apple got rid of five watch faces, but I honestly won’t miss them.

In the past, Apple did debut new watch faces in June for the beta releases, but they saved the bulk of their newer watch faces for the public watchOS release in September. Some of those watch faces were exclusive to a newly designed Apple Watch, and some were back ported to older watches. You can see the (rough) history of what watch faces were revealed at what time frame below:

• watchOS 2 beta - Photo Albums, Timelapse

• watchOS 3 beta - Minnie Mouse, Activity and Numerals

• watchOS 4 beta - Siri, Toy Story, Kaleidoscope

• watchOS 4 public release - Explorer (debuted with the Series 3)

• watchOS 5 beta - Pride

• watchOS 5 public release - Infograph, Infograph Modular, Liquid Metal, Vapor, Fire and Water (all debuted with the Series 4 and its bigger display)

• watchOS 6 beta - Numerals Mono, Numerals Duo, Modular Compact, Gradient, Solar Dial, California

• watchOS 6 public release - no new watch faces, but they debuted the Always-On Display for the Series 5.

• watchOS 7 beta - Chronograph Pro

• watchOS 7 public release - GMT, Count Up, Typograph, Memoji, Stripes, Artist

• watchOS 8 beta - Portraits

• watchOS 8 public release - Modular Duo, Contour, World Timer

• watchOS 9 beta - Lunar, Playtime, Metropolitan, Astronomy

• watchOS 9 public release - no additional watch faces, but the Apple Watch Ultra is debuted with the exclusive Wayfinder watch face

• watchOS 10 beta - Palette, Snoopy

• watchOS 10 public release - Solar Analog (debuted with the Series 9)

• watchOS 11 beta - Photos (a redesign more than an actual new watch face)

• watchOS 11 - Flux, Reflections (both debuted with the Series 10), and Unity Rhythm debuted months later with a software update.

• watchOS 26 beta - Liquid Glass on the Photos watch face.

• watchOS 26 public release - ???

This isn’t an exhaustive list of every single watch face that has debuted, but I think I got most of them. There is no fixed pattern here either, but a minimum of two new watch faces isn’t a lot to ask for.

I’m thinking since the Series 11 is a minimal upgrade over the Series 10, we will get a few new watch faces to make the Series 11 more relevant. I’m fully expecting Apple to release at least two different Liquid Glass watch faces in the Fall - an analog variant that resembles a modern version of the Color watch face, and some sort of playful, bubbly digital face.

An exclusive new Ultra watch face is also a given.

The best water bottle for iPhone users.

Great landing page for the REEVUS Insulated Stainless Steel Bottle. Everything here makes sense and shows its capabilities well. I’ve been using this bottle for over two months now, and I have some points I would like to add for anyone who wants the perfect water bottle:

It really is very minimal with a cap, a bottle, and a Find My tracker. That’s it. Cleaning is simple and the wide mouth swallows even the biggest ice cubes with ease.

The diameter of the bottle is the same as the width of an iPhone 16 Pro Max. It is as tall as a 16 Pro Max and a pair of AirPods Pro vertically stacked on top of each other.

You see, the iPhone also has a measuring tool!

For car cup holders, it should fit most modern vehicles, but your mileage may vary. If your Pro Max device of choice fits your cupholder vertically, so should this bottle.

The landing page shows the phone on the MagSafe lid as a place for both creating and watching content, but it is also usable with the lid detached. This makes more sense since there’s nothing worse than having messy hands while watching content, only to realize you have to remove your phone, and open the lid to get a drink. Just remove the lid before eating, and now you can get your dose of YouTube (and your drink of choice) uninterrupted. The lid is on its side when watching content this way, so it won’t get dirty and contaminate your drink.

Watch content while keeping your lid clean.

The REEVUS tracker doesn’t have a replaceable battery, but it lasts 300 weeks (almost 6 years).

The MagSafe handle also works well for keeping your MagSafe compatible AirPods Pro 2 or AirPods 4 in a safe spot.

Comes with a spare magnetic ring that you can apply to your device or case, with neat little diagrams showing you exactly where to place the magnet depending on what phone you have.

The circular handle is just as sturdy as it was on day one which is assuring for long term durability.

Putting the tracker on and off the lid is my new fidget toy.

It’s taken some serious falls onto concrete but it only gives it more character and fits into that “journey” lifestyle.

Sure, it’s $90, but it is well worth it, especially since Journey is (seemingly) always running some sort of promo to give you 15-20% off. A much greater quality experience with useful features compared to those overhyped Stanleys.

If I were to buy this again, I would get the black bottle with the white and yellow cap. Just fun contrast with a hint of sunny side up eggs.

And…it’s gone. (Updated - presentation is still up.)

Update 6/22 - The Presentation is still there, but buried way down below on their education website.

Apple’s Parent Presentation video (released yesterday) has been pulled from their YouTube channel, and so has the slide deck that could have been used to convince your parents.

How to convince your family to buy you a MacBook Air.

Clever (and desperate?) Parent Presentation provided by Apple to convince your parents to buy you a proper MacBook instead of a cheap windows laptop.

Do yourself a favor and don’t forget to add a slide telling your parents that you can also get free AirPods, a $179 value.

Can’t believe Apple didn’t include that in the slide deck.

Apple Maps is just better than Google Maps.

There’s just more greenery and polish in the maps with the default Explore view compared to Google Maps. I mean this picture speaks for itself:

Google’s affair looks like a beta.

One of the best features of Apple Maps is ironically when you’re not even in the app. The Dynamic Island shows you when and where to turn, making it a real convenience when you’re using other apps. Google Maps on the other hand just gives you a static GPS arrow in the Dynamic Island. You can see Apple’s integration in the Dynamic Island while using Google Maps, and vice versa.

Why didn’t I know about this weather complication before?

I thought this was definitely a watchOS 26 complication, but it is not. It’s been on watchOS 11 (and maybe earlier?) for God knows how long, but for some reason I’m just discovering it.

In my opinion the best, big weather complication by Apple. You get the current temperature, high and low, and even current conditions in a friendly and easily readable format.

The Notes App on watchOS 26 is great for shopping lists.

You can only see three items at a time, but it’s the only Note type that you can interact with and check off the bubbles when you complete a task. All other Note types are read-only.

At least for now.

Absolutely perfect for grocery shopping and packing for trips making sure you completed all tasks. Much better than my previous solution for grocery shopping, which was to put my caseless iPhone with an all-glass front and back on a metal shopping cart that clinks, clanks, and bumps over tiles. Sometimes I would text the grocery list to myself so I could see it on the watch, but the Notes app with the bubble checkers is perfect.

Small victories for a small device.

Bringing back the Library in the Photos app is today’s “flush headphone jack” moment.

Say what you want about Liquid Glass. Whether you hate it or love it, what is no doubt a victory for everyone (unless you’re clinically insane) is the return of the Library in the Photos app. A staple feature that was always present from the beginning of iPhone was harshly taken away from us in iOS 18, only to return to its former glory.

The Library is like the Home Button for the Photos app. Simply tap the Library to see everything in chronological order. No more frustration in sorting between your recent Collections only to be frustrated trying to find photos you took just a few days ago.

If WWDC was a true live event, you would have seen people cheer when they saw the clip showing the return of the Library, exactly like when the flush headphone jack was announced with the iPhone 3G.

The iPhone (aka iPhone 2G), debuted with huge fanfare, but it had one glaring hardware issue, which was a recessed headphone jack. That meant any headphone jack with a wider diameter plug just wouldn’t work with your iPhone, the ultimate iPod. Every iPod prior to the iPhone had a flush headphone jack and you could use any pair of headphones with it, but now all of a sudden your special headphones were not compatible. You needed a 3.5mm to 3.5mm adapter in order to use your non-Apple headphones. Back in those days, I had a Nokia N95 8GB, and I would scoff at those iPhone users with their substandard headphone jack since mine was flush, even though the headphone jack on the Nokia N95 was side mounted!

It was one year of agony for early iPhone adopters (similar to iOS 18’s removal of the Library), but one that never surfaced again.*

Here’s to many more fantastic years with the Library.

---

*The iPhone 7 did get rid of the headphone jack, but that was justified.

Apple quickly fixes its Liquid Glass blunder.

If you shared the YouTube video early on, you got a special surprise thanks to a “very unfortunate play button” — but Apple fixed it quickly, maybe even within the hour.

Just like Imodium.

watchOS 26 lets you use your Apple Watch to check the battery status of your AirPods.

I think this is new for watchOS 26.

You can check the battery life of your AirPods (and presumably other connected accessories) from your Apple Watch. If your iPhone is unlocked and in use, the ability to check goes away probably because it assumes you’re using the AirPods with your iPhone. A great feature for those who use a cellular connection on Apple Watch.

What would really be nice is the ability to check the battery life of your iPhone from your watch too.

Apple removed these watch faces from watchOS 26.

These are some of the most useless watch faces, so it’s a good thing they’re gone. Fire and Water looked cool, but it’s not cool to not know the time.

watchOS 26 brings the Always-On Display with ticking seconds hand to many more watch faces for the Series 10.

I was getting a bit nervous since the WWDC keynote didn’t mention a peep about watch faces. My original article was going to be titled, “Lamenting watchOS 26,” and I might have gone into a poetic rant, but nay, this deed shall I no longer pursue.

It took me forever to finally get the watchOS 26 beta on my beloved Jet Black Series 10, but I was lying in bed and finally got the “hello” screen. I instantly went to an analog watch face (Solar Analog in this case), slapped the screen to turn it off, and behold, the seconds hand still kept ticking.

Disappointed I was not, although I was ready for it. Sleep was fighting with me, but curiosity won at the end. I tried out a bunch of other watch faces, and many, not all, analog watch faces that are full screen now support the ticking seconds hand.

Most functional ones that mimic real watch faces support it, but the more flamboyant ones like Kaleidoscope do not. It is still a bit inconsistent because Nike Analog supports it, but Nike Hybrid doesn’t.

It’s a work in progress, and hopefully we get support for more watch faces as the betas continue. My rough count puts supported watch faces at around 20, versus 5 or 6 just the day before.

Can a clear case stain your iPhone?

I thought was just some dust or some sort of residue, but no matter what I tried to do, the stains wouldn’t come off. Even the case branding was faintly embossed onto the iPhone.

The evidence speaks for itself.

You can see the Spigen branding transferred over to the blue anodized aluminum on the iPhone 13 mini…

along with “Air cushion technology.”

Every side of the device has stains that are a direct result of the clear case being on the device for 3 years and 9 months. How do I know the case was on the device for 3 years and 9 months? The seller told me he had this case on since he bought the device brand new, and after looking up the serial number, it was purchased in September 2021.

I believe him.

Over time, the oxidation, UVA light, and heat got to the case giving it a yellow fade, and also transferring some of that tinge via a chemical reaction to the iPhone itself.

Maybe Apple can put these photos in a future version of “Designed by Apple in California,” and my phone could compete with Evans Hankey’s iPhone.

Although this particular case is less than 4 years old, the actual case was probably released alongside the iPhone 12 mini, making the chemical recipe of this case 5 years old. Case makers have gotten better since then, making clear cases that are less prone to turning yellow. Apple’s clear cases also change color after many years, but they haven’t left any stains on my phone nor my wife’s phone. My wife had a 12 Pro Max with an Apple clear case for almost four years, and no stains. Granted, her phone was made of stainless steel instead of aluminum. She does have a clear case on her aluminum iPhone 16 Plus, so we’ll see what happens after a few years.

You can clearly see (pun intended) the exposed parts of the phone were spared from staining.

Could this issue have been avoided with some good-old phone hygiene by taking the phone out of the case and cleaning it once a week? Even once a month? I would say yes. The fact is sweat and hand oils do get inside cases, and prolonged contact with heat and UV light will discolor it.

The irony of the situation is hilarious, since the phone was supposed to be protected by the case, and instead got permanently stained by it.

This editing feature in Photos will save you tons of storage.

If you crop a video and select “Save Video,” the storage size of your video won’t decrease. You have to select, “Save Video as New Clip” to get a reduction in file size, and then delete the original video.

The “Save Video” option crops your video, but still retains the whole video in case you change your mind. When you go back to editing the video under the “crop” option, you will see the entire video with your cropped selection. I had a 10GB slow-mo video that was 42 minutes long, but I only needed 1 minute from it. After cropping my video and selecting “Save Video,” the file size was still 10GB. I was sure I didn’t need all that extra footage, so I selected, “Save Video as New Clip,” and then deleted the original 10GB video.

My new file size? 342MB.

How I am preparing to test iOS 26 next week.

iOS 26 will be the biggest makeover since iOS 7, and if you remember those days, the first developer betas were brutal if you used them on your primary device. Our phones have become more and more a 3rd arm that we must have, and it isn’t wise to put any developer beta on your primary device.

At least the first few.

For that reason, I have obtained an iPhone 13 mini as my testing device, which I picked for several reasons:

1. I wanted to see how well optimized iOS 26 will be on Apple’s smallest screen.

2. I had an iPhone 12 mini in the past, and this will be a nice flashback to a more comfortable form factor.

3. The iPhone 13 mini supports FaceID in landscape among other improvements and is only a few bucks more expensive than an iPhone 12 mini.

4. I still use a physical SIM card, so I needed an iPhone with a physical SIM in case I decide to change primary devices. I flew to Canada to buy a 16 Pro Max last year to get the SIM slot version, so I can easily swap if needed. This way I have an easy out and won’t be stranded without cellular function no matter how unstable my phone is. There’s nothing worse than unstable beta software and trying to port your eSIM out to another phone.

Just a few more days to go!