iPhones Running iOS 18.1 Automatically Reboot and Lock Down After Being Idle for 96 Hours

This is an interesting new iPhone feature that causes an iPhone to automatically reboot if it's turned on but hasn’t been unlocked for 96 hours.

The thinking is that if your phone is taken from you then it’s harder to hack after it reboots, which is completely true.

Law enforcement has recently encountered this new feature from iPhones they’ve confiscated. The phones that law enforcement have been storing were inexplicably rebooting after 96 hours.

How It Works

When you turn on your iPhone, after it’s been completely powered down, or reboot it, your keys are still encrypted. Entering your six digit PIN unlocks the keys.

This is why, after you turn a phone on, but don’t unlock it, phone calls or text messages don’t display the names of who they’re from on the Lock Screen - rather the notifications simply show the phone number of the sender. The iPhone can’t decrypt a lot of things, like your address book, until you enter your PIN after turning it on or rebooting.

Once you unlock your iPhone for the first time, all the keys are decrypted and kept in memory until the next time you reboot the phone.

iPhone Announcement Anniversary

January 10, 2007

The first iPhone was announced 17 years ago, today, approximately 41 minutes into Steve Jobs's MacWorld Keynote address. This is the reason that Apple ads display 9:41 AM in their marketing materials. 

At the time, I was working as a software engineer at the Apple Online Store. Like everyone else, I was surprised and amazed at the product announcement. 

The next day, I printed out a color image of the iPhone, glued it to corrugated cardboard, and sent photos of me holding it to friends joking that I had an actual iPhone and pointing out that the photo wasn't photoshopped. (The iPhone wouldn't ship until six months later.) My coworker and I even took photos of us holding the cardboard cutout in front of 1 Infinite Loop.

I wouldn't see an actual iPhone in the wild until sometime later when I was in a meeting and Tim Cook walked in, pulled it out of his pocket and flashed it at us while saying, "This is so cool." We were all champing at the bit to get our hands on one.

iPhone 13 Pro Order Experience

It has been many years since I ordered a new Apple product on launch day. My old iPhone was long in the tooth and the camera on the iPhone 13 Pro is a perfect reason to upgrade. So, I pre-ordered my iPhone, yesterday, and then set this morning's alarm for 4:40 AM PDT.

Yesterday's pre pre-ordering yielded nothing since it couldn't be found, this morning. So, I went ahead and started an entirely new order.

There were plenty of reports from people who couldn't use their Apple Card to make the purchase. Although this wasn't as bad as the iPhone 4 launch disaster, it was still a significant cause of concern since the Apple Card will give you back 3% as cash when you use it for online Apple orders.

After my order was placed with a confirmed delivery date of next Friday, I made multiple attempts to change my credit card payment from my debit card to my Apple Card. That was not a fun experience.

The first CSR I spoke to was amazingly helpful, but she just didn't have the capability, in her system, to make the adjustment for me. She recommended calling back later when my order had moved to the next step, after processing the initial authorization.

About an hour later, I called back. The CSR I spoke to told me that changing payment options wasn't possible. She said that I'd have to cancel my order and reorder the new iPhone 13. That was obviously not an option because I wasn't willing to wait an additional three weeks due the delay from all the orders that had stacked up since the time I had originally placed my order.

Then I tried something that has always worked for me: tweeting to @AppleSupport. Unfortunately, this was the one time they couldn't help me.

Next, I texted Apple via Messages. They recommended that I call Customer Service specialist at 1-800-676-2775. That did the trick. I could immediately tell that the CSR I was speaking with was highly energized and engaged in solving my problem which only took about five minutes. Persistence pays off.

Interesting Apple ID Issue

Problem

A friend called me this morning because he was having an issue with apps on his iPhone. After resetting his Apple ID password, the App Store wouldn't authenticate him so he couldn't update any apps on his iPhone. My first suspicion was, since this problem happened soon after he updated to iOS 12.1.3, there was a bug preventing his credentials from propagating to all of his devices.

Solution

The actual problem is my buddy originally downloaded some apps with a different Apple ID than the one he's currently using on his iPhone. The apps continued to run fine until it came time to update them. The solution was simple. The current apps only needed to be deleted on his iPhone and then re-downloaded. An easy fix, especially since all of his apps were free. If his apps weren't free, it would have required a bit of help from Apple's billing department.

Lesson

The lesson learned is be very cautious of changing Apple IDs. I've been using the same one since I worked at Apple when Steve Jobs introduced iTools and every employee was automatically assigned our original Apple ID. The second lesson I learned many years ago is if you've ever worked for Apple then you will be the first call that a friend or family member makes for Apple tech support. A calling that I do enjoy. 

iPhone XS Waterproofing

I forgot I placed my iPhone XS on the hot tub cover.
When I flipped the lid closed, into the hot tub my phone went.

The new iPhone XS is suppose to be waterproof; or at least water-resistant for up to 30 minutes when submerged in two meters of water. I have always been very careful with my iPhone. After more than a decade of iPhones, I've never dropped one in water or cracked a screen, etc. 

Last night, I decided to use my iPhone while soaking in the hot tub. I've only done this a couple times since getting the iPhone XS, last month. (I don't even have a case for it.) And, wouldn't you know it, I dropped it into the hot tub for about 30 seconds (That's how long it took me to find it.) I pulled it out of the water and, lo and behold, it hasn't skipped a beat. It's working perfectly.

I would have never brought it into the hot tub, had it not been water resistant, but, now it's nice to know that it works as advertised.

Apple Talk Mystery Photo [u]

Here's a minor mystery that has me stumped.

The group selfie photo I snapped.

Last week, I gave my Apple Talk in the Bay Area to a business delegation from China. I began the talk with a group selfie. As I snapped a few pictures, the group got up from their seats and huddled in the center of the room so they would be in my photo.

The group selfie photo that an audience member posted.

A little after midnight, a woman who attended my talk posted some photos from my presentation (she's in the front row, next to my left ear). At first, I didn't think anything of it when I saw she posted one of my selfie pics. Then, when I looked closer, I noticed that the selfie pic she posted wasn't one of mine. After comparing all of my group selfie pics to her photo, I noticed that it was from a slightly different vantage point. This had me (and still has me) puzzled. When I snapped my photo, I was standing in front of the room, up against the whiteboard, and there was a desk between me and the audience. In other words, no one was in front of me or near me.

So, how or where did she get a similar group selfie photo? 

After looking closely at her photo, I noticed a black line, in the upper left of her photo, which I've concluded is the edge of my phone. It seems that the picture she posted was a photo taken of my phone's screen as I positioned my phone and preparing to take the group selfie. Clever.

This theory of mine seems to make sense, except I can't figure out where the camera was located in the audience (lots of audience members snapped photos throughout my presentation). If you take a selfie photo of someone when they're taking a photo of your phone's screen then you'd expect to see them in the selfie picture.

My best guess, without claiming any "my phone was hacked" conspiracy theories is that the camera, which took the photo of my phone's screen, was out of frame or blocked from view by another person, despite the fact that her photo looks to have been taken head-on. And that theory seems to make sense because the same woman, later at Apple Park, showed me some photos she took of my presentation and she made the point that her phone's camera software (not an iPhone) had the ability to remove the keystone effect when a photo is not taken perpendicular to the subject. Basically, her phone's software has the ability to remove distortion from photos taken at sharp angles.

I still want to know where the camera was located in the audience that snapped the photo of my phone screen. Hmm.

Update 24 May 2018: Hear ye, hear ye. It took a couple weeks, but the mystery has been solved. It turns out that the inexplicable selfie photo was taken by my translator. She was standing next to me, in the front of the room, as we began and she took a selfie at the same moment I did, except she was out-of-frame in her photo. 

Apple's Q1 Earnings Results

1 Infinite Loop: The Mothership

Apple's upcoming Q1 earnings results, ending December 2017, have my attention. There is no shortage of pessimistic speculation that the iPhone X is selling worse than expected. That has driven down the stock price from its all time high of $180/share to the mid-$160s. That represents about a $75B reduction in Apple's market cap.

Some of the headlines sound alarming mentioning that Apple is cutting iPhone X production. Regardless of how well the iPhone X sold over the Holidays, Apple would still cut production for this quarter since it's not Christmas. But, at this point, that's speculative rationalization on my part. 

I read this article comparing one naysayer's prediction to previous articles forecasting doom and gloom.

Today, I saw a series of tweets from Ryan Jones who seemed to put iPhone X estimates in perspective (prefaced with my own notes).

Dec 2017 EPS Avg:3.78 High:3.88 Low:3.68

Currently, the Street is expecting Apple to sell 61 million iPhones in the second quarter, but Piecyk believes it will be closer to be 53 million.

I miss talking about iPhone units sales. :) It used to be my jam.

My Q1 2018 guess is 83M units (up 7%) at $825 ASP (up 19%).

= Total $68.5 BIIIILLION. Just from iPhone. Previous record $54.5B.

🔥 Up 26% on the biggest product ever. Oh and it's 10 years old. 🔥

Weak iPhone X demand:

WSJ says iPhone X Q2 cut was from 40M planned to 20M.

History: Q2 sales for the last two years were 51.1M and 50.8M. So 40M seems idiotic for just iPhone X.

80% of sales (40M) for the most expensive iPhone? No way.

40% of sales (20M)? Sounds bout right.

Let's just us our brains...iPhone X is probably 33-50% of all iPhone sales.

Recent Q2 sales were 61M, 51M, 50M.

If Apple forecasted 40M iPhone X, that would be 65-80% of sales to the highest end model. In Q2

Nope.

20M would be 33-40% iPhone X.

Yep. Sounds bout right.

Personally, I think the new UI, with no home button, is great. I found it simple to get used to and I love having a screen that's bigger than the iPhone 7+/8+, in the same form factor as the iPhone 7/8. Face ID works much better than I expected, too. There's no doubt that Apple will incorporate these two key features into all iPhones if the component costs are reasonable.

Here's Wall Street's earning forecast:

iPhone Backup Trick

Problem

What do you do when you run out of disk space on your Mac and can't backup your iPhone?

Solution

Create a symbolic link for your iTunes backup folder, linking it to an external hard drive.

Details 

There are two ways to backup your iPhone. You can back it up to either iCloud or iTunes. iCloud is convenient because it happens automatically (daily) when the phone is charging and on a WiFi network. But, the downside of an iCloud backup is that the restoring process can take days – many days – depending on your bandwidth. Even if you have a blazing fast Internet connection, the bottleneck will be with iCloud's servers since your personal data isn't cached on a CDN.

I typically keep my iPhone set to backup to iCloud until I buy a new iPhone. With a new iPhone, I'll connect it to iTunes and choose to make an encrypted backup to my hard drive and then I'll restore the backup to the new iPhone. (Choosing the encrypted iPhone backup option will save your passwords, and other sensitive data, thereby saving time when you restore from your backup.)

But, since my iPhone 7 has 256 GB of storage, I quickly discovered that I didn't have that much free space on my MacBook Air. What to do? I tried freeing up some space, but that wasn't enough.

Then I remembered that I had a 2 TB external hard drive with enough free space. So, I dropped to the command line and created a symbolic link to the external drive. To accomplish this, go to Terminal and cd to:

/Users/username/Library/Application Support/MobileSync

I temporarily renamed the Backup folder, under MobileSync, to Original Backup. Then I created the UNIX symbolic link, with the name Backup, to a Backup folder on the external drive:

ln -s /Volumes/MyExternalDrive/Backup 

Once I created the link to the external drive, I changed my backup option, in iTunes, to "This computer" and clicked the Back Up Now button. It took a few hours, but that was better than a few days. After the backup completed, I connected my new iPhone X to iTunes and restored the back up (which took about two more hours), then deleted the symbolic link, and changed the Original Backup folder name to Backup.

Initial Setup

Old iPhone 7 shaking hands with my new iPhone X

Finally, my favorite part of the iPhone X is, to initially set it up, I simply placed my old iPhone 7 next to my new iPhone X. The iPhone X sensed the older iPhone 7, asked for my PIN, and viola, it began transferring the initial setup information.

Gestures

Need help learning the new iPhone X gestures?
This 5' 30" video will get you primed up.

Face ID

Face ID seems to be working as expected. Frequently, in the time it takes for me to pick up my iPhone X and adjust my grip, it's unlocked.

With Apple's Face ID on iPhone X, the odds of a false positive is down to 1 in a million. That loosely means there are 7,500 people in the world who can unlock my iPhone X – that's a huge improvement over Touch ID which theoretically gave 1.5 million people the ability to unlock my iPhone with their fingerprint.

Unlocked GSM iPhone X Confusion

I'd like to upgrade to an iPhone X – as soon as one's in stock. Today, I stopped by my local Apple Store and spoke to an employee about which one I should get. For my last few versions, I've had unlocked, contract-free iPhones with AT&T until I switched to Cricket. The rep at the Apple store told me two key things. First, that all iPhones are now unlocked (and have been for a while). Second, I'd have to get one of the iPhone models that work with Verizon or Sprint. That didn't make sense since Verizon and Sprint are CDMA while AT&T, Cricket (which is owned by AT&T), and T-Mobile use GSM.

When I got home I called 1-800-My-Apple. The CSR referred me to Apple's LTE carrier support page (which only makes it clear which carries the phone may work with, not a particular model). While I looked that over, he explained to me that Apple's GSM iPhones only support GSM, whereas their CDMA iPhones support both. That now makes sense – I always wondered why the CDMA iPhones had a SIM tray (part of the reason is that the LTE standard also uses SIM cards).
I learn something new every day.

Further reading:
https://9to5mac.com/2017/10/26/iphone-x-carrier-compatibilitiy
https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2407896,00.asp

Steal an iPhone, Then What?

My buddy recently spent a couple weeks in Europe, traveling with friends. He went there for Oktoberfest then visited Italy, the Netherlands, and France. While in Paris, someone stole his buddy's iPhone. They tracked it down to a street corner where they found a group of hooligans (there's a word I rarely use); when confronted, the kids ran off.

My buddy and I both used to work at Apple, so we discussed what someone could do with a stolen iPhone. We concluded that a stolen iPhone is useless without the login and password, even if you replace the SIM card. Around 2010, iPhones and iPads were becoming hot items, making them a key item to steal. A common problem on the NYC subway was that a thief would snatch it out of a victim's hand when exiting a subway car as the doors were closing.

In response to the rash of thefts, Apple began making it impossible for an iPhone (or iPad) to be used without the proper credentials. These devices can't be reset to factory settings; so, if you forget your PIN or Apple ID login and password then your device is bricked.

UPDATE 8 Nov 2017: I asked a question at this morning's Tech Coffee, "What good is a stolen iPhone?" and an entrepreneur answered with "Spare parts."
Can iPhones be stripped like a stolen car? Perhaps the screen?

iPhone X Form Factor and Security [u]

Perhaps. One solution is to turn off
the phone at LEO encounters

Over the past two days, a surprising number of friends and colleagues have asked for my opinion on the iPhone X. This new smartphone seems to have received a lot of attention.

While I love the new features, I'm concerned about the form factor. Initially, it seemed to be as big as the iPhone 6/7 Plus models, which is too big for me. (I've been using the iPhone 6 & 7.) 

It turns out I was wrong about the size. Compared to the iPhone 7, the iPhone X is about about one tenth of an inch higher and about 0.15" wider. So, it's slightly bigger than the iPhone 7. And, compared to the iPhone 7 Plus, the iPhone X is about half an inch shorter and quarter of inch narrower, making the X significantly smaller than the 7+. The beauty of the iPhone X is that the screen is more than a quarter of an inch larger than the screen on the iPhone Plus models (6, 7, and 8). That's a bigger screen on a smaller phone due to the X's edge-to-edge design.

So, the bottom line is I'm considering getting the iPhone X. 

Face ID

Instead of using Touch ID's fingerprint recognition feature for authentication, the iPhone X uses Face ID, which recognizes a person the same way humans do, by their face. Apple claims that Face ID is 20x more accurate than Touch ID, which is great. But, some people have raised alarms that law enforcement officers (LEOs) could take you into custody and simply unlock your phone by pointing the screen at your face. Could that really happen? Perhaps. But, I've seen alarmist headlines before ("Apple Crosses The Line With New iPhone Feature"). One way to protect against this is to simply not enable this feature for people who are deeply concerned. Another option, if Face ID is turned on, would be to simply turn off your phone before a LEO encounter (i.e. crossing international borders, etc). 

Each time the iPhone is turned on, the secure enclave, which processes your Touch ID or Face ID credentials, remains inactive until a person manually enters their PIN to decrypt this information. It appears, during Craig Federighi's demonstration of Face ID, that his demo phone had been restarted but not unlocked with the PIN, prior to his demo. This prevented Face ID from working. While that's the correct technical behavior, it happened at the wrong time – but he seemed to recover well during the demo.

Update: Apple's Craig Federighi details Face ID and how to quickly disable it.

Hail Cricket, Farewell AT&T

AT&T LTE Bandwidth

I've used AT&T Wireless service since the first iPhone was released, exactly ten years ago, yesterday. AT&T offered unlimited data and then, a couple years later, they instituted limited data plans. I stayed with AT&T since they grandfathered me in with their unlimited data plan. Even today, I still had an unlimited data plan with AT&T, but they'd throttle it at a certain point. The data would still come through, but at a much slower rate.

However, data was never a big selling point for me. The real issue for me was monthly cost. Phone companies utilize a price elasticity business model, which means they figure out how to charge the most they can to maximize their profits. If they charge too little, they leave money on the table. If they charge too much, then customers will switch to another company. 

Cricket LTE Bandwidth

Generally, cutting edge smart phones cost $500 – $1,000 or more. To defray these costs, the wireless carriers will subsidize the price of the phone by having their customers sign a two-year wireless service contract. This works well since many people do not frequently hop from wireless carrier to wireless carrier. But I like the idea of not being committed to a single carrier. So, I typically purchase an unlocked phone. Purchasing an unlocked phone means I had no service contract commitment, plus I can insert any companies' or countries' SIM card.

About two years ago, my AT&T bill was a very ridiculous $150/month. I never used up my minutes so I dropped my plan down to a moderately ridiculous $95/month which kept creeping up until it recently hit $111/month due to inflation. That's when a couple friends told me about Cricket Wireless which is now owned by AT&T. Cricket utilizes nearly all of AT&T's cell towers meaning that I'll have the same level of coverage. But they key selling point of Cricket is that it costs way less than AT&T.

Switching

So, today, I made the switch from AT&T to Cricket. It took less than an hour for me to go to the local Cricket store and return home with my phone number and service ported.

My monthly bill dropped from $111.42, with AT&T, to $35 with Cricket. But there are some slight differences.

Cricket Cons

1. AT&T LTE down stream bandwidth clocked in at 13.4 Mbps. Cricket advertises that their LTE tops out at 8 Mbps. In practice, I'm seeing about 7.8 Mbps download with Cricket which is very respectable.

2. No more unlimited data. I now pay Cricket a total of $35/month for 4 GB of data. I looked at my AT&T bills from the past year and I was topping out at less than 3 GB of data/month.

Cricket Pros

1. Unlimited voice minutes. (I was paying AT&T $40/month for 450 minutes, with unused minutes rolling over.) Most of my talking is over WiFi since I use either FaceTime or Facebook Messenger, so voice minutes was never a big selling point for me, but I do like that I now have unlimited talk minutes.

2. Unlimited texting. (I was paying AT&T $20/month for unlimited SMS/MMS text messaging; with Cricket, that's all rolled into the $35/month plan.)

3. Cricket utilizes nearly all of AT&T's cell towers, so I should see no connectivity differences.

Today, I ended up paying about $75 to Cricket, out the door, for the $35/month plan due to one-time activation charges. Let's see where it goes from here.

iPhone 7, Unjacked

CNN Breaking News.

Did you hear that the new iPhone 7 won't have an analog headphone jack?

Yeah, I know, everyone heard. It was literally breaking news, yesterday, on CNN.

But concerns only began with CNN. Within hours, I was pinged by friends and colleagues, "Joe, what are your thoughts on this whole earphone jack thing with Apple?"

I'm surprised that Apple brought so much attention to the fact that the analog jack was going away. I don't recall Steve Jobs making any mention about the fact that Apple got rid of the floppy drive on the original iMac in 1998. Back then, Apple was earning less than $50M/quarter with less than $5B in market capitalization. So a radical departure, like the elimination of a floppy drive, was a boom or bust move.

The reason people are asking about the lack of a jack on the new iPhone 7 is because they're not sure what it means, in the future. They don't know, so they ask, which is an ideal way to form an opinion. Apple has always been great about transitioning from an old, outdated technology to a new one. That was the case with the transition from OS 9 to Mac OS X by cabonizing apps (all life is based on carbon) and with the transition from PPC to Intel processor (Marklar) seamlessly using Rosetta.

But, the key part of Apple's transition away from the old analog jack to a Lightning connector is similar to the move from a 30 pin iPod connector to Lightning in that its more efficient as it saves space.

So, what's an iPhone owner need to do with their traditional earphones when they get an iPhone 7? Nothing. They don't need to purchase anything else since the iPhone 7 ships with an earphone to Lightning adaptor. There's not much to see here, other than progress, innovation, and, as Phil Schiller – who gave a spectacular presentation, yesterday  – put it, "Courage."

Protecting Notes in iOS 9.3 with Touch ID

For years, I've been storing sensitive information in the Notes app on my iPhone. At today's Apple Keynote, it was announced that individual notes can now be protected (locked) with either a password or Touch ID. It's fairly simple to use, but not intuitively obvious to set up since it requires a few steps which I've outlined, below.

0. Update your iPhone to iOS 9.3.

1. Settings → Notes → Password → Enable Touch ID and enter a password to protect your notes.

2. To password (or Touch ID) protect a note, you'll need to click on the Share icon when the note is open 

You must manually lock or unlock a note. It seems, though, that unlocking a single note will unlock all of the notes (or at least it appears that unlocking a single note unlocks all the notes that were locked with the same password). I'll post updates, here, if I discover anything new.

Apple's Stance on Privacy

Three days ago, Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, sent an open letter to customers stating the company's opposition to the Department of Justice's request that Apple develop software to implement a backdoor in the iPhone. The next day, The Daily Beast published an article, Apple Unlocked iPhones for the Feds 70 Times Before, which, on the surface, would lead the reader to believe this predicament is no different from the scores of previous situations when Apple unlocked iPhones for the authorities. But there's a key difference between then and now in that iOS security was weaker, in the past. Currently, Apple has not developed the technology to circumvent their own security in order to extract the encrypted data. The Department of Justice claims their request falls under the All Writs Act and the has government ordered that Apple Inc. create a special version of its iOS operating system, with certain security features removed.

Keep in mind that strong security is similar to a wall safe. The only two ways to penetrate strong security is either with the key (combination) or through brute force. Even if the hacker has the blueprints to the safe or the software source code for the encryption it doesn't help with the attack.

Hard Come, Easy Go

Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose. Apple's stance against the federal government stems from the NSA's PRISM program. The Daily Beast article points out, "It wasn’t until after the revelations of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that Apple began to position itself so forcefully as a guardian of privacy protection in the face of a vast government surveillance apparatus."

While federal officials speculate that access to the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone data might be a national security issue, that's not enough to warrant the creation of a backdoor. Keeping America safe is not the oath that elected officials or military officers take. Rather, their oath is to support and defend the Constitution. It is not a stretch to see how America could be much safer by curtailing our Bill of Rights. Saudi Arabia is a safe country to live in, with low crime.


Update 21 Feb 2016: Another point to consider is that Apple Inc. is a multi-national corporation located in different countries and jurisdictions. If one argues that Apple has to develop a special iOS version for the US government, in this single case, in the name of terrorism, then should Apple also develop special iOS versions for, say, France or China if requested? As the New Yorker’s Amy Davidson writes, “If it [the government] can tell Apple, which has been accused of no wrongdoing, to sit down and write a custom operating system for it, what else could it do?”

Naked iPhone with Bumpies

Less is more at Apple. When I worked there, we joked that Microsoft believed perfection was achieved when there's nothing more to add. At Apple, we believed that perfection was achieved when there's nothing more to take away.

Elegantly simple Bumpies

When I bought the first iPhone, in 2007, I also purchased a third party acrylic case and soon after that I bought a screen protector. I quickly learned I didn't care for either one. In addition to adding weight, the phone case allowed debris from my pocket to get between the case and back of my iPhone, resulting in scratches on the phone. The screen protector didn't offer too much protection that wasn't already there since the iPhone screen is glass, which does not scratch, easily.

I went caseless until the iPhone 4 and Antennagate, when holding the phone the wrong way would drop calls. To solve this issue, Apple gave away beautifully minimalistic bumpers which I happily used.

I tried to go caseless with my iPhone 6, but that only lasted two days. This work of art was simply too slippery to pickup and hold. Also, the camera on the back of the iPhone 6 sticks out such that it supports the phone when laid down making the lens prone to scratching. So, off to the Apple Store I went to buy Apple's leather iPhone 6 case. The case I bought definitely makes the phone easy to grip, plus it doesn't block any of the ports, speakers, or mic. However, it does add a bit of bulk and it makes it difficult to press the volume buttons.

Bumpies, For the Win

Fast forward to last night's Kickstarter meetup when an entrepreneur gave me the fruits of his Kickstarter campaign to try out: Bumpies. This minimalistic iPhone "case" is less intrusive than Apple's bumpers from the iPhone 4 days gone by. These Bumpies are small plastic nobs that attach to the corners of the iPhone using a non-damaging adhesive. The slick packaging includes an alcohol wipe to clean the corner before attaching the Bumpies. What's more is that the packaging is also functional. To install the Bumpies, I slid my iPhone into the packaging, which fit inside it like a Hershey's chocolate bar fits into its wrapper. The corners of the cardboard packaging exposes the corners of the iPhone to make it easy to properly align the Bumpies. The process couldn't be simpler. Another benefit of the Bumpies, besides a lighter phone, is that they slightly raise the phone, when it's laid down, making it easier to pick up and they also keep the phone from resting on its camera lens. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

iOS Spotlight Bug

Without noticing it, I've installed well over 100 apps on my iPhone. Obviously, the ones I use most frequently are on my first home screen with a couple stragglers on the second screen. Occasionally, I need an app that's buried somewhere on the other 15 screens. To find those apps, I, like most everyone, pull down on the home screen to reveal the Spotlight search text field.

Unfortunately, after most iOS updates or after restoring a phone from a backup, Spotlight seems to stop finding apps until I open the app I'm looking for, for the first time.

This is a reproducible problem that I've noticed for at least a year. Here's what it looks like along with my workaround.

1. Confirm that the Applications option is checked and it's at the top of your Spotlight search setting.

2. Search for the app that Spotlight can't find. In my case, I was looking for my little-used eBay app. Sure enough, it didn't show up in Spotlight.

3. Search for the app in the Apple App Store. The App Store knows if you've already installed an app so that you don't need to redownload it. If an app is already installed on your iPhone, the GET or $x.xx button will say OPEN. Tap the OPEN button and the App Store, which is hundreds or thousands of miles away, will find and open the app that Spotlight, running on your own phone, couldn't find.

4. Once I've opened the app and then closed it, it magically appears in future searches. As a matter of fact, once I've gone through this exercise it seems that Spotlight is now primed to find other apps too.

Postscript: I've also seen a similar issue when searching for people or text in the iPhone's Messages app, but I haven't found a work around for that, yet.

Super Stellar Service

As a consumer, nothing makes me happier than superior customer service.

Yesterday, I effortlessly exchanged an iPhone case at my local Apple Store. When I was done with the exchange, the Apple employee took me through the iPhone Apple Store app. This app allows customers to self-checkout items rather than hailing an Apple employee to process the transaction. This works for all their products except for the two serialized items they sell on the floor: Apple TV and the wireless basestations. That's amazing. As far as I know, it's the only place where customers can self-checkout without supervision. Obviously, that makes pilferage easy, but Apple doesn't seem too worried about that.

This afternoon, I caught a lift with a Uber driver from Ethiopia. Like most San Diego Uber drivers from East Africa, my driver was a former taxi driver. Since I used to live in East Africa, we had a great rapport. I couldn't help commenting how nicely his iPhone 6 was connected to his car vent. He popped it off and gave it to me so I could have a closer look. It was a Kenu car vent mount that snuggly held an iPhone without having to remove the case.

This evening, I took a trip back to the Apple store and bought a Kenu case. Of course I checked myself out. It was my first experience with Apple Pay and I was hooked. On the way through Bloomingdales I bought a Brooklyn t-shirt, that caught my eye, using Apple Pay and that was dangerously easy for this impulse purchase. Before leaving the mall I used Apple Pay, for the third time in an hour, at The Container Store. That, too, was a breeze.

The Apple Pay transactions happen so fast that I almost missed them except for the part where I had to sign; after all, it's still a credit card transaction. The cashier at The Container Store told me a previous customer said that the store receipt had the wrong last-four credit card digits. I took a look at my paper receipt and, sure enough, the last four digits didn't match my credit card. But, then it hit me that Apple Pay generates a unique, one-time, credit card number for each transaction.

Service with a smile in the blink of an eye. What more could I ask for?

Apple Continuity and Handoff

Summary:
1. Make sure your devices are compatible.
2. Turn Bluetooth on, on all your devices.

Apple released Yosemite (OS X 10.10), last week, and iOS 8.1 today. Together, with supported hardware, these two OSes enable the Continuity feature-set; one specific feature is Handoff. In a nutshell, these features let you start a task on one device, such as writing an e-mail or document, and pickup where you left off on another. They also allow your phone to handoff phone calls and SMS text messages to your Mac.

It took a little digging to figure out how to coordinate this. Here are the detailed details [sic]:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6337

In a nutshell, your devices need to be on the same WiFi network and Bluetooth needs to be turned on for the them to see each other. FaceTime needs to be turned on and logged into the same iCloud account. It seemed that FaceTime didn't realize that example@mac.com, example@me.com, and example@icloud.com were the same account. I had to uncheck the latter two before I could check the "iPhone Cellular Calls" preference in FaceTime on my Mac.

When my first non-iPhone SMS came through, I had to enter a PIN on my Mac that appeared on my iPhone to confirm I had physical access to both devices.

So far, Continuity seems to be working fairly well.

iPhone Backup Bug Report

Foreword

The mere process of writing this bug report blog post has helped me run down different troubleshooting options. It's become a personal sanity check ensuring I've carefully reviewed alternatives before claiming, "it's not working."

Bug Report Summary

Title
Two iPhone backups (iTunes and iCloud), from the same device, are missing. 

Steps
1. I backed up my iPhone via iCloud and iTunes.

2. I restored my iTunes backup to a replacement iPhone.

3. After completing the restore, I noticed discrepancies on my iPhone (detailed below). I decided to try the restore again, but both backups were missing.

Expectations
I expected, after getting a replacement iPhone, that both my iTunes and iCloud backups would be available to restore from. When I look at my iCloud account (on my iPad), I see two iPhone backups, yet they're both inaccessible from my iPhone.

Bug Report Details

On Monday, I took my iPhone 5 to the Apple Genius Bar because it would kernel panic almost daily. The Apple Genius diagnosed it as defective hardware (bug_type 110 - CRC error).  He ordered a replacement iPhone 5 for me since it's covered under my AppleCare warranty. It arrived yesterday.

I backed up my defective iPhone via iTunes before going to the Apple Store to pick up the replacement iPhone. To be on the safe side, I also backed it up to my iCloud account.

I picked up my replacement iPhone 5 and brought it home. I couldn't immediately restore it from my iTunes backup because the replacement iPhone was running iOS 7 out of the box. I upgraded it to iOS 8 which took about 45 minutes. Then I restored my backup from iTunes which took another 45 minutes. Nothing unusual there.

When the restore was complete I noticed a serious discrepancy. iTunes reported 4.65 GB free on the iPhone, but my newly restored iPhone 5 self-reported 16.4 GB free.

iCloud Backup Inaccessible

At this point I thought I had two options. First, I could try resetting and erasing my iPhone and restoring it from my iCloud account. After all, my most recent backups to iCloud and iTunes were only a few hours old. But, for some reason, iCloud reported "Last Backup: Never" on my newly restored iPhone.

My iPhone can't see my iCloud backup...

... yet my iPad sees both iPhone backups in iCloud.

iTunes Backup Missing

My second option was to restore from my iTunes backup since my iCloud backup wasn't available. I tried to access my iTunes backup on my MacBook Air but that's gone missing too. iTunes reports: "Your iPhone has never been backed up to this computer."

I thought that was a mistake, so I checked my MacBook Air's hard drive under "~/Library/Application Support." Guess what? The iPhone backup that I just restored from is really missing from my hard drive. It's as if I restored the iPhone from the backup and then it self-destructed.

Another odd thing is my newly restored iPhone reports 0 songs. Ok, that may be possible since I subscribe to iTunes Match and my music may all be sitting in iCloud. While that could be part of the discrepancy, it doesn't explain why iTunes reports that the iPhone has several hundred songs on it.

Has double redundancy failed me? I'm getting a bad feeling that my iTunes restore may have corrupted my iPhone's file system and I've run out of iPhone backups.

Perhaps it's my own fault for not following the 3–2–1 rule of backups:
3 backups
2 media
1 off-site