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AirTag Review Roundup

AirTags, which Apple announced on Tuesday, will go on sale tomorrow, April 23rd with deliveries beginning a week later on April 30th. Apple provided the tiny item-tracking device to several YouTubers and reviewers, and embargoes have lifted.

Here’s a rundown of the early reviews of AirTags along with coverage of the new purple iPhone 12:

Matthew Panzarino, TechCrunch’s editor-in-chief, says AirTags work as advertised, pointing out that:

The precision finding feature enabled by the U1 chip works as a solid example of utility-driven augmented reality, popping up a virtual arrow and other visual identifiers on the screen to make finding a tag quicker.

Panzarino also digs into all the privacy edge cases that Apple has accounted for in his review and shows off some of Apple’s AirTag accessories and what an AirTag looks like disassembled.

https://twitter.com/panzer/status/1385223538697666568?s=21

Dieter Bohn at The Verge tested AirTags by giving one to a colleague and tracking him down using the Find My network:

After a half-hour of walking around, I finally found him. He was standing on a street corner with no foot traffic whatsoever, which meant that the intermittent signals I got detailing his location came from a couple of iPhones in cars that were driving by.

That’s impressive.

As Bohn and other reviewers note, however, both sides of the AirTags are prone to scratching:

https://twitter.com/backlon/status/1385223768981733376?s=21

The Verge has a short story and gallery of photos featuring the new purple iPhone 12.

Several video reviews were also released today highlighting the AirTags and the purple iPhone 12, which are embedded after the break.

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Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming Beta Launches on the Mac, PC, iPhones, and iPads→

As we reported earlier this week, Microsoft began inviting Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers to beta test Xbox Cloud Gaming yesterday. The beta is invitation-only, but if you’re a Game Pass Ultimate subscriber and are invited to test the streaming service, you can use it on PCs and Macs via Edge, Chrome, or Safari, as well as on iPhones and iPads.

At The Verge, Tom Warren has a short walkthrough video that tours the service’s UI on a Windows PC. Although the games run on older Xbox One S hardware in Microsoft’s data centers, which means longer load times than current hardware, the UI appears to scale nicely across devices. Warren describes the experience as follows:

Once the connection settles down, it’s very similar to xCloud on Android. If you run this through a web browser on a PC or iPad, you’ll even get a 1080p stream. It feels like I’m playing on an Xbox in the cloud, and there’s a dashboard that lets me access friends, party chats, achievements, and invites to games. This is all powered by Xbox Game Pass, so there are more than 100 games available — and even some original Xbox and Xbox 360 titles that can be streamed.

Warren also notes that some games work with touch, but as you’d expect, most are best experienced using a Bluetooth-connected controller.

I’ve had a chance to play with Google Stadia on an iPhone 12 Pro Max and the experience was far better than I expected, even over WiFi. Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming beta has just begun, but it looks like a promising way to enjoy your favorite games on more devices than ever.

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Apple Music Editorial Content Is Coming to Apple News

Yesterday as Federico was putting the finishing touches on an in-depth review of iOS and iPadOS 14.5 that we will publish next week, he discovered something interesting: Apple Music is in the process of establishing a presence on Apple News. The content added to Apple News so far is limited, but it appears that the company is in the process of enhancing both services by connecting them in a way that is reminiscent of the way it brought Apple News to the Stocks app with iOS 12, but so far, also different.

A Music and News integration has been on Federico’s wish list ever since iOS 12. As he imagined in his iOS 12 review:

Using Apple News as a content provider for Stocks is fascinating as it could be applied to a variety of other Apple services in the future. Imagine, for instance, if Music news became part of the Music app and if you could read interviews and album reviews on an artist’s page.

It’s an idea that he returned to in 2019:

and that we have discussed repeatedly on AppStories.

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Apple’s April 2021 Event: All the Little Things

Apple events are always packed with little details that don’t make it into the main presentation or are easy to miss in the flurry of announcements. Some tidbits are buried in footnotes, while others are tucked into word clouds on Keynote slides or in release notes. Today’s event was no exception, so after having a chance to dig in a little deeper, here is an assortment of details about what Apple announced.

Note: you can also check out our standalone overviews for the new iPad Pro, iMac, Apple TV, and AirTags with more details about each product.

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Apple Introduces New Spring iPhone 12 Finishes and Accessory Colors

In celebration of spring, Apple is releasing a very nice new purple finish for the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Mini. Purple joins the existing 5 colors and continues to make the 12 Apple’s most colorful iPhone lineup since the iPhone 5c.

The new purple iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Mini are available for preorder starting this Friday, April 23, and will arrive the following week on Friday, April 30.

As mentioned in our All the Little Things post, there are also new spring colors for iPhone 12 accessories. With availability beginning today, you can order Apple’s MagSafe Leather Case and Leather Sleeve in Deep Violet, their MagSafe Leather Wallet in Arizona, and their Silicone Case in Capri Blue, Pistachio, Cantaloupe, or Amethyst.

You can follow all of our April event coverage through our April 2021 Event hub, or subscribe to the dedicated RSS feed.

Apple Announces Apple Card Family

At this morning’s keynote, Apple announced an update to Apple Card in which family members can be co-owners of a single card. Apple Card Family accounts will have merged credit lines so that all members can build their credit equally on shared purchases. The feature ties into Apple’s Family Sharing feature, and is available for sharing Apple Cards with children as well.

Apple Card Family includes parental controls like credit limits to help teach healthy credit card habits. For adults, all members of the family can track and manage their spending habits together.

Up to five people can be added to an Apple Card Family account, but all of them must first be part of an Apple Family Sharing group. While children can be added too, they must be at least 13 years of age. Existing Apple Card users can merge their accounts together into a new Apple Card Family account. Merging accounts will combine their credit limits, but the resulting APR will just be the lowest of the merged accounts.

Apple Card’s usual 1%-3% Daily Cash benefits are unchanged for Apple Card Family, but now even more merchants are part of the 3% Daily Cash program. These include Uber (and Uber Eats), Walgreens, Nike, Panera, T-Mobile, and ExxonMobil. You can find the full Daily Cash benefits and more information on Apple Card on Apple’s website.

Apple Card Family is launching this May.

You can follow all of our April event coverage through our April 2021 Event hub, or subscribe to the dedicated RSS feed.