Twin boys. Toddler daughter. Hospital Tech Support. Writer. Runner. Gamer. Creating in public again.*

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iPhone

The Lock Screen Is My Home Screen

For most of the day, I interact with my watch and phone at a glance, thanks to widgets providing the information I need. Or with just a tap, I’m brought into the respective app that’s tied to the widget or complication.

The very top of my phone’s Lock Screen shows me the weather. Underneath that is the time, and underneath that is a calendar of the month, chance of rain, the temperature inside our house. The bottom left is a shortcut to write notes. Bottom right is a shortcut to add a task. Swiping left opens up the camera. Swiping right shows me a page full of widgets.

Most people don’t adjust these widgets and complications on these screens, but they’re missing the secret weapon that makes the phone so much more useful and seamless. Those widgets and complications speed up my phone usage and allow me to get in and out of the phone without hardly ever leaving the Lock Screen.

Direct Connection

I visited the Mall of Louisiana last week with my sister, during the iPhone launch. She bought herself the new Desert Titanium 16 Pro. Besides waiting in line, the purchasing process only took us five minutes. Picked the color, picked the case, swiped the card. After eating lunch, I did all the setting up from the passenger seat. I plugged my phone in to show GPS, and then turned on my hotspot to give the new phone an internet connection.

When initially setting up an iPhone, the trick is Quick Start. Most people are worried about their iCloud backup, but that’s not what I use to transfer. From Quick Start, choose the second option to transfer directly from previous device. This process only requires both phones (old and new) to stay close to each other as the transfer completes.

By the time we arrived back home, her new phone was identical to her old one, and even her SIM card, which was a physical card before, was now converted to an eSim. All from the passenger seat without a WiFi connection.

Morning Coffee

Today’s cup of coffee is brought to you by My Neighbor Totoro. It’s playing in the background as I finish this letter. Rose watches this over and over, and I don’t mind because it’s that good. A few days ago, we went to the Hero Fest in our town, where Rodney Atkins performed, and Rose rode her first fair ride all by herself. She had a big smirk and was so impressed that she didn’t need any help. Proud dad moment. This is Morning Coffee 128. Buy me a coffee to keep it going. As always, I hope this letter finds you well.

Apple Event

The iPhone event just ended. They announced several new products:

iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro now have built in Apple Intelligence, and on the side of the phone there’s a Camera Control button, giving your phone a real camera shutter.

Apple Watch Series 10 is now thinner with a bigger screen, and can now play music straight from your wrist (a feature I’ve been waiting for since the watch first launched). And for health, it now has sleep apnea detection.

AirPods 4 have a new design that brings features over from the Pro models, like Transparency Mode and Noise Cancellation.

BlackBerry

Two mismatched entrepreneurs - egghead innovator Mike Lazaridis and cut-throat businessman Jim Balsillie - joined forces in an endeavour that was to become a worldwide hit in little more than a decade. The story of the meteoric rise and catastrophic demise of the world’s first smartphone.

This is the story before the iPhone. Highly recommend. Enjoyed every second.

Hide Your Apps

There were many features introduced at WWDC for iOS 18 (the public beta should be out this week), but my favorite and most used feature is the ability to hide apps. If there’s one thing I love, it’s a tidy space. This features allows that.

Holding down on any third party app gives you the option to hide it behind FaceID. Do this to clean up the apps visible on your phone, and only display the ones you use most often. Here’s a life hack for you: Hide the social media ones.

Once the apps are hidden, they won’t show up anywhere on the phone (not in widgets, not in search, not in App Library), just the hidden folder. I now have 40 hidden apps tucked away.

Reduce White Point

Have you ever needed your phone to be dimmer than the lowest brightness? I didn’t think it was needed, or that it was even possible, until recently.

But in a pitch-black room, even the lowest brightness is too bright. That’s where this accessibility feature comes in. I searched through accessibility, and discovered the Reduce White Point feature, and learned a few tricks that would help dim the screen even more.

To find it, go to Settings, Accessibility, Display & Text Size, Reduce White Point. But I turned this option into two shortcuts (Dim, Bright), and then an automation that dims the screen when it’s time for bed, and brightens it when the sun comes up.

After downloading those two shortcuts, create an automation shortcut that runs the Dim Screen shortcut when bedtime starts, and then create another automation that runs the Dim Screen at sunrise.

Delta Is Here

Delta has arrived. An app from Riley Testut that’s been in development for about a decade now is finally official (thanks to Apple’s new App Store policy). It’s an app that lets you play all the classics: Mario, Zelda, and any other game that was on your NES, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance, and Nintendo DS. Here’s a video from Retro Gaming Corps (my favorite person to follow for this stuff) that walks you through the setup process.

Delta + Backbone + Apple TV

Now that Delta is on the iPhone, I can now attach the Backbone controller to the phone, and send whatever’s on my phone to the TV through AirPlay, turning this entire setup into the most minimal gaming console ever. Every game from our childhood is now on the TV, with not a single wire making any of this happen.