Apple OS Updates, Apple Music Classical, Tips & Tricks

If you're on Twitter or Mastodon, be sure to give me a follow: @tomfanderson on Twitter, and @[email protected] on Mastodon. There are OS updates and a new app on the way from Apple, and we did a big tips & tricks show on the podcast.

🚨 Apple Updates

Another newsletter, another round of updates heading our way. Last week, Apple dropped release candidate versions of iOS and iPadOS 16.4, macOS Ventura 13.3, watchOS 9.4, and tvOS 16.4. (If you’re unfamiliar with release candidates, updates are given this status when nearly complete, and public release is expected soon.)

A few reported highlights: new emojis 🥳, Crash Detection optimizations on supported iPhones, another attempt at the new HomeKit architecture, and a change to prevent wake-up alarms from being silenced by the “cover to mute” gesture on Apple Watch.

Let's hope there are plenty of bug fixes because the state of Apple software, particularly iOS and iPadOS, could be better.

Apple Music Classical

In 2021, Apple acquired Primephonic, a classical music service. Since then, it has been speculated that this would be eventually tied into Apple Music, which hasn’t had a great approach to classical. Well speculate no more, as Apple announced the new Apple Music Classical app is expected to be available on March 28.

The new app will offer Apple Music subscribers (except those with the Voice Plan) access to more than 5 million classical music tracks, including new releases and exclusive albums, hundreds of Essentials playlists to help with discovery, high quality audio (including spatial audio with Dolby Atmos), and search features tailored for classical music.

It’s available for pre-order now on the App Store and requires iOS 15.4 or later and an internet connection. I imagine iPadOS, macOS, and other versions, as well as offline content, will be arriving eventually.

Basic AF Episode 005 - The Big Tips & Tricks Show

It was quite an adventure leading up to the most recent show! Just a few days before recording, Jeff had his Mac, iPad, and recording equipment stolen while traveling in California so Gannon Nordberg filled in at the last minute for a big show! It was a fun episode and I must thank Gannon for filling in on such short notice.

In this episode:

• Jeff’s stuff gets stolen

• Yellow iPhone 14

• New iPhone cases and Apple Watch Bands

• Apple Maps expands city experience to Boston

• How to set up Find My on your devices

• 18 Tips & Tricks for iOS, iPadOS, Mac, and Apple Watch!

There are some great tidbits in the tips and tricks segment. Here are a few highlights:

• How to scan documents with your iPhone/iPad (no third-party app required)

• Using the Reminders app to get notified to do something when you’re in a specific location

• Tracking your medications, vitamins, and supplements in the Health app

• What all those things do in the Apple Watch Control Center

• We discuss the Workout app screens on Apple Watch

The show notes for this episode are loaded with additional information on what we discussed, and you can find them on my site. Additionally, all of our episodes include chapter markers so you can easily jump around to different topics if you want do that.

You can listen at basicafshow.com, and in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, and the other major podcast apps.