Apple Watch Ban Paused, Favorite Things of 2023

I hope you’re enjoying the holiday season! Here’s what I have for you in this edition:

• Apple Watch Ban Paused

• Basic AF: A Few of Our Favorite Things & Our Thanks

• Apple Hardware Designer Joining Jony Ive/OpenAI

• The NY Times is Suing OpenAI and Microsoft

 ⏸️ Apple Watch Ban Paused

Apple recently pulled the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 from sale in the US due to an import ban by the International Trade Commission, which found the company infringed on two patents owned by medical devices company Masimo Corporation and Cercacor Laboratories, Inc. The patents in question center around the blood oxygen sensor in the watches. Third-party resellers continue to offer the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2 from their existing inventory, and the Apple Watch SE is unaffected.

Today, December 27th, authorities granted a temporary stay, effectively pausing the ban while they review an appeal. Apple told 9to5Mac that the watches will be returning to select Apple Stores today, with wider availability by Saturday, and online tomorrow by 12 pm PT.

🎙️ Basic AF #25: These Are a Few of Our Favorite Things

In this festive episode, Jeff and I cozy up with eggnog and share our favorite tech and media picks from the year. Sufjan Stevens' Christmas music, Astropad's Rock Paper Pencil for iPad, Bear Notes app, the 14" MacBook Pro, and more make the list. It's a fun episode, so check it out.

As the year winds down, we want to thank you for listening to the show! It’s been a fun first year and we’re really excited for what’s to come.

Listen now at basicafshow.com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, all the other podcast apps, as well as on YouTube and YouTube Music.

Bloomberg reports that Apple design executive Tang Tan will be reuniting with Jony Ive at Ive's company LoveFrom to work on hardware devices for OpenAI. Tan worked on the iPhone and Apple Watch at Apple.

The New York Times is suing OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement. I expect we’ll see more of these.

Pretty much everything uses multi-factor authentication these days, and password managers provide an easy way to generate the one-time code. But is this a good idea from a security perspective? 1Password has a nice blog post on the topic.

Have a family member that picked up a new iPhone for Christmas? Stephen Robles has put together a comprehensive guide to getting started. Do yourself and them a favor and share the link.

Take Lowe's off the list of retail stores dragging behind the times. The home improvement chain finally added Apple Pay as an option when checking out in the stores.

Evernote's new owners have already upset paid users with price increases, and now they’ve placed tight restrictions on free accounts. I last paid and used the service for new notes several years ago, but I still have some legacy notes that I need to export and then I’m closing out my free account.