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Hey, hey, hey! How was your week? I bet my screen time topped your screen time. I guess that’s what happens when you test a new Apple monitor alongside four others. So many screens. I’ve got thoughts on that, plus iOS 15.4, Instagram’s kid controls and more. Let’s go…
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Check out my video review from this week. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: ALEX KUZOIAN / THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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I knew something was wrong with the Apple Studio Display’s webcam when my face kept looking like a piece of dry toast—grainy, washed out and flat.
Was it the lighting? Nope. Under the same studio and natural light conditions, footage from various other webcams looked much better. Was it the app? Nope. Similar results in FaceTime, QuickTime and Photo Booth. Was it the computer? Nope. When I plugged different computers into the webcam-equipped monitor, I was still a piece of toast.
You can understand my confusion. Apple raved about the $1,599-and-up monitor’s 12-megapixel webcam and new chip at its event a week ago, making it seem like picture quality would be on par with iPads or iPhones.
After sending information about my webcam testing to Apple, a company spokeswoman said, “We discovered an issue where the system isn’t behaving as expected. We’ll be making improvements in a future software update.” Reviews from The Verge, TechCrunch and Daring Fireball pointed out the same quality issues.
It happens. The $2.6 trillion company messes up. It ships a product with a problem and then scrambles to fix it. Let us review the historical record:
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In 2010, people who bought the iPhone 4 realized cell service was compromised when they held their phones. After Steve Jobs accused us of holding it wrong, the company gave away bumpers as a fix.
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In 2012, people quickly found that Apple’s new Maps app had flawed map designs, misplaced points-of-interest and incorrect driving directions. Tim Cook apologized in a public letter, where he guided people to alternative map apps and promised software fixes.
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In 2017, yours truly realized that there were connectivity issues when reviewing the first cellular Apple Watch. Apple released a software update. In subsequent models, cellular connectivity got better. (OK, this wasn’t a “gate” but it sure felt like one at the time.)
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I’m not including the MacBook Butterfly keyboard because it took the company three generations of that product to admit that product was not fixable.
In the case of the new Studio Display webcam (Webcamgate?) it’s unclear what’s technically wrong. If the components match what’s in an iPhone 11, we could see something much better, so maybe it’s fixable. However, Apple’s PR team didn’t provide any more details about what’s causing the “system issue” or what the “system issue” is.
No tech company is perfect. (See Samsung folding phone; see also Samsung exploding phone.) Still, when these things happen, especially around the product’s brand new halo feature, I always wonder: How did no one catch this before shipping? Or did someone catch it but the product needed to ship to meet deadlines? For better or worse, we now live in a world where software updates can fix our gadgets. That means even when we buy big-ticket items like this, we can be beta testers.
Dry toast, anyone?
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PHOTO: JOANNA STERN / THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Netflix Wants Your 💰
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Admit it, you’ve given your Netflix account info to someone. Or you’re using someone else’s Netflix account to binge “Love Is Blind.” Well, your days may be numbered. Netflix is testing a feature called “Add an Extra Member,” which lets primary account holders on the Standard and Premium plans pay extra to add subsidiary accounts for up to two people they don’t live with. (It’s a cheaper alternative to getting a full-fledged subscription plan.) Another proposed feature helps members transfer an account sharer’s profile information, so any booted buddies wouldn’t
lose their watch histories. The test is launching in Chile, Costa Rica and Peru, and the company isn’t saying if or when it would come to the U.S.
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Instagram Parental Supervision
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Finally—and I mean finally—the popular photo-sharing platform began rolling out parental controls for the first time. The tools let parents monitor how much time their teens use Instagram, and see what accounts their teens follow and who follows them. For now, parental controls are only available on Instagram, though they’ll soon make their way to parent company Meta’s Quest headsets and eventually, to Facebook. But it doesn’t give parents immediate visibility into their kids’ accounts, and it doesn’t stop kids from creating finstas. Besides, teens have to ask
their parents for supervision. They’re all sure to do that, right?
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The Other Budget Smartphone
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What a month for sub-$450 smartphones. Joining Apple’s latest $429 iPhone SE is the $450 Galaxy A53 5G. Samsung’s option, while slightly pricier than the SE, doesn't skimp on the cameras (it has four rear cameras vs. the SE’s one) or the screen size (a 6.5-inch display vs. the SE’s 4.7 inches). But before you go for one of these, look into your carrier’s trade-in deals, as my colleague Shara Tibken just
covered. You might be able to get a considerable amount off a higher-end phone.
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Life’s too short to live with the same Siri voice forever and ever. With this week’s iOS 15.4 update, Apple introduced a new American voice, recorded by a member of the LBGTQ+ community, that’s designed to make Siri sound less explicitly male or female. On your iPhone, go to Settings > Siri & Search > Siri Voice and select American Voice 5 to try it out. Or try out one of the many others. I’ve gone with a male British Siri so it sounds like Hugh Grant is setting the timer for my meatloaf. If you use a Mac or iPad, the voice will be changed there automatically, too.
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PHOTO: ELENA SCOTTI / THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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PHOTO: COLIN WEIR
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Colin Weir from Philadelphia
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Electronic Handheld Yahtzee
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The tactile nature of the game, every button has a purpose, and the beeps are very nostalgic.
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Back in the late ’90s, when I was about 11 years old, it was still acceptable for a kid to stay in the car while mom ran into the store. I usually brought this with me on our Saturday errands to keep myself entertained.
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I have no idea what the fate of the original one is. For all I know it’s still in my parents’ basement. This one was purchased off eBay last year in reasonably good condition.
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📷 Got an idea for a throwback? Reply to this email with a photo of your old tech and tell us why you loved—or hated—it. 📷
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Got questions about your digital life? Reply to this email with them!
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I read that the iPhone 13 Pro cable that comes in the box charges twice as fast as the MagSafe charger! Is that true?—Marguerite ONeil from Albuquerque, N.M.
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One day wireless charging may be as fast as good old plug-in charging, but today is not that day. The USB-C to Lightning cable included with iPhones is going to be faster at charging your device than one of Apple’s wireless MagSafe chargers—if you plug it into the right charger. As I’ve written before, it’s the charging brick that matters.
As for twice as fast? That’s about what I got when I did this test myself back in 2020: Apple’s MagSafe charged the iPhone 12 up to 50% in an hour. A 20-watt charging brick, plugged in via Lightning port, took just 28 minutes.
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I’m a newsletter N00b and want to know what you think! Reply to this email and share your feedback and suggestions.
User-submitted content has been edited for clarity and content. This week’s newsletter was curated and written by Joanna Stern and Cordilia James in New York.
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