2025-12-25 00:30:53
Think back to the end of 2024. It was a more innocent time. Sure, after unveiling Apple Intelligence with great fanfare at WWDC in June, it hadn’t actually shipped much (other than a raft of TV commercials featuring nonexistent features). But surely the company wouldn’t let us down. 2025 was truly going to be the year Siri got fixed and Apple Intelligence took flight.
Well, about that…
2025-12-24 02:38:00
‘Tis the season to be harried. There’s a work thing, a friend thing, some poor sucker has a birthday in December, shopping for food, shopping for presents, donations, shopping for food again because you forgot something… The list of things to do is endless. So when you do get a gift lined up for a loved one, and it’s something from a premium electronics brand like Apple, you might feel like you’ve done your job. The recipient will be so excited to open that new Apple Watch for the holidays, but remember that they may not really be prepared for a multi-part setup process.
I’ll share a slightly cautionary tale of giving myself an Apple Watch Series 11 as a combination Christmas and “It’s too bad my birthday is close to Christmas” gift.
The battery on my Apple Watch Series 7 was no longer lasting the day, and that is the primary reason to upgrade an Apple Watch these days. Whomever you’re gifting an Apple device to is probably in a similar situation, where it’s mostly the battery or physical damage, so it seems like a straightforward gift.
First of all, the new Watch paired with my iPhone just fine, but it needed to download and install watchOS 26.1. That took forever, and it lacked an accurate estimate of when user intervention would be needed again.
Sure, there are several spans of time that are mentioned, but it might as well be a random number generator. I just kept checking my iPhone over and over by unlocking it, and waiting for the interface to refresh to tell me what cryptic step it was on.
That’s a really crummy experience, since the iPhone and the Watch need to be near each other, and the Watch needs to be on a charger. Keep in mind that a charging cable is included with the Watch, but there’s no power adapter. You might want to have a charging block on hand, and potentially the means to keep their iPhone charged, too, if you don’t want to have to keep leaving your holiday celebrations to check on the installation, pairing, and restore process.1
Don’t merely hand a boxed Apple Watch to your loved one before you walk out the door, or they hop on a plane. Part of your gift is this annoying setup.
Second of all, after watchOS 26.1 was installed, the pairing process froze. I needed to back out of it on my iPhone, complete with a dire warning that my Watch would be reset to factory settings. There was little choice, so I resigned myself to it. This got the iPhone in a state where the Watch app said it was unpairing with my Watch for about 10 minutes. Once that was finished, the iPhone and Watch were able to start the pairing process again, but did not have to redownload and install the latest watchOS. In total, this was an hour and a half of my time.
Third, even though it’s supposed to migrate your data and settings from your old Watch, it doesn’t do that in its entirety.
Reauthorizing credit cards for Apple Pay means taking out each credit card and entering the security code information. Also, as it turns out, you need to make sure the default credit card for Apple Pay doesn’t get changed, and confirm that express transit is set to the correct card. Neither was correct for me when I upgraded from Series 7 to Series 11. I spent a couple of days using another card that was the same color as my default card before I realized it was wrong.
There’s no way to skip some of the helpful onboarding dialogs, even if the person is migrating from a recent Apple Watch. My old watch was running watchOS 26.1, but I still got the whole walkthrough about how the Digital Crown works, and the Workouts app still wanted to explain the “new” Workouts app I had already been using. These are minor annoyances that require no guidance from you, but rest assured that Apple just doesn’t care if someone has already gone through these steps.
I have the Tips app set to never, ever, ever give me tips about anything, and yet that was reverted to helpful pings about how Apple Watches work. If the person you’re gifting an Apple Watch to finds these useful, then that’s fine, but if they don’t, they will really appreciate it if you dig into the Watch app’s notifications tab for them.
After the watch was allegedly ready to go, my Modular watch face was missing all of my complications, and there didn’t seem to be any way to force it to reload them. They did appear when I checked again an hour later, but nothing is reassuring about it. If you notice something is missing, then preemptively tell the person that you’ll leave it on the charger for a little bit and wait for it to finish doing some background tasks. Again, adding to that hour and a half to two hours you might have already spent.
The final thing that will spring up on their new Apple Watch are permissions authorizations. Those are not restored from the old watch, and they don’t happen during the setup process. They reveal themselves only if something is invoked that requires those permissions.
For example, when I got into the car and used Siri to pull up directions in CarPlay, my wrist buzzed that Maps wanted access to my location information. It was not safe for me to fiddle with my wrist watch while I was driving on the freeway, so I didn’t get any of the helpful little wrist buzzes for turns. It’s not a huge deal, but maybe just pop Maps open for them before they go out into the world.
Remember that as a technology enthusiast, your gift giving is not the money you spend on the gift, or physically wrapping and handing them a box, but in supporting them to actually enjoy their present instead of being frustrated by some of the technical hiccups. If you’re not ready to go through with helping them set up Apple products, maybe get them some pears from Harry & David instead?
2025-12-24 00:00:00
Lex and Moltz discuss holiday traditions in this special free for everyone holiday bonus episode!
2025-12-23 05:37:30
With the release of iOS 26.2, iPadOS 26.2, and macOS 26.2, Apple has tweaked its AirDrop protocol once again, adding an additional bar to sending items to other people through this wireless service when you are not in their contact list. Instead of just tapping or clicking, you must exchange a code. The new AirDrop code provides more privacy (and security), and even creates a temporary contact entry for a party agreeing to receive material.1
However, it makes it even harder to use AirDrop in an ad hoc fashion—sending or receiving items quickly with another person a single time or a few times when permission is granted.
How did we get here? And how does AirDrop code work in practice? Let’s dig in.
Apple had a problem with AirDrop. Even as the company made the proximity-based protocol for sending files, links, and images work consistently—after years of complaints—people persisted in using it for harassment or trolling. If you left AirDrop’s receive setting tuned to Everyone, you might get unwanted images, including photos of private parts.2
In 2022, a Southwest Airlines pilot told passengers he was going to return the plane to the gate if they didn’t stop using AirDrop to send unsolicited nude pictures. “Whatever that AirDrop thing is — quit sending naked pictures. Let’s get yourself to Cabo,” he was recorded saying on a TikTok video.
Possibly in response to that, and possibly due to reported but unconfirmed demands by the Chinese government, Apple changed the iPhone and iPad receiving option “Everyone” to “Everyone for 10 Minutes.” After 10 minutes, the setting reverted to Contacts Only. (You can also disable receiving items via AirDrop entirely.)
That 10-minute period ostensibly let you provide an opening for someone else to transmit something to you via AirDrop without providing a longer time period in which you might receive unwanted images. (I have to expect that most trolls and creeps using AirDrop to send such stuff gave up on it when there wasn’t a massive list of available destinations anymore.)
(In iOS 17, Apple also added a way to verify that two iPhones can exchange AirDrop transmissions by holding them next to each other. That proximity generates a bubbly visual effect and grants permission for a transfer, so long as you have Start Sharing By Bringing Devices Together turned on in Settings: General: AirDrop.)
With the introduction of AirDrop codes in the 26.2 releases last week, the AirDrop verification process has changed further. Instead of a recipient enabling Everyone for 10 Minutes on an iPhone or iPad or Everyone on a Mac and then being able to accept items one at a time after that, you have to take an additional step to send or receive material.
An AirDrop code effectively prevents an unknown party from sending without authentication, as the code is now required for any attempt to transmit an item to someone who doesn’t have the sender in their contacts.
The requirements for an AirDrop code are as follows:
You cannot disable the use of an AirDrop code.
Here’s how the process works:
With the process successful in step 6, the sender is added for 30 days to a Other Known list within contacts, allowing future AirDrop transmissions within that period when the recipient’s AirDrop is set to Contacts Only. This list includes any contacts in FaceTime, Messages, or Phone that you’ve marked as known from the Unknown Callers/Senders or Spam categories.
To remove the contact before 30 days is up, go to Settings > General > AirDrop and tap Manage Known AirDrop Contacts or System Settings > General > AirDrop & Handoff and click Manage next to Known AirDrop Contacts.
Adding friction to AirDrop seems to run counter to the simplicity of how it is supposed to work. For sending in circumstances like protest rallies or other semi-anonymized gatherings, it definitely provides more grit, something desired by authoritarians. Is this another potential nod by Apple to repressive governments? There’s a case to be made, though the 10-minute limit already restricted AirDrop’s utility in such cases tremendously.
Because this code method allows 30 days of sending after using a code, it offers some balance between unwanted contact and persistent availability in the vast majority of cases in which AirDrop is used.
[Got a question for the column? You can email [email protected] or use /glenn in our subscriber-only Discord community.]
2025-12-23 01:34:09
After whipping through a bunch of segments in order to play as many jingles as possible, Myke and Jason celebrate the festive season by aesthetically judging the new icons of macOS Tahoe. Happy holidays to all who celebrate!
2025-12-22 12:30:42
Matt Haughey wanted just the right Volkswagen ID Buzz, and (despite living in Oregon) he found it in Texas:
The dealer quoted me $2,200 to ship it back to Oregon, but it would take a couple weeks and I figured I could drive that distance in just a few days for less money, plus, what better way to get to know a new car than to spend half a week in it?
This is a great post about shopping for an EV, the current stage of EV charging in the U.S., and how Volkswagen has unfortunately managed to overemphasize touchscreen interfaces while also relying on capacitive touch controls.
Still, I love the look of that car. And I love the idea of getting to know a new car with a road trip.
