2026-02-12 05:07:56
Our best automations on macOS or iOS, our expense tracking tools, online age verification, and the fitness devices we’ve used recently.
2026-02-12 01:00:29
Sometimes I can’t help myself.
The other day, while watching an episode of “Animal Control”1, I realized that I have been writing about technology so long that I can’t even turn off my brain to stop from shouting troubleshooting advice at the made-up people on my TV during a half-hour of light comedy.
Here’s the scenario: Our hero, Seattle Animal Control Office Frank Shaw (expertly played by Joel McHale), has been roped into ferrying around his arch-nemesis, a Cesar Millan-esque dog whisperer played by guest star Ken Jeong. (Kudos to you if you immediately picked up on this mini-“Community” reunion.) Joel McHale’s character has recorded a video on his phone of Ken Jeong having an encounter with an aggressive dog that will cause the latter no small amount of professional and personal embarrassment.
Ken Jeong manages to guilt Joel McHale into deleting the video from his phone by spinning a sob story that (if you know the kinds of characters Ken Jeong plays) is completely made up. But Joel McHale falls for it and deletes the video, only to have Ken Jeong turn the tables and cause McHale no small amount of professional and personal embarrassment. Joel McHale is left to fume about his missed opportunity.
“There’s gotta be a way to recover lost footage,” he says, while impotently turning his phone’s flashlight on.
And where other people might chuckle at this little interlude, a person in my position finds himself shouting at the screen, “There is! There is, you big galoot!” as if Joel McHale is going to answer back.
We do not have to guess as to what phone Joel McHale’s character is using — it is very clearly an iPhone. Given the camera array that I spotted when reviewing the footage with the same frame-by-frame intensity that JFK conspiracy theorists study the Zapruder film, I’d suggest that it’s an iPhone 16 Pro, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, Frank is using a recent iPhone, so we’ll assume the on-board software is relatively up-to-date.
Everybody who’s used any piece of tech for any length of time knows that nothing’s truly deleted — at least not right away. In the case of photos and videos that you remove from your iPhone, by default they sit in a folder for 30 days before they disappear completely.
In the case of this particular “Animal Control” episode, all Frank would have to do to get that damning video back would be to fire up the Photos app on his iPhone, tap on the Collections tab and find the Recently Deleted folder tucked away in the Utilities section. Frank would tap on the deleted video, select Recover, and sit back and smile while that nasty Ken Jeong finally gets what’s coming to him.
Near as I can tell, there’s no way to disable the Recently Deleted folder feature so that deleted photos and videos go directly to that big trash can in the sky, nor is there a way to extend the stay of execution beyond those 30 days.
Frank could also avoid these kind of situations altogether by backing up his photos and videos to a third-party cloud service. (iCloud wouldn’t work in this case, as deleting things off your phone removes them from Apple’s syncing service.) But considering his tendency to repeatedly turn on his iPhone’s flashlight, that might be a backup best practice beyond his skill set.
2026-02-12 00:00:00
Lex does the robot, Dan is popular online and Moltz enjoyed the fireworks.
2026-02-10 22:39:22
The other day a Slack pal wondered aloud if there was a way to remove a previous recipient from a family member’s iPhone. The address wasn’t in their contacts, but it kept showing up in the autocomplete for the recipient line.
This tickled something in my brain and sure enough, I wrote about this very topic more than a decade ago—but I only covered how to do it on the Mac. Which got me wondering if it was possible to do on iOS.
Sure enough, it is, but you’d be excused for not finding it, since it’s a bit buried.
First, start typing the address in Mail’s To field until you see it show up in the dropdown menu. If it’s not in your contacts1 you’ll see it has a little “i” icon next to it. Tap that to bring up a screen where you can add it to your contacts or, more relevantly, scroll to the bottom and you’ll find “Remove From Recents.” Tap that and it should banish it…well, at least until you send them another email.
So there we are, only eleven years later. And, if you’re wondering, the macOS instructions above still work, even if the UI looks a little different these days.
2026-02-10 06:44:41
Eddy Cue comes down hard on a would-be Apple service; we try to figure out what the new low-end Mac laptop might be, Tim Cook calls an important meeting to say a lot of words, and we tackle all aspects of the Super Bowl plus some curling!
2026-02-10 00:30:45
Apple’s newly updated AirTag model, informally called an AirTag 2 but just an “AirTag” to Apple, has a greater Bluetooth range, offers greater Precision Finding with newer iPhones, works with newer Apple Watch models, and produces sound Apple states is 50% louder than the original.
But if your iPhone or iPad isn’t running version 26.2.1, released a few days ago, you can’t add one of these new AirTags to it. And your iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch1 won’t be able to locate it.
The original AirTag from 2021 works with the iPhone 6s and later and all iPhone SE models. iPad compatibility varies by model, starting with the iPad Air 2 in 2014. You need iOS 14.5/iPadOS 14.5 or later. The iPhone 11 and later added Precision Finding via an ultra-wideband (UWB) radio; it’s not available for any iPad. An Apple Watch requires watchOS 8 or later, on an Apple Watch Series 3 or later (2017). Macs gained Find My item access with macOS 12 Monterey in 2021, which sweeps in Macs mostly released in 2015, though a few older models qualify, too.2
This revised AirTag 2 thus breaks backwards compatibility in three ways, with one twist.
First, some older devices can’t see newer AirTags. The new tracker works with:
Second, people who have chosen not to update older devices compatible with the “26” releases can’t use the new AirTag.
Third, the twist: Because there’s no explicit labeling, it will be very difficult to tell the original and revised AirTag apart. 9to5Mac published an article on this very topic, noting:
If it’s an AirTag 1, the back will say: AirTag / Designed by Apple in California / Assembled in China / Bluetooth LE / Ultra Wideband.
If it’s an AirTag 2, the back will say: AirTag / FIND MY / NFC / BLUETOOTH LE / ULTRA WIDEBAND / IP67 / APPLE INC.
If there was ever a time for product naming and physical feature distinguishing, maybe this was it? Perhaps the AirTag 2 should have been matte black or space gray.
Why do I know so much (apparently) about AirTags? I wrote an entire book on the topic: Take Control of Find My and AirTags. I’ll be updating it in the next week or two to incorporate the new AirTag model and the provisos listed above.
[Got a question for the column? You can email [email protected] or use /glenn in our subscriber-only Discord community.]
