eXtensions - Monday 20 January 2025
By Graham K. Rogers
Some features of Apple Health are not available in all countries leading to frustration. Updates to Apple apps and the App Store is now available in India. AppleTV updates and new on Netflix. TikTok dies and is resurrected in hours. Beware false emails. MotoGP app for watching races makes checking the user account easy.
I have been fairly pleased by the integration of the Apple Watch and the Health app that together allow me to track my health. What I find important is the ability to look at trends. Sudden changes may be noted as a possible warning of a problem on the horizon. It took a while for the ECG feature on the Watch to arrive here.
There were apparently concerns about this from the medical profession who always tend to be somewhat conservative, particularly here. Like other data in the Health app, including that from 3rd party sources (e.g. weight and temperature), I use the ECG as part of a guide to general health. If anything looks awry, I am off to the doctor.
In a report this week (Samantha Wiley, iLounge), I see that Apple has received consent for the new sleep apnea feature on the Apple Watch in Malaysia. An Apple user guide document shows how to set this up, but this is still noted as being unavailable in this area. A link shows what is (or is not) available for each country in another support document.
I use the Sleep Cycle app, along with the Health app to monitor sleep day by day. The Sleep Apnea feature would be useful to complete the picture. As a note, the university I work for has a sleep clinic so sleep problems are a recognized medical research area.
I noticed in an iTunes App Store update this week that the Apple Store app has now been made available to users in India. Almost all of the purchases I have made from Apple in the last few years have been through this app. Here I can make orders with options (memory, storage) far more easily than with the franchised iStudio outlets.
There is also the ability to cancel the purchase of course (I would not like to try that with the franchise stores), but what I find most attractive is the delivery to my condo or office with fairly responsible courier services. These sorts of benefits may appear quite normal to those in the USA or Europe, but they are somewhat refreshing to those in many countries. Manish Singh (TechCrunch) also reports on this change to the Apple scene in India.
Last week iOS and iPadOS were updated to version 18.2.1, but I noted that none of the other operating systems, like macOS were updated. This week, in something of a surprise, a number of sites reported that tvOS had also been updated to version 18.2.1 (Taimur Assad (Redmond Pie): "all compatible Apple TV HD and Apple TV 4K models". Assad writes that it only appears to carry a bug fix for data syncing issues so there are no security changes apparently, unlike the earlier updates.
Commenting on a beta release of the upcoming iOS 18.3 Chance Miller (9to5Mac) notes that this temporarily disables Apple Intelligence notification summaries for select apps. The BBC and others have been criticizing the accuracy of these summaries although my view is that they need to check the output before posting it. As has been stated before, AI is beta and not to be trusted.
On Apple TV, I have come to the end of Silo, series 3. Without giving away too much, Juliet returns as expected, although she was met at the door by Bernard who wants a look outside as order in the Silo collapses behind him. There is a problem with the re-entry into the silo as the scene ends. A typical series/episode ending: will she or won’t she survive? The scene then switches to Washington DC in the 21st century and a meeting between a politician and a journalist. At the end the politician gives the journalist something that we were shown in a scene in the silo, perhaps hundreds of years later. Are we about to see the scenario that started it all off at the start of Season 4 (the final series).
My pleas were answered by Netflix this week when a made-in-the-UK mini-series (5 episodes) appeared. Missing You was written by Harlan Coben and he is executive producer. I have seen other productions of his work and I am always worried by police procedures: Coben is from the USA. This is clearly set in the Metropolitan Police area (posters show this), but although there is a tramline (this features in the series) in southern London (Wimbledon-Croydon) area, the cityscape and particularly the countryside do not match.
It was filmed in the Bolton-Manchester area which explains the more rugged scenes outside the city. I will have to let that pass (suspend disbelief) as the story itself is fairly compelling although there are too many gaps to allow me to enjoy it totally.
I am often frustrated when I see clips of series or movies that are not available here, either through Netflix or AppleTV. I have had some luck occasionally, and this week, two YouTube-clip favourites appeared in AppleTV when I was searching for other movies. Both of these had been missing before: Erin Brockovich; and In the Name of the Father. Both have some superb confrontation scenes: the former somewhat understated as Erin (Julia Roberts) cuts the legs out from beneath other lawyers; and in the latter, the courtroom scene when - in an appeal - the barrister for the defense, played by Emma Thompson, reveals how the prosecution had concealed evidence. That was indeed the case, but not in the way that the film reveals it: "That evidence was principally forensic in nature but also derived from fingerprint evidence connected with safe houses" (Alastair Logan, The Justice Gap).
On Sunday morning, several sites carried news that TikTok had gone dark in the USA. I am sure many young people there are devastated as they relied on its format to communicate to friends and more. I noted some comments about this on Instagram feeds. Among the comments, Joe Rossignol (MacRumors) noted that the app was no longer available on the App Store there (it is here) and feeds in the USA have shut down. Again, not here, although I was asked to enter a code to confirm my email (I use it so rarely). It is one of the means of communication for the PR department of the Faculty of Engineering (I do the X and BlueSky feeds) along with Facebook and other social media.
Rossignol notes that the links in the USA have been made "temporarily unavailable". The main problem for the USA is that data is being sent to the parent company in China and this must be cut for the US to allow it to continue. The Chinese government will not allow this and have shown some concern about the algorithm used. It seems odd to me that the same concerns have never been expressed when Russia-based apps were taking data from US citizens. He also predicts that, "This saga is far from over" (see below), In addition, Wired reports, "Lemon8, CapCut, and Gauth are among the other victims of the US ban on ByteDance-owned apps".
Within a few hours TikTok was back, Chance Miller (9to5Mac) reports. As the incoming president had indicated the ban would not be enforced and this will "ensure [partners] will "face no penalties" for restoring access to the service" it was all brought back (for now). Like Joe Rossignol (above), Miller notes that "What happens next is just as unclear as ever." The incoming president suggests in a social media post that there could be a "50% ownership position in a joint venture for TikTok".
We can now look forward to a host of new surprises once the new president is sworn in.
I had an email purporting to be from Amazon late last week telling me that my order for the iPhone 15 Pro Max was being processed. I did not click on any of the links in the email, but a check of my account showed that I had made no orders of any kind recently. When I had a look at the message on the Mac, I was able to view the raw source which immediately showed that Amazon was not the sender. I sent this to reportascam AT Amazon.
With the start of the year, my thoughts (some at least) are looking towards the start of the motor racing season: specifically motorcycles. I am also a fan of car racing and had watched Grand Prix since the engines were in the front. But no more. The F1 app does not allow viewing of races here (presumably copyright) and the local streaming service is too expensive for 22-24 race weekends because my viewing has shifted from tethered timetables to streamed services. I also found it annoying when advertising cut the transmission; and even more annoying when scheduled repeats were arbitrarily cancelled. The app from MotoGP fixed that, but not the F1 app, so now I only watch the motorcycle racing.
I know that with the start of the season, my subscription is due, so I looked at the app on the iPad and saw that this will be in February and for €139.99 which works out at just under 5,000 baht. That sounds expensive, but with 22 meetings in the season, each with 3 classes, and some first class, informed commentary (just like Martin Brundle for F1 races), this is a good investment for me. The fee also includes several practice sessions (separate from the race weekends), four of which are in February, before the season begins this year. There is also a rich archive of races and other videos going back several years. The season opening is this year in Thailand (28 Feb-2 Mar) with the first entry by a Thai in the top class, Somkiat Chantra. Moving the race to this date from its previous late season slot should avoid the rains that had spoiled some of the races before.
Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. After 3 years writing a column in the Life supplement, he is now no longer associated with the Bangkok Post. He can be followed on X (@extensions_th). The RSS feed for the articles is http://www.extensions.in.th/ext_link.xml - copy and paste into your feed reader.
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