eXtensions - Sunday 16 November 2025
By Graham K. Rogers
I am still slowly making my new iPhone and Apple Watch behave as I want: not there yet. I made a mistake with Apple Ordering online. The Store in Bangkok was happy to help. I bought some more accessories: already in my mind. MacWorld has an odd idea of what excitement means with Apple silicon. Google has taken 10 years to find one page that breaks its rules, so has cut all advertising from the eXtensions site. I can live with that.
This week there are still a few minor problems with my hardware updates: the Apple Watch 11 and the iPhone 7 Pro. One by one I have gone through the apps I use on a daily basis. More than usual this time are affected by the hardware and the recent OS 26 updates. I keep finding apps that fail to connect properly or need setting up from new. I am still having to tweak links between third party apps and Health on the iPhone, with some of these (e.g. Sleep Cycle and Withings) also being affected by the Apple Watch 11.
The initial pairing of the new Watch to the iPhone 17 Pro was accomplished with the help of staff at the iStudio in Siam Paragon. They also helped me unpair the old Watch from the iPhone 15: that had all gone wrong during the initial iPhone 17 setup at home. With the new installation, apps on the new Watch are installed in a different order so the Grid view is not the same as before. The arrangement feature fixed that. The widgets, which I access using the thumb and forefinger gesture, are also in a different order and I have to scroll through.
It may be because it is new and the battery is still settling down, but the battery use and charging are not what I expected. Although I think I am using the Watch in the same way, the charge has been dropping far more than I was used to with the previous Watch. When I woke one morning, the charge was at 81% down overnight from 100%, and that was reduced to 71% when I charged the phone while showering (it was in a different room). The next day the charge was 71% when I woke. That is compounded by the glacial speed of charging. For the first time I have had to use the charger in my office as the morning charge is no longer enough. As this has become noticeable, I will be monitoring the way discharge and charging work in the next week or so.
I noticed the slider for Brightness was on full. I moved it to full as at certain times of the day it was not bright enough for me. I have adjusted that down to half level as - despite being a slider - the options are Full, 50-50, or Low. That improved things slightly, but even so, the morning charge is not enough. I have also turned off the wrist control as the screen was almost always on. This is not working as I had expected. The old Apple Watch 9 charged faster.
I finally took delivery of the Apple case I ordered online. Having seen them in the shops, I am tempted to add the crossbody strap. I want to experiment with this instead of just slipping it over my shoulder or wearing it round my neck. I am thinking of how this might help me when taking photographs. For a couple of reasons, I am not likely to buy Apple's latest iPhone accessory: the iPhone Pocket, designed by ISSEY MIYAKE - the capital letters are significant. I loved my Apple Socks and if they became available again would run down to the stores and buy some. The new iPhone Pocket looks somewhat pretentious to me, and that is half the point of it: some users want to trumpet their ownership of the device. You do not buy Gucci, Prada or Hermès just for the style. Comments by some online sources, for example, Amanda Silberling (TechCrunch) suggest this could be a winner with those who have disposable income.
They are on sale now and Ryan Christoffel (9to5Mac) has some links to videos of potential purchasers. These are on sale in only a few countries: France, Greater China, Italy, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the UK, and the U.S. I would not, however, want to wear one of these in London which is the smartphone theft capital of the world (Lizzie Dearden & Amelia Nierenberg, NYTimes, et al). Other stylish third party accessories are being announced and Joe Rossignol (MacRumors) reports on a range by a number of manufacturers, all in cherry red. Sadly, these were not shown in the Apple Online Store here, and staff in the real Apple Store had no knowledge of the products. Reports on Saturday suggest that the iPhone Pocket has turned into a hot commodity.
The Apple case I ordered for the iPhone 17 Pro arrived, but when I opened the envelope I saw on the box that it was for an iPhone 17 Pro Max. Surely Apple had not made such a mistake? Of course not. Somehow I had done this, and although I had looked at the order several times online before it shipped, I failed to notice this. It is just as well that I did not rip open the box (my usual way). With the return policy, I walked into the Apple Store at Central World in Bangkok on Saturday and it was accepted with no questions. Refunding will be in about 2 weeks. I guess they have to check it really is a genuine return. I bought the correct case while I was there, and added the Crossbody Strap and a couple of Watch bands. In use, the TechWoven case is far nicer than I had anticipated.
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I was disturbed by something I read online this week. It annoyed me so much that the first sentence I wrote had to be edited: no need for profanity. On MacWorld Alex Blake claimed that the M5 chip from Apple has made it all exciting again. As if every Mac over the last 5 years has made us yawn. The original M1 was exciting for them, for me and pretty much everyone in between, except perhaps Intel. Since that time, we have seen M1 variants, the M2 range, the M3 series and the M4. I found that so exciting that I ordered both the iPad Pro and the Mac mini the day each became available here (several months apart of course, I am not made of money). But now, the M5 - shazam, kapow, WoW.
Each of those variations in the chips since that first announcement has brought with it new Models (the Ultra, a Mac Pro, et al) and steadily built the sales of Macs on the way. You don't have that with inertia. The article includes benchmark tests from 3 sources and while this does show that the M5 is more powerful than the M1 Ultra, those benchmarks still show 10 chips that exceed the M5, with the M3 Ultra head and shoulders above (Geekbench 28,000+) with its 80 cores and the M5 (18000+) with 10 cores: pretty impressive nonetheless and indicative of what is to come. So, Yes it is exciting.
The problem with MacWorld is that nothing from Apple ever seems to be good enough for its contributors, including the iPad Pro which should be really be a Mac (they say). Leave well alone, I suggest. That has become my go-to device for almost all my work: and the MacBook Pro (Intel and Apple Silicon) was a tough act to follow. Just in time, Jason Snell (6Colors) who was Macworld editor for several years put out a comment on the iPad Pro (Friday 14 Nov). His final sentence, "Today's iPad Pro resembles the Mac a little more closely, but it still isn't a Mac," shows how wrong, in my opinion, he has this. I have Macs. I want the iPad Pro to be different.
All the chips between the original M1 up to the M5, and all the variants (the Pro, Max and Ultra) have each shown the potential for Apple computing now that it is unshackled from reliance on the other suppliers of the past (Motorola, PowerPC and Intel). Remember waiting for a G5 notebook Mac? Each of the Apple Silicon iterations, along with the manufacturing process, down from 5nm to (now) 3nm, with 2nm expected, have performed ably (and some). With each chip development Apple has been able to add features that, had it been working with Intel, would have taken far longer to appear, and (perhaps more significant) would have been available to all PC makers as well. I have been excited by Apple silicon ever since early versions of the A-series chips showed the potential for their development as computer chips.
The M-series was a surprise in some ways only. I would have been surprised if Apple had not been working on such technology. The M1 brought obvious advantages for users of Macs, and each iteration (including the Pro, et al) has brought an advance in computing potential, far quicker than had previously been possible with Apple controlling the whole process. As a side note, Fernando Silva (9to5Mac) writes on his experiences with the M4 Mac mini, which pretty much mirror what I found, although I realized right from the announcement how important this was.
With Jeff Williams officially retired now, all eyes turn once again to Tim Cook and there have been several reports concerning his retirement which, whatever one thinks of the man, is inevitable. As that must happen, it is essential that Apple thinks about a replacement. I would be surprised if a decision had not already been made. He is now expected to announce that he will step down early next year. Several potential candidates have been run through online opinions, although the best (for my money) is John Ternus, currently Senior Vice President, Hardware Engineering. Of the other internal management potential candidates, only Deirdre O'Brien, now Senior Vice President, Retail and People, stands out. The others are limited in terms of age, experience or other factors, although a personal favorite is Craig Federighi, Senior Vice President, Software Engineering, whose presentation skills show his ability to act quickly in a tight situation and his friendly public persona.
I had email from Google Adsense this weekend that informed me of a violation: "a high volume of policy violations on your site". The information claims that one of the pages on my site is not in compliance as it is "encouraging clicks". Some of the pages go back to 2002. The particular page is from 2015, so it has taken Google 10 years to identify this problem. I checked and there is a comment, "feel free to click on the ads" but in the context this was intended to be dry humor. As a result of this sentence from a decade ago, Google has decreed that all advertising on the site is now blocked. As this has only been a dribble for several years now, this is not going to hurt me at all. It used to provide a tiny income, but ad-blocking put an end to that. Despite Google still owing me a few dollars, I will remove all that coding from this and future pages, and run ad-free.
On Apple TV the new Vince Gilligan series, Pluribus, arrived, and I have now watched the first three episodes. Unlike normal series or movies, I haven't got a clue which way this is going. It has all the hallmarks of a horror movie, but it's not that. It looks like a disaster movie, but there's no clear idea if those who have survived the main event are going to live or die. It's also unclear if those who have been affected by the main event will continue as they are or return to normal. That would, of course, be the desired outcome, but that would make for a cop out for any movie. As the friendlies try to keep Carol Sturka pleased before they take her over (they expect), they are willing to grant her every wish. That extends to a live grenade, but then she realizes in a discussion, that this could be anything, including an H-bomb.
The intriguing scenario of five or six people unaffected throughout the world with the rest of the population all acting as members of a pod, is just so unusual that it won't follow normal plot outcomes. A complicating and disturbing factor is that when Carol loses her temper out of frustration, all of the affected persons go into a catatonic state and several million die. This is something that she is trying to get under control, but I wonder if she would use that as the story unfolds. The whole thing is such a mystery that I have, unlike any normal viewing opportunity, zero idea where this is going. A note on the series comes from the creator, Vince Gilligan, who wants us all to know that there is no AI in this series (Marcus Mendes, 9to5Mac). I am all for that.
As a unique tie-in to the series, the book that Carol Sturka is on tour to publicize in the first episode, Bloodsong of Wycaro - or at least one chapter - is available as a download in the Books app, even in Thailand where the store still only has copyright-free items. I first saw this in a report from Juli Clover (MacRumors) and downloaded it right away. David Snow (Cult of Mac) has some interesting comments on this series. He notes that it has already been renewed for a second season.
Down Cemetery Road and The Morning Show arrived on my Apple TV on Wednesday. I am enjoying the detective mystery of Down Cemetery Road, but I am also intrigued by The Morning Show. I noted a couple of weeks ago that Stella went off to Naples after her personal and work problems. This was an unusual move for such a series, and I speculated on what that might mean. It would be unusual just to have a character vanish. I also note that Stella has been invisible for the last two episodes. That is most unlike the series. I speculate that there might be a return in the final episode and this might also see a resurrection of Mitch Kessler (Steve Carell). Also being resurrected is Monster. Series 2 is on its way, slated for February next year and will again star Kurt Russell (Dennis Sellers, AppleWorld Today).
I was also pleased to see the arrival next week of Family Plan 2, Mark A sequel to Mark Wahlberg's oddly satisfying "secret agent tries to become family man" movie. Two trailers are available on AppleTV and the second is delightful. I was slightly less pleased with Nobody 2, Bob Odenkirk's look at a similar idea. The first one was such a delightful surprise and I was pleased to see a sequel, although this seems a little stretched at times: wonderful if you like pyrotechnics and the success of the small guy against overwhelming odds.
Over on Netflix I am delighted by a new series, The Beast in Me starring Clare Danes and Matthew Rhys, with the appearance of Jonathan Banks (Mike in Breaking Bad). The series looks at how people react in certain circumstances and has been covered many times in literature and by movies (the creature from the Id in Forbidden Planet for example). Clare Danes plays one of her paranoid roles in which she appears constantly on the verge of terror, meets up with Nile Jarvis, a recently arrived neighbour in an upscale estate. She lost her son and is still haunted by it; he was accused by some of murdering his first wife: much suspicion, little evidence, no body. Nile and his father are big time real estate developers. Both seem as cold and ruthless as Lady Macbeth. Lucy Mangan (Guardian) describes it as a "two-hander", and thinks it is destined for awards.
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. No AI was used in writing this item.
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