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How to use your new iPhone XR, iPhone XS, or iPad as in-flight entertainment
North is trying to become the Warby Parker of augmented reality glasses
New Windows 10 1809 bug: Zip data-loss flaw is months old but Microsoft missed it

How to use your new iPhone XR, iPhone XS, or iPad as in-flight entertainment

Posted: 23 Oct 2018 05:49 AM PDT

Load up your iOS device with movies, TV, podcasts and music to watch on flights. It's easy to do but there are more problems to be aware of than just having enough storage space. AppleInsider on the packing list you need to enjoy your trip.

The days of airplanes having tiny, square, rubbish video screens in the back of the seat in front of you are now behind us. Some airlines are dropping the screens and removing inflight entertainment entirely. And if you get yourself a ride on a 787 Dreamliner then the screen is still there and it is only rubbish next to your iPhone.

You could take a chance on there being some decent movies and it might work out for you. Yet they tend to be a small selection and they're all prefixed by a warning saying that the film has "been modified from its original version... it has been edited for content."

Rather than being stuck with a bowdlerised version of a movie you weren't that fussed about seeing and now can't hear properly because of those tinny airline headphones, load up your iPhone and iPad with what you actually like.

It's not just movies, either. You know that you can add TV series and you can add music and podcasts. However, you can also add books, or you can add that massive bundle of documents you're supposed to read before you land.

Take some time

Downloading items to your iOS device is in theory simple. In practice, though, it comes with unexpected problems. Apple Music could behave better at this, for instance, and some local TV providers' apps really need to be faster if they're going to be useful.

Then there is one area where the airline's inflight entertainment still wins out. It's there and working fine when your iOS battery power has gone.

Preparing for a long haul flight is about choosing your entertainment and reading material. It's about getting those physically onto your devices and it's about making sure have enough battery power. It's about doing this while also conforming to the airline's limitations on lithium ion batteries in carry-on luggage.

Choosing your material

We wouldn't dream of telling you what to choose, even though Justified is a brilliant TV series and we don't travel anywhere without some Doctor Who.

However, be practical. You have limited space on your iOS device and you also have limited time in the air. Do remember that you've probably got to fly back again, but still it's pointless packing five seasons of a TV show on there, if it will even fit.

If we may make a suggestion, pick a couple of episodes of something you currently watch so that you can catch up on that. Then add in a film and buy a book.

Just whatever you do, make sure you do it as long before your flight as you can.

Seriously, start now

Video and audio can take up a lot of space and that can mean it takes up a surprisingly long time transferring over Wi-Fi. In sampling our libraries, we found that a single one-hour episode of a TV series can range anywhere from 570MB to 2.75GB. Films typically take between 3GB and 5GB.

However, that protracted time to download these files to your iOS device isn't the only reason to start early. Instead, you need enough time to see it worked, and be able to start again if it failed.

This will happen to you. You tell an app what you want to download, it says it's doing it, and then you find it hasn't, generally when you want to consume what's been downloaded.

We're looking at you, Apple Music.

Download Apple Music

While you're on Wi-Fi somewhere, choose an album or create a playlist. At the top of that list or that album listing, there will be a red iCloud download button next to the title.

Tap on that and you will see it change to a rotating icon meaning it's downloading. Every track in the list will have the same rotating icon and now you just walk away to let it complete.

That all makes sense and it's hard to see how Apple Music could make it any easier. However, without fail we always find that it ends up downloading only a fraction of what we wanted.

Right now, we're on an aircraft listening to a playlist which should have 227 tracks. And instead it has seven.

What happened is that we chose a playlist to download and then carried on using our iPhone. After a time, Apple Music stopped downloading in the background. That's not unreasonable —you don't want any app to run that demandingly in the background and crushing your battery as it does so.

Yet it's also far from great that the solution is to open Apple Maps or leave Apple Music open, and then leave it alone for a half an hour or more.

iTunes video and the TV app

It can similarly take a long time to download your purchased television and films to your iOS device, though oddly we've not had the same issue with downloads failing. That's peculiar because in every other way this is the same as with Apple Music and what you have to do is identical.

Apple wants to make this process easy so that once you know how it works with one type of download, you know how to use the other. Otherwise, though, Apple really doesn't want you to think about downloads at all.

It doesn't want you to think about what's actually on your device versus what's streaming to it.

With music and video, though, you can easily tell your iPhone and iPad to show you only what's actually present on your device. For video, open the TV app and choose Downloaded.

It's the same in Apple Music. There is a section in your Library, this time called Downloaded Music

While you're in that section, you only see what's physically on your device. To actually put something physically on to your device, you need to back out of the Downloaded section.

You can go into the Store to buy more but ultimately you must to go into your Library to say which of your purchases you want on your device.

Pick a show or a film in your Library and tap to go into it. On the detail page, you'll see the same iCloud download icon at the top by the title. This time it will be in cyan and unless you're looking at a film, this time you shouldn't press the button. If looking at a season of a TV show, then tapping on that button will download every episode.

Instead, scroll down to individual episodes and tap the iCloud download icon that's to the right of each one that you want.

For television, there will be a Get More Episodes at the bottom of the list. That takes you back into the Store but it's not intelligent —it doesn't matter whether you already have all the episodes or if iTunes doesn't have the complete set, you get that link and it takes you into the store.

TV providers

Wherever you are in the world, there is a service and a catch-up app from the networks: NBC, CBS and ABC all have them.

None of these three are great apps and each of them can be confusing about what you may or may not download but if you watch shows on these networks, they're worth exploring on the apps as it may not interface with Apple's TV app well, if at all.

You can get the same or even better experience with apps from the major cable operators, Netflix, Hulu and HBO

In every case, you typically have to subscribe and you always have to be in a specific geographic region when you start.

We tried it with the BBC's iPlayer in the UK, though, and while it's a significantly clearer app to use than, say, NBC's, it's also time-consuming. For unknown reasons we would often see 'download failed' and have to start the process again.

Netflix is special

Netflix famously said it would never feature downloadable shows, you would always have to stream them. And then rival streaming services introduced downloads so take a guess what happened next.

It's still far from complete, as you cannot download everything on Netflix. However, so long as you're a subscriber, you can download a lot and that tends to include all new additions to the service.

Netflix is another region-dependent service so actually you can benefit from downloading to shows to it to watch all the time you're away from home, not just when you're in the air.

That's because even though you're a paying customer, you will find you can't stream Netflix in a different region to your home one. In theory you could install a VPN and tell any service that you're still in whichever region you pay for, but Netflix is now too good at spotting and blocking that.

Plex

We'd say that this is an unheralded app and service except for how everyone including us keeps on heralding it. Even so, it's not heralded enough. Plex begins as a tremendous free app for streaming videos from your Mac to your TV or iOS devices.

If you have any video on your Mac, the odds are that Plex can play it. To watch it on airplane mode, though, you can buy a Plex Pass. This costs from $4.99/month and it enables you to select video from your library and download it to your iOS device.

That gets you this download advantage plus the Plex app is particularly good at showing you a lot of video to choose from in a clear and straightforward way. It's also got this ability to play formats of video that iTunes can't —but it's not the only app that can do that.

VLC

Maybe you've ripped your DVDs, maybe you've shot your own feature films. Whatever it is, you've ended up with a lot to watch and no way to play it on your iOS device.

Get the free VLC player. It's not as smooth as either Apple's or Plex's offerings but it will play just about anything.

You only have to get that video into VLC on your device.

Previously, Apple let you manage iOS apps in iTunes on the Mac. One big advantage of this was that you could switch to the Apps section, click on something like VLC, and then drag all the video you liked over to it.

Whatever you dragged over to the right section of iTunes on your Mac would be transferred to your iPad. It was how we got multiple seasons of a show we'd ripped.

Now that Apple has removed the facility to manage apps in iTunes, you might presume that this mass transfer option is gone too. It isn't. It's just in a different place.

Plug your iOS device into your Mac and then in iTunes, click on the absurdly hard-to-spot icon for that iPhone or iPad.

The screen that appears includes details about the device but also a column of sections to do with music, video —and File Transfer. Click on that and you get a list of apps that you can drag items to.

In this respect, it is exactly the same as the old Apps section on iTunes. The apps displayed are ones that are currently installed on your iPhone. Click on the name of one and then drag what you want to the document window next to it.

Be careful where you drag, though. It's easy to miss and end up dragging video files to an app that can't play them. There's no intelligence here either —these apps accept documents, any documents, any files. It's only later when you try to watch them in the app on your iOS device that you find out they can't be played.

That does mean, though, that you can add any type of document this way so long as you have apps that can open them. That means this is how you transfer a lot of reading material.

PDFs, comics, textbooks

Use the same system to find File Transfer, click on the right app, and then drag your files onto it —if the app is listed.

Apple Books, for instance, is actually fine for reading PDFs but for some reason it isn't an app you can drag files to in iTunes on your Mac. While you're at your Mac, however, you can open the macOS Mojave version of Apple Books.

You still can't just drag PDFs into it, but you can choose File, Import and bring documents in that way.

Once you've added a stack of PDFs to Apple Books on your Mac, you have also added them to it on iOS. Thanks to iCloud syncing, they will practically immediately be on your iOS device —or at least their titles will be.

To make sure each document you want to read on your flight is actually on your iOS device, you have to open Books on that and tap on each one. Open each document that you'll want to read en route and they will be fully downloaded.

This is all a bit of a chore, but it's worth it in the end. Your new iPhone screen may be brilliant for video but it is utterly wonderful for text too. Plus text won't hit your battery as much.

Battery Life

The iPhone XS Max will play back up to 15 hours of video on a full charge. The iPhone XS will play a little less at 14 hours. And the iPhone XR has the longest battery life at up to 16 hours of video playback.

The differences between these three are hardware: the iPhone XS Max has the biggest battery but also the biggest OLED screen. The iPhone XR has a lower quality screen that's less demanding on power.

If those are your maximums unless you have a spare battery charger, then there are also some constraints imposed by the FAA. You can check the full details on the FAA's Pack Safe site but the most relevant points are to do with how many spare batteries you can take.

Even then, the detail you need to know for making sure your iPhone lasts the distance is that the key limitation is on the capacity of the batteries. There is also the fact that you can only be carrying them for personal use, you can't slip a pallet of batteries into your carry-on for sale to other passengers.

The capacity limit is that "lithium ion (rechargeable) batteries are limited to a rating of 100 watt hours (Wh) per battery," says the FAA. Then, too, "there is a limit of two spare batteries per person for the larger lithium ion batteries described above (101-160 watt hours per battery)."

There is something else

We've said that your iOS device is infinitely better than any inflight entertainment system and it truly is. Even accepting that you need to bring some extra battery power with you for long flights, it is far and away the best option.

Only, there is turbulence. As we write, we just flew over Iceland and the aircraft shook like a tumble dryer for ten minutes.

It's hard to know, actually, which is the more expensive piece of equipment between your iOS device or a plane's inflight entertainment screen. It's not at all hard to know, though, which one we care about more.

So sometimes you will be better off putting the iPhone back in your pocket and putting up with the aircraft's screen. Or even reading a physical book.

If you preload your iOS device with enough to watch and read and listen to, though, you've got options and those long flights won't seem so long at all.

AppleInsider will be at the fall "There's more in the making" event, where we expect new iPad Pros, and maybe even new Macs! Keep up with our coverage by downloading the AppleInsider app for iOS, and follow us on YouTube, Twitter @appleinsider and Facebook for live, late-breaking coverage. You can also check out our official Instagram account for exclusive photos.

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North is trying to become the Warby Parker of augmented reality glasses

Posted: 23 Oct 2018 05:35 AM PDT

Although few people seem to really want to wear smart glasses or goggles — think Google Glass or Snapchat Spectacles — a startup thinks it's figured out the recipe to augmented reality success. North, which just rebranded from Thalmic Labs, is launching its first product today, called Focals, with the goal of starting a bunch of Warby Parker-esque stores that'll sell lots of connected glasses. It's trying to create the first pair of "everyday smart glasses."

When I meet Stephen Lake, CEO of North, at the company's new Brooklyn, New York store last week, which was still under construction, he's wearing Focals. I immediately scan his face to figure out where the display is and settle on a little spot on the right lens of his glasses that looks like a smudge. The photopolymer material that serves as the display location isn't noticeable for the most part, but when it catches the light, it looks like the glasses need to be wiped down.

I came to the store to try out the Focals buying experience for myself and to see what the casual smart glasses fuss is all about. The glasses show wearers a bunch of information from their phone; can call an Uber; and are extremely customizable to the point of requiring a 3D model of each wearers' face to make them work.

Lake and his team took me through the purchasing process, which involves sitting in a dark room surrounded by 16 cameras and one attendant. I had to put my hair back in a cotton headband (that I got to keep!) and line my face up with a pair of software-created glasses on a screen. The cameras then took a bunch of photos simultaneously to create a 3D model of my ears, nose, eyes, and face. I'm sure it's really attractive!

The first scan didn't work, so the attendant had to put a separate plastic headband on me that helped guide the software to follow my ears.

This worked, at last. And now, I could actually try on a pair of Focals.

Each Focals pair features a tiny, color laser in the right arm that displays information from your phone over Bluetooth. That laser bounces off a piece of photopolymer material built into the glasses' right lens, then heads into your eye. It creates a 15-degree viewing area that's about 300 x 300 pixels.

The glasses work more or less the same as Intel's disbanded Vaunt smart glasses project in that both take advantage of retinal projection, meaning the image they display shines on the back of your retina, which leaves everything in focus. You'll be able to wear Focals with or without prescriptions or with contacts. Focals won't work with bifocals, however, and can only handle prescriptions between +2 and -4.

North built custom software for the glasses and designed the UI in-house. It's colorful with slight animations that I think look nice. You can view your messages, send automated responses that North crafted through SMS, call an Uber, get turn-by-turn directions through Mapbox, view your calendar, and check the weather.

The image will automatically disappear after three seconds of non-use, which I wish came with the option to be extended, but North's team likes the idea of non-obtrusive technology that keeps us "centered in the real world."

Each pair has enough battery to last 18 hours, North says, and can be recharged only through their companion case. This case also charges the essential Focals accessory: the Loop. The Loop is a plastic ring with a joystick-like button that looks like any plastic smart ring you've seen on the market. It's bulky and doesn't look so nice, but it allows wearers to swipe through their glasses' interface without having to touch their glasses or do something with their head. A ring makes way more sense to me, although again, it's ugly.

You can swipe through your notifications by pushing left or right on the Loop joystick and pressing down to make a selection. You can also use it to trigger Amazon's Alexa assistant because yes, Alexa is built-in. The glasses have a microphone and speaker inside, so you can issue commands to Alexa and hear responses if necessary. (Amazon was a leading investor in North's Series B funding.)

As far as the actual glasses, they're stylish enough. They come in two styles and three colors, and each one includes a pair of clip-on sunglass lenses in either black or copper. It's not a wide range of styles, but they're definitely nowhere near the nerd levels of Google Glass or even Snap Spectacles.

Everything about the glasses has to be customized. Lake tells me North runs a massive factory in Canada where they process orders and fit the frames and lenses to each wearer. Keep in mind that you have to keep the display directly in your line of sight or else it'll disappear, so those measurements are crucial to the glasses' success.

The demo pair I tried had a couple hiccups, like Alexa not immediately responding to my commands, but I didn't hate the experience. It's the most pleasing AR demo I've had and is definitely more calming than virtual reality. It feels manageable. That said, I'd be interested to test the glasses at night to see how bright the projector is. I'm also sad I'd have to wear that plastic ring to make the glasses work.

And the price is a lot to take in. A pair costs $999, which includes lenses, the prescription, anti-glare coatings, and the fitting. You can apply to use insurance money against it, but still, that's a lot of cash especially considering that glasses wearers are enjoying owning multiple pairs of cheaper frames. It'll be for sale at the Brooklyn store or the company's other location in Toronto, Ontario. Orders will take around two weeks to process once everything is up and running, and the first pairs will go out around the holidays this year, although only in the classic frame. The round frame will ship in 2019, as will prescription lenses.

A laser being projected into my retina sounds like a futuristic thing, for sure, and I wouldn't be surprised if more companies start exploring this space. It's at least more pleasant than staring at an extremely bright display all day. But I don't trust that every company is going to value an unobtrusive interface like North says it does. So once the glasses don't automatically sleep after three seconds, maybe a floating display in front of my face all day won't actually be so great.

Correction 10/23, 8:34 AM ET: A prior version of this article referred to North as North Labs in some instances. We regret the error.

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New Windows 10 1809 bug: Zip data-loss flaw is months old but Microsoft missed it

Posted: 23 Oct 2018 04:05 AM PDT

Windows 10 version 1809 update is still on ice due to the data-deletion bug embarrassingly missed by Microsoft during preview testing.

But the few users who did get the Windows 10 October 2018 Update have now discovered its built-in zip tool is doing weird things when copying files.

Windows 10

As one 1809 user reported on Reddit, this version of Windows 10 is missing the 'Do you want to replace these files' dialog when copying from a zip archive to a folder with an identically named file in it.

The problem only seems to affect the built-in zip tool in Windows File Explorer rather than third-party zip tools.

The dialog is an important flag when transferring a lot of files, since it's an opportunity for the user to choose whether to replace the identical file, skip replacing the file, or compare the information stored in both files before taking any action.

Without the dialog, it could be easy to unintentionally overwrite non-identical files.

"Pretty nasty bug since you can accidentally overwrite a file and have no way of getting it back," wrote the user.

Another Reddit user explains the same zip archive problem differently. When copying from zip, it appears as if files are being copied, and Windows File Explorer even indicates the transfer progress.

However, after it's complete, files in the destination folder have not actually been updated. Users then may delete the zip archive and lose their copy of files based on incorrect information.

Another Reddit user commenting on that report said: "The issue is that in 1809, overwriting files by extracting from an archive using File Explorer doesn't result in an overwrite prompt dialog and also doesn't replace any files at all; it just fails silently. There are also some reports that it did overwrite items, but did so silently without asking."

The bug does not appear to be as serious as the data-loss issues that prompted Microsoft to stop the Windows 10 1809 rollout.

SEE: 20 pro tips to make Windows 10 work the way you want (free PDF)

However, just like that bug, this newer one was also reported by a Windows Insider tester three months ago in Microsoft's Feedback Hub.

And just like the data-loss bug reports, this report failed to attract more than a few upvotes, and was subsequently missed by Microsoft during the original round of 1809 testing.

But as spotted by BleepingComputer, an engineer for Microsoft's Windows Insider Program, has confirmed this bug was fixed in the Windows 10 19H1 preview in build 18234, which was released on September 6, a month before the public release of Windows 10 1809.

That patch should mean a fix for the new bug will be available for Windows 10 1809 soon, but it's another example of Microsoft missing important feedback from testers.

Following Microsoft's 1809 data-loss debacle, the company updated its Feedback Hub to allow testers to allocate a severity rating to bug reports, which should alert Microsoft's Windows engineers to more pressing issues in future.

In the meantime, it's left the zip bug reporter, Jacob Klein, wondering what else he could have done to get the issue noticed by Microsoft.

"I wonder if there was anything more that I could have done when reporting that bug. I mean ... It's gotten just four UpVotes since I reported it three months ago. I filled it out as completely as I could, and did 'Recreate my problem'. I hope impact selection will help in the future," wrote Klein.

His Feedback Hub report explained the problem clearly: "Copying/pasting a file from inside a ZIP will not properly replace an existing file. Create a ZIP file that has a file in it. Have another folder available that has the same file name, but different file data. Now try to copy from insize (SIC) the ZIP file, into that other folder.

"What happens: You do NOT get the prompt to overwrite the file, the file does NOT get copied, and the files modified date DOES get updated. What should happen: You DO get the prompt to overwrite the file, the file DOES get copied (if you agree to the prompt), and the file's modified date only gets updated WHEN THE FILE IS UPDATED."

A Windows 10 insider MVP suggested reporting the issue to one of Microsoft's external Insider MVPs as their reports are given more weight than average testers.

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Plus: Windows 10 October 2018 Update is now available.

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