Good morning! ☀️ *Tim Cook voice*

Apple’s sting operation, the biggest surprise of 2023, Google’s new foldable, the GM x CarPlay debacle takes a turn, and much more.

Estimated reading time: 3.7 minutes

📊 Poll

Last week, I asked: Lightning or USB-C?

Here were some of my favorite replies:

This week: How often do you typically upgrade your phone? More on this subject later..

📲 Quick Tip

Live Activites

This week I had a semi-viral tweet about Live Activities, so here are some apps with my favorite Live Activities for the Lock Screen/Dynamic Island.

• Carrot Weather (useful weather alerts)

• Pestle (recipe steps at a glance)

• Flighty (see flight/gate info)

• Uber/Uber Eats (See when driver is arriving)

• Lock Launcher (launch apps from Lockscreen)

🚨 The iPad is Finally “Pro”

One of the oldest Apple rumors in the book just became a reality this week - Pro apps on the iPad!

• Final Cut Pro & Logic Pro are coming to the iPad on May 23rd

• Subscription pricing! $4.99/mo or $49/yr

• Final Cut Pro requires M1 iPad & later, Logic Pro requires A12 iPad & later

Final Cut Pro

What’s most exciting about FCP on the iPad, to me, is that it isn’t just a 1:1 clone of the Desktop app. It has many new features:

• Fast Cut Features with Machine Learning

• Draw on the video (with Apple Pencil) and turn it into an animation easily

• Cut out people/objects without a green screen (like we can on iOS 16, but this time for video)

• Pro Camera Mode for shooting directly into the timeline, with pro options

• Intuitive UX with built-in jog wheel

Logic Pro

This is going to be excellent for music producers and will quite literally turn your iPad into a mobile studio. Some key features:

• All-New Sound Browser

• Pro Mixer

• Professional Instruments and Effects Plug-Ins

• Beat Making and Production Tools

Expect a video tutorial once these apps become available on May 23rd.

🗣️ The Dangerous World of Leaks

Every couple of years we stumble across a new Apple leaker with no history, who correctly predicts/leaks upcoming products or features.

This year, that person was known as Analyst941 on Twitter and MacRumors forums.

You might have seen him referenced over the past couple of months for leaking very specific information about iOS 17 - details we had not seen or heard of before. He even had mockups of the features to prove he had seen something.

But now, it’s over.

After deleting his Twitter account, he posted on the MacRumors Forums that he is leaving social media because his sister (who was the source) has been identified and fired, after Apple ran a multi-step sting operation to rat out the mole.

He described how Apple purposefully fed them incorrect information and after he posted about it, it was easy for Apple to identify and take action, by firing the employee and also potentially filing charges. I also believe Apple forced him to close his accounts down.

The specific information was regarding the release date for the iPad version of Final Cut Pro/Logic Pro, which the leaker said was coming in 2024.

So let this be a reminder if you want to get in the leak game, it doesn’t last forever. And one thing I’ve noticed over the years is that the leakers always get caught because they catch the “attention bug” where they are getting so much attention online, that they keep going, and going, and going, until they eventually get caught because they couldn’t resist the dopamine hit from Twitter likes.

That is, if this story is even legit. For all we know, this story could be completely made up, and is just an elaborate story to save face, or let himself off the hook.

Heck, the sister could be made up and “Analyst941” might actually be the employee himself. Who knows.

Regardless, it’s an interesting development and we will get many questions answered on June 5th.

🤨 Google is Desperate

Google just officially announced their long-awaited Pixel Fold. It drops on June 27th and costs a whopping $1,799!

But to help entice customers, they are WAY overpaying for used iPhones. Here are the ones that stood out most:

• 128GB iPhone 14 Pro/Pro Max, 13 Pro Max - $900

• iPhone 13 Pro - $850

This is clearly a strategy to try to get “pro” iPhone users to switch over to the foldable phone, and I don’t blame them. Apple is late to the foldable phone market, and this could be enticing to some.

Are you a fan of foldable phones? Why or why not? Vote in the poll below!

📲  Why Aren’t You Upgrading?

You’re not upgrading your iPhone as often as you used to, are you?

That’s what research firm CIRP is claiming in their latest report:

• From 2019 to 2021, roughly 30% of Apple customers used iPhones that were 3+ years old

• In March 2022, many Apple users upgraded to the iPhone 13, with 12% showing in blue. And green (3+ years) shrinking to the lowest since 2019.

• March 2023 is moving back towards 2021 numbers

Tbh, if I didn’t make YouTube videos on Apple products, I’d probably be in the yellow section on the chart. I’d likely upgrade every 2 years but never go more than 3 years without upgrading.

Vote in the poll at the top of the newsletter and tell me which camp you belong in and why! Very curious.

🚗 Ex-Apple Exec Joins GM for CarPlay Competitor

A couple of weeks ago, we discussed GM ditching CarPlay and why it is likely a bad move.

But now, there’s a big twist: GM has hired Apple’s former head of iCloud, Mike Abbott, to run its software team!

• Abbott spent 5 years in charge of iCloud software at Apple

• He will serve as executive vice president of software and report directly to GM CEO Mary Barra

So even though GM’s proprietary software will built on Android Automative, having a former Apple boss there makes this a tad more interesting (although I still don’t think this is going to touch CarPlay).

📰 Quick News Bites

• Epic’s Unreal Engine gets major update with native Apple Silicon Mac support

• Historic Apple check signed by Steve Jobs fetches giant diamond prices

• Elon Musk says he has found new Twitter CEO

• ‘Foundation’: Season 2 Premiere Date Set, Teaser Trailer Released For Apple TV+

• Small developers saw a 71% increase in App Store revenue over the past two years

🎨 Set Wallpaper

Click the image to download the full res file.

🫶 Reader Love

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Until next week, ✌️

- Brandon

PS: If you want to see this week’s iOS Weekly episode early, here you go!