Battery: To Replace or Not
A Word On the iPhone & iPad
Like me you may be resisting letting go of your older iPhone because you don't want to put a huge flat screen TV in your pocket. Okay, I'm exaggerating (a bit), but some of us don't see a need for a 5 inch or larger screen -- that's why we have iPads. But the pitfall of holding on to an older iPhone is of course battery life. The same can be said of iPads. My iPad 3 is now over four years old an I need to charge it up often to keep it going. But does it make sense to replace our aging batteries?
No. That's the answer. Don't do it. Sure, there are a myriad of phone repair places that will happily replace your battery. But the iPhones and iPads are built with non-replaceable batteries for a reason. Having a random shop crack yours open to put in some off-brand lithium ion battery is ill advised. We have yet to see a "repaired" device that we would consider acceptable.
iOS devices have a life-span of about 2 years, which is standard for mobile devices. Battery life will be good for that period, but will start to drop off afterwards. If your device is older than 3 years, an upgrade is advisable as a better option than repair.
And remember, you don't need the iPhone 7 if you don't like the size. The iPhone SE is the same size of the venerable iPhone 5 with all the iPhone 6 guts in it.
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Apple Wireless Network Tweaks
Yes, It Hertz
If you have an Apple Airport Extreme and a new Mac, iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV, you can enable the 5GHz network option on your Apple Airport Extreme to boost speed to those devices. In fact, we have found that the newer Apple TVs work much better on this frequency, especially when using AirPlay.
5GHz is a higher frequency than the standard 2.4GHz radio, so the signal won't go as far, but it allows much better throughput for devices that can take advantage of it. And if you have one of those Gigawhatever internet services, it's an easy way to optimize speed.
To enable your 5GHz radio, go into Airport Utility and when editing the configuration of your Airport, select the Wireless tab and then Wireless Options to see the checkbox.
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Alexa, Siri, Google Home & Privacy
It's Open Mic Night at Your House... Every Night
All these new voice assistants hitting the market are cool. I think of Captain Picard asking the Enterprise computer for his favorite tea. Cool, yes, but are they secure?
All voice assistants are constantly listening for their key phrase to activate. This means that the microphone is always on. How the different services handle trapping this voice data varies. Wiredmagazine has an excellent and brief article that can answer some of your concerns. You can read it here: https://www.wired.com/2016/12/alexa-and-google-record-your-voice/
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