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This, too, deserves a raise
Here's another meme-worthy hidden Apple feature.
Leander Kahney
February 28, 2025
In partnership with
Remember that meme that shows an SMS authentication code being automatically filled on an iPhone?
“The Apple engineer who invented this deserves a raise!”
Well, there’s a new contender for the meme: the iPhone feature that allows auto-sharing Wi-Fi passwords with anyone in your contacts list.
If a friend or family member tries to log into a Wi-Fi network you’re on, a password-sharing prompt pops up on your iPhone. With one tap, the password is shared and they’re in.
If you haven’t yet experienced this, you probably can’t imagine how fantastic it is. It’s one of those little Apple innovations that may only be used occasionally but is the kind of thoughtful, well-designed detail that makes people fall in love with their Apple devices.
But wait, there’s more! You also can help people use your Wi-Fi if they’re not in your contact list.
You can share your Wi-Fi password — or your guest network password — as a QR code.
Printed out on paper, or just displayed on your iPhone, the QR code makes sharing your Wi-Fi password very, very easy. It’s super-useful in offices, coffee shops, hotels, Airbnbs and more.
It’s one of those handy but buried features that deserve to be better known — or to become a viral meme!
Also in today’s newsletter:
This also looks super-handy: Apple’s rolling out new tools for setting up kids’ accounts with age-appropriate restrictions.
A four-pack of AirTags just dropped to the lowest price ever: only $64.49, or about $16 apiece. Even if Apple releases new AirTags 2 next month, it’s still a good deal. Our managing editor Lewis Wallace just bought four more. You can never have enough.
Years ago, as a cub reporter, I was assigned to cover local ice hockey matches. I hated it! Everything about the game was dumb and confounding, especially the knuckleheaded players’ extreme pride in their missing teeth and facial injuries. Anyway, ice hockey refs are getting Apple Watches to help them officiate the brawling … er, games, I mean. The sport did inspire a great Paul Newman movie, though: Slap Shot! Highly recommended!
Our friends at CdkeySales are running a March sale with big discounts on Windows software.
Hard to believe it’s almost 20 years since the debut of the Mac mini — the original “headless” Mac that was cheap because customers were encouraged to BYOKM — bring your own keyboard and mouse.
To see how far things have come with the Mac mini, today’s featured setup is a good example. I wonder what all the different keyboards are for?
— Leander Kahney, EIC.
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One more thing ...
I'm brutally honest, because the price of admission to being in the room with me is I get to tell you you’re full of shit if you're full of shit, and you get to say to me I'm full of shit, and we have some rip-roaring fights. And that keeps the B players, the bozos, from larding the organization, only the A players survive. And the people who do survive, say, “Yeah, he was rough.” They say things even worse than “He cut in line in front of me,” but they say, “This was the greatest ride I've ever had, and I would not give it up for anything.”
Today’s poll
What’s your favorite Apple trick? |
Results from yesterday’s poll: Which recent Apple release sounds most appealing to you?
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