_Dear Friends,_

Emily got to stay an extra day in Key West since there was some sort of computer glitch that cancelled her flight home. She got a lot done here and the store is looking great. I am sorry to report that our store manager here in Key West will be leaving to move up to Georgia to help with his family and take care of his health. Joe has been a fixture here for the whole time we have had this store and we will miss him dearly.

It is March and we are down the Sweet Sixteen, basketball playoffs are just ahead with my Boston Celtics pushing Cleveland for first in the east and baseball season is about to get underway. Ah, spring, gotta love it. Of course, other than sports it is hard to tell what season it is down here. Back in the Green Mountains they still have a bunch of snow and probably some more mud to deal with.

I have written many times about how Apple and technology can make our lives better but there was a story out of the UK that really brought that home to me. A 4-year old found his mother unconscious and used her thumb to unlock her iPhone. He then proceeded to ask Siri to call emergency services. That all worked and emergency services arrived are revived his mom. I know it is annoying to see everyone always starring into their devices. I am as guilty as most, maybe more guilty, but there are a lot of good things happening because of this increased ability to communicate instantaneously. Ten years ago, there was no iPhone and this would have been impossible. I still want my flying car but I am impressed with how fast technology changes our lives.

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Apple often adjusts its iPad and iPhone lineup in March, and this year’s changes make the selection more attractive and affordable while adding a new way to support the (RED) international charity. Let’s take a closer look at what Apple has done and what it means for you.

*New iPad replaces iPad Air 2*
We haven’t quite figured out how to refer to the new 9.7-inch iPad other than “the new 9.7-inch iPad”. The most significant of Apple’s changes is the replacement of the iPad Air 2 with a new 9.7-inch iPad model called simply “iPad.” This latest iPad is extremely similar to the iPad Air 2, and although most of the changes are for the better, Apple cut a few features so as to reduce the price to the lowest ever for a 9.7-inch iPad.

Physically, the new iPad is almost identical to the iPad Air 2, apart from being 1.4 mm thicker (which might cause problems for some existing cases). More interesting is that Apple swapped the iPad Air 2’s A8X processor for the faster A9 chip, which should improve performance. The cameras remain mostly the same too, though photos taken with the rear-facing camera should be somewhat better, thanks to two improvements over the iPad Air 2’s camera: auto image stabilization to help avoid blurry images and a hybrid infrared filter to improve color accuracy and sharpness.

On the downside, the new iPad lacks the iPad Air 2’s laminated display and anti-reflective coating, which combined to increase screen clarity, particularly in bright light. You’d have to compare the new iPad against the more expensive iPad mini 4 or the much more expensive 9.7-inch iPad Pro to see if the screen change is a major problem for you.

The big win with the new iPad is price, which has dropped $70: it’s now only $329 for the Wi-Fi-only 32 GB model or $429 for 128 GB. The cellular models cost $459 for 32 GB and $559 for 128 GB. It’s now the least expensive iPad and what Apple expects most new buyers to purchase. It’s available starting today!

*Apple reduces iPad mini 4 price, drops iPad mini 2*
The new iPad takes over the entry-level iPad spot from the iPad mini because Apple simultaneously dropped both the iPad mini 2, which had been priced at $269, and the 32 GB model of the iPad mini 4, which previously sold for $399. That leaves just the 128 GB iPad mini 4, and Apple slashed $100 off its price to bring it down to $399. Now I am a big fan of the iPad mini and use my iPad mini 4 all the time. I prefer the size for reading and traveling. Making the choice between the iPad mini 4 and the new 9.7-inch iPad will come down to your preference for size and screen clarity. Both are amazing new price points!

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*Paint the town (RED) with new iPhone 7 models*
For more than 10 years, Apple has partnered with the international (RED) charity to raise money for the Global Fund to combat AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria. By offering products in the licensed PRODUCT(RED) color and donating a portion of the proceeds, Apple has raised over $130 million for (RED), making it the charity’s largest corporate donor. We applaud Apple for this continued commitment!

On March 24th, Apple will start selling the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus PRODUCT(RED) Special Edition models in 128 GB and 256 GB capacities. They’re functionally identical to the existing iPhone 7 and 7 Plus models, and are priced the same too, but they come in what Apple calls “a vibrant red aluminum finish.” It’s a strong color that’s a far cry from Apple’s almost pastel rose gold color choice and I definitely would have have opted for red but I’ll have to be happy with my boring space gray.

If you’d like a PRODUCT(RED) iPhone, but have a perfectly serviceable iPhone right now that you don’t want to replace, Apple now has silicone and leather cases in the (RED) color–they’re not quite as snazzy as the red aluminum finish, but they’re similarly bright.

*iPhone SE now holds twice as much*
Last, but far from least, Apple has doubled the storage tiers for the 4-inch iPhone SE, so you can now purchase a 32 GB model for $399 or a 128 GB model for $499. This minor change is welcome for two types of iPhone users.

First, if you’re looking for the least expensive iPhone, the 32 GB iPhone SE at $399 is $150 cheaper than the 32 GB iPhone 6s at $549. And second, some people with smaller hands or pockets don’t like the extra bulk of even the 4.7-inch iPhone 6s/7, much less the 5.5-inch iPhone 6s/7 Plus. For them, the svelte iPhone SE is a perfect size, and it’s helpful that buying it no longer requires living with only 16 GB or 64 GB of storage.

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*One More Thing…*
Hidden in all these announcements was the fact that Apple has now made its Swift Playground app available in Simple Chinese. This is Apple’s app for school kids that teaches them to program in Swift, Apple’s new coding language released in 2014. Seems like a minor announcement but coupled with Tim Cook’s statement about Apple’s commitment to China this is Apple thinking ahead or as my driver’s education teacher would say “aim high in steering!”. While iPad growth has stagnated in the US, in China and India there is still double-digit growth.

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I’m going to date myself a little bit here, but it’s for a good cause, so I think it’s ok. When I was a kid (at least until the early 2000s) digital cameras still weren’t very prolific. Most of the cameras I had used 35mm film though my parents did give me a little blue toy camera when I was very little that used something called a 110 cartridge. I would also occasionally get disposable cameras at parties and things. One of the things I remember about the disposable cameras was the warning labels about not disassembling the camera because of electric shock risk. Actually, disassembling any camera with a flash will have this risk, but I think people might’ve been more prone to disassembling disposable cameras in an attempt to reuse them. What is the risk though?

The risk specifically comes from how the camera flash is generated. In order to create such a brief, bright flash, a normal battery source cannot be used. Instead a large voltage build up must be created and then quickly dumped into the light source. Batteries of all chemistries are pretty versatile at delivering consistent, controlled power at relatively low voltages. AA cylinder batteries for example are 1.5 volts, 9V block batteries are obviously 9 volts and even big car batteries are only 12 volts. These batteries are so common because they are safe for pretty much anybody.

One of the things that makes batteries so safe is that they cannot deliver large amounts of power quickly. When a battery is part of a circuit it acts not only as a voltage source, but also as a resistor. All batteries have some amount of what’s called “internal resistance”. This puts a hard limit on how much power (voltage x amps) that a battery can deliver without self-consuming due to resistive heating. So what do we do if we need a lot of voltage delivered rapidly?

Typically, and in our example of camera flashes, this is accomplished with capacitors. I’ve talked about capacitors here before and while they’re not as glamorous and exciting as some other electrical stuff, they are very useful and powerful. A capacitor is a bit like a battery in the sense that it stores electrical charges. They can also be charged and discharged thousands of times with little change in capacity. Compared to batteries, capacitors have a very low internal resistance, and ideally, they have none, though in the real world this isn’t the case because all electrical components have some internal resistance. Unlike batteries, capacitors can be charged almost instantly and also unlike batteries the amount of available charge is extremely low. This means that batteries cannot just be swapped out for most types of capacitors, even if it would be cool to fully charge your iPhone from 0% to 100% in 30 seconds.

Capacitors are usually rated for their capacity and maximum voltage. The capacity is measured in farads where one farad is one coulomb of charge stored across a potential of one volt. Typical capacitors are not measured in whole farad units though, because one coulomb of charge across one volt is ??a lot?? of charge. Most consumer-grade capacitors are measured in microfarads (millionths of a farad). A “large” capacitor you could easily buy (not specialized) would be 1000 microfarads. I have some of these at home. Smaller capacity capacitors are typically able to charge to higher voltages. A camera flash mechanism is typically a 100-200 microfarad capacitor charged to between 200 and 300 volts. How dangerous is that?

This is a difficult question to answer, because we’re talking about different units and there are all kinds of conflating factors, but let’s make some assumptions and see what we can learn. Let’s start easy. The typical human body has enough resistance that anything below 50V won’t be able to create enough current in you. At 200V, we’re well above that, but as I said, capacitors don’t store much electrical potential. Stored energy in a capacitor is measured in joules and is defined as 1/2CV^2. 200 squared is 40,000, times our capacitance which is 0.0002 farads equals 8, and finally, divide all that by 2 and you get 4 joules of stored energy. Is this enough to kill?

A defibrillator can deliver up to 360 joules of energy, so our little capacitor is going to be handing out a fraction of that. This probably won’t kill, but it is going to hurt. Notice though that the biggest factor in how much energy a capacitor has is the voltage since the energy stored is a function of the voltage ??squared??. Doubling the voltage to 400V and leaving everything else the same produces a four-fold increase in energy. Increases in voltage, even on low capacity capacitors can quickly increase the potential death factor, especially since increased voltages represent more potential to push current, no matter what the resistance. When dealing with capacitors, always, always, always short them out with a screwdriver or other heavy-duty metal before working near them. Capacitors can stay charged for a long time so your junkyard find of an old stereo, or CRT monitor might still have the power to kill.

Be safe and be knowledgeable!