Bluetooth

Contact tracing is an important tool for slowing the spread of COVID-19 infection and has been employed by a number of countries that have had success in curtailing the pandemic. Due to the sheer logistics involved in contact tracing as well as privacy concerns, the concept of app-based contact tracing has recently been gaining favor with research groups. Singapore's health ministry developed and deployed the first such app, TraceTogether, in March.

Wireless Bluetooth headphones are great for untethered listening. But many devices have traditional headphone connectors, rendering AirPods, Beats, and other wireless options useless. Apple officially ditched the headphone jack on the iPhone 7 and later, making the Lightning to 3.5mm adapter the missing link for wired headphones. Twelve South now makes a similar adapter to connect the latest wireless headphones such as AirPods directly to a 3.5mm headphone port.

Apple engineered AirPods to be intuitive and convenient, which means that many functions are fully automatic. AirPods are designed to seamlessly transition audio from a connected device as soon as the earphones are placed into your ears. In fact, taking the AirPods out of your ears will pause whatever audio is playing, while replacing the AirPods restarts playback.

AirPods automagically name themselves the first time they are paired with an iOS device. Most of the time, this means a generic name such as "Frank's AirPods" based on the owner of the device. For anyone looking to further customize their AirPods name, the default name can easily be changed right on the iPhone.