You wouldn’t think this is a pathology that Apple would really care about. But apparently, it does. And in OS X Yosemite and iOS 8, they’ve figured out a way to fix it.
When using QuickTime in Yosemite’s new ability to record video of what’s on an iOS 8 device’s screen, Daniel Celeste of App Advice discovered something cool: while mirroring your device screen, the new QuickTime gives you 100% cellular, Wi-Fi, and battery, and changes the date to 9:41 a.m in your status bar…. even if you only have 5% battery left in the cellular boondocks at 11:30 p.m. at night.
While recording video of the Rdio app just for the sake of testing out the feature, I noticed that my iPhone’s status bar was acting strange. All of the signal dots were full, I was apparently on Wi-Fi even though I had it turned off, it was somehow 9:41 a.m. in the afternoon, and my battery had magically charged itself.
Bloggers who used to routinely embarrass themselves posting iOS screenshots showing no cellular service, low Wi-Fi signal and 5 percent battery in the status bar will now sleep better knowing that Yosemite will take care of their first-world problem.
Come this Fall, developers will be able to upload video previews of their apps on the App Store. I really can’t think of any reason why any developer or a fellow blogger would want their screencasts to leave an impression of sloppiness by showing a low battery icon or strange times like 3:27AM.
