107: FindMy Frequencies, Flighty Almighty, and Fighting Piñatas

- Welcome to In the News for July 28th, 2023.

I am Brett Burney from appsinlaw.com.

- And this is Jeff Richardson from iPhoneJD.

How's it going, Brett?

- It's going good, Jeff.

It's another Friday,

which means another week to update your iPhone,

your iPad, your Mac, your Apple TV, your Apple Watch.

We just talked about updates a week ago

and I thought maybe, okay, we're okay.

You know, we'll be on the back burner

for a couple of weeks, but no,

we now have like an official point update.

I think this is 16.6, if I'm not mistaken.

- Yeah, you know, I wish I understood

the distinction between the last time

that you and I talked about it,

we were talking about the rapid security updates

and how if there's something

that's actively being exploited in the wild,

Apple can push out this very, very small update

to fix the problem.

But then this one comes out this week,

which is a whole 0.1 update.

So you would think it's a more substantive update

and yet there's really no new features.

I mean, again, it's just to address security issues

that are actively being exploited in the wild.

Why does Apple do one with a rapid security update

that I can install in like two or three minutes

and the other one with a 0.1 update that it took me,

you know, what could five to 10 minutes to install it?

It was a little bit longer.

I don't really understand the distinction

between the two of them,

but the important news is always,

every update has security issues,

so you always should install them.

But this one in particular, Apple is saying,

hey, there are some bad guys actively taking advantage

of flaws and so you should update it.

The warning that I had, and I put this in the beginning of my posts this morning, was

that all of my devices updated just fine.

My computer, my iPhone, my iPad.

But the problem that I had with my Apple Watch, as I mentioned, was that once I installed

the update, my battery just started draining so, so, so quickly.

And I think the solution was I just shut it down.

You know, you hold down the button, the big button on the side of your Apple Watch for

a few seconds, and that menu comes up, and then there's a power button at the top right.

you press that and you can shut it down.

And then I just waited a minute or two

and then I started it up again.

And that now seems to have solved the problem.

- Oh, okay, good.

- So that's good.

So I mean, and again, I found nothing on the internet

about anyone else having the problem.

So I'm hoping it was isolated,

but there was just something about my Series 7

that just had some hiccups with this update,

but now it looks like I've got it solved.

So anyway.

- Well, I think that just means

you need a new Apple Watch.

(laughing)

- There you go.

Well, there's rumors that they're coming out

with new ones this fall.

I'm here to help you justify a new Apple Watch.

So, but this update, I know, like you said,

last week we were talking about it was like 16.5.1,

parentheses.

It was like a parenthetical update.

It was A, then they took that away.

They had B, I don't even know if they had B,

but then the official release was--

- B never went out to the wild, it was in C.

- The official release was parentheses C.

Now, since we've had some of those over

and it was all these dot, dot, you know, dot, dot updates,

Somebody was just, I saw a rating somewhere

that somebody was saying that,

Apple maybe just kind of wrapped all of those stuff,

previous updates into this 0.6 update.

Obviously no one knows for sure,

but if nothing else,

because we know there have been

some of those security patches,

that were pretty important.

We talked about those every time they come out

because it is important to update,

but there's always gonna be people

that don't get around to the update, right?

Or they just put it off a little bit.

And so I think, at least from my perspective,

I would like to think, well, Apple puts enough emphasis

on it that, okay, hey, all you people, all you laggers,

if you're not updating yet,

then we're gonna push out an official update, right?

The 16.6, I mean, they're all official,

but in the sense that this is a little bit more important

on there. - Good point, good point.

- Yeah, so I just wonder, and again, this is everything,

my watch, everything did fine, I had no issues with my watch

in fact, my wife this morning, getting in the car,

she was taking my son somewhere, and she's like,

"Hey, I see I've got an Apple Watch update.

Can I update that in my car?"

And I'm like, "Well, you can,

but they like to have the watch on the charger."

And she's like, "Oh, no problem."

And she had like her USB wire charger.

So I guess she's gonna try to update her Apple Watch

while she's in the car driving.

I'm like, "Hey, why not?

I mean, try it and let me know how that works."

So that's good.

So anyway, all the Apple devices,

all the Apple devices that you have,

please go and look and see if you have an update.

And you know, by the way, most of these will get pushed

eventually automatically, right, Jeff?

I don't know exactly how that works

'cause I always see a little, you know,

red circle on my settings and that just bugs me.

So I have to go and download an update immediately.

But I know that if you don't,

that at some point Apple is going to make sure

that you do it, you know,

while it's overnight or something like that.

- Yeah, if you don't take the initiative

in the first few days,

Apple will eventually start to bug you.

- Another couple of stories you linked to,

which I thought was great,

was the improvements for some of the Apple apps.

Let's start with this one here that you linked to

from Dan Morin at Macworld,

three overlooked Apple apps you should start using right now.

And I feel like that's great, Dan, I'm already using those

and I've enjoyed all of the updates,

but he's got a good point.

Dan has a good point here.

And that if you haven't looked at maybe

the Reminders app in a while or the Podcast app,

there have been some really nice improvements

over the last few months on these apps?

- The three apps that he talks about,

Notes, Reminders, and Apple Podcasts,

are all apps that are built-in and free,

so everybody has them,

but they are all apps that there are third-party apps

available that have a ton more features.

And so that's always the issue,

is do you want the additional features

that you get with a third-party app,

or is the Apple one good enough for you?

And within these three,

I mean, I have a difference of opinion.

The Apple Podcast app, for example,

which has really gotten very good over the years.

I still prefer the extra features of the Overcast app,

but I do pay attention to Apple Podcasts

because they continue to get more and more features.

I was looking just before we started to record today, Brett,

and I see that looking at like our last 10 episodes

of this podcast, just over 50%,

about 57% of people use Overcast.

And then about 26% of people use Apple Podcasts.

So between those two together, it's around almost 85%.

And then everybody else uses a bunch of different things that are just, you know, all together,

make up 15%. And that doesn't take away, I mean, things like Pocket Cast and Stitcher and Downcast

and Spotify. If that's the app that works best for you, fantastic, you know, use the app that you

love. But it sort of gives you that, you know, about half of the people are finding for at least

our podcast, that Overcast gives them the features that they want, because it has things like,

you know, taking away spaces between words and, you know, good ways to speed up the,

you know how to make a podcast faster listen to things like that but then app podcast gets better

and better and as dan points out here it now has you know advanced q systems and stuff and i love

it when apple you know there's going to always be a gap between the advanced third-party apps

but let's have those built-in apps get a little bit more powerful a little bit more robust so

that if you want to go with the built-in ones um you know that they're pretty good so apple

podcast i don't use but on the other hand the other two he mentions notes and reminders um i love those

apps. I mean, they're fantastic. And I really don't use third party reminder apps and third

party notes apps, because they have just gotten so robust. And I'm looking forward to the

updates coming in iOS 17 to both of those apps. But you know, notes, for example, you'll

have the ability to link between different notes. And so you can have one right get you

to another note quickly without having to go fumble and find it and embedded PDFs and

stuff. So so it's good stuff.

Now on the reminders app, Jeff, don't you still use the things app?

Do you use things a lot?

And then in addition, yeah.

I want to hear.

I use them for different reasons.

I use the things app, which I realize can have some reminder like functions, but I'm

using it to have a list of my to do items.

I consider that different.

Whereas reminder, I know that reminder has a very much of these, the things you need

to do.

But for me, reminders is more active.

I tell reminders, you know, Hey, so-and-so remind me at six o'clock that I want to do

this or remind me when I get home that I want to, you know, bring in the trash can.

I don't even know whatever it is that you say, you know, I use it for when, when you

get to this time or this place or whatever, have something to do that.

The one exception to that is I actually do like using reminders for a grocery list because

it'll show up on the Apple watch and it works really well.

So I admit that, you know, I think of reminders as a little different than a to-do app, even

though they're that they are very close to each other.

And I like the fact that reminders now can have different lists and you can have sub

lists and lists and all that sort of stuff.

But and then another thing I'll mention is that for me, I use, you know, I'm it's for

my work purposes that I am using a to-do app.

You know, here are the work things that I'm going to be doing things.

Reminders for me, it's not really work related.

It's just sort of personal.

Maybe as I'm saying all this out loud, maybe it sounds like an artificial

distinction, but in my mind, it's pretty clear where things stops

and where reminder starts.

And they both they both have equally important, but very different roles for me.

I think I'm mostly with you, certainly on the podcast, totally with you.

And I know that like I, I, I will go and check the podcast

app on my iPhone every once in a while, but always use an overcast

for the vast majority of my podcast.

And now it's kind of got my history and everything in there.

or in my settings and stuff.

The reminders, I've gone back and forth on them

over the years, the reminders app.

I used to use it when it first came out, then I stopped.

Honestly, you can see here's a screenshot

that Dan has here.

I don't like that interface as much.

What I use pretty much all the time is Microsoft To Do.

That used to be the old Wunderlist or Wunderlist app

from many years ago that Microsoft purchased.

And I still like that just because of the simplicity of it.

But now that you mentioned that, Jeff,

You're exactly right.

I will use the Reminders app to just ask she,

who shall not be named, to remind me,

like when I get back to the house,

'cause it can do geolocation,

when I get back to the house, remind me to let the dog out

or to check the mail or whatever the case.

And those reminders will pop up,

and like you said, it even pops up

on the Apple Watch as well.

So I think you're right on.

And then, but lastly, with the notes,

let me say this, that there are multiple

note taking apps available on iOS.

And the one that always comes to mind

is like the biggest use is the drafts app, right?

Drafts from, was it Agile Tortoise,

which has been great for many, many years.

And I still have it, I haven't gotten rid of it.

But I gotta tell you, Jeff,

I find myself opening the notes app

almost on a daily basis, several times throughout the day.

Either because it's not so much a shopping list,

but it may be something that I wanna take a picture of,

you know, this wine bottle or this coffee that I tried.

And it's like one place where I can collect

all of that information,

where I just want to capture something,

even from like a dictation perspective, right?

If I just want to get something out of my brain,

I'll just open the Notes app

and I'll start dictating on my iPhone.

And I have really enjoyed the Notes app

more than any of these others

with all of the improvements that it's been making

over the last several months.

- You know, another example of how one app

might bleed over into another one

is just between Notes and Reminders.

I mean, Reminders is inherently set up

that you have items with little buttons

you click off next to them.

Right.

One of the things that I keep track of is I have a packing list for whenever I travel

on either work or pleasure.

And it just has all the things that I want to make sure that I always pack.

Whether it's clothing or whether it's accessories or electronics.

And so the idea is as I'm packing for every single trip, I look through that list because

it helps.

Oh yeah, I don't want to forget to bring, you know, a tie, you know, or I don't want

to forget to bring, you know, my charger for my Apple watch or whatever it is.

But I actually keep that list in the notes app within the notes app.

You can create a bulleted list.

So it looks just like it would look in reminders.

But for me, I don't like literally click off the things.

I just sort of look at the list with my brain and with my eyes, and I just sort of scan

through it as I'm preparing to pack.

And then, you know, every once in a while I'll be packing for a trip and you're like,

Oh, you know, for this trip, I'm going to also need to bring, you know, X, Y, Z, and

I'll just add it to the general list.

Now when I go to the beach three months from now, that's not going to be relevant because

that was something that was for a work trip.

But just the idea of seeing every possible thing I might want to remember to, you know,

but again, even though that I guess you could argue that's really more of a reminders function

because of the way that it's a list.

But I just find that the notes app works perfectly for that for me.

So it's, you know, as the notes app gets more robust, there are just more and more things

that it can do.

Just a reminder that if you haven't jumped into one of these apps in a while, if you

got five minutes, it might be worthwhile to look at another article that Dan linked to

and you linked to as well, Jeff, that we talked about the Reminders app, the Podcast app,

and the Notes app. What about the Apple Maps app? I know we come back to back and forth

because I know you have said you've gone more almost all Apple Maps, and I still like the

Google Maps app. I still have a little bit more confidence in that. I wonder, is that

just a personal preference with with people because I hear you know there's

lots of people on both sides on there but all that aside for just a quick

moment I cannot disregard the point here from this this is from the Wall Street

Journal the Apple Maps app has gotten leaps and bounds better than what it

ever was they even say even the subtitle here Tim Cook once apologized for Apple

Maps but now it is the preferred navigation app for some and I can't

disagree with that yeah you and I have talked about the differences between the

apps enough that we don't need to go through it again today. But I agree with you that that's the

real point of this article is that, you know, there was a time when Apple maps app was a joke,

you know, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's widely rumored that Apple fired one of its

executives because of the Apple maps app. But and yet now it's actually really, you know, good. And

this wall street journal article, it's more anecdotal than anything else. They're just

quoting a whole bunch of people that say, Hey, I never really used that maps before,

But now we really like it.

Right.

Um, but I think that that's the point and, you know, and it, it talks about some of the

advantages.

Like I actually think things look prettier in Apple maps versus Google maps, but that's

style.

That's just an aesthetic choice.

Right.

But, um, but that the idea that this article could be written, I think is a success story

in itself for Apple because it's taken something that, that, that was sort of the, the, the,

the joke, the laughing point, you know, ha ha Apple maps.

And in fact, the first paragraph of this article begins by saying the joke used to be, if you

if you were late for a party, someone would say,

oh, ha ha, we're using Apple Maps to get here.

You know, the only reason that joke works

is because people knew that it was lackluster

compared to Google Maps.

But nowadays it's not a joke anymore.

And that is, and it's the same thing we were talking about

with notes and with podcasts, with reminders,

that as Apple continues to improve the products over time

and stick with it for the long haul,

the end result is a pretty good app.

- Good stuff on that.

We have often talked about Apple's focus on accessibility

in a variety of formats.

But here maybe is a product from Apple

that they didn't necessarily design

and intend for accessibility,

but I thought John Gruber did an excellent job here.

Oh, well, he's linking to a Mastodon article

where the AirPods Pro could actually help somebody

that may not be completely deaf, for example,

but just a little bit hard of hearing.

This could be something that you could contemplate.

I thought this was a great little article here.

- Yeah, there were two things that jumped out at me

about this one.

First of all is, I mean, the great story

that the person that writes the note, Gary Knight,

says that he's partially deaf,

and for years there were things he just did not hear

in the outside world anymore.

And now that he puts his AirPods in

and he's got it appropriately tuned,

he can suddenly hear those things again.

I mean, that's wonderful.

That's fantastic news.

But the second thing that was interesting to me

is he describes how you can go into your settings app

And then into accessibility and anyone can do this.

If you own a pair of AirPods, put them in your ears, go into the settings app, go into

accessibility, go into AirPods and then go into audio accessibility settings.

And Apple will actually walk you through accommodations and it will, it will play

tones.

Like, I don't know if you've done it, Brett, but it will say, I'm going to play this.

And it's somebody talking really quietly.

And it's like, could you hear that?

And I was like, yes, I could hear it.

And then it says, okay, now we're going to do this, but it's a little different.

Can you hear that?

Yes.

And now it's going to say, here's two sounds, which one sounds better.

And I can tell that one of them is like more trouble heavy or base heavy,

but I went through the process.

And by answering all the questions about what sounded better for me, the end

result was the regular setup was fine for you, but I know that if I know that if I

had had trouble hearing the whisper voices, or if you know, the sound that was

maybe a little bit more accentuated in the trouble or a little bit more

accentuated in the base, maybe if it allowed me to hear something that I

otherwise couldn't hear, I would say, great, you know,

we will change the settings on your AirPods.

And so things sound what you consider to be better,

will be good for you.

And how awesome is that?

I mean, that's really, really cool.

So, you know, if for nothing else, just to try it out,

you know, you know, we'll go through the steps.

It just takes you a few minutes to do.

It's sort of fun to go through the process of doing it.

And especially if you think

that you have some hearing issues,

your AirPods might be good enough to compensate for that

without having to worry about hearing aids.

And John Gruber speculates that, you know,

these essentially are hearing aids,

but Apple just wasn't,

doesn't want to go through the regulatory process

of a medical device and getting FDA approval

and everything else.

But as long as you don't advertise it as such,

I guess there's nothing wrong with including the features.

So it's pretty cool.

- Absolutely.

And I am thrilled to see this.

And when I first saw this, I thought,

well, this sounds similar to when I first got my AirPods Pro

and I wanted to go in and isn't it,

you can set up spatial audio this way, right?

and it even tests to make sure that it's got a good seal

or if you need a different ear tip or something like that.

- Exactly, yes, yes.

- Ear tip test, thank you.

And that's great.

And so I thought that's really neat

that we could use something like that

'cause I really thought that ear tip test was like,

okay, I just want the best experience possible.

But if we can take that one step further

and maybe even make sure, can this help me

from a partial hearing loss

or just even to hear things a little bit better,

that's really fantastic.

So anyway, I'll make sure that we put the link

in the show notes there, but I'm glad that you linked to that.

One of the places that I will always have my AirPods Pro

with me is on a flight.

Jeff, I cannot take a flight now without AirPods Pro.

Now I never had the Bose, you know, sound waves,

whatever those are, I just never did that.

Because I still like to hear the pilot

when they come on, right?

Or I would, you know, if the steward

or somebody in my seat next to me says something,

I still want to be able to like quickly be able to hear them

or a little bit, but I'm glad that I have that

because on these flights now,

I also cannot get on a flight without the flighty app.

We talked about this several months ago.

You can get a free version and you can try the first flight

with all the pro bells and whistles for free.

But then after that, you got to pay it.

I think it's $50 per year, which I got to tell you, Jeff,

I have been very happy to pay.

And I was thrilled to see this past week

that flighty 3.0 came on the scene

with some really nifty little updates.

- Yeah, the big feature for flighty 3.0

is to make it easier to track your friends flights.

Flighty already works great when you're traveling yourself

and it can import your travel plans

from TripIt and everything else.

But oftentimes, my wife might be traveling to New York

or someplace like that.

And maybe I'm picking up at the airport

or maybe I just wanna know if she has delays

and stuff like that.

And so I will put her information in a flighty.

And so with the new version of the app, it's easier to share and you can, you know, it

has all these little bells and whistles and you can, I think even, you know, have different

people in there and put it under their person's name and their picture and stuff like that.

But you know, as, as nice as flighty is for when you're traveling yourself, as you were

saying you use it, Brett, I think the app is just as useful when you have a friend or

a colleague or a family member that's traveling and you want to keep dibs on their flight.

And so with the new version, the app developer is recognizing that that's just as important

of a feature and is giving some extra, you know, some extra oomph for that, which is

fantastic.

One of the ways that when I would fly and be landing, my wife was going to come pick

me up at the airport.

I love the in flighty, the old version.

I could just go to the flight, I tap on it, and then there's a share button.

And I had various ways that I could share that with my wife.

It could just be a link, for example, or it could be the flight number, but they had like

a live tracker option in there.

And I just texted that to my wife.

And then she could see in real time

and track the flight right there

with that little live tracker.

And so now the fact that she doesn't even have to ask me

to share that with her anymore

because I immediately added her as my friend in flighty.

And she loves it.

She loves being able to track it.

Even if she's not picking me up,

she just likes to know like, when am I landing?

You know, when am I getting back?

That kind of a thing.

And that's really great.

I'm just, I'm thrilled to see this company work

in the way it does.

All of the other fantastic options there,

the fact that it uses the dynamic island

and I could just glance down at my phone to see,

you know, how far the flight,

how much further the flight has.

We talked about this, that even when you get on a plane

and you don't pay for the full wifi,

but you can get the free messaging service,

the flighty app works on that free messaging service.

So it updates the flight information and it does it great.

I even understand and know where,

like I'm gonna pick up a bag, if I have check a bag,

flighty will tell me that information

before the flight attendant even knows.

I could like tell them, we're not the only fans of Flighty.

They won a Apple design award,

I think just a few months ago, right?

And you know, just really great stuff.

So check out Flighty if you are interested in that.

And when you're travel,

it's almost like another travel session

that we're having today, an episode today.

But this was a great little item that you linked

to Belkin's new Boost Charge Pro.

I like the name of that.

It's like a big battery,

but you can also charge your Apple Watch on this.

- Good stuff here.

- Yeah, and that's the cool feature.

It's a nice battery that looks like it's a, you know,

it's not too big and it's got rounded sides.

So it should be easy to carry around with you and stuff.

But the one unique feature is it has a place on it

where it's got the little puck to charge an Apple Watch

and not just charge it, but it does fast charging.

So, you know, if you have an Apple Watch series seven,

which came out last year,

or the series eight, which came out this year,

one of the features it has is it can have fast charging.

And so if your charger, if your cord uses USB-C

instead of USB, it'll charge a lot faster.

And it does make a difference.

I mean, I remember doing some tests

when I got my Series 7,

that the old charger might charge

about 5% every five minutes,

whereas the new charger was charging

like 12% every five minutes.

So if you've just got like 15, 20 minutes

to get a quick charge,

you can get a heck of a lot more charge

on your Apple Watch with the fast charging.

And so it's great that that's built in.

You don't even need a cord.

I mean, you just sit your Apple Watch

right on top of this charger and it will give it a boost.

I have one issue with the Belkin products.

But if you go to the Belkin.com website while I'm talking,

you'll see what I'm talking about.

Go to Belkin.com and then go into the link

to where their chargers are.

Belkin loves the name Boost Charge Pro so much

that if you go under products and you go under chargers,

I think if you just click on the word chargers,

I think every single one of their chargers

is called Boost Charge Pro.

And really the only way to know which one is to which

is to look at the features.

Like they've got the one that's a stand

that they call, that you might put in a table.

It's called the Boost Charge Pro.

They've got the thing that's a puck.

- Look at this.

- That's called the Boost Charge Pro.

You've got the battery.

They're all called the same thing.

So you have to sort of know. - Oh my goodness.

- I'm talking about the Boost Charge Pro

that's a portable battery that has-

- Even the cables are Boost Charge.

This is ridiculous.

- They're a little bit too happy with it.

It's like they only had the money to trademark one name.

- Right.

- Let's just use it across all of our products.

So putting aside-

- It's a good name.

I like the name, but it's like, okay, okay.

It's almost like I want a Coke.

What kind of Coke do you want?

I want a Boost Charge.

What kind of Boost Charge do you want?

You have to be specific here.

That's crazy.

- Today we're talking about the Boost Charge Pro,

which is a standalone battery with the Apple Watch charger.

- This one.

- As opposed to the Boost Watch Pro,

which you sit on your nightstand

and has three different chargers on it, whatever.

It's a crazy name thing.

But regardless of the name silliness,

it does look like a nice product for a hundred bucks.

And I think this is the second review I've posted of it.

I posted one a couple of weeks ago that John Voorhees

and Max Doris had tried it out.

And you know, all the reviews I've seen

have been really good.

So if you're looking for a portable charger,

this is a nice one, especially if you want something,

you know, that you especially want to be able

to charge your Apple Watch with.

I mean, heck, if you only use this to charge

your Apple Watch with a 10,000 milliamp battery,

it'll probably recharge an Apple Watch,

I don't even, I mean, 25 times.

I mean, a whole bunch.

If you're going camping and you just want to take

the one charger to charge your Apple Watch,

this would do it for a very long time.

So it looks like a cool product.

- The one downside or the main downside

that Reka Outland here at 9to5toys talked about

is the fact that it does cost $100.

I mean, that's $100 for a battery.

Now, because of the fast charging, I understand that.

I do trust the Belkin quality,

putting aside their naming conventions a little bit.

But I gotta tell you, before I knew about this,

it seems like I'm a little prone

to like going for generic name devices, Jeff.

I'm not sure exactly why, but I found this Rory,

R-O-R-R-Y, portable Apple Watch charger on Amazon.

And I can see the price is $33 now instead of a hundred.

I think I got it for like $16.

I forget what coupon you,

I'd see there's even a coupon here,

but I don't know if you can see this.

I do like the fact it has an Apple Watch charger on top.

I do not believe it as a fast charger.

So that's a ding.

But if you look on the sides,

they've got little fly out cords on the side here.

One of the cords is lightning and the other is USB-C.

And I kind of like that because when I saw this

that you linked to today,

I'm like, that's a fantastic travel charger, right?

You can charge your phone and you can charge your iPad

and your Apple Watch without having to get

the long Apple Watch charging cable, right?

The fact that you can just put it on.

So I gotta tell you, I've used this Rory now

for several trips and I have really enjoyed

having that access, but I'm going to look at this Belkin one

a little bit more closely because I really do think,

again, it's Belkin.

Maybe we should just change the name a little bit

from Boost Charge, but anyway, that said, it's a--

- Let me mention the Rory one that you linked to,

although it's a third of the price,

it's a 5,000 milliamp battery, right?

- Exactly.

- So that's going to be, that'll like top off your iPhone,

but it's certainly not going to recharge it.

Whereas the 10,000, you could pretty much,

You won't, you won't necessarily get, you know, from zero to a hundred,

but you'll probably get from like zero to 80 or something like that.

So just keep in mind, you know, obviously bigger batteries, of course,

it also means it's more expensive.

It's heavier to carry around.

That's a trade-off.

You're going to always have good points.

It is now time for our where yet segment where yet today we have a whopper of a

segment.

How did you, did you lead to five stories?

There was so much to say.

We'll run through these really quick, but they're so good, Jeff.

I like this.

This one comes from Italy of all places, which, okay.

Most people think, well, that's not that big of a deal.

Uh, but it is in the sense that this may be some of the first stories we started

to see where the Apple has rolled out internationally, this SOS via satellite.

This was good.

Yeah.

The author of this story says that this may be the first time that somebody

who got lost in Italy used the iPhone 14.

Satellite SOS feature.

They were hiking.

They got lost on a mountain, did not know where they were,

and they did not have cell phone coverage.

But because of the satellite SOS feature,

they were able to call for help, and they were rescued.

And so it's sort of a typical story

that you hear about this is how the SOS satellite

feature is supposed to work.

The real notable thing is this one was in Italy.

A little one closer to home in California,

a poor gentleman drove off a cliff 400 feet down.

And I think what you mentioned here, he was rescued.

It all turns out OK, but he didn't have cell service down

400 feet down on this cliff.

And I think the iPhone automatically

contacted emergency personnel through the satellite option.

Is that correct?

Yeah.

And people talk about with the satellite feature,

if you want to use it and if you have the ability to do so,

you can move your iPhone around to get the best satellite

signal and stuff like that.

But this is an example of somebody who the iPhone 14, this is only the brand new ones.

It's sensed that it was in an accident.

So we know it has that feature.

And we all know that when that happens, it will give you a warning that, you know, it's

going to count down for 10 seconds and unless you do something, it's going to call, uh,

emergency services, nine one one.

Uh, and it tried to do so, but it couldn't do so because there was no cell phone in this,

in the crevice or wherever he was after he went off the cliff.

And so then it switched over and this is the part I just didn't realize it did this.

It was smart enough to switch over to satellite mode.

And even though the poor man was trapped in his car, I seriously doubt he was holding

up his iPhone.

I think it was doing all of this on its own.

It was able to lock into a satellite and send the GPS location.

Now when you use the satellite SOS mode, if you're actively using it, you can actually

answer a series of questions like here's the nature of my emergency.

You know, here's the situation that I'm in and stuff like that.

This man was not doing it at all because he was bleeding and you know, he was, you know,

close to death over here.

And so I guess what, what the iPhone knew is it knew that it was in an accident and

it knew its GPS location.

And so it sent those two items over SOS.

And then it went to the, uh, the Apple has like these emergency responder places that

then connect to a local, um, uh, emergency services like a nine one one.

So they were able to call the local police, the local police got the GPS.

And the story is traumatic because the people that rescued him are saying, there is no way

We would have any idea where this guy was, but for having precise GPS coordinates,

you know, even if he had just called us, he wouldn't be able to tell us that.

And, um, and because the guy was bleeding out, I mean, how long did he have?

And so thank goodness they were able to get the helicopters there and rescue him.

I mean, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that this guy would not have lived,

but for his iPhone, I mean, you don't want to be too melodramatic and say you're

going to die without an iPhone, but for some people in some situations, that could be.

from the iPhone 14 and satellite on the West Coast.

Let's go to the East Coast, South Carolina here.

It looks like that this gentleman was stealing from several bars around the area

in Myrtle Beach. Right. And the the people that he kept stealing from finally got smart

and they hid an air tag so that they could track him down.

Is that is that about the gist of it there?

You got it. You missed my favorite part of the story.

which is the name of the restaurant, the sneaky Beagle.

I just love that.

Absolutely.

Uh, and in fact, they live up to the name because I looked at their menu.

They'll actually have a dog treats as well.

So you can bring your dog to the sneaky Beagle or you, and you can bring yourself

and you can get some good food, but the people at the sneaky Beagle had been the

victim of one burglary after another, and they were sick and tired of it.

And so they actually set up a fake safe that they put a, I don't know why, why

they put a stuffed animal in it, but I guess who knows, and they, they, they

hit an air tag inside of the stuffed animal.

And sure enough, the burglar came back and stole the fake safe.

I guess it was a very small safe and they tracked him down.

So this the sneaky folks at the sneaky Beagle were able to catch the bad guy.

Now we can go to the Midwest.

This is this doesn't really have a happy ending, at least maybe not yet.

Maybe if we'll see this story, it'll get happier.

A gentleman with a motorcycle hit an air tag under the seat of his motorcycle.

The motorcycle was stolen.

They were able to track the location of the stolen motorcycle,

but it ended up being inside a box truck.

Yeah.

I think just a big truck with a big back to them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He did the right thing.

He called the local police department and it was the weirdest answer that he

got from the police department, Jeff.

Yeah.

They said that unless they can actually see the motorcycle in somebody else's

possession, that they're not going to do anything about it.

I mean, you would think that maybe they could try to get a warrant, but I guess,

I mean, is the air tag not good enough justification for someone to sign a warrant or did they

just not want to go through the trouble?

And so this poor guy, he's like, I am pretty darn certain that my stolen motorcycle is

right there in the back of that truck.

He can hear it.

It's pinging.

It's a truck.

He can hear it, but he can't do anything about it.

And he's like, I could knock on the door of all the neighbors, but what are you going

to do?

Confront somebody and then they're going to bring out a gun and hurt, you know?

So he's like, people not to do that.

Yeah.

thought that this story was important is, I mean, we talk about the success stories

of the AirTags, but the reality is that even when the AirTags do their job and show you

where something is, I mean, the realities of life is you, that doesn't necessarily mean

you're going to be able to get it.

So, yeah.

Well, at least he knows where it is.

Yeah.

Nothing else.

And if you now, a dear listener, after hearing all of our stories today on the way yet segment

are interested in getting your own AirTags, if you don't have them yet, I always liked

fact that you link to this, Jeff, whenever there's a good sale on the air tags, the four pack of the

air tags is now down to the lowest price. I think I have ever seen it. $85 normally a hundred dollars

for a four pack, $85 on Amazon. That's amazing price. It's a good price. I checked the service

camel, camel, camel. And I saw in the entire history of the air tag, there's been like one

time that they were right just below 80 and there's been one or two times they were at 80.

But but again, those, those sales probably lasted, you know, a short period of time.

Right. Right.

I mean, the difference in price between 84 and 80, I mean, we're just talking about a few dollars.

This is realistically about the lowest you're going to see it. And being able to,

to, you know, spend not much more than 20 bucks each on an air tag is a good deal.

And again, I mean, as we talk about from all these stories, if you don't have air tags,

especially if you travel for your luggage and stuff, I encourage you to get it. Just yesterday,

Brett, one of my law partners who actually listens to this podcast, he came in. Hey,

Hi, David. He came in and said that he had just purchased some air tags after he was talking

about it. And we were talking, you know, he and I were chatting about different places to use it.

And I mean, there's always more. I mean, if I bought another set right now, I am sure within

five minutes I would have uses for all four of those. It's nice and it's useful to have. So

if you don't have air tags yet, get yourself a set of four of them and then, you know, put them

in your keys, put them in your luggage, put them in your briefcase. Definitely useful.

It's funny you say that.

I saw this price and I'm thinking, "Oh, you know, I've used all the four that I originally

purchased.

Maybe I could justify another four."

So yeah, I might have to ask my lovely and beautiful wife to see if that could be in

the budget for this month.

But yeah, I mean, but on a serious note, that's exactly it.

I've used them all because I've put one in her purse, I've got one in my roller bag,

I've got one in my briefcase.

Like I've got one in all the things that I know are going to be important.

I think I even gave the last one to my daughter

for her purse, right?

Because you just never know

and it's great to be able to have those on there.

All right, last-

- I'll mention one thing, Brett, before we move on,

which is that if you don't wanna save the money on Amazon,

if you wanna spend full price at Apple,

one advantage is that you can actually put,

you can put engraving on the AirTags,

which is what I did.

So for me, I mean, like I have one of my key chain here

that I sort of put my initials on and the number one.

So I know just by looking at it,

I can see that this is my number one AirTag

And the one that I have on my luggage

is my number three AirTag.

And you don't have to use names and numbers.

You can put like an emoji of a uniform or whatever.

You know, you can put different symbols on it,

but that's one advantage of buying through Apple

is you can put a visual indicator on the AirTag

just so that you can know it and know which one it is.

Whereas if you buy them from Amazon

or from any other retailer,

they're not gonna have any markings on them.

So you'll have to sort of hold it up to your iPhone

to figure out which one it is.

- If you need just a few minutes of fun,

Apple has released a new short video.

They've done this several times.

I remember there was one like in China not too long ago,

which I thought was really nice.

They've done several short little videos

or even I call them short movies, if you will.

They're like little movies, maybe 15 minutes long.

This one is down in Mexico and it features,

I forget the exact name, the Mexican wrestlers,

you know, with the masks and everything on there.

This one is called "Jordocan Valdemares"

versus La Pinata Enchilada.

I gotta tell you, this one was a little weird watching it,

but because I'm so interested in the iPhone

and how it can be used to make films, Jeff,

I was mesmerized at like how it would,

'cause I knew the whole thing was shot on the iPhone 14 Pro

and then you even linked to a nice making

of the video on here as well.

So we'll make sure that the links are in the show notes,

but just watching that the whole time thinking,

how did they get that shot?

How did they get that on an iPhone?

How do they do that?

And it was amazing.

I mean, it looks really good, very colorful movie.

So anyway, I absolutely recommend it,

even though if you're like me,

you're kind of like, you're, you know,

kind of like what's going on here a little bit,

but you got the subtitles and everything.

It's really good.

But anyway, it's worth a few minutes to watch today.

- It is.

And it reminded me,

one of the things that I like about my iPhone camera,

whether I'm taking photos or video,

is that it does a pretty good job of color.

It's not oversaturated like the Samsung phones,

but it does, or some of the other ones,

but it actually, it does a really nice job with colors.

They look, they look great.

And this movie takes that to the extreme because since it's using very colorful subjects like

pinatas and these beautiful covered houses that have different colors painted on the

side of them against hills and stuff like that, it's, it's, it, this little short film

is a visual feast, even though it's a little over the top and silly, but I thoroughly enjoyed

watching it.

It was fun to watch.

It's in Spanish.

So there's got subtitles if you don't speak Spanish, but, but it's very easy to understand

what's going on.

And like you say, but the fact that the entire thing was sat on an iPhone, you will watch

shots and you will find yourself thinking, huh, how did they do that?

And then you watch the making of video and you're like, oh, that was very clever.

I see what they did there.

And it's very, very fun.

Good stuff on that in the know, in the know.

Today is nice and sunny here in Ohio and not as much of a smoke cover from, uh, from our

Northern cousins.

But uh, I have promised my son that today I'm going to smoke some baby back ribs.

Now I only do this a couple of times every summer, Jeff.

It's not very often, but when I do,

it's usually like a four to six hour process, right?

Now I don't get into too much crazy

'cause there are some folks online that, you know,

they have the works, right?

I'm not quite that crazy.

I still actually use a Weber kettle grill to do this.

So I kind of make it up myself.

But one of the things that's important

is keeping the temperature inside that kettle grill

fairly consistent, like 225, 250, you know,

for all of those hours?

Well, I don't have a thermometer or anything

on that kettle grill,

'cause it's a very old kettle grill.

So I found Weber's iGrill Mini.

Now there's iGrill temperature sensors,

I use the iGrill Mini, it's very small,

it's about 50 or $60 on here.

But I gotta tell you, I have thoroughly enjoyed it

because instead of me having to like take the lid off

and check the temperature every so often,

you know, every other hour or so,

I just leave this little thermometer inside my kettle grill

and then it connects by wire to a little sensor

on the outside that connects to my iPhone via Bluetooth.

- Oh, cool.

- And the little iGrill app on my iPhone

tells me exactly what the temperature is

inside my kettle grill.

And so then, you know, I can adjust the little,

you know, flames open and close or add more wood

if I need to.

There is the iGrill Mini, that's as I said,

It's the one that I use.

If you really want to invest a little bit more,

you can get the iGrill3.

That's $120, but you can see there's a couple

of additional sensor probes there.

And I think, I don't know if it's wireless or not,

but anyway, the iGrill Mini that I use

works on a little CR2023 battery,

the same batteries that the AirTags use, right?

So I just replace those, 'cause I've got a bunch of those,

because I've got so many AirTags

and other things that use them.

but this little iGrill Mini just uses that 2023 battery.

I just replace that at the back.

The little sensor sits outside of my grill

while the little thermometer probe sits inside.

And then I just check my iPhone

and I can make sure that I know what's going on

inside that grill.

So that's my little gadget tip for the week.

- That sounds great.

What time should we come over by the way, Brad?

- I know, well, you better start driving now.

- I might wanna leave now to get up to Ohio by then,

absolutely.

So it takes a long time to smoke those.

So we'll be fine.

- It does.

- My tip today is something we've talked about

in a roundabout way in the past.

We've talked in the past about Apple services

and Apple one and Apple news plus.

I wanted to focus on one specific thing

because I find it so useful.

Many times when I am reading,

when I'm seeing links to articles earlier today,

for example, in the podcast, you were discussing,

you and I were talking about the article

and the wall street journal comparing Apple maps

to whatever, to Apple, to Google maps.

I don't pay the wall street journal to subscribe to it,

But I can read all of those articles

because I am a subscriber to Apple News+.

You can subscribe to Apple News+ on its own for $10 a month.

Or if you do what I do,

which is you have the Apple One Premier subscription,

I pay 33 bucks a month,

and that gets me News+ and Fitness+

in addition to the other core Apple services,

Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, Apple iCloud.

And so for me, that's a bargain for 33 bucks

to get all those different things.

And so, but it means that first of all,

can read the Wall Street Journal articles without paying for it. And a Wall Street Journal

subscription, it's been a while since I did it. I think it's like a hundred, $150 a year. I mean,

it's a lot on its own, but then additionally I can read a lot of articles from a Bloomberg

business week, which is also a very expensive subscription. And I can also read things,

you know, every once in a while I will see a link to an article in the New Yorker or New York

magazine, the Atlantic, Vanity Fair. Like lots of times if I'm watching movies, you know, and stuff,

You might want to read about vanity fair, about the entertainment stuff, Wired magazine,

and just a whole host of newspapers. I mean, the LA Times and the Houston Chronicle. I mean,

tons and tons of newspapers across the country. And so if you're someone like me that enjoys just

reading things on the internet, you will often hit these paywalls and be unable to read something.

But whenever I hit one of those paywalls and I'm often on my iPad, but I could be on my iPhone too.

When I'm in Safari, I just, I'm at that article and it says, if you want to read past the first

sentence, you got to subscribe now. I just hit the little share button at the top, right?

And then I open it up in the Apple news app. And then once I'm in the news plus app, once I'm in

news plus, I can read the entire article. And I use this feature so often that even though I've

mentioned it in the past and the side, I just wanted to make it the focus of the tip today,

because it is a reason, you know, putting aside the other advantages of news plus,

like the fact that you get updates of, you know, news or something like that.

Heck just earlier this week, Brett, I saw some crazy story on the front of my iPad that was

saying that it was so hot on the coast of Florida that there were areas of the water that were like

as hot as a hot tub, like 101 degrees or something like that. I'm like, oh my goodness. I mean,

the world's getting hot. I feel bad for the fish that are in the hot tubs outside of Florida.

But anyway, poor manatee and stuff. But aside from just getting regular news updates like you

would get from any news service, when you have specific articles that you want to read from

premier publications, be they magazines or newspapers, you will often be able to read

it without being a subscriber, not all the time, but often you will be able to read it for some of

these big publications in News Plus. And I love that feature so much. I use it all the time.

This link that you sent, I didn't know this existed here. This is literally a listing of

all of the publications that you can get from within Apple News Plus. And I knew there was a

lot, but oh my goodness, there is a lot in here. In fact, they just added the Dallas Morning News.

I can see that's one of the newer ones that there's men's lifestyle, women's lifestyles,

hobbies, home and garden, health. I think just seeing them all in one place like this is really

emphasizing to me how useful that this app is. And then just to kind of piggyback on top of that,

some of these are news outlets, right? Or some of them are newspapers, but some of them are also

what we would think of as print magazines, like the Atlantic or the New Yorker or the Macworld

or Popular Mechanics, which we can probably find a lot of these stories online, but if

you still like that idea of going to the magazines, I love being able to go into my News Plus

app, Jeff, and say, "I want to subscribe to Popular Mechanics or The New Yorker," and

it will literally download the entire magazine.

Now, it's not like flipping pages like in the old kind of style.

They've done a very good job in this News app of kind of making it to where you can

and tap through, it's kind of hard to explain,

but it really is kind of mobilized, I guess,

more than anything else on there.

So I'm glad that you mentioned that.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, good stuff on that.

All right, good tips on that as well.

Lots of stuff, good luck on the air tax, folks,

on making your purchase and sign up for the Apple News.

I do the Apple One subscription as well.

You convinced me about that many months ago, Jeff,

and we can't do without it now.

We rely so much on the Apple TV, the News+,

to Fitness Plus, really great stuff on that.

Okay, I think we're done for this week.

Thanks everybody for listening,

and Jeff, we'll talk to you next week.