121: Birthday Words, Battery Dates, and Space Station Spotting

Welcome to in the news for Friday, November 3rd, 2023.
I am Brett Burney from appsinlaw.com.
And this is Jeff Richardson from iPhone JD.
Hey, Brett.
Good morning, Jeff.
Monday was just a few days ago.
It was and we were up late.
Well, I guess not too late.
They made it be in.
I stayed up and watched the 30 minute exactly 30 minutes of the
announcements that Apple had kind of like this surprise announcement
and we were all speculating last week about what it could be pretty
interesting stuff.
Nothing that I think would, you know, rattle the world from the
perspective of an iPad or an iPhone.
But if you're a Mac user, you were probably pretty happy last
Monday.
We had the introduction of the M3 Apple Silicon processors that
came out and not just one but three M3 processors.
Yeah, so you know new MacBook Pros and I guess it's interesting
that there was the second time in the calendar year that Apple
introduced a new MacBook Pro, but that may be because the ones that
they introduced earlier this year were probably supposed to be
come out last year and they were a little bit late.
But yeah, so we got some new MacBook Pros for the end of the
year with the new M3 processor.
The iMac which had been running the M1 was updated to run the M3
so it's much faster.
So yeah, so nice little bump for the Macs.
Yeah, really.
I mean, it was all about just the new processors, which again, you
know as Apple is prone to do they showed some pretty creative
visuals about how much faster it is than some of those but I
gotta tell you I'm watching that I was getting a little bit of
FOMO because I'm still running an M1 MacBook Pro and yeah, the
M3s look pretty good.
If there was one big surprise, it was probably what is known as
the new black MacBook Pro like you can get it in a color.
Although we have heard folks that have already been able to
put their hands on it that it's really a very very very dark
gray, if you will.
It's not like like a matte black like we've had in the past on
there, but that was interesting.
But the most interesting thing came at the very end of the exact
30-minute announcement Jeff and I think I know you and I both
caught it because we texted each other immediately.
Yeah, but everyone else actually caught it as well at the very
end of this amazing 30-minute spectacular and you can talk about
how you were watching it as well.
I was just looking at it on my computer and it looked fantastic
but at the very very end of this very tiny fine print, maybe not
so tiny but tiny enough that if you didn't if you weren't looking
for it, you would have missed it.
The entire thing was shot on an iPhone 15 Pro incredible.
Yeah, I was watching it.
I mean normally these are during the day.
So I'm watching it in my office sometimes on my computer screen,
which is not very high quality and sometimes in my iPad, which is
better quality.
But because this was a nighttime presentation, I was watching it
at home in my TV room.
So I had my huge, you know, big 4k HDR television and as I was
watching the show, I mean it was interesting to see about the
new Max, but I was really interested in how just beautiful it
was.
I mean, even though it was nighttime shots, it was just and I'm
you know, I that was my literally my biggest impression is wow,
they did a great job filming this and since that was my main
thought throughout the 30 minutes to then see in the last 10
seconds that the whole thing was shot on the same iPhone that I'm
holding in my hand right now.
I'm like, oh my goodness.
I mean, that's incredible ability to do quality.
So I thought that that was the most amazing thing to me and I
thought it was fun.
Right released this video showing it and you know, and I've heard
people say, well, when you when you look at the behind-the-scenes
video, you see that, you know, it's not, you know, some guy just
sitting there holding their iPhone telling Kim right him cook
with a flash.
Yeah, exactly.
No, no, I mean they have a huge setup.
I mean one of the cranes they apparently cost like $250,000 if
you bought one right your major things holding the iPad perfectly.
But again, for me, that's fine because when whenever people film
stuff, you know, professionally, whether it's a movie or
professionally done commercial video, they're going to have all
of those, you know, rigs and crane operators and microphones and
lights and everything else.
But the difference is traditionally you would have like a major
camera like a $20,000 camera in there right now.
They're getting incredible film quality on the iPhone and it's
because of the new things that were made possible.
Yeah, in the iPhone of the newest iPhone the pro version because
for example, you can record directly to an SSD at the very highest
quality.
You can use these pro pro res.
I guess it's called to get the in this is, you know, beyond the
video that I would do when I make home videos, sure my kids, you
know, but still it just shows the power of the camera and what you
can do with it, which I thought was was really really cool.
You know, I got a chance to try it out a good use of my camera.
The other day, my son recently had a birthday and there was this
huge go-kart track in New Orleans and we went him and a bunch of
his buddies were riding these go-karts around this incredibly
huge track.
But I'm just sort of in the stands looking at them and using my
iPhone 15 pro max because it has that 5x lens even when the go-karts
were like way across I could zoom in and I could see them perfectly
and I remember thinking, you know, I literally could not have made
this video of them this, you know, silly little home video with my
prior iPhone because it would have been a lot blurrier because I
couldn't zoom in as much.
So that's the 5x lens.
And of course, the regular lens is great too.
And which is what Apple used here.
So again, I'm not going to reproduce the all the stuff that they
use, but just the idea that we've now gotten to the point that you
could use the lens on the camera that's in your pocket to make
something that looks incredibly good as evidenced by this video.
That says a lot.
That says a lot.
Even in this behind-the-scenes video, which I got to tell you,
that's it.
I think we texted that immediately after we saw that.
Like I want to see the behind-the-scenes video on how they made
this because we did suspect that we're going to be using some
equipment and you know to their credit.
I mean, they probably did it on purpose knowing that people would
like to see these behind-the-scenes videos because we get these
videos when we see other little vignette films, right?
That have been filmed on the iPhone that other but I mean all of
that is so telling and even in this behind-the-scenes video some
of these very very professional and proficient, you know filmmakers.
I mean, this is what they have been doing for many many years and
that they're even amazed at the quality of the footage that has
come off the iPhone or the ability that they have now to be able
to use the iPhone even to record things like like you just like
you said would have you know been on cameras that would have caused
them, you know, many many thousands of dollars just just amazing
to kind of see this evolution and I just I love this subtle
marketing ploy that Apple has kind of come up with like they're
shooting it on the iPhone and then they're giving you behind-the-scenes
like you said, I'm not going to go spend, you know, half a million
dollars to buy this rig and all these lighting and everything
like that, but I could like just the idea that it's possible that
it's there is is is is pretty neat just just seeing some of this
equipment there and just even the ability like I know this one.
This is the video editor that they have in part of this little
vignette and he's just talking about how it's you know, I guess
the log right?
I know we talked about this or that version of the video that
is kind of flat that they can basically make it colored in any
way that they want is great.
But you know, even if you haven't seen the actual video don't
see the behind-the-scenes video go watch the real video first
because there was some very cute Easter eggs.
My favorite is when they were shooting into like the the the
bat cave of is it Johnny Saruji is that his name and he's like
welcome to my lab and you know, he's got a little bit of an
accident that I was just thinking while he's the Dracula of
Apple now.
And so anyway, it's just a cute cute video the way that they
showed it and I'm glad that they put the behind-the-scenes video
on there as well.
They did a nice job playing off the fact that it was the day
before Halloween and that probably had something to do with
the fact that it was the black MacBook Pro to just sort of,
you know a nighttime theme.
So of course fun.
It was good.
I'm glad that Apple mixed it up and did something a little
different.
Happy birthday to Microsoft Word.
Though those are words that I don't really typically think
that I would say but you link to a post because this past week
Microsoft Word actually turned 40 years old.
That's a little insane.
I'm a little curious to me that they had it last week because
if you you know, I linked to this very old article from
InfoWorld that Microsoft Word was technically announced in
spring of 83.
I don't know what you came out it but sometime, you know at
some point during the year it did come out in 1983 and Microsoft
decided to to make a big deal about it a few days ago.
So this is a good opportunity for us to talk about it that
you know Microsoft Word has been I mean for some professions
people that that that write all the time my profession of a
lawyer being a perfect example of it.
I mean, I live in Microsoft Word.
I'm there every day.
I know all of the commands.
I mean, I'm always impressed when I see like people that
really know about photography can use Photoshop like a whiz
and I'm like, wow, how do you know how to do that stuff when
it comes to Word?
I know I read the way off because I mean, I've literally
been doing it since I was a teenager, you know, and so as
it's changed over the years and and you know, I remember the
days in the 1980s when you know Word was on the Mac before
it was on Windows.
In fact, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Excel actually debuted
on the Mac.
So, you know in the in the early days the Mac was very important
to Word and Word was very important to the Mac.
It was a symbiotic relationship and then there was the dark
days of the early 90s when Microsoft went from Word 5.1a,
which was so good to Word 6 where they tried to sort of make
the Windows and the Mac version the same which really took
away a lot of the special what made Word so good on Mac, but
then but then Microsoft came back years later and you know,
all culminating in the the keynote the keynote address
where Bill Gates appeared on stage on that huge screen behind
Steve Jobs.
So there's been this relationship between you know, Apple
products, you know, the Mac and the iPhone and the iPad with
Word over the years, but you know, regardless of where it
is. I mean, I use Word on my Windows computer every day.
I use Word on my iPad just about every day.
I'm constantly opening up Word documents on my iPhone.
You and I were together years ago at Tech Show.
Yes, Microsoft Word came out for the iPad and that was such
a big announcement because for years there had been these
third-party apps that you could use to view Word documents,
but none of them were great.
They were all you know, Docs to Go was probably the best of
them, but they were all sort of hacky.
So when Microsoft came out with the true blue version of
Word on the iPad, it made such a big deal and for some
professionals like attorneys, I really think it was one of
the biggest app announcements ever.
Agreed.
So it was you know, there's a long history with Word and you
know, I'm glad to still be using it today.
It's incredibly useful.
I love this little graphic that Microsoft put in here the
40 years of Microsoft Word this timeline.
I've been zooming in and out of it here because frankly
for me just being a visual guy Jeff, I like seeing all the
little logos or the icons.
Every one of those icons at one point in my life was an icon I clicked on all the time.
I know, they're burned in my brain.
Exactly.
Exactly.
They're burned into my brain.
Yeah, I mean you hover your mouse over Word 97 and
any of them.
Yep.
I knew that icon too, you know.
Exactly.
Word 2003.
Yep.
I knew that icon too.
So it's funny.
Just amazing how it burns in.
You actually linked to another great article here from
tidbits and I'll make sure it's in the show notes here where
they're just talking about, you know, it used to be like
the multi-word tool.
I mean that was an MS-DOS.
I mean, wow, this is a it's fun memories, but it's a
little bit of trauma that happens for me a little bit as
well.
It's like wow, that's been around for a long time.
That's not the only birthday my friend.
I just want to tell you happy birthday to in the news
or to the iPhone GD.
This is your 700th post.
Is that right?
Am I getting that correctly of in the news?
Of in the news.
Yeah, so it was back in 2000.
Oh my goodness.
2009 that I said, you know, maybe it's a Friday.
There was not much else going on.
Maybe I'll talk about some of the news items and you know,
then I started doing it every week and then as you know years
ago you picked up on the fact that hey, if you're going to
write about the articles of the news for the last week, maybe
let's turn it into a podcast and here we are.
Yeah, so it's I don't know.
It's just a number but still it's sort of fun that it's been
700 times that I've been doing it.
I've done it.
That's a that's a lot of weeks.
Well keep on going for another 700 my friend.
I'm excited about it.
I like it Apple watch OS 10 or the watch OS 10 the Apple
watch tennis not out.
Sorry.
I said that wrong.
It's Apple watch 9 is the is the latest version but it's
running watch OS 10 and I am so happy that you link to this
story or this really review.
I guess, you know major review in Mac stories by Alex Guyot,
I believe I which I know what he's been doing some really
great stuff over on Mac stories.
This is a wonderful thing.
Like I've saved it because I got to read through it again.
I think Jeff there's so much in here that I think you even
commented this one in your post today and your 700 and the
news post that it's like wow, I didn't even you know, really
realize that watch OS 10 had all of these changes.
I thought Alex did a really good job of being fair about
it. Like there's some things that are not as good.
Maybe that they changed on some of the the buttons and
things but the interface I think you know to his point on
some of these things have some really nice improvements
here.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I also you know watch OS 10 is it's the newest
operating system.
I don't necessarily know that I agree with every one of
Apple's decisions, but they did what they did and it's a
major overhaul.
And so this is what we're going to be living with probably
for the next couple of years, right?
But I thought this article was fantastic because even though
of course I knew there was a new version of the operating
system out and I knew some of the things that were changed.
It wasn't until I read this article that I truly understand.
Okay, here's what they're doing.
Here's sort of the Apple philosophy and here's how we
can take advantage of it.
So just to give you one example, you know as article
points out when you scroll up from the bottom of your Apple
watch screen you get to what Apple calls the smart stack
and up until before I read this article, I saw those things
down there and I'm like, okay, whatever there's some little
widgets.
I didn't think much of it.
But what the article made me realize is if you want to be
a power user what I recommend that you do is go in there
and pay attention to what's in the stack because just like
just like a stack of widgets on your iPhone, you can control
which widgets show up in the stack.
So take out the ones that you don't care about and in the
ones that you do care about and then what you suddenly have
is every time you swipe up from the bottom of your phone
or if you use your little you can also just scroll on the
scroll wheel on the side.
You will see these little bitty widgets that correspond
to the apps that mean the most to you.
Maybe it's looking at your circles for your activity or
maybe it's looking at the now playing app or you know, the
weather whatever things you want to see most quickly.
And so just like you can put complications on your watch
face to get information you can scroll up and the nice thing
about the smart stack is that even if you're using like
let's say for example, I'm in a silly mood and I want to
put the Snoopy watch face on just because the Snoopy
animations make me laugh, you know, but the Snoopy watch
face doesn't have a space for any complications.
And so normally I would say, oh, well the downside of that
watch face.
Yeah, yeah, I'm losing quick access to these things, but
you still have it because just put the ones that matter
to you the things that you might normally put as complications
your watch face put them into your your widgets under the
smart stack and you can scroll up and quickly get to them.
So I mean, that's just one example of if you it does take
some time for you to think about it.
But once you go through and set it up the way that makes
sense to you suddenly your Apple watch becomes infinitely
more useful.
So that was one that was good.
And then the other thing that I pointed out is and I had
sort of forgotten about this the digital crown if you double
press it, it will bring up, you know, it's sort of like
hitting, you know, control tab on Windows or command tab
on a Mac.
It brings up your recent applications your recent apps.
And so if you wanted to jump to something that you've gone
to recently like, you know, your podcast app or whatever
it is, that's a quick way to get access to it without having
to scroll through the big list of all the apps or to go
through the honeycomb whichever setup you have.
So, you know, even just if those little tips those two tips
are the only things you take away from it and there's much
much more in this article, you will suddenly be getting
so much more out of your Apple watch.
So I'm so happy that this article.
I mean Alex, right writes a review of the Mac OS every year,
but I was so happy to read this one because this is a big
year Apple did change a lot this year and there are some
things like for example, the fact that you press press the
button on the right side of your watch and you bring up
the control panel.
I mean that is useful is that the best use of that button?
I don't know but it is what it is, you know again whether
you agree or disagree though.
This is the world that we're living in.
So why not take the time to make it, you know, best work
best for you and get the most out of it.
I definitely agree on that smart stack.
I just you know, I didn't know what it was going to how
you it was going to be useful when I was looking at it
before but now even though I'm using the ultra face I forget
what they call it.
It's like ultra whatever it is.
So I've got seven complications now on my face, but Jeff
that's not enough because there are few that I wanted to
actually put on there even more and the way that I did that
is I put it on the smart stack.
So as soon as I just barely, you know scroll up on my digital
crown, I've got now a little whatever you call it.
I guess it's one of the of the widgets there and I've got
three additional other complications that are available
there. In other words, it's just an easy way for me to still
have access to more widgets there and I just I love that.
I think that that's been great.
So I'm thrilled to see that Alex put this in there, you know,
one of the things just quickly that I I found that I think
is fantastic on watch OS 10 is one of the additional widgets.
I did put on my smart stack is messages.
Have you been into the messages app on the watch OS 10 because
I now have the my little pictures on there.
I may have mentioned this before but I just love that in
my messages now before it was just a list of the actual
messages, but I now have faces of all the people, you know
for my favorites like I would see on my phone and I just
love that.
There's a little tiny tiny tiny Jeff Richardson picture on
my watch there that I can tap if I wanted to text.
I feel like the messages app and watch OS 10 got a lot of
love. I think Alex may have mentioned that somewhere in here,
but that was some really good stuff.
Yeah, good stuff.
Let's go to iPhone from watch OS.
I like this little story here six hidden iPhone 15 features
that you need to discover right now.
My favorite was also yours that you pointed out about the
battery.
Yeah, just because this is something new and I think it's
just for the iPhone 15 line.
But if you go to what is it if you go to settings and then
general and then about you can see this thing about the
battery and it shows you you just scroll past it, but it
was it shows you the date.
Yeah, the manufacturer date of your battery the first use.
So my for example for my iPhone 15 Pro Max, it said that
the manufacturer date was August.
It said my first use was September, which I guess is the
same thing that you're showing on the screen right here,
right?
And my cycle count.
I'm not exactly sure a cycle count is is that how many times
it's been re recharged from zero or something like that.
I think it's something like that.
Yeah, when I checked for yesterday, mine was like 26 or
something like that.
So again, I don't I have to admit.
I don't know exactly what all this information means, but
it does give you a little more behind the scenes information
about your battery.
And if you are having battery problems, which you know,
for the newest iPhones, hopefully you're not because
they're brand new but come a year or two from now if you
start to have issues, I guess this is information that you'll
be able to compare your battery to someone else's and maybe
see a reason that your battery might be more in need for you
know, replacement or whatever it else.
So again, how this information will be useful to the user is
yet to be seen.
But the fact that Apple is surfacing it in the first place
is something brand new and I think very interesting.
Yeah, good story there.
I appreciate you linking to that.
And by the way, I just have to say I've been using my iPhone
15 Pro for maybe about two and a half weeks or so.
And if you recall, I would complain every so often about
my 14 Pro about the battery.
Like I felt like it wasn't holding the battery as well as
I would have expected it to I've been much happier with
the iPhone 15 Pro that yeah, there's nothing scientific
about that.
It's just me saying, hey, I'm a little bit happier with
what this what's coming on.
Well, I'll tell you something too, Brett.
This is the first time as you know that I've had the biggest
iPhone, which of course has more space for a battery.
So it's got more power and I have absolutely noticed that
that the battery life is like, you know, even days that
I'm, you know, doing workouts and recording video and everything
else the end of the day.
I still have so much battery life.
I'm like, oh my goodness, it's crazy.
Agreed.
Let's talk Wi-Fi.
Now you link to a story in TechCrunch about Eero.
Is this is this Amazon now?
Eero is Amazon, right?
Google has this.
Okay.
So, okay.
Amazon has Eero.
This looks like it's the highest end Eero that you can get.
You, I think, have one that's not quite this same, but I
know you have been very happy with your setup on there.
But if you wanted to go a little higher, here's a good option
for you.
Yeah, I thought this was a fascinating article and I would
I had been looking for an article like this.
I was so thrilled to see that it was in TechCrunch because,
you know, we have Wi-Fi improves every couple of years.
And so now we're up to Wi-Fi 7 and a lot of the things that
Wi-Fi 7 brings to the table are things that, you know, I guess
any of us could use it if we just buy the right technology.
But like, for example, I don't even know if our newest iPhones
work with iPhone 7.
I have to look at the specifics of it.
I think the new Macs that came out that were announced this
week do, but we are getting to a world where, you know, different
everything will communicate with it.
But what can work with the newest Wi-Fi 7 is the different
Eros can communicate with each other throughout the house.
So anyway, this article does a great job of explaining what
makes this Eros so special.
It's expensive.
It's like 600 bucks for a unit, but they're also a lot more
powerful.
So the Eros that I have from a couple of years ago called
the Ero Pro.
I forget what number they were.
I had a link in my post to the version I have.
They don't even sell the version I have anymore, but I have
three of them in my house and my house is like a two-story
house. It's I don't know about 3,500 square feet and two was
close to being covering everything three of them totally
covers my entire house, right?
But okay with this newest Ero because they are much more
powerful.
You could almost get away with one of them or certainly for
two.
And so, you know, you do get more for the buck.
But again to get two of them at $600 a piece, that's 1,200
bucks on your Wi-Fi routers, which is, you know, a serious
money, but this article explains what you get for it and how
it's it's it's future-proof, but I'll also emphasize things
like you really want to have super fast internet to really
take advantage of this at my house.
I have what I consider to be pretty fast internet, which is
gigabit internet, but you need to have like, you know, two
gigabit or three gigabit internet to your home or your office
whatever before you're going to really take advantage of this
stuff. If you just have a gigabit connection like I do or
maybe something less this is probably this is overkill for
you, but you know, maybe you want to get it now knowing that
maybe in the next year or two your internet connection will
improve. You know, people buy things for future-proofing all
the time.
So this article anyway, it does a good job of explaining what
it's about.
I will say though that whatever model you're getting if you're
in the market for a new Wi-Fi router and it is nice to update
them every once in a while.
The Eros are really good.
Yeah, one of the first things you said when you pulled this
article up, Brett, you said aren't they owned by Amazon?
They are and it breaks my heart a little bit when you say
that because there are rumors.
There are rumors that I'm sure you've heard that years ago
Apple looked at this and thought about buying Ero and oh gosh,
I wish they had because you know Apple they used to have the
what would the Apple products called?
Oh the airport.
The airport products which were so good because they took
something complicated and made it so simple to use and Ero
has the same philosophy.
They've really tried to make it so simple that it's idiot
proof, but you have controls over it.
Amazon has been a pretty good steward for Ero so far.
Don't get me wrong.
I'm not criticizing Amazon, but I do if Apple had purchased
Ero instead and had maybe integrated them with the home
pods or who knows what else I would have loved that to happen,
but you know wasn't meant to be maybe the parallel universe
out there somewhere Apple owns Ero and it's got some great
home devices, but in the world that we live in it's an Amazon
product. The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max support Wi-Fi 6E
connectivity.
There we go.
The iPhone 15s only support Wi-Fi 6, so we would have access
to 6E.
But anyway, so if you're looking at this Ero for your iPhone,
probably not the best option right now, but to your point,
I mean some people just like to go and get the best out there
because they want to make sure that it can stay, you know,
the course for several years and I'm glad that you linked
to it.
Yeah, you've pretty much sold me on the Ero.
When I'm ready to upgrade I will probably be doing that just
because of the way that you've been talking about it all this
time. Maybe you'll upgrade to the Eve motion as well. The
best home kit motion sensor Benjamin Mayo at 9 to 5 max
says. I still don't have any motion sensors, but this
I think he's done a good job of selling me on this one as
well. This is the Eve motion.
Yeah, when you think of you know, having a smart home, the
most basic thing is just have like something that you turn
lights on and off. But when you start to get a little bit
more sophisticated having a motion detector is one of those
sort of next step things.
The one that I use was was sent to me by Eve as a review
unit years ago and so I decided to try it out, but it is
actually as cool.
I mean as I described it, I have it set up in my television
room, which is sort of in my house that you know, when you
walk in the room when it notices you come in the lights
come on which is a simple little thing, but it's very nice.
In fact, I noticed about a month ago.
It stopped working and I'm like what's going on?
I'm like is it a home kit?
Is it whatever and then I literally just realized this past
weekend bread.
I'm like I wonder if the batteries are dead.
Oh, you're not going after using it for like so many years.
You do have to replace double-a batteries in case you're
curious.
They do not look okay.
Thank you.
Rumors are false.
And so all I did is I popped up the two double-a batteries
put some new ones in and now hey, I'm back in motion again.
I walk in the room and the lights come on.
So but the fact that it had been those two batteries work
for so long.
I just didn't even think about them being in there.
I'm glad you thought about that immediately instead of like,
you know, spending five hours trying to figure it out like
rebooting everything.
Yeah, that's good.
And I'm using an older version of it.
The one that he reviews here is even newer.
So if you're looking to add a motion detector to your house,
this might be one that you want to consider and it is sort
of nice.
I mean, you can also use it for security features too, right?
Like if you could have like many cameras have a have it built
in but you can have it.
In fact, one of the one of the automations that I have for
my backyard is because my it's not Eve.
It's my you feed cameras.
Not only can they record what's going on in my backyard, but
they have a motion detector too.
And so I have that trigger if at night after a certain hour
it it senses motion in my backyard.
Of course, it starts to record using the UV camera.
But in addition, I turn on some of my backyard lights so that
I don't have to rely upon, you know, you feed does a pretty
good job of recording at night, but it's even better if there's
light.
So if there were to ever be an intruder in my backyard, you
know, there would be a light to hopefully deter them.
I could see them.
It'd be on camera, etc.
So motion detection is a pretty cool little thing to do home
kit things with does your Eve motion that you have right now
Jeff does it work with home kit?
Is it absolutely?
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
Good.
So that's the that's the main thing.
I know we've we've we keep talking about that.
Like when I do get out to this bandwagon, I'll get the Ero.
I'll get the Eve motion, but maybe this is a better place
for me to start and any of you out there that are in my same
boat smart plugs.
That's probably like one of the best places to start Jeff and
I am so glad you like to this.
Yeah, step one.
Exactly.
I'm so glad you linked to this the verge, you know, I've gone
to the wire cutter before and other places and really the
verge is almost confirmed this for me that if I win I'm going
to start getting some of these the TP link Casa is probably
a good place to start.
That's their best smart plug overall pick that they have here.
Yeah, and this post is good because it talks about you know,
why would you want to consider spending more or spending less
on a smart plug?
They've got the Casa which is 25 bucks, you know, couldn't
be any simpler.
But then you have some of the other ones that are like if
you want the really cheapest one, I think they have one that
cost as little as a dollar.
Yeah, if the six bucks makes a difference, but then they
have other ones that are more sophisticated that will like
monitor the amount of energy that you're using and and have
some additional features like the one that you're showing
right now by by Leviton.
One thing you want to consider is do you just want your
smart plug to turn a light on and off or do you want it to
also be able to dim a light because dimming a light used
to be simple when we all had analog lights, right?
But in today's world that those have been phased out and
now it's all right.
I D lights right every right older dimmers don't work great
with LED lights.
And so they recommend one that if you know, you're going
to dim the light.
This is a good one to use and I think the end of this
article even recommends one to use outside.
So no matter where it does function it is whether you
want to go from the bottom of the line great article
expensive.
Here's a great a great list of options.
Fantastic.
Okay.
Thanks for linking to that because maybe in the next week
or two I might have some smart plugs.
I'll get started on my bandwagon.
Where you at?
Yeah, you have a really cool story for where you at that.
I'll get to in a moment.
But Jeff I got my own where you at story today.
So let's hear you.
I was flying to Chicago and I put my roller bag above my
above my seat just like you are want to do so we land in
Chicago.
I get up and I look and I see my bag is not where I had
put it in my overhead, but I look across the aisle and
I see my bag and I'm like, okay.
Well, maybe the flight attendant, you know after I sat
down maybe they moved it to make sure everything fit.
So I grabbed it and I walk off but as I'm walking up the
jetway, it just doesn't feel right.
It's like the roller bag doesn't feel quite right and I'm
like, you know, okay, you know what once I get out into
the airport like I'm just you know, double check, you know,
just to make sure and I look down.
I'm like, wait a minute my name tag in the back isn't there
and I'm like, oh my goodness.
I'm going to unzip it and that is not my stuff in my bag.
Somebody had picked up my bag and I thought this was my
bag because they were exactly identical.
It was the exact identical roller bag Jeff.
So immediately I turn around people are still coming off
the air the airline I go to the gate agent and I'm like,
I'm telling the story like I somebody's got my bag like
can I can I come back on there real quick and just you
know, stop whoever because apparently they had already
taken it.
So I didn't even think about that first.
I'm like, can I get and she's like no sir, you have to
stand right here first.
She was she was kind of icy about it.
She was like, no, it'll be fine.
We'll wait for the flight attendants to get off and I'm
just standing like right there in front of her face because
I am just starting to panic a little bit right now and
I'm thinking to myself what am I going to do, you know,
okay, when is the when are the flight attendants finally
going to come off this airline and they finally do and
I explained I asked him is there any bags on there to
somebody leave it, you know, maybe they moved it or
something.
No dice.
Of course the bag was gone.
I'm like, how am I going to find it?
Somebody asked a question that I can't remember what
they asked but I remembered of course I had an air tag
in my roller bag.
So I immediately pull it up on my phone and by this time
the the gate agent is getting a little nicer for me, even
though she's kind of juggling all the other people getting
on for the next flight and I show her I said listen, my
bag is right here like and I zoomed in and of course this
is O'Hare right?
So this is huge.
And of course, we're all the way down at the very last
gate in the seat in the terminal 1C.
So it is the furthest away basically you can get from
any of the of the gates and I zoom in and I show her it
looks like it, you know, it's a kind of a big circle,
right?
So it's not exact and it zooms in on a gate at E1.
And so I'm telling the gate agent like I think it's right
there.
It doesn't look like it's moving.
And so she calls down there asks is anybody, you know,
that just came off the Cleveland flight, you know, do
you have a roller bag?
Well, unfortunately, she found one lady that did come
off the Cleveland flight and she got on the phone and
I could just tell she was scared.
She does not have a roller bag.
It wasn't her but my bag still pinged right there at
that gate Jeff.
So I'm like, oh my goodness and then it's 10 minutes
then 12 minutes and then 14 minutes.
So obviously it was the last ping that it had right?
I'm punching it trying to like make the air tag make
a sound like anything something so no dice and I'm
starting to sweat at this time.
The lovely gate agent finally opened up the roller bag
that I had because I was able to show her it was still
in the airport, right?
She opens that bag and finds of all things the prescription
medication of the gentleman.
Oh that had the person's name.
Yeah, that had the person's name and then she looks
it up on her computer.
She was able to call his cell phone.
And of course by this time he's still there but he is
at gate F18, which if you know anything about O'Hare
it is on the exact.
I mean it had to be two miles to get there.
So I talked with him and I'm like, okay, are you going
anywhere?
He's like, well, I'm getting on a plane in 11 minutes.
I'm like, well not if you want your prescription medication.
So I am sprinting like if you remember the OJ sprint
through the airport.
I get there.
I finally get it and I exchanged the bags.
I was so relieved even though it just threw me off for
the rest of the day.
But as my wife keeps reminding me at least your bag wasn't
in Europe, right?
I mean he was getting on another flight and of all things
it so it wasn't that the air tag actually retrieved it
for me, but if it wasn't for my air tag, that was it.
I knew it was in the airport at least, you know, 10 minutes
ago and I could show that to the gate agent so that she
knew it was there and obviously it was still a little bit
of investigatory work on her part to actually get in there
and make the phone call.
But I mean nobody's going to check their bag when they
get off.
It just happened to be that this gentleman just looked
up and he pulled what looked like his bag.
So now I'm thinking okay, what fluorescent ribbon can I
put on my bag or something just to give people the idea
like do not pick this bag unless you like your fluorescent
ribbons or something along those lines.
Yeah.
So thank you to the air tag.
I mean we've often talked about air tags and luggage at
airports, but every time we've done so it's been in the
context of checked luggage.
Yes, I always think that because I try to never check
luggage.
I always try to put it in the overhead compartment just
to be safe.
That's what I did.
And your story reminds me that even when it's in the overhead
compartment, the air tag can still play a role.
So that's good to know.
It was incredible.
I mean I was sweating, you know, sweating for the rest
of the day.
I needed a shower because I just was running the entire
length of the Ohio Airport.
But thank you to having an air tag.
If I did not have that, I would not have had the ability
to be able to show the gate agent, right? Because it was
within the 10 minutes area that we could show that and at
least she made the phone calls and we were able to go and
find it and boy, I was reunited and the guy was like he
was so apologetic.
He's like man.
I wish I could buy you a beer and I'm like I gotta go take
a shower.
Like enjoy your flight, sir.
Yeah, it was it was not a pleasant day, but it was a happy
ending and I'm happy about that.
All right.
So now you're where you're at story, even though we haven't
used this yet, but this could even be cooler because I would
like to track the International Space Station sometime
myself.
Yeah, there's a lot of really cool space apps for the iPhone
that take advantage of the augmented reality so that you
can hold your iPhone up to the sky and it tells you what
you're looking at.
But I thought it was fun that NASA released a new app this
week that you can track the International Space Station.
So the app itself gives you information about it, but you
can have the app give you an alert when the ISS appears
overhead and and you can actually track it with this and
I mean it's always amazing to me that the ISS is, you know,
way up there in space with astronauts living on it and yet
you you can see it with the naked eye go across the sky.
If it's a clear night, right?
My son has telescopes and stuff and he's absolutely picked
it up on the telescope.
So you can see the ISS as far as way as it is and as tiny
as it is.
And so with this app, you can, you know, find out the next
time that it's coming directly over you and you can take
a look at it and just just marvel at space that we have
people that are living out there in space that are living
in space.
Well, thank you NASA for releasing that app.
I think it's just cool that it came from them specifically
as well in the know.
No, typically we do iPhone apps iPhone tips and I still
love those and I will continue to do those but I thought
this week Jeff in honor of Apple releasing a brand new
MacBook Pro and the m3 chips and everything.
I'm going to give a couple of Mac.
I guess I'll call them software apps.
Here are a couple of utilities actually on my Mac that
I cannot do without there's already I feel like this
list is getting a little longer than what I like because
typically I'll just like to have you know, the base model
as possible but text Expander, of course one password.
There's an app called paste now that I use, you know,
from from copying and pasting text, but another one
that I just picked up not too long ago is bartender.
So bartender is a way that I can control how my Mac menu
bar looks if that makes sense.
This became a pretty big deal the last MacBook Pro that
I got that has the little notch in the top right because
the notch at the very top where the camera goes on my
MacBook Pro will cover up some of my Mac menu bar items.
It's not supposed to but if some of these utilities or
software apps, you know have not been updated that they
will be hidden by the little notch and that's what pushed
me to get bartender.
I've heard about this app for many many years and I'm
just like I don't have too many things up in my menu bar
again.
I can't live without it.
Now.
It allows me to hide the little icons up in my menu bar
when I'm not using them.
It allows me to rearrange the ones that I want.
It allows me to use some when an app is active.
I just absolutely love it and they just recently came
out with bartender 5 and so there's all kinds of additional
options in here that you can pull up, you know from a
styling perspective and it just gives you all kinds of
fantastic control over the how your Mac menu bar, especially
in the I keep pointing up here because it's in the upper
right, right?
The upper left is really controlled by the actual application
you're using and has the file menus and everything but
it's the upper right.
Do you want a full date up there?
Do you want your wife?
How do you want your Wi-Fi symbol to look, you know, the
battery symbol all that kind of stuff and bartender will
allow you to do that.
There's actually here.
I've got a great review in Mac stories as we were talking
about them.
I'll put this in the in the show notes as well.
So you can go through and read it.
Actually, I get the bartender as a part of my set app
subscription Jeff.
I think we've talked about a set app before.
Yeah, but I love using set app because it gives me, you
know, just one subscription.
I get access to a ton of applications and that's how I knew
bartender was in there.
It has paste in there as well.
That's another app that I use but I purchased that separately
because it was so good but that's part of the set app subscription
as well.
And then another one that I've been using is air buddy.
So air buddy is a Mac a little utility on my Mac that allows
me to you know control where my AirPods Pro are going if I
want it on my Mac.
I can ping it quickly on my Mac and I've got a keyboard
shortcut set up on there.
So anyway, those are multiple little utilities, but the main
one is bartender really like it a lot.
But if you're interested in that try the set app subscription,
I really just think that they're fantastic.
We've talked about them a couple of times because it's from
Mac Paul, right which is based out of Ukraine and they're
doing some really good stuff.
They've been doing good stuff for a long time on the Mac.
So that's my pick for today.
Yeah, I've heard fantastic things about bartender over the
years.
I don't use it because the Mac that I use at home as I use
it with a 27 inch studio display monitor and I've got so much
space that I don't need it.
But if I had a Mac laptop where space is a little bit more
premium, I absolutely would buy bartender.
No question about it.
No question.
Yeah, good stuff.
Um, my tip of the week is a follow-up from last week.
Last week.
We talked about a preview of the new Beatles song coming out
and this week we added to Apple music and to all the other
music services too, I believe and it's fun.
The new song itself called now and then it's a really good
song.
I've enjoyed listening to it.
It's been in my ear since I got it.
I wanted to say came out yesterday.
In fact, I was I was driving to work today and I was listening
to a podcast and at the same time I could sort of hear the
song in my head.
I was like, okay, let me play the song again while I'm driving
into work because it was fun to listen to a couple things.
I want to talk about first of all the album itself now and
then it's just a single but just like the old Beatles singles,
you would have a B-side too.
And so for the side, they have a new remix of just a little
song called love me do, you know, just a simple little, you
know, just one of the best songs of all time.
And exactly.
We'll just take that on the B-side.
So it's fun to hear a perfectly, you know, clear, very nicely
remastered version of love.
Love me do that.
Um, but then additionally, as part of the digital album on
Apple music, there is a preview to something that I actually
encourage you to watch the full document documentary.
It's 12 minutes long.
You can watch it on Apple music.
You can watch it on YouTube if you want and it's about the
making of now and then because as we talked about last week,
this is something that John Lennon first recorded on a cassette
tape back in the 70s and it was only because of using the
artificial intelligence AI that Peter Jackson had come up with
that they were able to clean up the recording so that you can
hear John Lennon's voice crystal crystal clear and yet he's
singing along with George and Ringo and Paul.
So it's great.
I love the single and I love about it.
So that that's that's my pick of the week, but this is a good
opportunity to point out that to have this song on Apple music
is just interesting because there is such a long, long, long
history along and winding road as it will Apple and the Beatles
and I thought I would just sort of comment in front of it,
you know, oh yeah, self Apple computer was, you know, started
by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak way back when there's no
question in my mind that the title Apple computer came because
Steve Jobs was such a huge fan of the Beatles and Apple core
was their record label.
And so the company was called Apple that led, you know, very
quickly to a lawsuit filed in 1978 by Apple core against
Apple computer and that lawsuit was settled in 1981 and as
a part of the settlement Apple computer agreed.
We will never release music products.
What will stay out of the music business and Apple core will
stay out of the computer business sounded like a pretty good
deal back in 1981, but you know, fast forward a couple of years
yeah Macintosh computers could actually create music.
And so there was a second lawsuit that was filed in 1986 and
it was eventually settled in 1991 as a part of that settlement
Apple computer said that okay, we may have some music but we
won't actually sell or distribute physical musical materials
like CDs and records and Apple core said, okay, that was fine.
And one of the funny sort of side notes of that was in 1989.
One of the guys that works for Apple named Jim Reeks was coming
up with the Apple system sounds and there was one sound that
he made which was sort of like a musical sort of sound and
when they were trying to describe what that sound was called
the name that it has is s o s u m I and when someone at the
legal department at Apple asked him, what is that?
He's like, oh, it's a Japanese word.
It was not a Japanese word.
He made that up.
It was so sue me.
It was him basically sort of given the finger say, hey, you
know, I'm going to make a musical sound on the Mac as a tone
and if you don't like it, you can go ahead and sue me.
So that's sort of a history and Apple music.
In fact, this post is funny.
You brought up on your screen a post way back in 2009 and
I thought it was hilarious that I wrote about this guy Jim
Reeks and at the very end of the post Jim himself had a little
comment where he put a little happy face at the bottom.
So I thought that was sort of funny that oh, look at it.
So then that was the second Apple lawsuit.
So then you fast forward until 2003 and what is Apple doing
in 2003?
The iTunes music store.
Yeah, once again, they were sued by Apple core.
Now this time Apple actually won the lawsuit because they
weren't distributing physical, you know, yeah, it was right
digital, right?
But there was also a related trademark dispute.
Anyway, the whole thing ended up settling in what I think
is now the final settlement between Apple and the Beatles
where you know, basically Apple computer which is now just
called Apple licensed all the music anything related to music.
They've licensed that from Apple for and so from that point
forward, you know, people at Apple Steve Jobs, especially
have always been such huge fans.
The Beatles that I know.
Oh, yeah hated that there was these decades of litigation
between the company because of you know, protecting trademarks
right?
But in 2008, we saw a limited edition version of the iPod
that had the Beatles logo on it in 2010.
The Beatles finally released their extensive discover, you
know, history of records, right?
And they released it on the iTunes music store first, which
was a big music a big moment.
And then of course you fast forward to today in 2023 where
we have the new single now and then from the Beatles available
through Apple music.
So anyway, it's just a Apple and the Beatles have had this
intertwined history ever since the 1970s.
So whenever they cross paths, I always find it interesting.
So anyway, and also it's a good song.
I feel like it's a happy birthday to Microsoft Word and
happy birthday to the original Apple Apple lawsuit.
Oh, that's that's incredible.
Jeff.
I did like this so fun to hear that whole history on there.
We need to just do a podcast on the history aspects.
I think that's a lot of interesting things.
That is so fun on that.
But yeah, I forgot.
I mean, I know we talked about this but I had forgotten that
this came out now.
I want to go listen to it.
I we're not going to play it here because we don't want Apple
suing us for anything on that aspect.
But that's just so I just love the whole story behind this
and my wife has actually been a longtime Beatles fan as well.
So I don't even know she's listened to it yet.
But yeah, we'll have some lovely evening music listening
listening party tonight.
Jeff as always.
Thanks man, and we'll talk with you next week.
It sounds good, Brett.