125: Amazing App Awards, Streamlined Satellite Access, and Freaky iFakes!

(upbeat music)

- Welcome to In the News for December the 1st,

I can't believe it's December already, 2023.

I am Brett Burdy from appsinlaw.com.

- And this is Jeff Richardson from iPhoneJD.

Hey Brett.

- Good morning, Jeff.

Wow, it's that time of the year again.

I mean, literally it is December, which is nuts,

but I love your post.

We'll get to it a little bit here in just a moment,

where it's like everybody's doing like an end of the year

wrap up on everything and all the awards and everything.

But first, just quickly,

I know that you mentioned in here, I think,

which I thank you for mentioning a surprise update.

Well, not really a surprise.

It's really just a security update, right?

17, iOS 17.1.2.

I didn't even get a notice about this, Jeff.

And it wasn't until this morning when I read your post,

thank you very much, that I said,

hey, I need to update my iPhone and my iPad.

Just a couple of little security patches

it looks like in here,

but it's important to make sure you get them updated.

- Yeah, in fact, it was interesting

because in the description of the security patches

from a macro that you're bringing up right now

from Jason Cross, he mentions that one of,

I mean, it's not him mentioning it, he's quoting Apple,

but Apple said something like,

you know how when sometimes Apple says

that there's a security update,

you're like, okay, security update.

And then sometimes they say,

there's a security update

that was actually being exploited in the wild.

- Right.

- And you're like, oh, well, that's more dangerous

because the bad guys are actually using it.

One of them has a strange description here

because it says, Apple is aware of report

that this issue may have been exploited

against versions of the iOS before, before 16.7.

And you're like, well, that's-

- Wow.

- This is, you know, we're in iOS 17

and they're telling you that something was exploited

back in iOS 16, but they're fixing it.

Like the whole thing is a little unclear

as to when this, you know, suffice it to say,

let's not wait to find out

whether or not you happen to be, you know,

winning the lottery on having the right

or wrong version of the operating system,

in which case the security flaw could be exploited.

And, you know, probably a good idea to go ahead

and update everything now.

But again, when I first saw news that there was a new update

my first thought was, hey, iOS 17.2,

because it's gonna have all these new features in it.

But no, we're not there yet.

- No.

- Still at 17.1, 1.2, yes.

- You know, speaking of which,

I know we've talked about 17.2,

but you know, for anybody that is still maybe on 16

because they're a little nervous about going to the,

you know, again, I know we've talked about this

several times, like, okay,

it's okay to maybe wait a few weeks, you know,

to do a major upgrade from 16 to 17.

But by this point, I would say 17 is rock solid, right?

I mean, I feel like I haven't seen any issues about it.

And really what we're talking about here

are just some very minor updates.

17.1.2 is like a point point type of an update.

And again, these are excellent for making sure

that you get it upgraded from a security standpoint.

And in fact, most of these do apply to like these WebKit,

which is the basic backend of a Safari browser.

So that's important to do.

But as you alluded to, 17.2,

hopefully within maybe a week or so,

we don't know exactly when it's gonna come out,

but there are a few changes

that are gonna be expected in there, which is great.

- Hey, Brett, while we're talking about picky little details,

let's just, 'cause at this point,

somebody may have noticed,

you sound a little different right now,

and it's because you are on special assignment

in the state of Texas.

And it's such a big state that you,

the voice just sounds different down there.

Is that what it is?

(laughing)

- There's miles and miles of Texas here.

Yeah, it's a little bit more of an expansive.

So yeah, traveling and I got my travel kit

and usually I have a microphone, but yeah,

I know it does sound a little bit different on there,

but thank you for pointing that out.

As I mentioned, it's that time of the year again,

and how about some awards, the apps of the year?

We talked about this last week, right Jeff?

That Apple had announced the finalist

for the apps of the year award, and now we know who won,

which I agree with,

although I think I mentioned this last year,

there was, or last week, there was several in each category

that I'm like, all of those are winners,

but you have to pick one at the end of the day,

and there's just some good ones.

- In some ways, I think that the prior list

that came out a few weeks ago of the semi-finalists

or the finalists, whatever it was,

that's probably the more interesting list

because it's got a whole bunch of apps on it.

- Yeah, here they are.

- And what I always think is interesting about them is,

let's just take a look at them all

and see if there's anything in here

that might be something that you want to try out.

So that's the one that I really,

when it comes around to the actual award winners,

that's great, and congratulations to those developers,

something to be proud about.

We should mention the one that won the app of the year

is the one that I know that you were pulling for,

which is the AllTrails app

that you made one of your recommendations.

- One of two, right.

- And it's so funny, since the time

that you have recommended that app on this podcast,

I have run into, I'm not a big hiker,

but I've run into other people that really enjoy hiking,

and they all tell me the same thing.

"Oh, do you have this AllTrails app?

It's so good."

I'm like, yeah,

'cause they know that I'm interested in iPhone stuff.

Apparently the people that are in the know,

if you like to go hiking on trails,

that's a fantastic app to get,

not only according to Brett Burney,

but also according to Apple.

So, what finer sources do you need

than those two to get that one?

So that was nice to see.

But it's always nice with some of these developers.

It was interesting though,

to sort of go to the other extreme,

the iPad app that won the app of the year

is something that you can use, as I understand it,

it's called Pret on Makeup,

and it's basically like an outline of a face

that you can use to practice makeup,

to see what it would look like on a face.

And if you wanna save different makeup designs,

I mean, that's a very specialized thing.

I personally don't wear makeup,

so it's not something that's gonna appeal to me,

but it actually looks like,

for people for whom this is interesting,

it actually looks like a really nicely done app.

So, but it's just so funny that,

it's such a completely different type of app

than the hiking app.

And I think that the Apple TV app

was a completely different type,

but there's a lot of variety in the winners here,

that just shows how many different things you can do

on all the different Apple platforms.

- Totally agree with that.

And back to the AllTrails app,

that was one of three finalists.

The others were Duolingo,

which I've used just a little bit,

but it's a very good app.

And the other was Flighty.

I used the Flighty app,

I used it when I came down to Texas here.

I use that to keep track of everything going on.

So between AllTrails and Flighty,

I was like, there could be two winners, right?

But I am very happy for AllTrails.

And in fact, I've even gotten a couple of notifications

from the AllTrails app, Jeff,

that were like, hey, congratulations to us for winning,

which well deserved.

And it's not even, just by the way,

not quickly just for the hiking side,

even if I wanna walk around a local park, wherever I am,

like in Texas, I just looked it up yesterday,

was like, hey, I wanna just go out for a quick walk,

'cause we got better weather here in Texas

than we did in Ohio.

And I'm like, where can I go and walk?

And sure enough, I can just pull that up and be able to,

so it's not just for like hiking or running,

'cause it can do running or even the biking trails on there.

And that app has really continued to be great.

But again, to your point from the product makeup,

I was like, what in the world,

like how good of an app can this be?

But it looks really fantastic on here from the iPad app.

And I guess in my mind,

which everybody knows is a little strange

where this comes from, Jeff,

I was like, well, there are some apps

that are good for maybe like seeing

what a piece of furniture might look like in your room.

And I guess this app is like,

what would a certain shade of makeup look like on your face

or on your lips or a certain lipstick?

And as much as I started reading into this,

it's really fascinating to your point that you were saying,

just the fact that you could even use something like this

to get an idea of what certain makeup is gonna look like.

We don't talk about makeup a whole lot on this podcast.

Not much.

I just like, just like I think you said,

it's like just really good that we have this breadth of it.

The Mac app of the year was Photomator,

which is a great from Pixelmator as well.

And then the others, I didn't even know too much about,

like on the games and the cultural impact.

I'm just really glad that Apple continues to do this

and just highlight some of these apps on here for sure.

- Absolutely, yeah.

- You also mentioned in your post today,

the top books, the top books and audio books

from Apple iBooks, I guess.

Is that even still, or it's just Apple Books now?

I remember it as iBooks.

Yeah, yeah.

- The fact that you're saying that, Brett,

I think actually sort of is the key here.

When it comes to apps, all iPhone apps come from Apple,

indirectly from the App Store.

So they definitely know what the best ones are

and the most popular ones.

But when it comes to bookstores,

I mean, everybody that I know that reads audio books

pretty much uses the Kindle or Audible.

That's certainly, my wife is an avid reader.

That's what she uses.

So whenever I get an, you know.

So that stuff's not being captured here.

These are the people that are buying electronic books

from Apple and audio books from Apple,

which I don't know what percentage of the market

that they have, but it's gotta be a tiny percentage.

Nevertheless, having said that,

it's still a small percentage of a big universe.

So I guess there is some legitimacy

to the books they're listing.

And certainly the ones that they list

is that some of the most popular books of the years

are certainly books that I have heard of.

So, you know, it doesn't surprise me

that they might be some of the more popular books.

You know, in some ways, however,

I feel like this list might be as much as anything.

Apple sort of reminding the world,

hey, by the way, you can also buy books from Apple.

It's not just Amazon.

- That's a good way to put it.

- Audible and all that sort of stuff.

But so anyway, so, but again, like any other list,

if you're looking for some good lists,

you can look at this and see, you know,

the Britney Spears book and the Prince Harry book

or near the top and stuff like that.

- Right.

Those are, so we've done apps, we have done books,

and you also link to the top podcast.

That again, to your point,

really come from the Apple Podcast app,

which we know even from our own podcast,

you know, it is the free app that is available

on the iPhone and the iPad.

And so if people just search for a podcast

or click on a link to a podcast,

this app is typically gonna open as the default app

to open those podcasts,

even though you also mentioned,

I think I've talked about another app today

and we also use Overcast,

which is one of our favorite ones.

But here are the top podcasts for 2023

according to the Apple Podcast app.

- And this is the one that, you know, my sense of it, Brett,

and I'm curious if you agree,

is that it sort of falls in between the two

that we just described.

The Apple Podcast app is far, far, far more popular

than the Apple Books app.

But on the other hand, it's not 100% of the market

like the App Store is,

where all apps go through the App Store, you know,

because there is a percentage of the market

that uses other apps like Overcast and stuff like that.

I know whenever I look at this podcast, you know,

for the folks that are listening to you and me right now,

by far the majority of our listeners use Overcast,

but I think that that's because the people

that listen to this podcast

tend to be a little more technologically interested.

Whereas I think that for more mainstream podcasts,

I hear that the Apple Podcast app is incredibly popular.

And certainly the ones that are at the top

of their list here, I mean, things like, you know,

This American Life, you know, NPR, and, you know,

Dateline NBC, and some of these,

the one that The Daily,

and the one that Julie Louise Dreyfus has, you know,

these are, I know that these are very widespread,

you know, mainstream popular apps.

And I suspect that the apps,

that the Apple Podcast app has a nice bit of the audience.

So they actually probably have a pretty good sense

of what some of the top apps are, the top podcasts are.

But with this list, you know, we look at the app lists,

and there may be an app that I've never heard of

because I don't look for makeup apps, for example.

But when it looks to this podcast list, you know,

many of these podcasts are on subjects

that I'm sure would interest me,

and I have still never heard of them.

And it just goes to remind you

that there is just so much out there

that is, I'm sure, fantastic.

It's just some people haven't heard about it yet.

So, you know, it's just interesting.

- Well, Apple only lists the top 10 shows

or the top news shows.

So it's possible that the In the News podcast

could be number 11, we don't know.

- It's possible.

- Never know.

- But it's on there.

But there are some good ones, to your point.

Like I know probably maybe three or four of these

on the top 10, or at least that I've, you know,

actively listened to before.

Like the Humor Man Lab is really, really good.

Even my wife started listening to that quite a bit.

The Hidden Brain or The Daily, This American Life,

of course, a lot of good ones on there.

And like you said, I like how they break this down.

The top shows, the top new shows that came out,

and then the most followed shows.

And I also like down here,

they do the most shared episodes.

I found that to be really interesting.

- That's interesting, isn't it?

Yeah, that's a really cool idea.

- I liked it.

Like they actually say the podcast name,

the number one is The Humor Man Lab,

and the episode, What Does Alcohol Do

to Your Body, Brain, and Health?

And then the second shared was one of the episodes

from the Julia Louis-Dreyfus Wiser Than Me podcast,

Julia Gets Wise with Jane Fonda.

I just, I like kind of seeing, you know,

how the episodes went with the top news shows on there.

Really good stuff on there.

You know, like even if you don't use the Apple podcast,

I mean, you can still subscribe to these podcasts

from Overcast, for example, like we were talking about,

but it's just kind of good to see what a lot of people

are being listening to on there as well.

- Yeah, in fact, it's worth just pointing to that,

you know, although Spotify is a way

that some people listen to podcasts,

and Spotify does have its own proprietary podcast

that you have to subscribe to Spotify to get.

I think that they're about the only ones that do that.

Not the only ones,

'cause I know that there's some niche markets out there,

but most of the other, you know, big podcasts are available

no matter what podcast player you use,

which is, I really like.

I mean, I like it that, you know,

if I decide to switch tomorrow from Overcast

to Apple podcast to something else,

I like that you can switch around

between different podcast players

and you're not locked into any one thing

like you are in Spotify, but so be it.

- We got apps, we got books, we got podcasts.

How about music?

This is like the new thing to share

from either Apple Music or Spotify

is Apple Music calls their Apple Music replay for the year.

And then in Spotify, they call it the wrapped, I think.

It's like you're wrapped.

In other words, they aggregate all of your listening history

over the past year, and then they present it to you

as the top albums or the top artists you're listening to

and the top songs.

And the Apple Music, it's called replay, Jeff.

How did you fare this year?

You have to go into the Apple Music

and you click on jump in, right?

And it takes you to a website and then it breaks you down.

I went and visited mine this year,

but let's hear yours first, Jeff.

- Yeah, you know, when I look at these things,

part of it, it's like, I understand it,

but I don't, like for example,

it says that I listened to 494 different artists.

Okay, that's possible.

- Oh, okay.

- It says that the number one artist is Taylor Swift,

which actually doesn't surprise me

because lots of times when I'm driving in my car,

my daughter wants to listen to Taylor Swift

and so I'm playing it quite a bit.

And I have to admit when her new albums come out,

I will sometimes listen to them too.

So, I mean, I'm not a huge Swifty,

but I do like Taylor Swift.

But it was interesting, like another one that came up

on my list near the top was Jimmy Buffett.

And I know why that way came up

because Jimmy Buffett passed away this year.

And he also, ironically, came out with a new album this year

which is actually really good.

You know, he had been working on it before he passed away.

And so just the combination of me listening

to his new album and me probably bringing, you know,

what's the big album, the songs that you know by heart,

you know, whatever his famous album was

that came out in the 1980s.

- Yes, right, right.

- And just, you know, there was enough listening

just because of that for it to be near the top of my list

which was interesting, you know.

And likewise, the Beatles are on my list.

And the only reason I know that they showed up

is 'cause I probably listened to that new song

they came up with this year.

And then once I listened to that song,

it probably made me think, oh yeah, Beatles.

Let me go listen to some of my other favorites.

- Go check some others out.

- You know, is it a hundred percent,

if I was to come up with my own list

of the top things I listened to this year,

I don't think it would be the same as this.

And I'm not even sure, I don't know how Apple counts.

Like for example, they also have your top albums

and I don't even know how they count an album.

Did I have to listen to all of them album?

It looks like maybe I just had to play

like a few seconds of one song on an album

for it to show up.

I don't know how it comes with the statistics.

So part of me questions the accuracy,

but regardless, it's a fun way

to sort of stroll down memory lane.

And I like the fact that I can look at a song and say,

oh, this song reminds me that, you know, last spring

something was going on, I was listening to the song a lot.

So I enjoyed it, even though I don't necessarily know

if I a hundred percent agree with it,

but what do you think of yours?

- I have some similar feels about it, Jeff.

So I had 723 total artists.

I don't even know how I had that many,

but let me tell you as well,

'cause I mentioned several times,

I probably do most of my listening on Spotify

just because the family has Spotify

and that's what we started on and everything.

But there are specific albums and some music genres

that I like to go to Apple Music

because of the spatial audio, right?

I got my AirPods Pro and I can tell a difference

and I would rather listen to it a little higher quality

or that spatial audio in Apple Music,

as opposed to what I can't get on Spotify.

My top is Taylor Swift and I would tell you,

that's my top artist.

And I would tell you why,

because she released the 1989, right?

Taylor's version not too long ago.

And I can tell a difference in Apple Music.

I feel like it sounds more well-rounded

than it does in Spotify.

So even though, I know my daughter was also,

probably like yours, Jeff,

Taylor Swift was her number one.

I think she's at the top 1% of listening to Taylor Swift,

which is really, that's quite amazing.

But it's like, I know that I would wanna listen

to the new album and I would switch from Spotify

over to Apple Music,

just because I wanted specifically to have

that more well-rounded.

And so I can see that even in some of my top songs,

which Taylor Swift is not my top song,

but it's a group called Rival Sons.

They had a new album and I just liked the way

that it sounds better in Apple Music.

So either way, I can see that reflected

in sort of my top songs on this.

The only other thing quickly that I would say

that I can see from my Apple Music replay is,

well, by the way, also a couple of jazz albums, right?

I like the way that it sounds when I'm listening to jazz.

The only other thing that confuses me here a little bit

is I still have, I came from the old iTunes Music Library,

before we had Apple Music.

And I still have some albums

that I had either purchased through there

and I downloaded locally to my computer or to my phone.

And I still will synchronize some of those local albums.

I don't know how Apple Music counts that,

'cause I can see on some here,

some of my albums are those locally downloaded albums

that I know goes through Apple Music today,

'cause it's the only app.

I don't have an iTunes app anymore necessarily

on the iPhone, but I can know that some of those albums,

I didn't actually go into Apple Music

and search for it and find it that way,

if that makes sense.

So I think it's all kind of wrapped into one,

but some of that was a little confusing to me.

It's like, well, wait a minute,

I didn't go into Apple Music and do that.

I just went into my downloaded library

and listened to it that way.

And it looks like that Apple Music just kind of counts that

as part of my listening components on there as well.

But to me, it was just,

that's still kind of an evolution of that odd, awkward aspect

that we were living in with the old iTunes library.

And then we have the Apple Music,

which is all streamed now.

So just a little bit interesting on some of that.

- Let me ask you a question, Brett.

I've heard, I know that Spotify, as you mentioned before,

they do something similar at the end of the year

called Spotify Rack. - They do.

- And in fact, they did that

before Apple started doing the replay,

although Apple's been doing replays for years now.

I've heard some people that subscribe

to both services say that they feel like Spotify

just does a more interesting job

of surfacing different things you've listened to

over the year and stuff.

And that's sort of one of the,

I mean, I'm happy with Apple Music

for a casual music listener like me, it's fine.

But it's much like people say that sometimes Spotify

has even better playlists and stuff like that.

So I'm just curious,

since you've now looked at both Rapped and Replay,

what do you see advantages and disadvantages?

What are your thoughts comparing the two?

- Spotify is definitely better.

I think that it just,

the way that they present the information

and the way they collaborate with everything.

And frankly, I think that's just because

they can do a better job of like tracking.

I don't know if that makes a little sense.

Spotify never had sort of like iTunes library,

that local library or anything like that.

And so they've always been a streaming first.

There's even kind of an ecosystem.

For example, my daughter has a separate app

that I think she paid five bucks for,

which really just gives her constant Spotify analytics

on what she's listening to,

even and then comparing it to other people.

So again, I think Spotify is a lot more well-rounded

and like you said, they were the first to be doing this.

And I think Apple is getting better.

This year is much better, I think,

even than Apple Music had last year on some of this.

They just call it Replay.

But I don't know what it is exactly.

Apple certainly has the ability, I think,

to make this a little bit better.

But we just know even from numbers and surveys

that they are the second,

Spotify is still number one

of what most people are listening to.

And I think until Apple maybe can get

a few more folks on board,

I know that sounds a little silly

because the Rapt is, and the Replay is,

what you specifically are listening to.

But those are just my thoughts on it.

I mean, I just know that Spotify

has been doing it a lot more.

And to me, it's much more enjoyable

to look at the Spotify Rapt.

They have a lot more animations and things around it,

and then they can compare it through

even throughout the year.

So anyway, a little bit of a better experience in my mind.

- Yeah, I've heard some of those same things

that you're saying right now from other folks too.

So, and in some ways it reminds me

of the Google Maps versus Apple Maps.

There was no question that in the very beginning,

Apple Maps was far behind.

But over the years they've gained,

and we're now at the point today

where there's definitely things

that Google Maps does better.

There are also some things like the graphics and stuff

that I think Apple Maps does better.

It'll be interesting to see if Apple continues to,

and I'm sure that they will,

because I think Apple is very interested in music

or if they continue to do even more to get Apple Music

as good as Spotify is on some of those things.

So, interesting.

- Agreed.

Speaking of Apple's money,

they could pay for probably some better access

to Apple Music,

but they could also possibly afford

some additional satellites.

Or even if they don't have their own satellites,

maybe they can afford to have people

just continue to use access to their satellite.

I know we've talked about this several times,

and I love the fact that John Gruber

apparently came out this week, you linked to him,

where he is pretty much saying some of the things

I remember saying last week.

It's like, why should Apple stop the free access

to their satellite service, the SOS via satellite service?

We just talked about a story last week

where somebody was saved because of the SOS satellite access

that iPhone 15s and 14s have.

It's like, why would Apple start charging for this

and potentially mean that somebody doesn't purchase it

and then they don't get saved?

I don't know.

I don't wanna be morbid about it,

but I like John's points that you linked to here

that maybe Apple is just gonna continue

to give another year for free, another year for free,

and then eventually at some point,

just make sure that it's free.

I hope that that's the way it goes.

- Yeah, I've mentioned in the past,

I think that if Apple can find a way

to charge for specific services,

like the ability to send just regular text messages,

not emergency text messages via satellite,

I could see them charging for that.

But when it comes to the life-saving stuff,

I think the second thing I linked to from John Gruber

was this was a real world story where a woman,

her car was stolen in a carjacking.

It was a Volkswagen.

And so she was trying to figure out where her car was

because there was a toddler in the back of her car.

And she hadn't paid the $150 fee to Volkswagen.

And so when the police called Volkswagen

to find out where the car was located

through the GPS system that's built into the car,

they're like, "Right, if she pays the fee,

"we'll let you know where her child is."

Like, come on, that's just such horrible PR

for a company to have to say something like that.

And I can't imagine that Apple would ever,

ever want to be there.

So I think that John's right.

I think that Apple will find a way.

But at the same time, when Apple first turned on the service,

they probably had no idea how much this was gonna cost.

I mean, are people gonna be using this every single day

so that it's gonna cost billions of dollars

or is it just gonna be something that's not used very often?

So I think it makes sense

that when Apple originally sold the iPhone 14

and now this year is our iPhone 15,

they told people what you had two years for free

and just were silent on what happens after that.

But hopefully Apple now understands it

and can monetize it appropriately

so that they don't have to charge people for the service

because nobody wants to have to,

am I going to have to decide to pay?

And how much would it be?

Five ducks, 10?

Am I gonna agree to pay this

just in case I get in this situation?

Hopefully Apple will do the right thing.

And I agree with John on this.

- Yeah, very good.

How about running Windows on your iPhone?

Not something that you typically would hear.

And I know that some people use some apps,

like I know specifically you mentioned you use LogMeIn

to be able, as a service,

to be able to access like a Windows computer,

maybe at your office or your home.

But Microsoft seems like they're supporting this

a little bit even closer

by offering an app now for iPhones and iPads

that you can just start running Windows

even I guess through the cloud, right?

I mean, on my Mac, I've done Parallels and VMware.

I've stopped doing that

'cause it was just so much of an overhead.

But I would be interested maybe in looking at this

from a Windows app that maybe specifically

can run Windows in the cloud.

Sounds a little silly, but I think it's possible.

- The reason I linked to this

is just 'cause it was a funny link.

You know, the idea that you can purchase Windows

as an app in the App Store just struck me as funny.

But the reality is what's actually being sold here,

exactly as you said,

is you are controlling a remote virtual Windows environment

hosted by Microsoft.

So that, but when you're looking at your screen,

what you're seeing would look

as if you were looking at Windows.

I mean, with the start button and everything else.

So it would look like Windows.

You could run Microsoft Windows apps,

but you're not literally running them locally on the machine.

It's just that internet's now fast enough

and the screens are nice enough and stuff

that you can actually remotely control under the machine.

But what it looks like,

it actually does look like you're running Windows.

I mean, I'll tell you,

there's different types of remote software

that I've used on my iPad over the year.

I use LogMeIn.

I've also used Citrix.

Microsoft has another one called Azure,

but as your, how you pronounce it.

But when you're in a full screen mode,

if somebody looked over your shoulder,

they would see my iPad screen

would have from corner to corner, it's running Windows.

Because it's running the Windows of the computer

that's located somewhere else in the world

that I'm just remotely controlling.

But for all intents and purposes,

I've got a keyboard out, I've got a mouse out.

I am running Windows on my iPad.

It's just not local.

And the reality is it's sometimes useful

'cause there are some things that I cannot do

just using the iPad app.

And I can do it very quickly in Windows.

And so I will just jump into Windows and do it.

So, but that's the service that I've used for remote access.

It looks like now Microsoft is gonna be offering

that even if you don't have a secondary computer,

or even if your company doesn't have

a virtualized environment,

like a Citrix or an Azure environment,

you could just get the Windows app

and just have this Windows computer

that you control on your iPhone or your iPad.

So for some segment of the population,

this will be exactly what they need.

But it's also-

- It's kind of started blowing my mind.

- Yeah.

- That's also on the headline.

- I like it.

It kind of blew my mind.

It's like running Windows as a service or in the cloud.

But then I started remembering that many times

what I'll do, Jeff, in a similar way is out on my iPad,

I just open up a browser and I go to office.com.

I log in with my Office 365 and I have access

to basically an online version of Microsoft Office, right?

I can open up Word and Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint.

And I have probably about 92, 95% of the functionality

of the desktop software,

but I'm just running it right in a browser.

And people have been doing this with Google Docs

and Google Drive for many, many years.

But at first I looked at this and I'm like,

Windows as a service, come on, that's too much.

But then I'm like, whoa, we have Chromebooks.

They kind of pretty much do that whole aspect as well.

It could be online.

And so anyway, this got me excited

now that I thought through it a little bit more on there.

- Yeah, could be interesting.

We like our Apple watches.

And so apparently does Ben Lovejoy now at nine to five Mac

because his Apple watch helped him

to stop stressing out about insomnia.

This was a great story that you linked to today.

- Yeah, this was really interesting.

Ben was, I mean, thank you to him

for opening up about his medical condition.

I didn't even realize, for example,

that apparently there's two different types of insomnia.

There's the type that you have trouble falling asleep,

which Ben does not have.

And then there's the type that you wake up

in the middle of the night and you can't get back to sleep,

which he does suffer from.

And he was talking about how he learned

that when he started to wear an Apple watch to sleep,

it would help him in a number of different ways.

One of which was that as soon as he woke up,

he could just lift his wrist

and instantly see what time it was

and not have to wake himself up enough

to figure out the time and decide to go back to sleep.

So, and I know, I mean, even though I don't,

just to stop right there,

even though I don't have insomnia,

I don't often wear my Apple watch to sleep,

but sometimes I do.

And I don't like doing it because it means

I need to find time to charge your watch during the day.

But what I do like is that thing,

that if you sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night

and it's just really nice to just glance at your watch.

I mean, is it that hard to glance at a clock

on the side of your bed?

I don't know, but it's just, I like it.

I find it easier.

So that's one thing,

but he was also describing some apps

that would help him in the middle of the night.

And I guess you could use the built-in Breathe app

that Apple gives you too,

just to sort of like calm yourself down

and try to get yourself into a stage where you're sleeping.

And as he described, sometimes that was enough.

And if it's not, then he might go,

wake up and walk around and do something and then come back.

So, he goes through all the details of it here,

but I just thought it was,

it was a, what a great use of an Apple watch for,

I mean, it is a medical issue,

not that it's a medical device.

I know Apple's always worried about calling it

a medical device because of the FDA standards and stuff,

but it's definitely helping him with a medical problem.

And much like, the more mundane thing of,

if you have different medications that you take

on different days or different times of the day,

the Apple watch is phenomenal in helping you to remember,

what do you have to take?

When do you have to take it?

I mean, these are sort of medical adjacent,

really useful things that you can do with this,

with this very powerful little computer strapped

to your wrist.

So, I really enjoyed reading this article.

- For me, it's become more of just an awareness component,

Jeff, 'cause I did not wear my Apple watch to sleep

until I got the Apple watch Ultra.

And even then, it was maybe a few months after,

'cause I knew I had the battery and sure enough,

in the morning when I do wake up and take a shower,

I can charge it for just for that amount of time.

And it usually is good to go for the next day

and the next night on there as well.

But now in the morning, Jeff, I have,

and I'm inspired by this story.

So, one of my in the note tip will be similar

to this as well.

But I have it overnight and I have a sleep schedule set

on my phone and my watch.

And you can see the screenshot that he's got here.

This might be from NapBot, but in the sleep app alone,

or in the health app that has the sleep component

in the health app of the iPhone and the watch,

it tells you how long you've been awake overnight,

how long you've been in REM sleep

and core sleep and deep sleep.

And frankly, just having that awareness

and be able to track that,

now I'm not tracking it for any kind of like,

training system or anything like that, Jeff,

it's just the awareness.

It's like, am I tired today?

Oh yeah, well, I didn't quite get enough deep sleep.

And sure enough, I've even found it to like certain foods

that I've eaten, or if I had alcohol the night before,

something like that.

Like, it's just kind of nice to have

that knowledge perspective, Jeff.

And for me, that's been great.

And my wife has been doing a lot of the same thing.

And so every morning, we're like, how well did you sleep?

Well, let me check how well I slept and I can tell you,

or we can go into the health app.

And it just, you know, just having that knowledge,

I think has been very helpful for me from that perspective.

I don't suffer from the insomnia aspects,

like what Ben is talking about here,

but for me, just reading this story was so inspiring

that how helpful it can be.

'Cause I think he mentioned somewhere in here,

just quickly Jeff, to end this,

is that when he would wake up,

it would almost perpetuate the stress

because he would think he would only,

he would be awake for like, you know, half an hour

and then it's an hour and then it's two hours.

But he could glance at his watch and see,

actually, you know what?

It's only been, you know, 10 minutes and you're good.

Like, it's okay.

You don't need to stress out about it.

And that kind of information alone,

I think could also be helpful on that stuff as well.

- Can I say one more thing before we leave the topic

of sleeping on an Apple Watch?

You know, it was about a month or two ago,

I was talking and you and I talked in the podcast

about this, about the standby app

and getting like a special stand.

You know, the stand that I'm using

as my, on my night table right now

is the HiRise 3 Deluxe from 12 South.

But one of the big differences between what I'm using now

and what I had been using before

is before I had been using just sort of the regular,

something that was just the regular Apple Watch charger

with the five volt or whatever.

You know, it was like the traditional speed.

And now I'm using the fast,

it's got a faster Apple Watch charger

the one that you would need USB-C for.

And the difference, if you've got a modern Apple Watch,

the fast charging on an Apple Watch,

which is something that iPhone supports as well,

it's really nice.

I mean, it used to be, I would put my watch on there

and come back 10 minutes later

and I would get like a little bit more power.

But now that I'm using this product,

which supports fast charging,

if I put my watch on there for 10 minutes,

I get a substantial amount of power,

enough that, you know, if you're gonna be managing

your Apple Watch's power because you wanna wear it

during the day as well as during the night,

definitely take advantage of a fast charger.

It makes a big difference for modern Apple Watches.

- Agreed.

This next video that you linked to, Jeff,

made me go to my phone, my Apple 15 Pro,

and double check to make sure that I had

an actual Apple legitimate iPhone 15 Pro.

I watched this video in here that you linked to

from Ben Lovejoy again, right?

Nine to five Mac.

And I'm like, there is no way that is fake.

So explain what's going on here, please.

'Cause I was trying to figure out like,

where did this fake phone come from?

And how in the world can it look this good?

- According to somebody on Reddit,

they purchased a real iPhone and somebody, you know,

took their iPhone-

- From Apple, right?

They purchased it from Apple.

- And somebody stuck a fake iPhone in there.

So that's the story here.

But, you know, so hopefully that's what,

I mean, I guess that's true.

But I also knew independently that there are places

in the world that you could just buy a phone

that they may claim it's, you know,

you're not buying it from Apple,

you're buying it from a guy in the street,

and they may claim it's an iPhone

and it looks like an iPhone, but it's not really an iPhone.

But as you said, this video is really interesting

because on first look, it really does look like an iPhone.

- You can't tell.

You can't tell. - The screen looks the same,

the apps look the same, the colors look the same,

the case looks the same.

And it's only when you start to dig deeper

and you notice that, wait a minute,

this font's a little off, this feature doesn't work.

And then in this video, he completely takes it apart.

And even at the end of the video shows, for example,

that although it looks like titanium,

he's like, I'm gonna put a torch next to this.

And if you torch titanium, it turns blue.

And this thing doesn't turn anything, it just melts.

So it's some sort of, you know, cheap aluminum.

But, you know, you and I can look at this video

and laugh and say, wow, they did a good job,

but it's not quite the same thing.

But I gotta tell you, you know,

if my grandmother looked at this,

she would not be able to tell, you know,

that this is not the real thing.

So it's just fascinating to see-

- Crazy.

- How sophisticated these fakes can get.

And there must be money to be made here.

I mean, nobody would be going through the trouble

of making something that's so close to an iPhone,

unless they thought they could make some money off of it.

So, you know, what a window into something

that I just did not know was as big of a deal

as I guess it is, wow.

- As first I glanced at this and my skepticism came out,

I'm like, okay, this is somebody

that tried to order a cheap version of an iPhone from eBay,

thinking they were gonna get a good deal.

And it wasn't, you know, I could explain away

why somebody got a fake phone,

but the way you explained it, why I emphasized it there,

it's like, I think somebody ordered this,

maybe it was from an official, you know,

AT&T or Verizon or Apple, wherever it came from.

But apparently the time between it got shipped

and the person received it,

somebody switched out this phone.

And I just was watching this, I'm like, well, okay,

well, I'm gonna be able to tell the difference here.

And Jeff, I'm like mesmerized at this.

I cannot believe how closely this resembled

and thank you to this, the YouTube channel is a fake,

no, what was that?

iPhone repair, phone repair guru is who ordered this.

And he goes through really and does a good job

of kind of comparing both of them.

But oh my goodness, Jeff, like even at one point he said,

he did this apparently for the iPhone 14 Pro.

And he said, you can immediately see

because the camera in the back

looked a little bit different, right?

There was something weird, but he goes,

they've improved it, whatever they did for the 15,

it looks so close now that unless you really

had that trained eye, even the packaging,

well, apparently because they switched out, you know,

in the box and made a difference there.

But it's like, unless you knew what to look for,

he's even using ultraviolet light here,

or black light to be able to see like some of the stickers

and stuff like that.

I don't have that to check, I didn't check that.

I just trusted what my phone gave to me,

but I don't know how to trust this now on this, Jeff.

This really freaked me out watching this video today.

- That's funny.

- Yeah, interesting stuff.

Okay, well, we'll link to it so that you can also watch it.

And I guess caveat M Tora, you know, beware.

When you're buying on there.

Last thing quickly, I thought, okay, well,

Jeff's gonna link to another nice little, you know,

Apple ad, iPhone ad, and you know,

it'll be nice to kind of watch this

and see what happens.

And I think I had to wipe away a tear at the very end, Jeff.

So thanks again for the daily tear jerker,

the little video here called "The Lost Voice."

- Well, thank you to Apple for coming up

with such a good film.

And you know, a lot of money went into this.

They hired, I'm gonna get this name wrong.

Is it Taika Waititi, is that how you pronounce his name?

The famous director from I guess, New Zealand.

I know him because he was both an actor

in that HBO show called "Our Flag Means Death,"

but he's a director that's directed a ton of films

and stuff like that.

The video is a little trippy at first,

but then when you see what's going on at the end,

and I don't wanna talk too much about it,

but they did it right.

And they even involved this guy who I wasn't familiar with,

Dr. Tristam Ingham, who apparently is a pioneer

when it comes to disability advocates, stuff like that.

Somebody who himself is suffering from a condition

that he may lose his voice.

You know, what this video talks about though,

we've been sort of jumping around it is,

there's this feature in iOS 17.

And I remember a couple of weeks ago when I got iOS 17,

and I was sort of playing around by holding my iPhone

next to the microphone as if it was my voice.

Once you train it in iOS 17, which takes about 15 minutes,

you can then either type any sentence,

or you can like scan a paragraph,

and use your iPhone camera to scan it and copy that text,

and then just hit a button,

and it will speak in a voice that sounds very much

like your own voice.

- It's weird.

- I'm not saying that most people would be fooled,

but it's pretty close.

And so, and the idea is not to fool somebody.

The idea is that if you found yourself in a condition

that for one reason or the other,

you lost the use of your voice,

as long as you had preserved it in your iPhone,

you would be able to, you know, press buttons and type

and have voice appear that's pretty similar

to your own voice instead of just using a generic voice.

So, you know, it seems like,

why not do something like this?

You know, and it's sort of fun to play with,

but it's a very cute tearjerker video that, you know,

it was one of those things

that I wasn't sure what was going on,

and then I got to the end, I'm like, oh,

and then I had to watch the whole thing over again.

- You say it, yeah, you say it beautifully.

I think you said it looks a little trippy at the beginning,

but just wait until the end,

and then it all makes sense, and then you're like, yeah.

I remember you did that voice, Jeff.

You did your podcast greeting one episode with that.

And I was like, I mean, I could tell immediately,

'cause I figured I knew what you were doing,

but I thought that that was really cool.

In the know, as I mentioned,

I was inspired by that Apple Watch story

from Ben Lovejoy on insomnia.

So here's my tip quickly on this.

I'm gonna skip ahead to the actual tip

saying that you have to actually set up

your sleep schedule in your iPhone or for your watch.

So I did this a long time ago.

That's not my tip.

So I can't give you the exact steps on doing this,

but I'll link to the article from Apple,

track your sleep on the Apple Watch

and you sleep on the iPhone.

You basically go in, and the way I've done it,

I remember I set up like a goal,

like I wanted six and a half hours of sleep every night,

and I wanted to be in bed by 10 p.m.,

something like that, right?

And then it calculates it all out for me,

and then it says, do you wanna actually put on alarm

for the time when you wanna wake up?

And so in my case, I think it was like four, 43,

or whatever the case was on here.

So I set that up a long time ago,

and that's part of the thing, setting up your sleep goal,

and then it translates it onto the Apple Watch as well.

So I have this set for almost,

I think I've got it for all seven days.

You can set up different schedules

if you want it for the weekend,

different schedule for the weekday.

So all of that is setting up your sleep schedule,

which I find, again, to be very helpful,

except for the fact that there are some mornings

or some nights I'm going to bed, Jeff,

and I don't want to get up at the time

that I typically have set the alarm

for every morning when it goes off.

Does that make sense?

So there are a couple of quick ways

that I will just say, skip my wake-up alarm

for the next morning.

Like I'm going to bed, I know I'm gonna sleep in,

and maybe it's the weekend.

I don't wanna go through and rejigger

the entire sleep schedule, but I can just get on my watch,

and if I go into the alarm app on my watch,

this is the way I normally do it,

I can set a separate alarm if I wanted to.

Sometimes I will, but at the very top,

it has my every morning wake-up alarm,

and I can tap on that, and I can just say,

skip for the next morning, I think,

or it says skip for tonight.

So in other words, it just pauses that alarm

for that next morning so that it doesn't go off.

I love using alarms on my watch,

because again, I wear my watch overnight to bed now,

and instead of having my iPhone sitting

on my nightstand and having it jump at a song or something,

I love the alarms on the Apple Watch,

because it's like somebody just tapping me on the wrist,

on my arm.

There's a little nice chill sound that comes with it,

but it's like beep, beep, beep, beep,

it's just like somebody go tap, tap, tap, tap,

like hey, hey, excuse me, excuse me,

time to get up, and I love that.

Yeah, the second way that you can skip your alarm,

if you will, or if you wanna adjust your alarm,

is that if you go into your Apple Watch

and go into the Sleep app on your Apple Watch,

there's a little alarm clock in the upper left corner.

This is, by the way, where you can also see

how much time was spent in the Core Sleep

versus REM sleep, that kind of thing.

But if you tap the little alarm clock

in your Sleep app on the Apple Watch,

you can go to your Wind Down,

and you can adjust the setting

of when you want that alarm to go off.

Or you can just say, I wanna skip it,

or I don't want it to go off for the next morning on there.

I typically just go into my Alarm app on my Apple Watch,

and I just say Skip for tonight,

which means that the alarm does not go off

that next morning, but that's okay,

because I knew that I typically just wanna sleep in

or something like that.

So set up your sleep schedule on your iPhone

or your Apple Watch, and then just some quick ways

to skip that morning alarm if you wanted to sleep in

or you had something else going on that day.

- Good tip.

Here is Jeff's in the Know Tip for today.

Take it away, Jeff.

- Thank you, fake voice, for introducing me.

- Thank you, Jeff's fake voice.

- My tip of the day is I have had some apps recently

when I copy something and you go to paste it in the app,

and then you get this dialog box that says,

your app is trying to paste something

from somewhere else into the app,

and it's like, oh, it's so annoying to do.

But there's a way, I learned recently

that there's a way that you can stop yourself

from getting these paste permission requests all the time.

If you go into the settings for the app in question,

and the one that I was doing it all the time for

is called Parcel, which is an app that I use

to track packages coming towards me,

I would often get an email that says,

here's your FedEx or your UPS

or your post service tracking number.

So I would copy the tracking number,

I would open the Parcel app,

and I would hit the plus button to put a new package,

and I would get this pop-up, do you want to paste?

And I know what it's trying to do, it's trying to be safe.

It wants to make sure that nothing's being pasted

without my permission, but every time I open the app,

I wanna paste something, just about every time.

So that's fine with me.

So I learned that if you go into the settings app,

and then you scroll to the bottom

where you find that particular app,

this one happens to be called Parcel,

there is a setting that you can actually say,

allow pasting from other apps is what it's called.

Not every app has this setting,

but apparently a number of them do.

And so if you find that there's a particular app

that you use, such as Parcel, that often says,

do you want to paste?

There's a way you can go ahead and make that decision

once period, and then you won't have to do it

over and over and over and over again.

I saw somebody post this tip on Mastodon

about a week or so ago, and ever since I saw it,

it's like, oh, this is just such a relief

when I use this app.

So I just wanted to share the love.

If you're getting annoying alerts like that,

- Oh, that's great.

- Look into the settings app to see

if you can turn them off.

- I don't even know which app does this now,

because I might see this like once or twice a month, Jeff,

and then I just dismiss it, 'cause I'm like,

I don't have time to do this, but now knowing this,

thank you, now the next time that it happens,

I know exactly how to go and turn this off,

because I don't see it very often,

but there are some times, especially if I'm pasting

on my Mac versus my phone or my iPad,

you know, it'll ask that, I'm like, I don't want this,

I don't want you to ask anymore, so thank you.

I will, that's a great tip on there.

Ooh, okay, that's a lot, and thank you for joining me today.

Maybe by next week, we'll do 17.2,

we'll see what happens over the next few days,

but until then, we'll talk to you next week, Jeff.

- Thanks, Brett, bye-bye, everybody.