132: Stolen Updates, The Big 4-0, and Snapping Up Bad Jokes

Welcome to in the news for January 26, 2024.

I am Brett Burney from Appsinlaw.com.

And this is Jeff Richardson from iPhone JD.

Hey, Brett.

Good morning, Jeff.

We I feel like it's finally here.

We've been talking about stolen device protection for the iPhone, especially from the coverage from The Wall Street Journal.

And finally, it is here and available for folks to download and install.

And you did a great job this past week of putting a post up on exactly how to go in and enable it.

You know, what makes me happy about this is that sometimes there are things in the world of iPhone that you and I know about, but like most regular folks have no idea about.

But then there's sometimes there are things that break through.

And I think this is one of them, because I've had a number of people that are totally not techie at all, but they have either heard about it or something like that.

And they've come up to me and they've like double checked that they want to have installed just for one bizarre example.

I had one of my colleagues come to me the other day and he tried to turn this on.

And the option wasn't there in settings.

And I'm like, this is odd.

And then as I talk to him, I'm like, you do have face ID enabled, right?

And he's like, oh, no, I turn that off because I just like using my passcode.

I'm like, OK, well, you have to have face ID enabled.

So then once he turned his face, which never even occurred to me that somebody would turn that off.

But that's part of the protection it gives you is the idea that if somebody steals your iPhone and they know your passcode, they could do all sorts of horrible things.

But once you have stolen device protection turned on in some circumstances, like if you're not in one of the places where you normally spend time like your home, it will say, no, no, I'm not going to take the code.

I'm going to double check your face ID.

Or if you have a phone with a touch ID, you know, I'm going to ensure through biometrics that you are actually you.

And then for more important things, it will actually wait.

It'll say, yes, you know, confirm that you really want to do this.

I'm going to double check face ID.

And I'm also going to wait an hour before I change your password.

And then I'm going to check your face ID again.

And so that would make it really hard if somebody stole your iPhone while you're at like an airport or a restaurant or a bar.

Right.

You know, they would have to be able to duplicate your biometrics, which I don't know how they would do that.

Plus, they would have to do it an hour later.

I mean, this is a pretty good protection.

Now, it does mean there's a slight inconvenience if you suddenly decide to change your Apple ID while you're sitting at a restaurant.

I mean, again, why would you do that?

Don't do that.

You know, do that when you're at home and things are calmed down.

So there's a there's a there's a slight inconvenience, but it's so minor that I actually think that the protection you get from this is so, so, so worth it that I really, really encourage that people turn it on.

Yeah.

And to me, you and I have said this many, many times, it is not a replacement for just being very careful.

Right.

With your iPhone passcode, right?

This isn't going to mean that it's never going to be taken.

I think you even made this point in here.

It's like for a determined criminal, like if there is a way they're going to find a way to get this information.

So always, always, always protect your passcode.

Never give it out.

Never let you know.

Never tell it to somebody.

You know, hide it like I always tell people like you hide your hand when you're at the ATM, right?

Because you don't want anybody to have your pin.

Treat your iPhone passcode at least that that good.

Maybe even a little bit better because, you know, they can theoretically get access to a lot of ATMs that make account and stuff through the iPhone that way.

So I'm just really glad that it finally it's here.

We've been talking about this a lot.

In fact, you even link to Joanna Stern and some of her colleagues and Nicole in the Gwynn, you know, that have been covering this of the Wall Street Journal for a while.

Sounds like they're pretty happy with it.

That is now been available.

And it's just it's just really good that it's finally here.

And please make sure that your post is in the in the show notes.

Please just go and turn it on.

I think it's just something good to make sure that it's just going to be another protective measure here for something so important.

Yeah.

So that's not all, though.

So that's 17.3.

And I think I upgraded my all of my devices yesterday really quick.

The iPhone, the iPad, the Apple Watch.

By the way, I think I saw somebody in your comment on your post, Jeff, that what we just talked about, the stolen device protection, it is absolutely available on your iPhone.

But is it not available on the iPad?

Is that right?

Yeah.

Somebody mentioned that or and I had thought it was going to be on the iPad.

For some reason, I thought that during the beta process, somebody mentioned that it was there's no reason why it can't be.

I mean, there are some older iPhones that don't have face ID or don't have touch ID.

But if you have a more modern iPad that has it, I don't understand.

I mean, I don't think people are stealing iPads at the same rate that, you know, not that iPhone theft is that prevalent, but still, it's far, far, far more prevalent than I'm sure iPads and stuff.

So I completely agree with Apple that the iPhone was the best place to put it first.

Sure.

But in my you know, in my opinion, over time, why not roll it out?

Maybe they'll see how it works for the iPhone.

And then assuming that there's no big issues, maybe they'll roll it out to the to the iPad and maybe even the Mac.

Yeah, because, you know, so many modern Macs have have touch ID as well.

So I hope that you expand it.

In fact, speaking about expansion, Brett, I saw somewhere.

I don't know that this is a fact, maybe just a hope.

But I saw somebody saying that in the future, maybe 17.4, Apple will actually put some sort of a pop up thing saying, hey, by the way, you might want to turn this on for now.

The only way to even know that stolen device protection is available in 17.3 is if you heard about it, like on this podcast or in the popular news or the Wall Street Journal.

But I actually encourage I hope that Apple does do that, that once they make sure they've gotten all the kinks, you know, ironed out that maybe in the future, you know, give people a little pop up, say, hey, this is something you might want to turn on just to give people a little nudge.

So I mentioned there's some other things that came out in 17.3.

Very easy to upgrade everything.

I know a lot of people have already done this.

And if you have any hesitations, I don't think that you need to worry about it.

An upgraded 17.3 on your iPhone and your iPad and even my Apple watch.

I upgraded all went really quick.

What are some of the other things quickly?

I know even in this story, you link to about 17.3, the top new tip that they are new feature that they highlighted is exactly what we just talked about, the stolen device protection.

But there's a few other things that are available in here.

A couple of new wallpapers, I think, some navigation buttons, nothing that's that big like the stolen device protection, but a few other little tiny things.

Yeah, it might be worth mentioning that the the new wallpaper that you were talking about is for Black History Month, which Apple does something like that every year.

But apparently it's not just a static image.

It actually sort of changes.

And, you know, it's more dynamic, you know, things.

So yeah, on your watch, it sort of moves around.

So they're doing some interesting things behind the scenes that very few wallpapers can do.

But Apple, of course, has this ability.

So it's nice to see them sort of push the envelope a little bit and do some interesting things.

But I think the only I think the other major new thing in 17.3 is the shared playlist feature.

Yeah.

Why don't we talk about that shared playlist?

I got a text message from a good friend of mine that was wanting to share a playlist, Jeff, and I appreciate that.

I'm like, hey, this is something new because, you know, I go back and forth between Spotify and Apple Music.

But I got to tell you, I've really been enjoying this new shared playlist.

We've done this a lot in Spotify, and I feel like, you know, Apple Music is kind of coming along sometimes and and acquiring some features that maybe we've already had in Spotify just a little bit.

But I think it's good.

Every time that Apple Music does take one of those features, it seems to me that it's a little bit more polished in the way that it is being rolled out.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for accepting my invitation, first of all.

But I wanted to test out this feature.

Absolutely.

So what I did is I created a short little playlist.

I just put some random songs on there.

I called the playlist Jeff and Brett.

And then I said, you know, share this with you.

And so it sent you a text message.

And then once you accepted it, the playlist, the look of the playlist changed a little bit instead of it just showing each song with the album art and a tiny little icon on the left.

What changed is just below the album art.

There was like a picture of either your face or my face so that you can quickly see who put the song on the playlist.

And when I decided to share it, I could decide how much rights to give you.

I gave you all the rights.

And so either one of us could add songs to the playlist, delete songs, move songs up and down.

And I mean, I think this is a nice idea that if you've got a group of friends, you have a playlist as different people find different songs, I stick it in there.

And what I didn't actually realize until I loaded it was it's not just sharing a playlist.

It's also sharing your reactions to a playlist.

So you put a song on there that I said, hey, this is pretty good song.

I could I could put like a little heart emoji or a thumbs up.

Yeah.

So it's pretty cool.

Yeah, you even had one song on here that obviously was about New Orleans and Louisiana.

And so I thought there was just limited emojis that you could put in here.

But you can actually hit that little plus button.

And so I went and found a picture, an emoji of a crawdad.

So I could put it on there.

That's funny.

So like as I'm looking at my playlist on my phone, yeah, I have the song and I have the artist.

And then over to the right, I see a little picture of a crawfish.

We call them.

Right.

Exactly.

And if you jump into the song now, go ahead and jump into that song and you'll see that like the emojis like zip up to the top of the screen on there.

Which I think is kind of cool.

The crawfish is pulling up the screen.

I like that.

That's very fun.

You know, so here's the other thing quickly.

Just see if you can help me with this.

I feel like in Apple music, at least, Jeff, that there's so many options for liking a song because now I can add an emoji to it.

But before there's a star there, so I can say it's a favorite.

Although before I think it was a plus symbol.

Right.

Yeah.

But there's also suggest less with a with a down thumb, which means, I guess, like I don't want to hear this kind of song, you know, if you come up with your own playlist.

But then I can also still rate.

Right.

I can also still rate a song, which to me is sort of a holdover from the old iTunes, right?

You've got five stars and you can put a rating on there.

But then I can also add this song to another playlist.

I mean, there's just it seems like there's so many options on here that I can do with this song is if I just liked it, I can download it as well.

But it's like, is it a star?

Is it a rating?

Is it a crawdad?

It's like there's so many options on here, which I think just kind of confuses me a little bit.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, iTunes started.

Gosh, when was that?

The early 2000s, you know, when Apple bought the program called I think it's called Sound Jam.

So we're talking something like that.

Yeah.

So when you have something that's been around for almost 25 years, there's going to be a lot of vestiges of, you know, is it a star rating system or is it a is it a is it a hard or is it a whatever?

So there's a lot of stuff in there.

And and I don't really use a ton of those features.

I've never in the history used the rate songs feature or anything like that.

OK, I will say, however, that because this new shared playlist is collaborative and you're doing it with friends and family, it actually is sort of fun that I can see that you decided to put like a little, you know, emoji on a particular phone, you know, that you're being collaborative anyway.

And so having an extra, you know, it's not a text message.

It's nothing wrong.

It's just a little icon.

I think it's cute.

And so so I think Apple did a nice job rolling this out, even if other services I also like if you go into just real quick, you can say manage collaborations.

If you go and tap the three dots up there and on the manage collaboration there, you can share the invite link, but you can also pull up a QR code.

So it's this really cute QR code with a little music note symbol in the middle so that in what you can like just show that QR code to somebody instead of maybe, you know, texting it to them or something like that.

Just really nice, like really well, well done and well polished, I think, and doing the collaborative playlist.

So thanks for joining me and inviting me.

I think I saw somewhere that you can have up to 100 people in a collaborative playlist or something like, oh, my goodness.

I'm going to I'm going to try this with the family.

Like we we have a couple of Spotify playlists that we do on there as well.

But that's that's that's nice.

I appreciate that.

That's good.

All right.

So we we just got 17.3 this week.

But wait, there's more.

We're already down talking about 17.4, which is actually kind of cool.

But there's a couple of cool things coming in.

You just linked to a couple of stories today.

One from Jason Snell about podcast transcripts.

I mean, that's not new, but automatic podcast transcripts.

That could be something interesting.

Yeah.

So 17.4 is expected to come out in March.

So, you know, not right away.

We've got some time for this.

But one of the features is Apple has for the last couple of years, they have been creating transcripts of certain podcasts.

And so right now, if you go in the Apple podcast app and you search for some words for some podcasts, it will search the title of the of the episode or the show notes.

But for other podcasts, it will actually some of the most popular ones like NPR and stuff like that.

It will actually search the full text.

So Apple's been trying this for a few years now.

But what they're coming out within March is it's going to be on all podcasts.

And so the idea is no matter what podcast you enjoy, you can use the Apple podcast app.

You can see the transcripts.

And it looks like it's going to be nicely implemented, Brett, because it's going to be just like just like lyrics work.

So you can actually watch the transcript.

And as the words highlight, you'll hear them spoken.

So and I presume that also means one of the things I like about lyrics for a song is I can jump to a specific lyric habit.

Yes, exactly.

The song right there.

And so I could scan through a transcript.

Let's say, for example, there was a, you know, an episode a couple of months ago.

And I know that the podcasters were talking about a subject and I could jump directly to what they were talking about.

And I could either listen to them again or I could just scan the transcript, which might be more than enough, too.

So this is great because one of the problems of podcasts is they're so ephemeral.

You know, you record them and yeah, you could go back and listen to them again.

But most people don't do that.

And I feel like unlike a post on the Internet that's there forever, you know, it's hard to get to the text.

But with this, you know, and Apple using, you know, AI to do a good job of the transcript and figure out when different speakers are talking, it's I really think that this is the future.

And it's going to change substantially what we can do.

It's going to really change the usefulness of podcasts.

It's an information medium.

I love it.

This is great, great, great stuff.

Yeah, I think that's a great point about just being it being a little more useful.

We started doing transcripts on our podcast.

I did it several, several months ago.

I'm actually been using this free.

Well, I actually paid for the pro version of like Mac Whisper, which is really just using AI to basically listen to the audio and transcribe, which you and I know, Jeff, you know, just a few years ago, that would have just taken so much processing power on a computer.

And it's just it amazes me every week when I create this transcript of our podcast that it's like, wow, that is so accurate, like that's amazing just that it can take that and make it into editable text from from audio.

But, you know, to me, that's just, you know, and that just brings up this point to me.

This is why I don't think I'm as concerned with this whole kind of this the this discussion of how Apple is not doing AI, because I think that's what exactly what they're dealing with right on here.

Right.

They're utilizing some of these AI tools that they're just not talking about it, maybe as much as some of the other companies out there.

But I just like this aspect on the fact that it's coming into the podcast and exactly what you got to from that second aspect.

I love going into a podcast, searching up or, you know, or scroll into a section and, you know, tapping on the word and having it play from that word.

Like to me, that is so functional.

And that'll be a lot of fun because, you know, I remember certain aspects.

And sometimes podcasts will put little you know, we put our chapter markers, right.

When we go to a different topic or something like that.

And that's been useful.

But I really like the fact that it's going to be having this transcript on there.

And frankly, it's just so much more accessible.

Right.

I mean, sometimes I hear from folks that they may not be able to listen very well, but they like to read through the transcript just because it's another way for them to get access to the information.

So that's really good on there as well.

Now, that's not all for 17.4.

New emojis are coming.

It's funny, I got to tell you, I think it was back in it must have been like five or six months ago.

I was in California at a technology security conference, Jeff.

And I was talking on the topic of using emojis in electronic discovery, like lawyers using emoji, like, you know, what does that mean when people are having conversations and stuff?

You know, we always have to understand like what was the circumstances around a situation for a litigation matter.

And it's funny because I was talking about one of these new emojis.

And it's the lime emoji.

And it was just fascinating to me.

I'm glad to see that it's finally you know, it's funny because I was talking about the consortium that oversees all of this and how long it maybe takes them to get into the actual hands of people like on the iPhone.

And just real quick, this is really kind of obscure information.

But this lime emoji, I remember somebody was actually talking about the fact that it's not just a lime.

Like we're getting to the point now where some of these emojis require multiple other emojis.

The lime emoji is actually the lemon emoji with a zero width joiner and then the green square.

And you actually put those two together.

And that's how you come up with the lime emoji.

So again, as I said, I recognize that's a little bit obscure information, but it's just interesting now that we've almost gotten to the point with emojis now.

We're not really making new emojis.

We're kind of using old emojis to make a new one.

So the lime emoji is is actually a I guess it's kind of a combination of multiple emojis on there.

But OK, all that to say it's coming soon.

Seventeen point four.

We'll have that, which is actually which is really good.

I'll tell you one thing that jumps out to me about the emoji, which is every year when Apple comes out with their iPhone updates, you know, they'll have, you know, 15.0, 15.1, 15.2.

But when they get to the one that has the emojis in it, number one, Apple knows that a lot of people are going to download the update just for the people.

And so I think this is Apple's way of saying, OK, you know, this is ready to go.

So many of us have been using iOS 17 since it came out last.

What was it, September, October?

It's been a couple of months now.

But, you know, as of seventeen point three, all of the promise features that we heard about last summer and finally there.

And then when seventeen point four is coming out, I think that's Apple's way of saying thumbs up.

We got the emojis in there.

Exactly.

Haven't updated yet.

We're good to do it now.

You're all good to go.

Good.

All right.

Well, it's clear that Apple is focused on the iPhone, right?

It's been one of their biggest products for years and years and years.

But we can't forget the good old Mac, which turned 40 years old this past week.

That is just mind blowing in and of itself.

But it's still here.

And I just love the story that you link to from Jason Snell in The Verge, because obviously Jason's been covering this for just about as long, right?

For 40 years.

And this was just such a great little look back on the history.

And frankly, some of the quotes that he that he puts into the story, Jeff, just is encouraging to me.

It's like Apple's not going to give up on the Mac.

People have claimed it's like, hey, we're going to go all in on the iPhone.

We got the iPad and, you know, the watch.

And we got a vision pro coming out in a week now.

But no, the Mac is still the backbone for Apple.

Yeah, I feel like there's two stories here.

There is the 40th anniversary where we go back and we turn the clock back to 1984.

And we think about how revolutionary that original Mac was.

I remember being a teenager back then.

I went into a Sears because Sears was selling computers.

And I remember seeing my very first time I saw a Mac in person.

And like I had been using other computers that had, you know, just command line interfaces.

But to have that graphical user interface and a mouse.

Yeah.

And like a screen that wasn't text on a black background, but was actually a white background with it.

I mean, in the in the Apple menu and file and everything, you know, file.

Edit view.

It was just revolutionary.

And so, you know, that's one aspect of the story is that what a big change the Mac was.

But then another aspect of the story that I think is even more interesting is the lasting power.

You know, there was that time period during the 1990s where Apple itself was so close to bankruptcy.

It's not even funny.

And then, you know, just at the right time, they ended up purchasing next, which brought Steve Jobs back to the company.

And he streamlined the company to just a few models, introduced the iMac, which was suddenly this friendly Mac that people were excited about, and then introduced the iPod.

For a while there, Apple was making so much more money from the iPod than from the Mac.

But the Mac kept going.

And then, of course, now the iPod has been eclipsed by the iPhone and, you know, iPad and everything else that they're making.

But through it all, the Mac has persevered.

And I just there's so many ways that it could have gone the other direction.

We might be talking about the Mac today the same way people talk about, you know, remember the Commodore 64 and the Amiga and so many things that have gone away.

But Mac has persevered.

And I think it's going to continue to do so.

It's still not the majority platform.

More people use Windows.

Heck, I use Windows in my office, but it's still the platform that a lot of people prefer because of all the things that make it unique.

And, you know, I feel like people still use a Windows computer because for the most part, that's just what they have to use.

But the people that use a Mac, I feel like they've chosen a Mac for a reason.

And that that's why I like it as my home computer.

And you use it for everything that you do.

It's everything.

It's pretty cool to have something last in technology.

Gosh, technology changes so quickly to have something last for 40 years.

And it'd be stronger than ever.

Apple is making more money selling Macs now than ever before.

It's still a tiny percentage of the overall profits.

I think it's like 10% of their profits, but it's bigger than ever.

And I think the future with with the processors we have in the Macs and everything, I mean, I think Mac is doing great right now.

That's that's the other thing I thought about, you know, talking about multiple stories kind of along these lines is is like it's it's I feel like we're on the kind of like the third reinvention of the Mac.

And I'm really more specifically talking about the processors.

Right.

I think if we kept on the Intel processors and we did not go to the silicon, I'm not the Mac would not go away.

I'm just saying that that to me just revitalized this aspect, because now today, you know, this there is not a computer that you can buy.

I just recently actually bought a Dell XPS 13 laptop.

And I got I think I got the I7, you know, Intel processor, like not the top of the line, but it was a good enough.

And Jeff, I just I got to tell you, I can see the difference.

And I'm still on an M1 MacBook Pro.

And it it just puts it to shame.

I'm not talking down to trash about the windows.

I'm just saying like it's it's just so obvious.

And to me, it just seems like, you know, that is the story.

I remember the old days of the Mac when it was on the power PC, the IBM processors, and we went to Intel.

That was huge.

That was humongous for us.

I think that was oh six for crying out loud.

And then now, you know, just in the last two or three years, we've changed this Apple silicon.

We are not looking back on this.

I mean, Apple is obviously going all in on this Apple silicon.

And the fact that that happens and what that means, I still don't think a lot of people in the general world understand, you know, how revolutionary that this Apple silicon is.

But Apple is definitely, you know, doubling down on it.

I'll make sure that we link to the story.

I just love the fact Jason Snell has been doing this for so long.

You know, he said on the Mac's 20th anniversary, he he asked Steve Jobs, is the Mac still going to be relevant?

And Steve Jobs, he said, scoffed at him and said, of course, our view is the Mac keeps going on forever.

And then I think at the 30th anniversary, right somewhere in here, he was talking about was it Steve Jobs again, I think on the 30th anniversary.

It may have been Phil Schiller back then or somebody like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it's like, of course, like it's not going anywhere.

And then he just recently talked to to Greg Joswiak, right, who gave him pretty much the same answer.

He said the Mac is the foundation of Apple.

And today, 40 years later, it remains a critical part of our business.

Again, just for a company for 40 years to be able to look back on all of this history and still claim like they know there's so many other things going on.

You and I are more excited about the Vision Pro.

So excited about the Apple watch, all this stuff going on.

But man, that Mac is still is still there.

And I'm just I'm just glad to see 40 years.

That's pretty amazing.

Jason's now even bought a bought a cake for himself to celebrate.

Too funny.

That's good stuff.

All right.

So we've mentioned the Apple Vision Pro.

Man, you had a few links in here today about we are a week away from Jeff Richardson getting his his excited little fingers on an Apple Vision Pro.

This is just really good.

But I like this one story you link to where it's like maybe the killer app for the Vision Pro is a web browser.

What?

You know, this actually sort of crosses the line to the story that we just talked about, because as you look at the last 40 years of Apple, one of the real keys was in the 1990s.

Apple was using Microsoft Internet Explorer as their web browser.

That was the default web browser.

Yes, they were.

And it's not that it was a good web browser, but it just wasn't as good as it was on Windows.

And folks at Apple were smart enough to say, we have to have a first class best in breed browser that we can trust.

It's so important to the company.

So they came out with Safari.

So something that they came out with, you know, how many decades ago is still so important for the iPhone and the iPad and everything else.

And so here we go on the Vision Pro, because it's such a new platform.

Some developers are excited.

You know, Disney are coming out with a fantastic app and stuff like that.

They're going to be there on day one.

But other people like, for example, you know, Netflix are like, you know, we don't think it's going to be a big enough market.

We want to have more of a wait and see.

But the nice thing is that the the the web is the great equalizer.

As long as you have access to Safari, as long as you have access to a good web browser and thank thank goodness for the Apple, we have Safari.

You're going to be able to access all sorts of resources, whether it is work related resources or, you know, if you want to use it to access a bank or, you know, watching movies and Netflix, you will always be able to use Safari.

So I thought that this was a very interesting perspective that, you know, it's got, you know, Safari is going to be, I suspect, a really important app.

Now, again, you won't have to use it.

I mean, for example, YouTube is also not going to have a custom app on day one, which I actually do think is a shame.

I think that would have been cool if they did.

But you'll be able to view view movies and Safari.

You'll be able to use third party apps like an app called Play.

And then I hear people talking about that has a great vision, right?

Oh, app.

So but again, thank goodness for Safari, because if if if there's nothing else, you're going to be able to use Safari and it should be great.

When you use Safari, Jeff, next week, are you going to be sitting down or standing up?

I thought this was interesting because I hadn't really thought about this.

And I don't think a lot of other people have thought about it.

But when you use the Apple Vision Pro, are you is it better to be sitting down or standing out?

Maybe folks that have used, you know, the Oculus and some of these others, you know, you understand I don't have one.

So but I do know that you kind of get a little weird, you know, if you're standing up in physical space versus the, you know, the virtual space.

So anyway, I thought this was a good story just to read through.

It's like it sounds like the Vision Pro is designed better for people sitting down.

But, you know, they have to take that into account.

Right.

Some people might be standing it out.

Yeah.

And there may be certain apps where if it creates like a 3D model, you might want to walk around, you know, and sort of see it from all angles.

But for other things, maybe not.

I mean, these are the sorts of things that we can only sort of speculate on it, you know, sort of related to whether you're sitting or standing is are you going to be using your hands like in the air or.

But it looks like the way that Apple has made it is that because your eyes can point to something, your hand can be down, resting on your comfortably on your lap, and you can just move your fingers together and it will sense that you've that you've done.

So even though your hand is, you know, way down on your body, this is this is exactly the sort of stuff that we could talk about it until the cows come home.

But until people start to use it, that's when it's going to really figure out how are people you know, when is it most useful?

What does it work the best?

Do you want to be moving around?

Do you want to be standing still?

How do you want your when your your hands positioned?

Do you want to have stuff all around you in a 360 environment?

Or do you want it to be more of like a 180 of just the place where you can see that you don't have to turn your head all the way?

I don't know these things.

I can't wait to find out the idea of spatial computing.

I really do think is the future of bread.

I really do.

You know, and I think that what we really want to have and we mentioned before, it's something that's simple like your glasses.

You don't want something bulky like the Vision Pro.

But in order for us to get to the place of having augmented reality and something as small as a regular pair of glasses, you have to start somewhere.

And so with the Vision Pro, they're starting with something more bulky.

And over the next 10 to 15 years, it'll get smaller and smaller.

But we're going to be learning through the Vision Pro of what what is this new world of spatial computing?

And is it even a thing?

Because maybe we'll decide after a year or two, it's just a gimmick.

You know, it's it's not something you're going to actually care about.

Or maybe it's going to be a really big deal.

And it'll be like, wow, you know, this these these were the building blocks, much like when people first saw a graphical user interface in Xerox PARC in the 1970s, which eventually led to the Macintosh in 1984.

It exactly.

You know, what is it?

Is it going to be gender is going to be transformative or is it going to be?

Who cares?

I don't know.

We'll find out.

It's going to be cool.

I just love I love every week that I have some doubts about this.

Exactly what you're talking about, the Vision Pro.

But then I listen to you and I'm like, I need to buy one.

It's all good.

If you if you can't buy one like I probably not going to be able to do, you can at least get an idea of how it's being made.

I thought this was a fantastic video.

I don't know that Apple does this a lot.

Like I know I've seen some videos about the iPhone, but that's been around for a long time.

But and obviously this video doesn't show anything proprietary, but it literally goes through some really just nice, beautiful pictures and video of, you know, I don't know.

I just I just this video was so relaxing to me because it's like it's getting polished.

It's like the glass is getting assembled.

They're stretching the headband to test it.

And you link to somebody else that was talking about on this, you know, explaining what all this is, because I have no idea what some of this machinery was, but sure was fun to watch this video.

It is a beautiful video.

You know, there's a funny phrase out there that I'm sure you've heard before that when people do a beautiful job of taking a video of food being prepared, they call it food, right?

Right.

This is like, you go manufacturing porn.

It's like, you know, it's such a beautiful way of showing how this product is being created with robots and everything else.

Just incredible angles.

So well lit.

Just you watch it and you're like, oh, my goodness.

It's a fun video to watch.

So pretty.

So pretty.

I love it.

OK, so let's go from the fun stuff and talk about something.

I can't I think I would consider this to be a little bit more serious, but it feels like it's so far away that I don't really understand maybe how it would affect us.

And maybe that's rightly so, because this is talking about the EU's, the European Union's Digital Markets Act.

This has kind of come up a couple of times.

We've talked about it.

And just in the fact that we've wondered about how some of those requirements or rules that the EU is placing upon, especially like Apple store and Google Play store, you know, some of these virtual stores and what is that going to mean for Apple?

Like, is that going to mean they're going to have to change the direction of the app store?

So you link to a good story from John Voorhees, who is always good about explaining some of this on how Apple is going to comply with the EU's Digital Markets Act.

Yeah.

When the EU makes up its mind about something, they enact regulations that sometimes I think make sense.

Sometimes I think that they're just bonkers.

This one I don't know about.

But I mean, the thing that got up their craw is the EU did not like the idea that if you have an iPhone or other smartphones, too, but we're talking specifically about the iPhone for the iPhone, they didn't like the idea of only having one app store from Apple.

They liked the idea of having other app stores, which presumably could provide more choice and maybe different price tiers and everything else.

And so they told companies like Apple that they had to come up with something.

And so Apple just this week revealed what they're thinking about.

And again, this is still preliminary.

It's not going to go into effect for a few months, so it still could be changed.

But the idea that you'll be able to install apps on your iPhone that haven't gone through the App Store process, although Apple has said there's a very limited review process to try to ensure that there's nothing truly malicious.

But, you know, the reality is that, you know, if you jailbreak, it's not as true nowadays, but in days past where it was easier to jailbreak an iPhone, you could install a third party app store and you could put all sorts of apps on there through the third party app store.

And some of those apps are legitimate.

But many of them were like pirated apps or they were, you know, they would appear to be one thing, but there were actually malware and they would do that.

You know, it was it was the Wild West out there.

And so I'm going to be very curious to see, you know, Apple has warned that the reason that you want to have only Apple have the App Store so that you can trust what you get and that's not going to be the wild, wild west of, you know, downloading things that do damage to your product.

The EU is going to be a little testing chamber for this, Brett.

And we're going to see does it actually make it better for the end user or or does it make more dangerous?

You know, you know.

And there's just so many possibilities of ways that this could go.

But it's but it's interesting to see Apple do this.

So we're going to be watching it from the United States.

And I truly don't think that Apple is going to do anything in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world unless they're forced to do so because they prefer to keep the App Store.

But if what the EU is doing seems to make sense, you got to think that some lawmakers in America will say, hey, let's copy that and do something similar.

Right.

So so we're on the brink of of a new world in terms of the App Store.

And we'll be watching this over the next year to see what happens.

We don't have a where you at segment today, but here's like a warning story.

If you when you are traveling, you might just want to make sure you're not making some bad jokes on something like Snapchat.

What a weird story that you link to today, Jeff, about somebody using Snapchat that unfortunately somebody made a joke about blowing up a plane just as he was getting on a plane.

And wow, this they had to scramble some fighter jets to escort this plane, like just just don't do this, right?

Yeah.

I mean, on the one hand, much like you should never stand up in a crowded theater and yell the word fire, you know?

Yes.

Thank you.

Certainly, if you were getting on a plane, if you and I were sitting next to each other in an airport, Brett, I would never be crazy enough to make a stupid joke about having a bomb, because if I say it out loud to you and somebody overhears it, you know, you could be arrested and everything else.

But the thing that's interesting is that this person and this happened about two years ago was in it was he was in London, right?

He was in an airport in London.

That's right.

Yeah.

Texted something, not using regular text message, using Snapchat.

But because he was Snapchat, because he was using the public Wi-Fi at the airport, you know, we all talk about how if you use public Wi-Fi and somebody out there has the technology to do so, they can intercept all the communications.

That's what happened here.

The British authorities were watching all the public Wi-Fi, which makes sense.

And once their little their technology sense, somebody using the word, you know, BOMB, of course, they looked at it and they go, Oh, my God, this guy's getting.

And so they took it seriously, even though it's a silly joke.

I mean, a poor joke.

And they and like you said, the plane was headed to Spain and the Spanish Air Force had planes escorting it and landing with it just to be safe in case it was something on the one hand.

Maybe they don't really.

I mean, now we look back on the story and we know it was a stupid joke, but maybe at the time they didn't know.

And so they figured, of course, safe and sorry.

So you can understand.

Take a chance.

They're right.

On the other hand, I can understand this this guy that was a teenager to say he's just a teenager.

Teenagers make stupid jokes.

That's what teenagers do.

And to do it in a text message to a friend where you don't intend anybody in the world to see this, except for you and your friend.

Yeah, it's it.

You know, as he mentions, it wasn't something he posted publicly on Facebook.

He didn't say it out loud.

Right.

I'm sure he was surprised.

So, you know, you got to be careful.

Don't just be careful what you say in a public airport.

Be careful what you type if you're on the Wi-Fi in a public airport.

It's on the airport.

Wow.

I can see the teen side in this and I can see the authority side in this.

I don't know that anybody is right or wrong.

But this was a surprising.

Yeah.

You know, I just wonder, you know, we often tell folks, certainly in our profession, you know, to use a VPN, right, because that helps to obscure or keeps information confidential.

I don't know.

Like you said, I can see both sides of this.

I mean, I'm glad that, you know, if it wasn't a joke, that there was somebody that's watching that information.

On the other hand, I'm like, that's a little Big Brother.

It's like if they're looking at the at the at the Wi-Fi.

But, you know, this is how people intercept some information.

And I think it's just a good way to understand, like you, you know, if you're using a public Wi-Fi, like you really, really need to be careful on that.

Oh, OK.

So that's sort of kind of a quasi where you add, I guess.

We do have in the know.

I got to tell you, mine real quick was something that yesterday I was coming home and I decided I wanted Starbucks actually had a three dollar.

It was between noon and six yesterday.

They had a three dollar grande drink.

And I'm like, well, I'm going to take advantage of that.

So I ordered on my Starbucks app like I always do, Jeff.

And I drive to the store.

I usually walk in the store, right, instead of going through the drive through.

But, you know, and I in this in the usually I just know it's going to take a few minutes and I had the timing down perfectly.

But as I walk in the store, I look down at my phone.

And sure enough, there's a live activity little widget on my phone, Jeff, that that walks me through the time that I ordered when one of the baristas like picked up the order and started making it.

And it went all the way through to the end when it finally showed me that my order was ready and they handed it to me right as my live activity widget on my iPhone told me it was going to be ready.

Now, a couple of things quickly.

First of all, that was just so cool because you and I are both fans of these live activities.

I've been using it for the flighty app.

I know that I think you use it for the carrot app.

You know, even today I'll use it for Uber or Lyft so I can see exactly and track all that information right on my lock screen without having to go into the actual app itself.

Right.

To me, that's the biggest advantage of it.

I can just glance down and see it.

But I remember, wasn't it a while ago when they first started talking about live activities, Jeff, they mentioned Starbucks, but it never it wasn't here like I don't remember this being around.

And then yesterday it was such a pleasant surprise.

In fact, the baristas would kind of look at me funny because I was just so I was like making exclamations like, oh, wow, look, it's right here.

And they were like, we don't know what you're talking about here.

Take your grande mocha and go on with yourself.

But it was so cool that it was there.

You know, it's like I know last week I talked about tracking my coffee mug.

Now I can track my coffee mug and my coffee.

I tell you what, as is getting prepared.

This is important stuff, Jeff.

Very important stuff.

Very important.

Well, when I put this in the news today, I did sort of think to myself, you know, finally.

And I also thought to myself, I can't wait to try this.

Yeah, I'm going to have to order something at Starbucks.

But you beat me to it, Brett, since you you you you beta tested it already.

And you can you can say that it does indeed work.

So that's great.

And I mean, it really is to make sense, because that way, as you're walking over, it is useful to know if as you're walking to a Starbucks, are they still making my order or is it is it already ready?

So I want to look around the counters and read the names and see if my name is sitting out there.

So that's very useful.

Right.

Yeah, that's great.

Here I blew up this little picture.

This is what it looks like here.

So it tells you, you know, the store that you're in on this little lab activity.

It even has a little picture of the item that you ordered.

And this says order in progress.

So you can see it's like there's three stages.

It's like when you order the second stage is the barista has it right.

And then the third stage is when it's ready for you to pick.

It was just so fun.

I enjoyed it.

You know, it's like, man, I mean, I might go to Starbucks a little more often now that I have the line widget to tell me when my coffee is ready.

That's my tip for the day.

And let's actually, you know, give a little, you know, clap of the hands to Starbucks that, you know, it takes some technology to make this work for everybody's individual order.

Because, you know, Starbucks sells the jillions of coffee.

That's true.

That's true.

OK, I'll give them a run to them.

I'll give them a little leeway because my my my second thought after I was so excited about this is like, well, it's about time.

Just like you said, I'm like, come on, man.

Like I want more live activities.

I want all of the apps that I typically use for live activities.

But anyway, I'm glad it's there.

Enjoy, folks.

You're welcome.

OK, so my tip of the week has to do with AppleCare.

And it's something that it's not OK, AppleCare, but it's something that has changed over the relatively recent history.

And I just wanted to make sure people are aware of it.

And here is let me start to talk about, you know, for AppleCare, it's always a question of is it worth the money to pay for it or not?

And I will tell you that over the past.

I mean, I don't know how long AppleCare has been available for different Apple products a very long time.

I have gone back and forth.

There has always been a part of me that thought that extended warranties for technology products were a waste from other companies.

But for Apple, on the other hand, I've actually had good experiences.

The few times that I have actually had AppleCare, it has mostly been a good experience that I've been happy that I've had it.

Sometimes you get a device and you never have a problem with the device.

You're like, well, I guess I throw away my money.

But it's just like buying insurance.

You know, you hope you never need it.

But that's right.

You do need it.

It's there.

And so I have truly gone back and forth.

There was a time I didn't get AppleCare for one of my kids Apple watches and it broke.

I'm like, oh, I wish I had AppleCare because it would have been so much cheaper to get this fixed.

Right.

So you go back and forth.

I always make the decision.

And this was in my mind just a week ago, because when I ordered the Vision Pro headset, one of the last options I had that I mentioned last week was, do I want to get AppleCare, which was going to cost 500 bucks?

And I'm like, gosh, $500.

That's a lot of money.

And so I did not end up getting it.

But I've been thinking about that because I know I can still add it on when I pick it up next week.

So here's my tip of the week.

Right.

AppleCare is no longer just pay one price for a set period of time.

That's the way it was in the beginning.

You would pay for it.

Right.

And you would have, you know, two years or three years protection.

But for some products, Apple has been changing it.

And so just for example, so now instead of paying one amount upfront, you can pay a monthly or in some cases an annual fee.

And what's significant about change, not only are you paying less because you're paying, but we're not paying less, but you're paying less each time because you're not paying all up front.

But it also additionally extends AppleCare.

So, for example, if you get a MacBook Air today, I can get AppleCare for 179 or I can pay $65 a year.

If I get it for 179, I think the AppleCare is for maybe two years, I think.

But if I get it for that's right, $55 a year.

I can continue to pay for it for many, many years so I can get it for three years, four years, five years.

You know, this is all new.

So Apple hasn't told us at one point would officially.

I'm sure at some point they would actually cut it off.

I'd have to read the fine print.

But you can actually get AppleCare for even longer than you would have gotten it if you had paid the pay pay one price up front by by extending the time.

And so and the same is true for for the iPhone 15, for example, if you get an iPhone 15 pro, which is what I have.

I could have paid 200 bucks for AppleCare.

I chose not to do so.

Or I could have paid 10 bucks a month.

And again, for as many months as I want.

So even after the three years, which I think it goes for, I could just keep paying every month and keep getting protection on the iPhone.

There's actually two choices for AppleCare.

There's the regular AppleCare.

And then for a little bit more money, you have the AppleCare that provides protection for theft and loss.

So you need to decide which one you want.

So but I just wanted to make people available that when you're making a decision on AppleCare, keep in mind that it's not just do I want to pay at one time or extend payments, because that's what I assumed it was.

It's actually more for many of these products.

If you pay in some sort of interim, whether it's monthly or yearly, you can actually extend that AppleCare protection longer than it would have been if you had paid one price up front.

So to bring this around to my own story, when I go into the Apple store a week from today, Brett, even though I decided not to pay 500 bucks up front for the AppleCare, for the Apple Vision Pro, I'm thinking about what they offer is twenty five dollars a month, which, you know, over the course of a couple of years, it's paying a little bit more.

But I don't know for the Apple Vision Pro, is this something that is that I'm going to be dropping very often?

Or is this something that, you know, I'm so what I'm going to do is I'm going to pay twenty five if the store lets me do it.

And I think that they will.

I'm thinking about doing it on the monthly thing.

Go for a couple of months.

And then if I decide this is the sort of product that I want to have that protection on, I'll keep it.

Right.

If I decide not to, I won't.

And maybe I'll keep it even beyond the protection that I would have gotten if I paid 500 bucks up front.

So so anyway, just it's nice to know that there's all these options.

I will mention that if you're thinking about AppleCare, there was a great episode of Mac Power Users podcast, the most recent episode, which is episode seven, twenty eight.

And you're showing it on the screen right now.

David Sparks and David and Stephen Hackett.

Thank you, Stephen Hackett.

I was in a brief.

They they did like a forty five minute discussion or seventy five minute here.

A very long really here because there's all these ins and outs of AppleCare.

There's AppleCare.

There's AppleCare Plus.

You know, all these different names that are AppleCare related.

And if you want to have advice on it.

And I'll also mention that the thing that I just discussed about paying overtime versus paying for a month that doesn't even apply on all products.

Like, for example, if I get AirPods, right, I can pay twenty nine dollars for two years protection.

And that's it.

There is no option for annual or for months or something.

So it's a product by product basis as to whether you even have this option.

I'm so glad you covered this, and I'm definitely going to listen to this podcast that you mentioned, because I saw it come up and I'm like, oh, that's good.

It used to be so much more simpler AppleCare.

That is because I remember when they first started rolling it out.

It was like every product that you purchase, you get one year of, you know, warranty coverage.

Right.

And then the AppleCare was simply you could add two more years on there, whether it's an iPad or a Mac.

Mostly it was for the Mac.

When I first remembered that it came out.

But now you're right.

It's just like every little device is a little bit different.

I mean, even on the AppleCare for the iPhone, you can get AppleCare regular, which is called AppleCare Plus.

And then there's AppleCare Plus with theft and loss.

And so it's like you can cover even some additional things like the theft and the lost aspect on there as well, which is just interesting.

To me, it's a little more confusing, but I agree with you.

I mean, I tell a lot of people like it is definitely I think it's worth it for most devices that you have.

I think it's absolutely worth it.

I've used it multiple times.

Mostly, I will tell you, Jeff, mostly for Mac devices like my keyboard or my screen.

I feel like I haven't really taken as much advantage of it for my iPad or my iPhone, but there have been a couple of times that I've done it on there.

Good stuff.

All right.

Well, thank you.

That's good.

AppleCare Plus.

And yeah, thanks for the link to this podcast.

That's going to be great as well.

All right, Jeff.

Thanks, as always.

And I can't wait, actually, for next week, because I think we might be recording a little bit later next week, because I want you to have plenty of time to play with your brand new Apple Vision Pro.

And then you're going to tell us all about it next week.

So we'll talk in that way to to share the good news.

That'll be fun.

Thanks, Brett.