137: Point 4 Updates, Double Better Persona, #2 Pencils, and 50 Added Movies (some in 3D)

(upbeat music) - Welcome to In the News for March 8th, 2024.

I am Brett Burney from appsinlaw.com. - And this is Jeff Richardson from iPhone JD.

Hey Brett. - Hey Jeff, good morning.

It is good to see you as always in another week and another minor update.

Well, maybe a little bit more than just minor.

17.4. - A little bit more maybe. - iOS 17.4.

I upgraded, I think last night on my iPhone.

Did it come out then?

And yeah, I'm pretty excited.

I know you and I have been talking a little bit about something that we're most excited about was the transcripts in podcasts.

But there's a few other good, interesting little things that popped up this week in iOS 17.4. - Yeah, and so Apple updated everything this week.

The iPhone update came a little bit earlier in the week.

But I agree, of all the updates, now let me just begin by saying that if you live in Europe, because of EU regulations, you know, under the Digital Markets app, there's all these things about app stores.

But I don't have access to that, neither do you.

So we're not gonna really get into that stuff right now.

But for those of us, for the things that are available to everybody around the world, I tell you what, the podcast update is, I think it's really, really cool.

I don't know if you've played around with it much, Brett, but it's, first of all, the transcripts seem to be incredible.

I mean, I know that Apple is using AI and they're not perfect.

Every once in a while, you'll see a little word that they get wrong, but they are so close to being 100% accurate.

And they're done automatically and for free.

And they're just available for all these podcasts.

And what I love about it is I often have a situation where, you know, I might be listening to a podcast in the car and they mentioned some product or some website.

And then like, you know, a couple of days later, I'm like, gosh, I know that they mentioned something, but going back to try to- - Where was that? - Exactly, was it the beginning of the podcast?

Was it the end?

I can never find it again.

It's ridiculous.

But now I can do two things.

First, I can open up the Apple Podcast app, even if I didn't listen to the podcast, 'cause I usually listen to Overcast.

But I can open up the transcript feature and I can either scroll through it or I can do a search of the transcript.

But then, so that's good enough.

Or if I actually wanna hear them talk about it again, you can start playing the podcast and tap that little button in the bottom left.

It's the same place the lyrics button is on Apple Music in the Apple Music app.

And then you bring up the live transcript that actually moves as people are talking.

But there's this button at the bottom called search that you're showing on your screen right now that you just tap it and search. - So cool. - And so, like last week, for example, I think that we said something, last week's episode has the word Muppet in the title of this podcast. - That's right, the Muppet Theater. - If you went to last week's episode and you're like, "I wonder why Jeff and Brett mentioned Muppet."

You could just pull up last week's podcast, type the word Muppet, you'll go directly to the part of the podcast where we were talking about the Apple Vision Pro and the new environments.

And one of the environments, somebody theorized could be the Muppet Theater.

So anyway, but it's really cool.

And you can jump right there and then you just tap it and then you're listening to the podcast.

So this is so useful.

And I know that Apple has plans that maybe, I'm not sure how well they're implemented now, but the idea that in the future, you would actually be able to search for a podcast, like across many different podcasts, just by using search terms, the same way that you can use Google to search, you know, the entire internet of websites and look for something, which would be pretty cool too.

But I really think this is transformative in podcasts.

I'm, Apple just, it's out of the park.

It's really, really well, really great job they did with this. - Yeah, I can't agree more.

In fact, I haven't played with it extensively, but I played just enough with it, Jeff, that I'm like, maybe I'll switch to Apple Podcasts to listen to my podcast.

So you and I have talked about this quite a bit because our favorite podcast app has been Overcast for years and years, right?

From Marco Arment, right?

Who has done a brilliant job in creating this app that I love because it even has that like voice boost and a couple of other features, right?

That are just really great.

And I've always enjoyed that.

And, you know, we used to have to go to iTunes to listen to podcasts, right?

I mean, it was just, it was weird the way that Apple has kind of, you know, I guess, embraced this over the year.

We call the podcast, I remember the years that people were trying to call it something different to get away from the pod aspect because we didn't want to tie it just to Apple with the iPod or podcast, you know?

And I remember, you know, Leo Laporte would try Netcast, right?

And there was other people that were trying different other names, but none of those really stuck, right?

We're back to podcast.

And we knew, I remember when Apple came out with the podcast app, and I remember just kind of almost dismissing it.

'Cause I'm like, first of all, that's great.

Overcast is better.

And then there were several others like Tunecast or something, there were several other apps that were out at the time.

And to me, Overcast has always been one of the best.

But man, Apple has really improved.

Took them a long time, I feel like.

But this alone, and just the more that you've talked about it and the more that I've been playing around with it, you know, just a little bit of inside baseball quickly for folks, you know, when you do a podcast, one of the things, one of the functions that have come around over the last couple of years, it's like, hey, it's great if you can include transcripts, right?

More from an accessibility component, right?

Because it's one thing for the audio, but then exactly what you're talking about, some people may not be able to hear it all that well, or they might wanna read it instead of, you know, read a transcript as opposed to listening to it.

And so that I've always kind of felt like were two separate things.

Now for our podcast, I have been using the Mac Whisper app, which is a fantastic app doing the same thing.

It uses AI to basically take our audio and it transcribes it into text.

And then I can associate that transcript with our audio podcast.

So when people, when all of you find folks that are listening, download it, you do have the option to look at a transcript on there, which I think is great.

But the fact that this is happening automatically, Jeff, is what I'm really getting to here.

Just like you said, even if I didn't listen to a podcast and I can go back and search for a podcast, or I think you just barely mentioned on this, I just love the idea that I can go in and tap at a paragraph in the middle of the recording and jump right to that audio.

That alone, again, is something that is just amazing.

Like the more I continue to think about this, the more powerful I can start to see how this is gonna be, because it's certainly gonna go beyond podcasts, right?

I mean, it's just being able to have almost immediate access to both audio and text transcript on almost anything that you're gonna be listening to is really fantastic. - Yeah, it's good stuff.

Just to unpack a little of what you said, you for a while now, not since the very beginning of this podcast, but for a while now, you've been using this product called Mac Whisper.

And if I understand correctly, if people go to the website for this podcast, inthenewspodcast.com, they will actually be able to look at an episode and they can actually look at the transcript on the website.

And that's something that you have been doing using Mac Whisper.

On the other hand, if somebody uses their iPhone and they use the Apple podcast app, the transcript that's showing up there, is it the one that you do or this is the app?

I presume this is the Apple podcast.

I'm not sure I have to check. - It is.

So, 'cause you texted me and asked me about this and I didn't get back to you and check it, but it is a separate AI transcribing.

Yeah.

So I think you can-- - Both of them are using AI, but yeah, exactly. - Correct, yeah.

So I think you can go into Apple podcast and you can upload a transcript there.

So if you had your own transcript, 'cause some people have literally somebody typing, listening to it and literally humanly transcribing it.

And so they may choose to have that transcript to be up there.

But no, this looks like Apple is doing this. - I am not, yeah, I am not doing that. - And the reason that somebody might wanna do it is what you could do if you hand edited your transcripts is the one thing that Apple doesn't know is when Jeff is speaking versus when Brett is speaking. - Right. - And most of us listen to podcasts-- - That's right. - From multiple hosts.

Now, it would be possible for someone that has a podcast to go through the trouble of making a perfect podcast, a perfect transcript.

And then additionally, they could actually indicate who the speaker is.

And as I've read, Apple will acknowledge that.

So if you go through the trouble of doing that, then the Apple transcript will also show the name of the person as they're speaking.

That's not something that we're currently doing with this podcast.

I don't know of any other podcasts out there that are currently do it, but some folks with more professional slick podcasts or in lots of money, like an NPR or something like that, they may start to do that in the future.

So anyway, so that's a little behind the scenes on how the transcripts work.

So for podcasts like this one, you could either use the website, no matter where you are, no matter what platform you're on, or if you have an iPhone and you have the podcast app.

Second of all, you talked about the fact that you prefer to use Overcast.

And I see, for example, just looking at our, I mean, live, the last 10 episodes of this podcast, 59% of our listeners used Overcast, but 26% uses Apple Podcast.

So a lot of people listening to this podcast use Apple Podcast.

You can do so, but even if you use a different podcast app to listen to your podcast the first time, you could still open up the Apple Podcast app to search.

So you don't have to become a full-time user of the Apple Podcast app to take advantage of this one feature.

So anyway, well, that's been a lot of discussion on just one of the aspects of 17.4. - But I can't let you go yet, because just real quick, it says right here, they say in this link that you linked to, this feels a lot like the real-time lyrics in Apple Music.

And that is immediately what I thought of, Jeff, when I saw this, because I am still just enthralled with, I can go into Apple Music, or even Spotify does this a lot now, and it just will follow along.

I mean, again, I feel like this is one of the things that today we take for granted, but that just still is so impressive to me, because we remember back in the day, well, I still remember cassette tapes, we're crying out loud, but it's like, we didn't have this capability.

Like, we would have to listen and write down lyrics, and then rewind a little bit, write the lyrics.

It's like today, it's all there.

And some of those lyrics aren't always perfect, but you can go in and you can make some modification.

And so I just wanted to throw that in, because if you've been listening to us, and we talked about Apple Music, and being able to access the lyrics in there, which I think Apple has done a fantastic job in the Music app doing that as well.

This is very similar to that, and that experience, and just go and try it out.

Listen to our podcast and try it out.

It'll be great.

Okay, what else?

Now we can move on. - That's one cool new feature, and hopefully it's of interest to folks listening to this, since by definition, you are a podcast listener.

Additionally, it's also the new emoji.

I mean, that's the one that often gets people to update.

So we have 118 new emojis. - 118! - It's not quite 118, but some of those are little permutations.

But you know, the one that jumps out at me is the Lime one.

You know, we got Cinco de Mayo come up in a few months.

You know, get your margaritas out.

We're gonna wanna have some Lime emojis.

And so there's some other ones, some little faces, and the Phoenix, and some other cute ones. - The Phoenix, that's right. - People will come up with creative uses of the new emoji.

So I encourage everybody to update, because if one of your friends sends you the new emoji, you wanna see it.

And just to give you an example, if you send a text to somebody using the Lime emoji, and if they have an iPhone, but they have not yet updated to 17.4, do you know what they'll see?

It will be the lemon emoji with a green box next to it. - Yes, I know this!

Yeah! - Which makes some sense.

A lemon with a green.

You put a lemon and a green together, and that's sort of as a Lime. - Exactly! - But it won't be the same effect as them receiving a Lime emoji.

So encourage your friends to update if you're gonna use them, and update if you do. - I'm so glad you brought that up, by the way, because just on a quick aside, what I do in my electronic discovery world with the litigation, we're having to take a lot of these communications that include emojis.

And so we have to dig down into what's going on on the back end.

And so, emojipedia.org is a fantastic resource for anybody that even cares remotely about this, because it goes through, and this is where you could, not only can you see what the new emoji's made up of, exactly what you're talking about, the Lime emoji is not new, it's a lemon plus a green box, a green square.

And if you have the right interpretive operating system, it will show up as a Lime.

But it also would just go through, and what I find this to be fascinating, quickly, is that it will show you the history of certain emojis.

For example, one that I always use is the pistol emoji.

Back in the day, it looked like a revolver, but today, there is no pistol available.

It's a water pistol, as it were.

And it's just really kinda cool that you can go back and see.

But it's just really neat that, boy, boy, I didn't think I would ever get into emojis as much as I do, and just the history of it.

But anyway, I just had to throw that in, 'cause that's really fun.

More 17.4 updates, though.

What else do we have? - Yeah, and the other things, in my mind, are all a little bit smaller.

I mean, I think probably the most important, if I had that hierarchy of the update things, the next one in importance for me is the security updates, just because we always know that Apple updates security whenever they come up with a new version of their operating systems.

And this time, I mean, I linked to a post today that somebody said that there were four big updates, and two of them were actually things that Apple admits were being exploited.

And so, for the past week or two, any of us could have, in theory, been affected by this hack that was live.

Thank goodness it's patched now.

But this is, whenever I install updates like this, I think to myself, I'm relieved that I now have this protection, but at the same time, this makes me nervous that what's the next thing that Apple's gonna be fixing six weeks from now that we don't even know about yet.

There's just all these security flaws that very clever hackers, criminals, whether they're white hat hackers, black hat hackers, can find.

So anyway, it's a good idea to install the updates.

You wanna have security, you wanna have better podcast app, you wanna have that Lime and other good emojis and stuff like that.

So lots of reasons to update to 17.4.

And that's just the iPhone update.

There's also updates for the watch and for the computer and for everything, for HomePod, all sorts of stuff. - Just one thing real quick.

I hardly ever, when there's an update, as you say, that Apple will give, "Hey, to learn more info, click here," right?

They usually just give like two or three sentences of like the big updates or maybe some bullet points of that.

But I just wanted to point out quickly, I actually clicked through the link this time, Jeff, this past week when I upgraded my iPhone to 17.4, and specifically even on some of the security updates, I'm assuming that Apple has done this in the past.

I just maybe wasn't aware of this, but they actually give shout outs to different people here. - They do, they do, yeah. - That I guess were either helpful.

I mean, some of these people, I don't even know, there was somebody in here like from the National High School of Computer Science in Romania.

And so one of these accessibility updates that they did for 17.4, they actually give like credit to Christian Dinka of this National High School of Computer Science.

I just, I didn't know. - That is a smart high school student that somebody needs to hire right now. - I know, exactly, Jeff.

I just wanted to point that out because the whole time that we go through all of these updates and everything, I just hardly ever clicked through to that link.

And I'm just so thrilled that Apple at least acknowledges that there are some people out there that, whether you call them white hat hackers, or you just call them people that are just trying to do the best that they can and alert Apple to some of these flaws and stuff like that.

Like I'm just good on you Apple for at least giving a little bit of a hint or like a gold star to some of these folks in there.

Sorry, I just had to throw that in 'cause I just thought that was really cool this past year, this past week when I saw that. - And it's not just the fame and fortune.

When you submit a bug to Apple like this, if it's of sufficient security nature, they actually have a bug bounty program that they will pay a certain amount of money.

You know, probably not as much money as you could get by selling it to some foreign government, but then again, you feel a little bit better that you're doing the right thing.

So, you know. - Just really cool.

I just like that they call that out.

Okay, so anyway, I stepped on you because there are some other updates.

I think you even had a couple of links here.

Yeah, to Mac OS.

I just upgraded my Mac this morning.

Everything went fine.

Watch OS, I just upgraded my watch this morning.

What else?

Was there anything?

Oh, Apple TV, right?

TV OS, got a little bit of an upgrade there.

Anything big that we need to-- - None of them. - It looks like just some minor improvements, right?

Especially on the watch it looks like. - There were minor little fixes like the watch will now can show more notifications.

But none of them are huge.

If you own a HomePod and if you use a music service that's not Apple Music, which I know is you, Brett.

Apparently the HomePod can now do a better job of remembering which music service you like to use.

So if you Spotify, you know, hopefully it'll be a better consistent experience with the HomePod than it was before. - Oh, that's really cool. - Little minor around the edges, details, updates, which you would expect for a point one update. - Absolutely.

Okay, well, we also had an update to your lovely Apple Vision Pro, right?

So you have had it for what, one month and maybe six days, something like that, seven days.

Yeah, so I know that you have been talking about, one of the first things I remember you discussed over the last few weeks is that there is not a full support for mobile device management, MDM, which is important for anybody that might want to actually use a Vision Pro in a professional environment, right?

If they've got a company that, where they have to get email through an MDM or something like that.

But it sounds like at least Apple, just within a month has now started to allow some of this additional support on there. - Yeah, so the same thing that you can now do that you've been for a long time now, been able to do with an iPhone and an iPad, and to a certain degree a Mac, you can now do as of yesterday with the Apple Vision Pro.

Apple has enabled its MDM platform.

Now, one half of it is Apple doing its part.

The other half of it is the individual company that you use for your MDM solution.

And there's many, many good solutions out there.

They need to have support.

And so what you're showing right now is a press release from Jamf, J-A-M-F.

They are definitely one of the well-known companies in this space that many companies will use Jamf for their security.

And if you do use Jamf for your security, they were ready on day one.

Other companies might use other solutions from companies like Microsoft or MobileIron, all these other ones out there.

And I'm sure that over the next couple, hopefully weeks, not months, but they will out, you know, one would assume that they will have proving support.

So I personally haven't been able to test this feature yet because of the one that my law firm uses, but I'm hoping that now that Apple has done its part pretty soon.

And once that's done, for me, it's significant because once this is done, it means that I will be able to see my work email, my work contacts, and my work calendar on my Apple Vision Pro, which are obviously pretty important to get work done in an Apple Vision Pro.

You want to be able to like actually see your work email and contacts and stuff like that.

So fingers crossed that soon. - This might be important for Samuel Axon at Ars Technica.

I like this story that you linked to.

I worked exclusively in Vision Pro for a week and here is how it went.

And it sounds like, I just skimmed over the article.

It sounds like mostly it did okay, except he was actually talking about online meetings and the persona still looks a little odd. - Well, we'll get to that in one second. - Okay, okay. - The persona issue.

Put a pin in that one for about a minute or two. - Okay. - But the other issues he talked about is that he likes the fact that, you know, first of all, you can get work done by closing off the outside world if you want to be, you know, focusing and secluded. - We talked about that. - But for him, even if you have that turned off so that you can see your outside world, he said that he found it useful that you can have like different parts for him of his apartment where he works from home.

He could like have like a screen on top of his kitchen table that he was using to deal with one project and then a screen on top of his study for another project.

And he would literally walk from room to room to work on different projects. - Oh, that's cool. - I don't know if I would want to use it that way, but maybe, I mean, it's an interesting idea.

I definitely hear people talking about, you know, you change your environment to sort of, you know, refresh yourself and have a different perspective on things.

So that's one interesting thing.

But for the most part, like you say, Brett, he said that it did work.

And again, this is so early, you know, I cannot help but emphasize this enough.

I was linking to Nikki Black's article this morning where she was talking about lawyers who are interested in the Vision Pro.

You know, if you're on the fence, I say, don't get it because it's expensive and it's such early days and so many things don't work yet.

But if you do want to explore the future, like he did in this article, you know, you can get it done.

So, you know, he had a lot of nice things to say about it.

And, you know, he pointed out that to really get work done, you need to have an external keyboard.

Everybody says that.

There are things like that, but, you know, it can happen.

And articles like this are a nice glimpse of what it's going to be like in the future when things like the Apple Vision Pro are much smaller and maybe don't have an external battery pack and all the other good things that we hope for the second generation and the third generation of this product in the future. - This was my favorite.

He had a picture in here of his current workspace, which is a beautiful small desk with a MacBook Pro, it looks like, and three, probably at least 32 inch monitors that are just like around him.

And I just love that, 'cause I know you and I have talked about this before, that is the Vision Pro going to be able to do even a better job than having multiple monitors?

I say, yes, we may not be there quite yet.

I mean, it's just been a month for crying out loud, just like you said, but I think that that's really cool that that could possibly happen there.

Okay, but so what's with the personas now?

He says, "Personas are a bit of a letdown."

And I remember a month ago, Jeff, on February 2nd, you and I recorded an entire episode of the podcast, oh boy, here you go, with you wearing the Vision Pro, and we could see you in your office, and then you also joined the recording in the Vision Pro on Zoom.

Wait, so tell us what you are doing now, because you have it on. - So I've just put on my Vision Pro, and it is true that Apple has improved the persona so that when you enter the conference, they can see it. - Oh, they did, okay. - And so doing this live is completely reckless.

I should not be doing this, but we're gonna-- - Okay, I'm gonna stop sharing my screen, because I wanna see this now. (laughs) - I'm going to try to join the conference that you and I are having right now, and I'm gonna join it using my Vision Pro, so let me put it in the conference code. - Oh, this is so cool.

Okay, so if you are listening to the podcast, right now you see me, I've stopped sharing my screen, and you can see Jeff basically sitting in his office chair wearing the Vision Pro, and so what we did about a month ago is that we had this angle, or this camera angle, and then Jeff also joined the Zoom call for our podcast inside Zoom in the Vision Pro, so he is doing this live right now, and so just another reminder, if you don't get a chance to go see our YouTube videos, you can actually see all this happening as we do.

Okay, so now he's joining (laughs) from the Vision Pro, and so we get to see now if your persona looks, I thought it looked pretty good last time, a month ago, and hey, no, hey, I think that is better. - So what I've done now is my computer, you can still see me wearing the Vision Pro goggles, but if I am looking over this way, hopefully you can see my, and I don't know which screen is showing up at the time, but so the persona-- - Yeah, you're doing good. - So this morning, just before you and I started to record, I used my Vision Pro to record a new persona of myself, and so that's what you're seeing right now, and what I'm hoping-- - It's better. - Is that, Brett, maybe what you can do is that when you put the YouTube video together on this, maybe you can find a way to show what I'm looking like right now, and also what I look like about a month ago when you and I tried this last, because if you compare, in my mind, and I'm curious to hear your opinion on it, what Apple did in the 1.1 update to the Apple Vision Pro is they have an improved engine for creating a picture of your face, and in my mind, it is a little bit more detailed.

It is, you know, people talk about the uncanny valley effect that when you have something that almost looks like a real person, but it's not quite there, it seems a little too strange, and that was a problem with the 1.0 version of the Apple Vision Pro, but in the 1.1, which is only a month later, I think it actually looks better.

I mean, I think it's-- - No question, yes. - It looks like my face.

I can blink just like before, and you can see it.

I can stick out my tongue.

I can put my hands up, and you can see that a little bit.

It still is clearly a digital version of a Jeff Bridgeson.

No question about that, but again, you tell me.

You're looking at my face right now.

Don't you think it looks a little bit better? - It's more detailed.

It's definitely more detailed.

Like, it looks more like you than it did in the past, and certainly because I know you, it's not fully you, but it does look more like you, and I would also say, as I'm watching you talk and blink and everything, Jeff, it is more responsive.

Like, your eyes look a little-- Your eyes look a little more natural.

Your lips look a little more natural, and just, like, your whole facial expression definitely looks more natural than it did before, and it's tracking you better.

Like, when you talk and everything, it is definitely tracking you better than it did before. - So, you know, this is good.

I mean, again, this is only Apple's first effort to improve it, and if it looks this much better after just one update, it really sort of gives-- - No kidding. - Like, I now have hope that maybe six months from now, a year from now, you know, maybe this will actually be really good.

So, anyway, well, I'm gonna switch back to the regular camera now, and hopefully I don't end our podcast by doing this, but I mean, it's pretty-- I think this is cool stuff. - I'm gonna miss Persona, Jeff.

I think this is so fun. - Goodbye.

Goodbye from the future, okay?

So, let's do leave. - But that really is amazing.

That even after just a month, because most all of this is just software updates, right?

I mean, I know to some extent, you know, the cameras may have to get better, and that is gonna be Apple Vision, you know, V2, but, you know, we're a ways away from that, a year at least, at the very, very least on that.

So, that would have to get better, I know, from some, to some extent.

But, man, the vast majority of this would just simply be software updates, and if Apple can do that within a month, I mean, we know they've been working on it for a long time already, but the fact that they have released this and it's even better, that's, that is, that's very encouraging, actually. - Completely agree, completely agree. - Yeah, I like that.

Okay, well, let me get back to sharing my screen here, and we can get back into, we can get back on track here.

Oh, even though that was a lot of fun, I like that, out there.

Okay, so I'll link to this Ars Technica article, too, and yeah, maybe Sam, you'll try the new Persona, since he says there's still a bit of a letdown.

You gotta see Jeff's Persona.

It's even better now.

Well, how about a pencil, specifically an Apple pencil, specifically an Apple number two pencil, but this one doesn't come from Apple this time.

This comes from a company called Colorware, and I thought this was just so cute.

I might have to just get one of these, Jeff. - This is a great article.

It made me smile.

Colorware is a company that's been around for a very, very long time, and what I used to know them for is back in the day, they would take even an iPod back in the day, and then after that, an iPhone, and if you wanted them to put a custom color on it, so if you wanted to have a different colored iPhone than everybody else, they would take an iPhone, - Yeah, you leaked. - and they would apply the color to it, or what they would even do is they would buy them, and they would sell them to you with their special coating on it, and so it would allow you to have an Apple device that had a color that nobody else had, and so using the same technology, they have taken just a regular old Apple pencil, which as we know is white, and they have applied their color to it so that it looks like a number two pencil, and it is adorable. - So great. - It is so cute looking.

I just love it, and as I mentioned today, it reminds me of over a decade ago, there used to be a company called Griffin, they don't really exist anymore, they're now a sub-brand of a company called Insepio, and they had this stylus, - Oh, wait, that's, yeah. - which I'm holding in my hand, if you're watching the video, and it was just like, you know, the end of it is just a regular stylus point, so you could use it for tapping an iPad, an iPad or an iPhone or something like that, but the whole thing looks like a pencil, and I have had this thing right here in my little, I have like a little coffee cup that's got my pens and pencils in it, and I have been using this, you know, every once in a while, just to, this device is not nearly as precise as an Apple pencil, but it just makes me smile that I feel like I'm holding a number two pencil. - It's so cute. - So, because of my decade of experience with the Griffin product, I think that this new experience from Colorware looks like great fun.

Now, having said that, Brett, I would not, I would, let me emphasize this, I do not encourage anybody to buy an Apple pencil today, because I think we are days away. - You mentioned that, yeah. - Everybody says, if it's not next week, it's gonna be the week afterwards, that Apple seems to be on the brink of coming out with a new iPad, and if they have a new iPad, maybe they will have a new Apple pencil too.

Maybe that new Apple pencil will only work with the newest devices.

Maybe it will be backwards compatible with our current iPads.

Who knows?

Anything's possible.

So, you know, perhaps this is not the best time for Colorware to announce its new device.

If they had announced this, you know, a year ago, I would have been more in favor of it, but it's still a very fun idea, and maybe they can apply the same coloring technology to whatever next Apple pencil Apple comes out with.

So, it's a cute idea. - Yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah, we've been talking about this.

There was no iPads introduced in 2023, and that's one of the things that, I know we've had some questions from folks that have been asking about that, and right now we have just said, yeah, you might wanna just hold off a little bit, because it is March, and Apple has released new iPads in March.

We don't have any inside information on that, but I agree.

I mean, the current Apple Pencil 2 was from 2018.

Is that right? - I had to double check.

It's been a long time. - Double check that, because I think it's been that many years.

I guess I could be a little off on that.

Now, there was another Apple Pencil, like, Lite or something that Apple released, right?

Not too long ago, we talked about that, but we are definitely due for an upgrade, even though I still love the Apple Pencil that I use now.

I don't know how much better it can get, but I know it can be better, and anyway, we'll be on the lookout, and certainly we'll be talking about that as soon as we possibly can once we get that out.

It's been around for a while, I know. - Yeah, November of 2018.

Good to remember that. - 2018, okay.

Yeah, good, okay, I thought. - Six years with this generation. - That's crazy. - And I love it, but I would love to see, with the six years of advancement, what Apple can come up with. - Sure, absolutely, okay, very good.

Moving on, you've talked about with your Vision Pro how, in fact, you even talked about this today in your post, you have enjoyed panoramic photos.

When you look at those panoramic photos in the Apple Vision Pro, I mean, I still haven't had a chance to look at it, but I can just imagine, it looks like you're standing in the middle of it, as if you had monitors all around, which is gonna be a much better experience than if you looked at a panoramic picture on your iPhone that you took.

But I thought this was an interesting story that you linked to today from Jason Snell about you can still use your iPhone for panoramic photos, or you could even do it the old-fashioned way, take individual pictures and splice them all together.

I don't know what's gonna be best or not. - Yeah, I mean, people have been creating panoramic photos for a long time, long before we had this fancy Vision Pro, and I used to always create 'em.

I'm sure many people, you know, every once in a while, you'll be in some impressive vista that everywhere you look around you, there's like really cool mountains, or nature, or something like that.

And so, you know, one picture would only capture a part of it.

And so I would take a series of pictures around me and then use Photoshop to stitch them together.

And as you say, Brett, when you look at those pictures on your computer, or on your iPad, or your iPhone, it's a shame because the picture is so long and short, like it makes the picture tiny at the same time that it's capturing something that is by definition grand.

So it's always been an imperfect solution.

The Apple Vision Pro, now it's all come together.

I mean, like you say, when you look at a panoramic photo, it's all around you, it's beautiful.

So I have been starting just in the last five weeks that I've had the Vision Pro, I've been taking a few more than I normally used to, panoramic photos using the iPhone's built-in function.

And that's good.

You know, it messes up if there are people in your picture, or frankly, any movement in your picture, because whenever there's movement, you know, the person will appear at the same time at multiple points, it's not great.

But if you're taking picture of like an environment where things are still like a mountain, or something outside, the Apple built-in app does a really good job.

But what Jason's pointing out in this article is you can get even higher fidelity, even better pictures, if you go the old school way of take a picture, move to the right a little bit, take a picture, move to the right a little bit, take a picture, and then you take like, you know, 15 pictures, whether you're using your iPhone or some other camera, and then use something like Photoshop.

Back in the days, I used to use a product, which is still around called Photoshop Elements, which is like a less expensive version of Photoshop that has just like, it's got like the most important parts of Photoshopper in it and it only costs like 80 bucks or something, and it will automatically stitch together photos and make a panorama.

So what are you showing right now?

This is an interesting one. - This is, so this is a video.

So Jason's now linked to this gentleman, developer David Smith, right?

And so this is, you know, I'm just looking through his little post here, which is great that Jason linked to here because it's showing exactly what you're talking about.

I mean, this is like 304 megapixels on this photo, but you know, this is a beautiful picture.

I love this, but it's flat, right?

I mean, it's just, I would love to experience this if I was standing on this mountain, like where he's showing right now, and I can't.

And I think the Vision Pro would get me closer to that.

But anyway, I was just looking through these pictures 'cause they're so fun, as you said.

It's like, now, like you, I think you said this, or maybe you put it in your post.

I mean, it's just all coming together.

Now I know why.

I guess I love the panoramic photo.

I've always liked it since I've, you know, Apple has put it in, which has been for many years now.

But I'm like, okay, you know, this is sort of like a little bit, I don't want to use gimmick 'cause it's more than that.

And I've done many panoramic video photos and stuff, but it's like, okay, I got 'em, but I don't know what I'm gonna use 'em for.

And now I know I'm saving 'em for an Apple Vision Pro. (laughing) - That's exactly right. - One day. - Last, yeah, one day, exactly.

Last week we talked about Apple stopped working on their Apple car.

And now we are starting to see a little bit of maybe some of the fallout, or really just some of the pundits talking about, you know, what happened?

What can we do?

What can we learn from this?

What is Apple gonna do now?

And these are a couple of good articles I thought you linked to first here from Stephen Hackett, where, you know, I don't know, it sounds like he had a pretty positive look on it, that it could be a good thing in the end. - The main take on it, and frankly, I think it's the take that you and I have too, Brett, is that it was probably too much for Apple.

You know, they bit off more than they could chew.

You know, taking on a car product was apparently too much for the company.

I mean, so it's probably for the better that they're not gonna do this, but there were some good reasons to do it.

And this is what Stephen Hackett points out.

You know, we all know that when Apple makes things, they tend to be pretty high quality.

Cars can be dangerous.

You know, obviously, you know, cars are, a lot of people die because of car accidents every year.

And if you had smart cars that were even more careful than people, you know, cars that don't get tired at the end of the day or anything like that, you know, drinking and driving, and for a self-driving car, things like that.

You know, as Stephen points out, there's a lot of reasons why it might've been good if Apple had given us a, you know, it would be safer for consumer safeties, and it would, you know, but of course the flip side is to really have it work, you would probably almost have to change the infrastructure of cities to have streets more perfectly flat, and you know, less crazy stuff.

But there were, you know, Stephen points out that there were some good reasons for what Apple was doing, even if it didn't ultimately work.

So I liked his article.

Dan Morin had a nice article in Macworld that he started on Six Colors, but it's on Macworld, he talks about why a lot of the technology that Apple developed for the car is gonna potentially have uses in other parts of the company.

You and I talked about this last week, that for example, a lot of the artificial intelligence stuff that they did, maybe those people that are, you know, right now trying to figure out how to make a car, understand their surroundings, those same people might be able to say, you know, how a Vision Pro can better understand surroundings or an iPhone or something like that.

So that would be nice.

And then what was the last article?

Oh yeah, just David Sparks, you know, talking about the Android Project Titan, just a short little one that, you know, he has a funny one at the end that, you know, he's sort of happy that they don't make the Apple car because it's probably the one Apple product he could never afford.

You know, he's probably right.

If Apple came out with a car, you know it was gonna cost more than $100,000.

And the chance of me purchasing a new car that costs more than six figures, pretty much zero.

I think pretty much zero.

So maybe I would have never purchased it. - A Vision Pro, you're good with, right?

Four figures, you're fine. - That is the limit for me, no more than that. - But not a car. - Why have Apple spend money on a project that me and you and so many others would probably never buy, put your attention on iPhones or things that we can actually, you know, afford. - Were there any updates to CarPlay in 17.4?

Did I see something from one of your, okay.

'Cause I was just- - There was, but it's not a big update.

So what it is is if you have, I don't have this on my car and I don't know if you do, Brett, but if you have a car, you know, most CarPlay cars just have a screen in the middle.

But if you have a car that has a screen in the middle of your car between the passenger and the driver, and you have a second screen that's right in front of the steering wheel.

And there are some cars that have that.

The new version of CarPlay can now control that display in an even better way.

So that for example, if you are showing driving directions, you know, turn by turn directions, before 17.4, the turn by turn directions would only show up in the middle display.

But now with this update, you can swap and you can actually have that show up right in front of your steering wheel.

Which I have to admit, again, I don't have one of these cars, but that does seem like it might be a little bit safer because you're not turning your head to the right a little bit, just to want, you know, you're sort of staying focused straight.

So it's a small improvement.

It's one that I haven't tried out.

In fact, if any of our listeners do have a car that has this and they want to share what it's like, I'd love to hear about it.

Yeah.

Because it looks like a nice idea.

I did it one time with a rental car.

I think I said a few months ago and it was absolutely amazing.

I loved it.

Here it is.

This is one of the articles you link to at Mac Rumors, next generation CarPlay support.

So this is information that we don't have yet, but I just thought this was really interesting at the bottom of this article here, where the code is now in iOS 17.4, to where the car camera, like the vehicle's rear view camera feed can come through CarPlay.

But just to be clear, Brett, I don't think this is available today.

I think that they're setting this standard for it.

Right.

That's what I mean.

I should have clarified that.

This is the code is now showing up in 17.4, but it is not available yet.

In fact, they said it might be later this year.

But the reason I thought about it when you were talking about what technology, and again, we talked about this last week too, what technology from the Titan, Project Titan or the Apple Car, could they be using to incorporate into other technologies?

And to me, this is where it's coming in, is in CarPlay.

The app, one of the other options in this next generation CarPlay is, it'll show you tire pressure.

Now, sometimes in your cars, you already have that capability.

And so basically it's just Apple being able to plug into that capability, right?

So that it'll show in the instrument panel on there.

And plus, and I love this at the very end, apparently now Apple CarPlay at some point soon will say goodbye on the screen. (laughing) When you turn the car off.

And that's important too, right?

Okay, anyway, I just thought about that when we were talking about the Apple Car and the fact that it's gone now.

Something else you mentioned, which I thought was interesting, was a couple of stories on Apple TV+.

We've covered this, I think before that, Apple's got a little bit of cash.

They've got some quarters in the couch cushions that they have been able to spend on some of the movies.

And while some of these movies may not necessarily, I guess from a critic standpoint, be the best in competing with like the high-end, you know, movie theaters necessarily, or the companies, Apple's doing a pretty good job.

And they're not afraid to put a little bit of money behind it on there.

I thought this was a good story. - The point of this variety movie is that Apple is not, you know, they are trying to appeal to critics by coming out with movies like the "The Killer of the Flower and Moon," and although "Napoleon" has been more pan, but it's a Ridley Scott movie.

And they were trying to do something really good, you know, I've heard reviews on whether they were successful there.

But when you put together these big budget movies that cost hundreds of millions of dollars, the question is, is Apple, because they don't put them in the theaters for very long, you know, just basically enough to make it eligible for Oscars and stuff like that.

And they're not making a lot in tickles tales because fewer people are going to see these movies than people that are going to see like, you know, the next big Marvel movie or something like that. - Right. - But what the variety article says is, don't lose any sleep for Apple, because although they're only making so much money from the theater release, what they're doing next is they're then making it available for like an exclusive rental period.

So before the show comes to Apple TV+, it will be available for people to pay for, you know, back in the day, we used to talk about this as sort of similar to like the DVD period.

You know, first you would be able to watch the movie in the theater, then you could buy the DVD, then you could rent it, and then finally show up on like HBO or something.

And so what they're saying is that between the money that Apple makes in the theater and the money that Apple often makes just by, you know, people purchasing the movie and renting it for that exclusive time period, that for some of the movies that then pays for it, and then the movie is paid for.

And so by the time that they then bring something like, you know, "Killers of the Flower Moon" or "Napoleon," by the time they bring it to Apple TV+, Apple has pretty much made their money back.

And then it's just a nice, you know, plus to the service.

But of course, even if Apple hasn't made its money back, it's still part of the reason that Apple TV+ is appealing is that you get that exclusive, hopefully high quality content.

And as we've discussed before, I think Apple has been very successful.

It used to be that HBO was the one that had the reputation of having the best quality shows.

HBO is, you know, they still have some, they've lost their way a little bit over the years.

But I think Apple TV+ is trying to move into that spot and say, "We're gonna have the best dramas.

We're gonna have the best comedies.

We might not have the quantity that everyone else has, but we have the quality." - Not only are they investing in new movies, but this was an interesting article you linked to, they're adding sort of a back catalog a little bit, if you will, some of these even in 3D, some really good movies on this list. - Yeah, I just said that Apple doesn't have the quantity, they have the quality, but to address that first part, what they did is, and they've done this in the past, is they would get a couple of old movies and make them available.

But about a week ago, Apple, it was their biggest release ever.

This is the first time they've ever come up with, I think it's what, 50 movies that are available for the next six weeks or two months or something like that.

And, you know, some of these are very old movies, but they're all very good movies. - Oh yeah. - And so you can now, if you're an Apple TV+ subscriber, you can see these movies, which is nice.

And I was laughing at this last week, Brett, because when you and I recorded last week's podcast, and I was talking about how much I enjoy watching 3D movies on my Apple Vision Pro, I told you, I just wish we had more content.

And it was like literally hours after I told you that, that Apple made this announcement, and of these 50 new movies, I wanna say like maybe 10 of them are available in 3D or 12, something like that.

And so last weekend, I was just looking for something to do on Saturday night, and I was going through the list, and I saw this one movie called "Edge of Tomorrow," which I totally didn't even pay attention to this. - Yeah, that's a great movie.

I love it. - Yeah, it was a movie. - Oh, I do, yes. - Oh, what's his name?

The star from "Risky Business" and all the other movies.

Tom Cruise, of course. - Tom Cruise, of course. - Tom Cruise is the only one.

You know, it was a very good movie.

I totally enjoyed it 'cause I love science fiction movies. - Yeah, exactly. - I mean, I'm not saying it was the next, you know, Oscar winner, but it was- - No, but it's fun. - Totally fun to watch.

And because it was available in 3D, and I was watching on my Vision Pro, I got to experience the 3D.

Now, this is the first time that I've seen a movie, unlike "Avatar," where the 3D was incredible.

And frankly, even unlike the Al Portishkoff movie I mentioned last week, where the 3D was pretty cool.

For this movie, you know, the 3D was there.

It made some things look a little bit more interesting.

I probably would have enjoyed the movie just about as much without the 3D.

You know, people talk about some people that make movies nowadays, they film the movie just using regular cameras, and then they go back afterwards, and the special effects people will add the 3D effects.

I have no doubt that "Edge of Tomorrow" was one of those movies where they added the 3D afterwards.

And so it didn't really add that much to the movie, but it did make it look, I mean, it was a little bit more nice than it would have been otherwise.

I was frankly just as happy to be watching it in the Vision Pro to have this huge screen right in front of me, you know, much bigger than the television in my house and stuff like that.

So, hey, I thought it was great.

I didn't pay anything more, and I got to watch a fun movie last weekend, that but for Apple doing this, I would not have had access to these movies.

And there's other good movies on this list too.

So before- - There are, there's some good ones. - Yeah, they're gonna go away in about a month or two.

So I'm gonna look through the list and maybe watch some other ones. - Have you seen "Minority Report" with Tom Cruise?

Have you seen that one? - Oh, that is such a good idea.

Of course I have. - Exactly, because- - It's the ultimate Vision Pro.

Oh my goodness.

Very good, Brett. - You know where I'm going with that. - I have to watch this again.

Everybody always refers to having windows around you as the Minority Report effect. - Yes!

That's what he does in the movie.

Okay, good. - I've got to watch "Minority Report."

Thank you, thank you for that recommendation. - Oh, absolutely.

And then I see on here, "Saving Private Ryan."

So now that was a fun one, "Minority Report."

But "Saving Private Ryan," that's more serious.

But I mean, I know how powerful watching that movie is on a regular flat screen TV.

Jeff, you might wanna set aside some time if you're gonna do "Saving Private Ryan."

That's just such a powerful, powerful movie.

And especially just the opening credits and stuff like that on there.

But anyway, yeah, that's fun.

There's some really good movies on there.

Good stuff.

I'm glad that you brought that up.

Well, speaking of movies or even shorter movies, I love how you always link to some of these Apple ads at the end of your post.

Here is one called "One More."

And this is great.

Of course, I don't like to give anything away on these, and we can't show them because we don't want Apple to come running after us.

But these are so fun.

This is only a 38-second little video.

And then I just have to tell you, you link to this one.

And because of that, at the end, sometimes when they have these videos, they say, "Hey, if you like that video, you might like this one."

Here's another one called "New Driver."

Both of these feature the iPhone 15.

And okay, we'll just leave it at that.

One's on the battery life, and one is on the immediate updates on some of that.

And it's just really, really fun.

We won't show them here.

We'll link to them.

And it's good.

And the other thing quickly, I'll just say on these, I love how Apple uses music (laughs) in all of these little videos, these commercials, if you will.

They go out, they must have like a team that just looks at every new song that comes out because they find songs that most of the time are not like all the most popular, but I love them.

I don't know if it's just because the commercial makes me happy with the song, but in these, if you go to the YouTube video, which we'll link to, they actually have a link in Apple Music for the song that is being used in the commercial.

And I just love that.

I used to do that back in the day, you know, a commercial would come on TV and I'm like, "What is that song?

I wanna know what that song is."

And I would have to ask everybody, my friends, until I found it and try to listen to it on the radio or something.

But now I just love how you can just click a link and go straight to the song, and then I add it to my library. - Yeah, two quick thoughts on that.

Number one, the people that make all these video commercials for Apple, because Apple has been releasing so many funny ones for so many years.

You know, I just have nothing but respect for you folks.

I wish I was as smart and clever as you are, whatever advertising agency it is.

I just have to say, bravo, you know, good thing.

And second of all, on your point about music, I agree.

I think back to the days of when Apple was selling the iPod and they used to have iPod commercials that would feature music.

And I can't even count the number of songs that I have purchased or downloaded over the years, specifically because I've heard the song in an Apple ad.

And I'm like, hey, that's a cool song I've never heard of.

And then you learn about the artists and then you look for other songs by the same artists.

And then the next thing you know, it leads you to all these great things.

So yes, bravo to Apple for helping to expose us to new music. - Fun, fun stuff.

Okay, I know that this has been a fun episode.

I appreciate it, Jeff.

In the know, let's go through, I've got a quick tip on this.

So being long-time computer users, as both you and I have been, one of the keys that has always been on our keyboards in the upper left corner is escape, E-S-C.

And I use this, this is one of those muscle memory things, right?

I can't even really tell you when I use it just because it's so built into my muscle memory.

But I know, for example, on my Mac, if an app that I'm using goes into full screen, right?

To where the menu bar and everything disappears, I can hit the escape button and then it minimizes or it brings that application back out of full screen.

And I use it all the time if I wanted to get rid of a dialogue box or something.

So what I have found, however, because the escape key is built into my muscle memory, when I am using my iPad, and I have the magic keyboard, right?

So I usually use the iPad with this physical keyboard on it.

Well, on my magic keyboard on the iPad, there is no escape key.

In fact, where the escape key typically is, is what I call the tilde key, which is on all of the other keyboards, right?

It's just the escape key on regular keyboards is above the tilde key up there.

By the way, when Apple had the MacBook Pros that had the touch bar on the top, where you remember that they took away the physical escape key and they had that little kind of a virtual key, people hated it and so did I.

It wasn't easy to hit all the time and it wasn't always there.

So I was thrilled when Apple brought back the physical escape key.

But when I go to my iPad, I have found more times than I care to count that I'm in doing something on my iPad and I wanna hit the escape key and before I even know what I'm doing, my finger just goes up to that left corner up there and I tap on it, except that it doesn't escape, it hits a tilde in whatever I'm doing.

So I found this article, which was fantastic, Chance Miller, which we've followed for a long time.

I didn't even know that this was a keyboard shortcut, but instead of having an escape key, you can actually use the shortcut Command and Period.

Now Command, Period, and this was actually, he points to Federico Vecchiccio, a Mac story, he's talking about this.

Command, Period might sound familiar because if you're a Mac user, you know that Command, Comma, which I always use the Command key to the right of my space bar, Command and then there's a Comma.

If you do Command, Comma, that will bring up the preferences pane or the settings pane with whatever application that you're in at the same time.

That's on a Mac. - I didn't know that.

Okay. - Yeah, that is an excellent, I use that all the time if I'm in like Microsoft Word and I'm gonna get to the preferences pane, instead of going all the way up to file and then do a settings or something along those lines, you can do Command, Comma.

Well, Command, Period on the Mac and on the iPad works as an escape key.

And I just cannot tell you how happy I was to find this little tip, Jeff.

So one of the ways that I use this all the time, I do Command, Space on my iPad to search for an actual app, for example.

Now, let's say that I wanna get out of the search box because I didn't find what I was looking for and I wanna go and do something different.

Of course, I could just reach up and tap the screen and it dismisses the search function.

But if I do Command, Period now, it actually takes a couple of hits on that to get out of that search box on there.

But Command, Period will dismiss that search box as if I was using an escape key 'cause I've done the escape key on the Mac keyboard as well.

Now, I feel like that there's probably maybe two and a half people listening to this that would care about that tip.

But for me, the only problem is, is that I can't remember.

I knew that there's not an escape key when I'm using the iPad, but then maybe midway through my hand reaching up to the top left corner, I'll remember, oh, I don't have an escape key, but I can now use Command, Period.

And it works okay.

It's not the greatest.

I wish I did have an escape key on my iPad.

But if you are like me and you wish you had an escape key, then Command, Period is a keyboard shortcut that you can use to do escape on your Mac.

On the Mac and the iPad, by the way.

It'll work on both. - Yeah, I didn't know that's my tip for that.

Yeah, I've been doing it right now.

So for example, in my iPad, I'm in Microsoft Word and I brought up the on-screen keyboard, but I have my external keyboard attached.

And if I want to dismiss the on-screen keyboard, if I do Command, Period, there it goes.

It just like the escape key. - That's as if you had the escape key.

Oh, that's another great one.

Yeah, because otherwise you have to like go and hit the little keyboard icon, right?

And then it makes the keyboard disappear.

But I just like having that.

Again, I'm a big keyboard shortcut kind of a person.

I use stuff all the time.

And so being able to have that other little keyboard shortcut on there for Command, Period is helpful for me. - I wonder, I guess there's no way with an external keyboard on the iPad that you could map the tilde key because it's going to the same place.

Okay, can you- - Almost.

There is, in fact, yeah.

So that was solution number one 'cause that's the one that I like.

It's not quite that easy.

You can't do the tilde key, but in this same article, and of course I'll link to it in the show notes, that if that's too cumbersome, you can actually do a modifier key, but you're limited, for example.

They suggest, they do the caps lock key as, and you basically can remap the caps lock key on your iPad keyboard to be an escape key.

But I don't like that 'cause I use the caps lock key quite a bit. - Yeah, that's not quite the same. - I know.

So anyway, you're about 75% of the way there.

You have the right idea, but right now you just can't do, you can only do certain modifier keys in the iPad.

And again, this is for physical keyboards, not the onscreen keyboard.

You can only do certain modifier keys, and of course the tilde is not one of them.

You can do like the globe button, but I use the globe button for other things, right?

So anyway, there's just a few things.

That's why to me, I like the command period shortcut there. - Okay, good tip, Brett.

My tip of the week is something that I have no business even thinking about, and here's what it is.

It's a weather app.

And I already have a perfectly good weather app. - Yeah, what's wrong with it? - It's the Carat Weather app.

I love Carat Weather.

I spend lots of money on it because not only do I have all their premium features, but I even have the family plan because my son likes to have the app too.

So I use it all the time.

Carat Weather, great app, worth paying for.

Second, Apple's built-in weather app is pretty darn good.

And I will often use it for some of my things and stuff like that.

So in my world, I need another weather app like I need a hole in the head.

And yet I'm here to tell you that I now have another weather app. - You've got a hole in your head, okay. - Because I heard this, it was first mentioned when the developer of the app was on another podcast I listened to, John Gruber's podcast.

And the app name is called Weather Up, U-P, Weather Up.

And this is interesting. - I'm gonna go get it.

This is great. - The reason to get the app, Brett, is not to use the app.

I don't even recommend that you use the app.

Ignore the app. - Okay, great. - That sounds great.

The reason that I recommend this is not because of the app itself, but because of the widget and complications that it has. - It does look pretty, yeah. - So the widget, which is like what you would put on your iPhone, or for me, it's even better on my iPad.

I'm looking at it right now.

And if I switch back and forth between the widget that I use for Carat Weather that shows me the forecast of the next couple of days and stuff like that, it's okay.

It's got little widgets, little things.

It's got the number for the high and the low of the day.

And it looks a little bit higher or lower depending upon the day of the week.

But then if I compare it to the widget that Weather Up has, which for those of us that are watching on YouTube, you can actually see a picture that Brett's showing right now it has like this line that goes from the high of the day to the low of the day and up and down.

And to me, just looking at this graphically, it makes more sense.

Plus, if there's rain in the forecast, like for example, I'm looking at this right now, you know, we're recording this on Friday morning.

On Friday afternoon here in New Orleans today, there's a chance of rain.

And I can see just like the picture that you're showing on your screen right now, Brett, the New Orleans forecast looks almost like that because in a couple of hours, I can see that it's about to start all this blue, it's about to start raining.

And so, you know, what do you want out of a widget?

What you want out of a widget is you want something that you can glance at and very quickly get exactly what you need.

But it's more than that.

It's actually an interactive widget.

So if I tap the widget in the bottom right corner where there's an arrow, I can then, you know, just like if it was a regular app, I can move forward to see like, you know, even further days into the future and stuff like that.

So it displays useful information.

It's an interactive widget. - Oh, I like it. - And frankly, it's fantastic.

And as if that wasn't enough, but wait, there's more.

For your Apple Watch, which you're also showing on your screen, there's a very nice widget that I look at it and I'll tell you, Brett, I have been using weather complications on my Apple Watch since day one.

And this is by far, it's the same interface we were just talking about.

It's just an Apple Watch version of it where you can see these lines and you can see, you know, the blue where it's gonna rain.

And I've been using it for the last week.

So here's what happened.

I heard about this app and I installed it.

And when I installed it, you have to subscribe.

And so I said, okay, I'm gonna subscribe for four bucks a week.

And as soon as I downloaded the app, before I even tried it, I immediately, or a month, whatever it is, I immediately went into my Apple subscriptions and canceled the subscription because I didn't want the risk that I forget about the app and then it would start charging me.

Because that way I could use it for the first month for free or whatever the time period was and then I could pay.

And then after using it for about a week, I went back into my Apple settings and I turned my subscription back on, at least for a monthly subscription.

I haven't done the annual subscription yet because right now I have literally been using this app both as a widget on my iPad. - It looks so good.

I love the way it looks. - It looks so good.

And so, I mean, I got to give it to them.

Now, what happens if you do use the app?

If you do use the app on the iPhone, what's interesting is unlike many other weather apps that open up and they show you like numbers and stuff like that, it opens directly to the map view, which is interesting, because you can sort of see weather patterns as they're moving around the country, getting closer to you and stuff like that.

And the developer of the app points out that it's actually more expensive for them to make this the default view because whenever you have map views, the developers have to pay more money to third parties that provide this information.

So, he's just pointing out that, this is why I'm charging for the app because I need to pay money for all these data sources and we're trying to do it.

So, but I will tell you though, good for him, applaud the developer for making a map view when you log in.

To tell you the truth, in my experience, the map view and weather up isn't so different from the map view and carrot weather that I pay for. - Okay, okay. - That it's really worth extra money for it.

So, you know, there's nothing about the app itself that to me is worth paying money for considering that I already have another solution.

If you don't already have another solution, maybe like this one.

But the complications and the widgets are so good that I don't know, I might just keep this app.

It's really good. - I just love the simplicity of the widget.

I mean, honestly, that's what I do.

I will sometimes go into the weather app if I wanna see like what I, what somebody thinks that the weather's gonna be like in two days from now.

But you know, it's just, I'm looking at the app now.

There's, they do such a great job of like, giving you all the information about, you know, there is not a free option and why, just like you, they said they used to do an ad supported version, but got so many complaints about, you know, all the junk around it.

I just, I love it when it's, these are two folks that are creating an app that they know that they like and they want it.

And I just, I love to support folks like this and it just looks so good, but I rarely go into the app so much.

I always like enjoy the widgets when I come down to the weather and something like this, it's just really, I mean, I can see it immediately and know what's going on.

So I'm with you on there. - Yeah, the app, I should've said before the app costs, I think you said it, it costs $4 per month, or you can pay $40 a year.

So I guess you're getting two months free if you do that. - Yeah, I'm thinking. - Or you can pay a $160 lifetime purchase. - Oh, well that's not too bad. - So I will not be doing that, but I'm gonna give you $4 a month for a while. - I know, and I think I'm gonna sign up for a little bit too, just because it reminds me, it just, it's been interesting to see sort of the evolution of apps.

Right?

This reminds me of Flighty, one of my favorite apps that I have, that I know it's a very small team working on it, but I am thrilled to give them some support, you know, from a financial standpoint, just because it's like, that's the kind of apps that we wanna see.

There's so many hundreds and thousands of apps that are out there that maybe all do the same thing, just not some of it, but something useful like this is really good.

And then I also realized you pay a lot for weather, Jeff. (laughing) Which is good. - Well, here in New Orleans, we got lots of rain, the weather's always changing. - Yeah, you gotta stay on top of it. - I gotta, I realized that if I lived in Southern California, maybe I wouldn't care about the weather, but here in New Orleans, weather is a thing.

Weather is definitely a thing, hurricanes and stuff.

So, yep. - All right, well stay dry, and then we'll talk with you next week.

Thanks, Jeff.