In the News
In the News
143: Game Boys on iPhones and Maps on Cassette Tapes
Watch the video!
https://youtu.be/UfW7ZKIo28Y
In the News blog post for April 19, 2024:
https://www.iphonejd.com/iphone_jd/2024/04/in-the-news723.html
00:00 iGame Boy
11:01 Enterprise Apples
17:16 Noted: One Vision
24:23 Phone Cage Match
28:45 Cassette Tape Maps
33:14 HomeKit Kompleteness
37:16 Where Y’at? Segment: Pothole Emergency
41:51 Palm Beach Proficiency
47:19 Brett’s iTip: Compass App
52:19 Jeff’s iTip: Measure (Level) App
John Gruber | Daring Fireball: Delta Game Emulator Now Available from the App Store
John Voorhees | MacStories: How to Load Your Game Boy Games Onto the iPhone to Play in the Delta Emulator
Jason Snell | Six Colors: Apple in the Enterprise: A 2024 report card
Greg MacEachern | Microsoft: Microsoft OneNote now available on Apple Vision Pro
Malcolm Owen | AppleInsider: Rode's MagSafe Phone Cage and new mount will give a boost to your iPhone videography
Map Happenings: A Curious Phenomenon Called ‘Etak’
MacStories Team: HomeKit Gadgets: The MacStories Team Collection
Wirecutter: The Secret to Making Your Kitchen Great for Cooking and Entertaining: Smart Lighting
David Williams | The New Zealand Herald: Nelson double fatal crash: Police name Marlborough teens killed, close friend pays tribute
Ben Cost | New York Post: Bicyclist’s life saved by smartwatch — it automatically called 911 after horrific crash: ‘Apple thinks of everything’
Brett’s iTip: iPhone Compass App
Jeff’s iTip: Use the iPhone as a Level - Measure App
Brett Burney from http://www.appsinlaw.com
Jeff Richardson from http://www.iphonejd.com
(upbeat music) - Welcome to In the News for April 19, 2024.
I am Brett Burney from appsinlaw.com. - And this is Jeff Richardson from iPhone JD.
Good morning, Brett. - Good morning, Jeff.
What a day.
It's a, I did not know that I was gonna be able to play, when I got up this morning, I did not know I was gonna be able to play Game Boy Games on my iPhone, but thank you.
Thank you so much for the first story that you covered today, Jeff.
My day is already complete and it's just started. - What a surprise.
I mean, Apple has been so restrictive in the types of apps that they allow in the app store.
I mean, well, let me rephrase that.
There's a huge number of apps that they allow, but there's always been a few categories that they never would.
And you know, one of them, for example, is anything with adult content.
You know, you're not gonna get that in the app store.
But another one of the things that they have never had has been these emulators.
And it's not that the emulator itself is necessarily problematic, but it's just that we all know that the ROMs, as they call it, the actual games that you use on these things are typically filmed, you know, pirated on the internet and stuff.
So it's sort of questionable legality.
Although there have been people that have gone back and have made, I mean, I just think it's fascinating that somebody will go back and make a brand new game for the Atari 2600 or the Game Boy or something like that.
You know, because, you know, if you're a programmer, it's probably a pretty good way to learn because when you have those systems that are so limited in RAM and what they can do, I mean, you gotta be really clever to make it a, you know, it's probably a good way to come up with a game.
So, but to the surprise of all of us, you know, Apple now has to, because of European regulations, have an app, have alternative app stores.
And so alternative app stores are now a legitimate thing.
And I fully expected that the European alternative app stores not being run from Apple might have stuff like this.
But to my surprise, Apple itself said that you can have emulators.
And so I think last weekend, there was a couple of days where somebody had put what was actually sort of a hack version of Delta up in the thing.
And I took a look at it, I downloaded it for free, and it was so full of ads.
I'm like, this is ridiculous.
So I deleted it.
But then the actual developer of this app called Delta, who's been developing it for a long time, but you had to sideload it through all sorts of, let's just say it's not easy to get on your iPhone.
You can now just go in the app store, click get, and it's free and you have it. - There it is. - It's the number one app in the entire app store.
And you know, the thing is, first of all- - The whole app store.
Not just free apps.
The whole app store. - Not just the free apps, not just the games.
This is the number one app.
And it is ridiculously easy to just go on the internet and just type whatever game you can think of from the Game Boy or from Nintendo or anything else, just type that name and type ROM, and you will instantly see many, many sites that will give you the ROM that you could download the cartridge.
And I'm not gonna say what I did or did not do, but I will say this.
There was a movie that recently came on, was it Apple TV Plus called Tetris?
That was about the history of the game Tetris.
And they talked about how Tetris was first developed in Russia for the computer.
But then when it was ported to the Nintendo Game Boy, that's when it became wildly popular.
So many people were playing Tetris for the Game Boy.
I myself never really had a Game Boy, so I didn't play it way back when.
But I can tell you that I now have a sense of what it's like to play Tetris on the Game Boy. - Okay. - I mean, one could put it on there if you want, assuming of course you have legal rights to download it and put it on there.
And it's sort of fun for me.
And that's sort of, I'm saying this tongue in cheek, but that's what I love about these emulators is it's almost like going into a history museum.
It's just a history museum for arcade games or video games.
And so the things that we were playing in the '80s and the '90s, now you can relive that.
And some of them actually have perfect staying power.
They're just as fun today as they were before.
Others show their age.
But I think it's great that at least we have the opportunity to go back and try some of these old games again. - I know that this is a whole world that I've only just barely like poked at it once or twice.
It's this emulation, the ROM games, you know, there have been things like, hey, do you wanna play, do you remember your old Atari 2600 games that you used to play back in the '80s?
And I'm like, yeah, like Chopper Command and, you know, what was the one where he jumped?
Yeah, what was it, not Pitfall, or Jungle? - Jungle, he jumped across the, yeah. - Okay, maybe it was Pitfall, you know, Frogger.
Anyway, all of those things.
And there are some of these that I know I've tried on Windows computers, on Mac computers before, to where you could do it, and it looks just like you were looking at your old cathode ray television screen back in the day, but you didn't have the joystick, right?
You'd have to use the keyboard keys.
I mean, you could, there's some USB joysticks and stuff you could get, but you were basically just emulating that idea and that thrill back in the day.
But like you said, I mean, this is a crazy world that a lot of people have really invested a lot of time and effort in, but I've never seen it from the iPhone side, and this is why you're talking about it today, 'cause it's just so amazing.
But, you know, here's the thing.
I never got into the Game Boy either, Jeff, which I'm very sad at, but my wife, I know, did many, many, many, many hours of her youth spent on Tetris on the Game Boy.
But one of the things that I did like about the Game Boy when I had a chance to touch it is the physical buttons about it, right?
So in this aspect, what you're doing is you've got, the buttons look like they come on the screen, but they're not physical buttons, right?
They're the, like, you have to like kind of, so, okay.
So it's a little bit of a less experience, but it's still there, yes? - However, you know, there are companies that make these external buttons, whether it's Bluetooth or something that sort of fits.
In fact, you're showing a picture of one right now that fits in from the sides of the iPhone.
And so it actually adds physical buttons and Delta works with these products.
And so if you really want to get, if you really want to use your modern iPhone, but get the feel of an old style game console, the portable game console, you can add one of these things to it with the buttons on it.
Or like I said, I think you can even add Bluetooth buttons and Delta works with all this stuff.
And so I agree, to get the real experience, you don't want to just be touching the screen to make the Tetris flip back and forth and go left and right.
You want to actually have that tactile thing.
And in fact, I showed this to my son the other day and he and I had watched this Tetris, actually it wasn't a movie.
There was a video on YouTube that was talking about the Tetris world champion and how the real Tetris champions, what they would do is they had this technique that in addition to, and I forget the sex of it, in addition to touching the buttons, if you press a button down, it takes a while for it to pop back up.
So the real pros would also tap the controllers from the bottom to pop the button back up so they could tap it again even faster.
And there's this thing called rolling the buttons and like the world champions all do this rolling the buttons thing, which just shows you that it's the physical buttons make a big difference.
So I just thought it was funny that when I showed this to my son, his first comment was, "Oh, can you still roll the buttons?"
I'm like, "Oh, well that's funny."
That's his first thought. - I like it.
Well, so part of this, like you went down the rabbit hole here 'cause everybody was talking about it, but this is from John Vorey's, how to load your Game Boy games onto the iPhone to play in the Delta emulator.
I know this was- - So first of all, this is arguably legal, right?
This is arguably legal because it's a new game.
But what's so cool is you're literally taking your old cartridge with your old safe state and you're continuing on from where you were 20 years ago.
I mean, that's just too funny. - Yeah, you'll lead to it.
This is Frederico from Max Stories.
He says on Mastodon, "I never thought I'd see the day a real Nintendo emulator on the iPhone."
Just to your point, Jeff.
But here I am with my own.
He said, "Ripped copy of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, playing my saved game from 21 years ago." - My goodness. - He was 15 when he last saved this.
And so, on his site, Max Stories, John Vorey's is talking about how you can use, I guess it's like a USB little cartridge, like almost like a toast.
It looks like a little mini toaster, if you will.
He says he calls it the Game Boy Toaster.
But you just put in your cartridge and you can keep playing.
If you still have that cartridge, that is so fascinating to me and so beautiful on several levels, I think.
I love this. - And this is actually what gets to the legal version of this.
These cartridges are only gonna last for so long.
And in fact, you don't have batteries in them and they may have already have died.
So if you've got these sitting around, especially if they've been sitting around at an attic or someplace that they haven't been necessarily preserved in a pristine environment, these cartridges might be about to die.
So if you actually wanted to preserve them, there is a legitimate reason to make a copy of them so that you can then have them and then put it on.
And this is, get to the point where, I mean, I'm not a copyright lawyer, but it seems reasonable to me.
I don't know if it's legal or not, but it seems like a pretty reasonable thing to do with your old cartridges.
So, pretty cool. - That's cool.
I was just gonna say, last thing I was thinking about, a friend that I've known for a couple of years now, that he is in this world of collecting old games.
Like he's got his own little museum down in his basement.
And he will literally, he's told me how he goes out on eBay or some of these other sites, Jeff, just devoted to this, where people are selling these game cartridges.
So I can't wait to send this to him today 'cause I'm like, hey, you have yet another option.
Now again, he goes into this whole world, he has other emulators and things that he has created over the years.
But obviously now, the fact that he has another option with his iPhone to be able to use this is pretty cool. - And before we move on completely from this topic, Brett, I mean, the big topic, just to sort of big picture it, we're talking about game emulation and this is interesting, but just to step back, this is Apple and whether they're doing it on their own or whether they're being prompted by regulation from the EU or elsewhere, they are rethinking what is appropriate for the app store, which I think is interesting because there may well be other categories of apps that in the past Apple would have said, well, we don't know.
And now under threats of regulation of, them being too much of deciding what people can and cannot get, maybe they might sort of open up a little bit more.
And I don't even know what the next category would be, but once you have this, you could have other categories as well.
So it will be interesting to see if this is it, or is this the first and maybe a few dominoes of new types of apps on the app store?
I can't wait to find out. - You were just saying like, this could be some kind of a shot or a clue from Apple that possibly they may be rethinking some of their app store, which again, we've talked about this before.
There are pros and cons on both sides, right?
I kind of like that Apple has such an iron fist about it sometimes because I know I can trust apps, but others are like, well, wait a minute, we need a more free marketplace, which obviously the EU believes.
So yeah, I don't know.
It is kind of interesting that it seems like it kind of slid under the radar a little bit.
I don't know.
I don't know how it came about, but it's like maybe Apple is just kind of, you know, firing a test shot and see where it's gonna land on that.
From game emulators to enterprise emulators, maybe, I don't know.
It's just pretty much, it's like, you know, for personal gaming into how do we use Apple in the enterprise of the corporate enterprise today?
Jason Zell has done this several times and I know there's another columnist, I think he's computer world, Macaholic, I think, who does a great job of, you know, there's not too many people covering how Apple devices are used in like the corporate environment.
And so I, to me, I guess, because of the obviously the careers you and I are in, I kind of like to see these, like how much do we know?
Obviously we know the iPhone and the iPad is dominated, you know, from a mobile device, but really most of the time when I'm asking about, does that mean Macs are now being used a little bit more?
Jason Zell does a good job, I think, every year of kind of having a report card of Apple in the enterprise.
And he quotes several people, including our own Jeff Richardson in this article, which I think is good. - Yeah, I think it's great that he did this.
He's always done a nice job of keeping his finger on the pulse of the market in general.
And a few years ago, he started to look at the enterprise market.
And so it's interesting because these are, you know, huge companies that support all of Apple products, including Macs, but then it also includes, you know, for example, I'm a big, I work at a big law firm.
And although we no longer support Macs, we used to a very long time ago in the nineties and early two thousands, but we absolutely support iPhones and iPads.
In fact, that by far the number one smartphone at our firm is iPhone.
We do have some Android users, but mostly it's iPhones and lots of iPads as well.
And so we, now we are a BYOB shop.
So it's not like my firm is buying, you know, sets of iPhones, but in terms of the support side, we absolutely are concerned on this on a day-by-day basis in terms of, you know, mobile device management and, you know, security and all the things and deployment of apps to multiple people at once.
I mean, this is something that we're very much into and it's a different type of use, right?
It's, you know, the enterprise considerations for things like an iPhone are very different from the things that you and I would think of just as a consumer, you know, just your own personal device that you deal with yourself and that you put whatever you want on it and stuff.
And so I think it's interesting to feel, to get a sense of the pulse of, you know, where is Apple doing well, where are they not doing well?
And, you know, so you can see things like, you know, security and, you know, hardware, you know, where people are happy.
And then there's other things that people are not quite as happy as the previous years.
And so it's interesting to, it's interesting to see the overall statistics.
And then Jason did a good job of taking sort of some snippets of different comments that people said and just to sort of read through them.
And of course there's not uniformity, as you would expect, different people have different takes, but, you know, you read all of it and you sort of get a sense of, you know, what are people thinking right now?
My hope is that people at Apple read this article because I always had a sense that Apple's number one concern, and this is a good thing, Apple's number one concern is the end user, and that's great.
But there have been times over the years where Apple has seemed to be more responsive to the needs of big organizations.
And then there are times when they have seemed to be less responsive to it.
And so, you know, I don't want them to forget about, you know, those of us that work in organizations that have heightened security needs and stuff like that.
So. - Sure.
And Jason even goes through like some of the things, we call it MDM, mobile device management, which I don't know if it's mobile anymore.
It's almost like all device management for computing devices. - Everything's mobile now.
Yeah, good point. - Pretty much exactly right.
But I also like, you know, he was just mentioning, which I think is significant, that the Apple Silicon Macs are a big winner.
I mean, so we're in 2024 now, right?
We've had Silicon Macs for maybe three, three and a half, four years, somewhere around there.
And I know, as you do, like, you know, corporate environments, it takes like two or three years, right, for things to kind of turn around or to refresh computers, that kind of a thing.
And I feel like it takes two or three years if we were gonna see any kind of a hit, you know, from the Silicon Macs.
But I mean, I just know, you know, from anecdotally, everybody that I talked to that has switched to an Apple Mac, either from an old non-Silicon Mac to, you know, from Windows to Silicon Mac, I mean, just continues to be so much happier.
And I mean, I can't wait, hopefully in a couple of months, we're gonna hear what Apple is continuing to provide for Silicon.
Processors on their own processors.
But yeah, anyway, interesting, interesting thing here.
He even actually covered the Vision Pro too.
And that's where you were quoted a little bit in some of this, like, who has plans to deploy?
Apparently 10% are deployed it. 31% are gonna wait and see, but 58% have no plans to adopt the Vision Pro. - And you know, just to pause right there, Brett, I think those are interesting because we're talking about something that is so, so brand new and so futuristic.
And it's been out for like two months now, right?
And this is brand new.
And yet already, if you count the people that are already deploying them and the people that are wait and see, and I think there's sort of a lot of crossover there, you know, you've got just over 40% of the market saying, yeah, we're interested here.
Maybe we're doing it now.
Maybe we're just keeping an eye on it.
But that's a pretty high level of interest for, I would consider the enterprise market usually slow to adopt.
You know, they sort of, well, they wanna wait and see, let's see what it is, see how safe it is.
And we'll take slow steps. - Absolutely. - Companies are notorious, and this has been true for decades of, you know, Windows, for example, will come out with a new version of Windows, Windows 10, Windows 11.
And then it takes years, years for companies to get there because they have to wait for all of the software to be updated and then they have to wait for the safety stuff.
And so, you know, whereas people might get something on day one, companies will get something on day, you know, 1001.
And so for something like the Vision Pro, which could not be more prototype-y, you know, early, and yet there's this much interest, I think that that's promising because right now big companies are not buying Vision Pros or really supporting them that much.
But if there's this much interest at day one, it makes you wonder five years down the road, maybe this will actually be a thing.
Because if there was absolutely zero interest today, notwithstanding Apple's advertisements and everything else, I think that would have been a really bad sign for Apple.
So when I look at the graph that you're showing on the screen right now, I see this as very promising given who they are surveying here, so. - Well, it seems like it's getting supported by other companies, namely Microsoft.
Microsoft OneNote application is gonna be available on the Apple Vision Pro.
I'll let you talk about it, but just my quick thought on this, just the fact, I mean, I use OneNote every day.
I love OneNote.
I use it when I share notes with folks.
I use it for myself as a way to collect information, you know, from a variety of different resources.
I've really enjoyed what Microsoft has continued to do with OneNote.
And the fact that they're actually releasing a full app for the Vision Pro, again, tells me that, you know, they've put some time and effort into it.
I remember when OneNote was only available on Windows, for example, and we would say, "Hey, we want a Mac version."
And they eventually did, but it was almost like only until they found enough of a need for that, right?
Or a justification to put some resources into that.
And the fact, to your point, that they found some justification to put some resources into creating that Microsoft OneNote for the Vision Pro, that tells me a lot as well, because I think OneNote is used certainly on the personal side, but definitely used on the corporate side as well.
This is encouraging. - Yeah, I mean, I sort of, this is significant to me for three reasons.
Number one, Microsoft said on day one of the Vision Pro that they wanted to be a part of this.
And so they immediately released things like Word and Excel.
And then since then, they have continued to release other things like this.
So this is Microsoft living up to its promise, which is great.
Number two, as you just said, people love Microsoft Notes.
It is one of those apps that people just live with them.
And it makes sense to me.
And although I don't personally use it because I just happen to have some other solutions that I have grown to love over time, the things that people use Notes for, I do a hundred percent of it.
It's just, I use different apps for it, but I totally understand how you want to have everything in one place.
You can organize it.
You can keep your notes.
You can keep your work.
It is such a fantastic product.
And so for the people that love it, to be able to carry this with them, even as they move between, as you said already, Windows and Mac and iPad, and now into the future with Vision Pro, people are going to love this because it's going to make the Vision Pro more nice for them.
And then the final thing is, I really think that although people definitely use OneNote for personal, OneNote is, that's just like saying people use PowerPoint for personals, but at the same time- - Exactly, good point.
That's right. - When we say PowerPoint, we really know it's business users, right?
And likewise with OneNote, the mainstream OneNote user is a business user.
And although the version of OneNote that's available today as we're speaking, and Microsoft says this in the announcement, it's just for the personal version of OneNote.
And that's only because they have not yet moved over their MDM software and stuff like that to the Vision Pro.
They would not have, I mean, I am a hundred percent sure there is zero chance that Apple would have, that Microsoft would have ported OneNote to the Vision Pro if it didn't mean that they were also relatively close to getting the rest of it.
So I see this as, you know, this is just like reading the tea leaves.
If this is ready today, the other stuff's coming.
And so I did a post yesterday on iPhone JD about how there's a comment in here that Microsoft says that their two-factor authentication app is coming very soon, which is something that I use literally every day for my information. - Oh yeah, that's right. - So that's good news.
And although they haven't, that's the authenticator app, and although they haven't specifically said anything about their MDM software, that, you know, I have to believe that those are two halves of the same coin and that that's coming soon.
So I was thrilled to see this.
It's Microsoft continuing to live up to the promise that they made, you know, a few months ago.
And my hope is certainly that before the end of this year, Microsoft gets a lot of their stuff, including their security stuff, the MDM software, all the way ported over.
In which case, that's gonna be great because then we're gonna be just like we already are on the iPad, you know, you and I, we talk about this all the time.
We remember how momentous it was when Microsoft brought Word to the iPad and now it's just old hat.
Of course they have Word on the iPad.
You know, I wanna get all the Microsoft stuff and the Vision Pro so that as the Vision Pro in the future becomes to be something you can really use to get work done, all of your Microsoft software is already there.
That's gonna be huge, huge. - Did you download OneNote for your Vision Pro yet? - I haven't because again, I'm not a OneNote user. - You're not using it. - Except for just, you know, I mean, I've used it over the years to kick around and just sort of see, you know, what does it have, what does it not have because people that love it, like you, Brett, always tell me how good it is.
So I don't wanna ignore it, but yeah. - Well, you know, here's the way I tell people 'cause I know for one thing, you use GoodNotes quite a bit, right?
In fact, I remember you saying that you downloaded GoodNotes on the Vision Pro and you were able to make it work, although I don't think that they have an official app quite yet, but you were able to make it work. - Yeah, I was just like that version, right, yeah. - The way I tell people is I say, I use Notability or GoodNotes and I think of that as like my replacement for my yellow legal pad, right? - Absolutely. - That's what I use. - Absolutely. - And then I say, for OneNote, the way I think about it is the old Trapper Keeper from the days in grade school or, you know, for a more, I guess, a little bit more modern thing, like if we have three ring binders, like we deal with all the time in, you know, business and stuff, and then we have those little colored index tabs, right, that you would put tabs, that's the way that I think about something like OneNote.
That's how I kind of, you know, separate the two.
If I just need to jot a quick note, I'm always gonna open up Notability or GoodNotes, jot that note down.
Sometimes I will even export that out as a PDF and then I can put it into OneNote with a collection of some of the other things that I have.
And I know you've got some other workflows, but just so that people know.
The other thing, quickly, I'm just gonna say, here's a great screenshot of this, what it looks like on the Vision Pro.
And this almost makes me excited.
First of all, you can see there's the three columns here.
One is the little colored, you know, index tabs here.
And then in each tab or section, you have your pages and these different pages here, which is great 'cause I just collect all the things, you know, when I'm surfing the web, that kind of a thing.
But the one thing I don't like about OneNote on the iPad, Jeff, is that I can't extend these columns.
And so sometimes my notebook sections are very long and it cuts it off.
Like, I can't see the entire title on there.
And it gets me very frustrated.
And so I guess as trivial as that is, that gets me excited that it is on something like the Vision Pro because on the iPad, I can't stretch out my canvas.
I can't stretch out that view more.
And I feel like on the Vision Pro, that's perfect for that because I just want it to be expansive.
When I'm talking about the expensive, by the way, each page is almost like an unlimited canvas so that you can do it.
And sometimes I get limited because I gotta like scroll back and forth.
And I love that I can post things around, but sometimes it gets unwieldy.
And again, I'm thinking, the Vision Pro, beautiful.
I'm not constrained by the four corners of a monitor anymore and something like that.
And so anyway, that was a long explanation as to describe why I'm getting excited about that.
But I'm glad that you posted.
And again, it's just encouraging for the things you keep talking about.
We're now two and a half months in with the Vision Pro and already we're starting to see some really promising things come out of this faster than I think I actually expected, which is good.
For the iPhone, by the way, if you want some additional holders, or I just love that they call this the phone cage.
This was a neat little article that you linked to here from the company Rode, R-O-D-E, which I've always known sort of as an audio company, Jeff, but it looks like that they are now not only, they make fantastic microphones for the iPhone.
They have been for a long time, but they have a MagSafe phone cage, which looks a little futuristic, almost like a rectangle steering wheel.
But I can see how effective this is.
This is really cool stuff. - Yeah, what I've often talked about in the past is when I take videos, whether it's just me recording one of my daughter's sports or something like that, just holding your iPhone up in your hand, your arm gets tired after a while and you start to shake and it's not a good idea.
So if you're gonna do long form recording a video, I currently use something from the, who's from 12 South, whatever, the Glyph and the little holder that sort of has a handle. - Oh, yes. - And I like this. - I know you mentioned that. - Because I can actually hold it still and it holds my iPhone.
Now, I'm actually not using a Glyph at the top of it.
I'm using a third-party knockoff product made by a company called Arnercock, only because my Glyph broke because I use it so much.
And I've had one on order for like four months.
I literally ordered it before my daughter's basketball season started, which was like in December, November, December.
And here we are in April and they still haven't shipped it out.
And I needed one 'cause I use this all the time.
And so I bought another one on Amazon, which has been fine, but I don't like it quite as much as I like the Glyph.
So I'm waiting for the Glyph to come out.
But this is my solution for it, what I'm having in my hand right now.
So what Rode has come up with is even more sophisticated.
First of all, you hold it a little differently.
Like you said, it's almost like a zero wheel and you can hold it with one hand or two, but it also has all these places around it that you can screw things in and attachments.
And so this is really for the next level of person.
If you want to attach a microphone or like you can see in a picture here, they have another product that's just uses MagSafe specifically for that.
Or if you want to use this cage to have a whole bunch of other things put up onto it.
And so this is definitely the next level up, but as the sophistication of the iPhone as a device for recording video becomes even better, it means that amateur and even sort of semi-amateur, semi-pro videographers that people that might make a living recording weddings and stuff like that, it's getting to the point where they're gonna probably get just as good quality with an iPhone.
And so they're gonna want something like this.
This is just a minor cost for them to have all sorts of things, to not just have the quality of the video from the iPhone, but to improve the lighting and to improve the audio and to improve all this other stuff.
So I think it's awesome to see professional companies like Rode, you know, enhance how you can use the iPhone for video. - Looking at these things, it just makes me think the iPhone is a professional film camera, you know, that can also make phone calls, by the way.
It's just like, I like turning that aspect around a little bit because it's just amazing what it can do.
Also, when I saw this, I thought of a product that I think we would remember.
We've seen it at a couple of conferences called the Padcaster.
And I just thought this was so brilliant when they came out with this, but it's similar to what you're talking about.
It looks like it's crazy here, but this is basically like for schools that they don't have a professional grade camera, but they have iPads and they can use this device in a similar way that you can attach lights, you can attach microphones, you can attach teleprompters, all kinds of things on there.
And anyway, just as exciting that it's still a lot of stuff going on on there. - I mean, you and I often talk about how the iPhone is such a great camera, but you know, as good as a still camera it is, it is an even better video camera.
I mean, the iPhone is a video camera.
It's really unparalleled.
I see zero reason for anyone to use, certainly for any consumer to use a standalone video camera nowadays 'cause the iPhone is so good.
There are still reasons why some people like to have higher end, whether they be four, three still cameras and stuff like that.
And you can have nice lenses and stuff.
So that market still exists, but on the video side, you have to be, have real special needs to have a reason to have a video camera that's not an iPhone, the iPhone's so good. - We already walked down memory lane for Game Boys in the 80s.
And now I had no idea that CarPlay, Apple CarPlay was designed in the 1980s as well. (laughing) What a fantastic, lovely little article that you linked to today.
I had no idea that the eTac, E-T-A-K, was even a thing in the early 80s.
And it just kind of blew my mind that it's like, it just, it made me realize what we take for granted today, that we have the ability to have GPS mapping in the palm of our hands.
And in the 80s, it was only something that James Bond could have and that we would only dream of.
This is an amazing article. - This article is a delight, and I really encourage anyone to take a look at it and read it.
It is just such a fun read.
I mean, first of all, it reminds us that, back in the 1980s, it's funny because when it comes to driving around, my kids, my son gets in the car and he just puts in a direction in his iPhone and sits in CarPlay and just drives.
It's like, oh, it'll tell me on the way how to get there sort of thing, which is just amazing because we remember that when I was 18 year old, back in the 80s, you'd have to look at a map to figure out where you're going and look at the signs and have either, either it was the big-- - Paper map. - The big Rand McNally map with all the pages or maybe just a little small version of the metro.
And you'd have to go in the back and find this street is on Whit Square.
I mean, it was a pain.
And so this type of technology at the time was so cutting edge, but of course, it wasn't even cutting edge.
It was really ahead of its time.
I mean, the technology couldn't keep up with what they were trying to do with this device.
And so, of course, it had nothing like a modern screen.
So it was this, you know, vector graphics screen. - Yeah, green, chrome. - Very slow to update and stuff like that.
And you would have to, of course there was no downloading of maps because there's no downloading period.
There was no internet. - Right. - So you would use cassette tapes to load on specific cities. - Cassette tapes. - And then have to get updates.
You know, the things that they did are just, when you read this article and all the obstacles that they had to overcome, it is unbelievable.
And then, you know, the funniest thing is that the product lives on today.
I mean, it was eventually purchased by one company and then another one and another one.
And I think the current owner of this was Tom Tom or whoever owns it now.
I think that Tom Tom actually has something to do with Apple.
I think you could probably draw a line that at least connects a little bit to CarPlay from where this all started back in the 1980s.
And then, you know, the one final thing, and not to give away the article, and I'm not, because there's so many gems in here, but the one more that I wanted to say is, when you think of the modern, was this at the end of the article, Brent, that was like the modern indication of where your car is on a map.
You know, we all know what it looks like.
It's sort of like an upside down triangle.
There's no question. - You're the blue dot. - Once you read this article, it came from here because it was the idea of, it's almost like a Star Trek sort of thing that's, you know, the upside down.
You know, they came up with this idea. - Like an arrow. - And in the article, they even described that they needed to have a way to indicate which way you were directed, you know, and so they came up with this idea, and here we are nowadays, and it's the same shape, more or less, is still being used by all these systems.
So this is where it all comes back to, is this very futuristic product.
So what a great read to find out about this again.
And, you know, it makes me wonder what products we're not using today. - I know. - That someone in the future is gonna write similar articles of, gosh, look how, you know, revolutionary and what foresight they had to come up with this product back in the, you know, 2024.
This is just a gem of an article. - In 1985, the cost of this, in 1985, was $1,395.
I mean, what would that be today, Jeff?
I mean, that would probably be the, (laughing) it's gonna be 10 times that from '85.
And just the fact that it was on cassette tapes, which I know, we talked about this before.
I remember my RadioShack TRS-80 computer that I stored my programs on cassette tapes.
So it wasn't like, you know, today that just sounds so gnarly and absolutely ridiculous.
But in the past, I mean, that was, we didn't have CDs.
We didn't even have floppies really. - We had a lot later.
My Commodore 64 used a cassette tape.
And I remember the day that I upgraded to the 1541.
Why would I still remember that number?
The 1541 drive to actually get floppy disks.
It was so amazing to move up from a cassette tape to floppy disks, so. - Right.
Okay, great stuff.
Thank you so much for putting all of that together.
Something else that could probably use some cassette tape storage, maybe it would be HomeKit. (laughing) Let's switch gears to HomeKit.
No cassette tapes involved, although I guess you could use HomeKit to maybe control your cassette player if you still had one.
But that's not gonna be listed in here.
In Mac Stories, this was a really fantastic list.
You and I have talked about HomeKit so often.
You are all in on home automation, or something that I admire so much in what you have done so far.
I have not even begun, yet begun, to start.
In fact, I was just maybe gonna pull the trigger on a smart garage door opener the other day, and I didn't do it quite yet.
But looking through this list, I felt like, from Mac Stories and just all of their contributors kind of put their list of the products that they're using.
Frederico is way above my pay grade here. - Oh my goodness. - And some of the others here are pretty amazing.
What a great collection here.
Thanks for linking to this too, Jeff. - That's what I love about it, is that it comes from so many different directions.
I mean, you have Frederico tying into some sophisticated system built into his house, which only some people, and then you have other people talking about things like the Philips Hue, which are one of the first ones that have been around for such a long time.
And as I pointed out in my connection to this, they didn't even talk about the Lutron stuff, which I love so much.
Even though they're a little more expensive, they're just so reliable.
And so, if you're just trying to figure out where to get started, this article, or maybe you already have gotten started and you're curious how to expand, they have some great options in here.
And not every option is gonna be best for what person, for every person, but just reading through this is a great way to get a sense of, here's what some really smart people have found to be useful as options to consider.
They have really good options in here. - I even like, I didn't really know too much about the HomeKit Power Strips.
I mean, that, number one, is a great place to start.
Other than the Lutron Switch, and some of the, just the very basic plugs that you can put in, from TP-Link, I think, and some of these others, I mean, there's a lot that are out there on there.
And then you have another link to the Wire Cutter, which, what was this that they were covering here? - Their spin on it was, they were saying that if you wanna have a really good kitchen, you wanna have really good lighting.
And they're talking about how you might wanna change.
The kitchen is, for so many people, the center of their house.
It's not just where you cook.
People hang out in the kitchen.
It's sort of connected to the living room and the entertaining center.
So they were pointing out that if you wanna, you know, really have your kitchen to the next level, you're gonna wanna have some specialized lighting that could change colors, - Oh, okay. - and mood, and stuff like that.
And of course, this was a natural transition into smart lighting, so that you can control it that way.
And so they used the kitchen as sort of the hook for let's talk about a bunch of our smart lighting solutions. - I got it now.
Yeah, that's good.
In fact, it's so appropriate, 'cause I was just replacing something that ended up above our dining room table.
And, you know, I like it to have a dimmer switch, 'cause in the mornings, I come up and have a cup of coffee.
I like to have it dimmed down just a little bit.
So, and then, you know, by the midday, it's like we turn it up all the way.
Yeah, that's great.
I appreciate that. - Let me share a story of my modern woes that I had.
This was two nights ago, Brett.
I just finished writing the article that we just talked about that was posted about the Microsoft, and the OneNight, and the MDM, and OneNote, and MDM and stuff.
And then I was starting to do something else on my computer upstairs, and it stopped working.
And I'm like, what's going on?
And it turned out that my cable internet was down.
And at first I thought it was me.
And then a couple of minutes later, I get an alert that says that cable is out in my neighborhood.
It'll be back up at 345 in the morning.
I'm like, okay, I'm basically done for the night, right?
You know, the cable is out.
They gotta fix it.
So then like, I'm like, that's not good. - What are you gonna do now? - Yeah, so I'm going downstairs, and I'm just putting away some dishes and stuff like that.
And as I'm closing up downstairs, I say, hey, you know who?
And I ask her to turn off the lights, and it doesn't work because of course, my whole cable internet, my internet's down.
And I'm like, oh, now I gotta like walk like a Neanderthal to actually go walk through the switch on the wall and press the button.
And oh my goodness gracious.
But it's just funny, it becomes so second nature to me that as I'm closing up downstairs in my house, I just speak out loud and all the lights just turn off.
And then I had to go around and remind myself, where is the light switch for this?
Oh yeah, it's over there. - What?
You don't even know.
That's so funny.
Where are you at?
Where's the light switch at?
Okay, not quite.
But here's a where you're at segment.
One that is very sad, but I mean, I think it's a good angle as to why it's important to have some of these technologies.
The other one's a little bit happier ending on here.
This was a sad story in New Zealand, I believe, where a couple of teenagers unfortunately had a fatal accident in a car.
They were going out and I mean, in a happy state.
They liked going out of the country and getting away from the city, that kind of a thing.
But unfortunately, they had an accident.
But at least the emergency services were able to find the scene of the accident, right?
I mean, I guess the only kind of a good story tweak or spin I could put on this is the fact that I'm glad they were able to resolve the mystery.
Like I would have just hated for those families to like sit around and think about what happened, but because they had, was it an air tag in this case, or maybe it was just the iPhone.
Oh, just the iPhone there.
That the emergency services were able to locate it fairly quickly and at least have a full understanding of what happened. - Yeah, I mean, they were off-roading, so they could have been literally anywhere using these four-wheel drive vehicles.
And who knows how long it would have taken to eventually find, it could have been literally years before somebody came across them again, you never know.
And so at least there was the, like you say, there was some, the finality, the resolution that as soon as the iPhone registered that there had been a crash, 'cause they sort of went into like a little ditch and it was able to call emergency help.
In fact, it's not even mentioned in the story.
I guess it wasn't satellite, because for the satellite to work, somebody would have actually had to hold it in their hand.
So it must have still been within cell phone range, even though they were off-roading, but regardless, the iPhone was able to call for help and to tell the emergency people exactly where they were located.
So, you know, the iPhone did its job, even though it's still a sad story. - A little bit happier story here. - Yeah. - Complete with pictures about this gentleman's recovery.
He was on a bicycle and apparently he hit a huge pothole, but he couldn't see it because it was flooding at the time.
Is that right?
And so he hit a pothole, got knocked out on the concrete, but his Apple Watch was able to call 911 and he was able to get picked up and saved.
So again, happy, but my goodness, I think I could have been spared some of these pictures on here, but I'm just glad that he recovered.
And he looks so much better today than he did back then. - The pictures show that it was a serious, serious injury.
So it's the same thing we just talked about, crash detection.
The only difference is this time it was on his Apple Watch as opposed to his phone, but it just goes to show you a reason why it's nice to have the cellular Apple Watch, because it's the one that, even if you're out and about driving through New York and you hit over a pothole and he's knocked unconscious and the next thing he knows he's coming to and his watch has already called 911.
And so he can hear a voice coming from his wrist saying, this is 911, how can we help you?
And they were able to get the- - Yeah, what's your emergency? - So thank goodness they were able to get something to him fast and get him to the hospital.
He says that he credits them with saving his life.
Perhaps that's true, but it was certainly helpful to have emergency services on the way after the crash happened when someone's in a horrible situation like this.
So, and again, I just want to say one more time, just having that cellular Apple Watch, I mean, I do have the cellular and I do question it because I don't use the cellular portion of it very often, but I do like that it's there.
And when we gave my daughter an Apple Watch, I mentioned this many episodes ago, my wife and I decided, you know what, let's just put the cellular in there, it's a little bit extra, but overall- - Could be worth it. - Exactly, could be worth it. - You think about it until the time that it's worth it.
And then it's like, I'm so glad that we did that. - And it doesn't have to be for something disastrous like crash detection.
I mean, having cellular is nice because for my daughter, for example, I mean, she's a teenager and you know, what do teenagers do?
They use their iPhones until they have literally no battery power left.
And then they're like, oh, I didn't realize it was at 0%.
And so she may be who knows where, and her iPhone is completely dead.
But if we still need to get track with her or call her or do a fine by or something like that, because she has an Apple watch, we could do that.
So there are advantages to having a cellular Apple watch besides getting into a bicycle accident when you're running through New York like this, gentlemen. - We are fans of Apple TV+.
You have gone through shows like "For All Mankind."
We have seen many shows that we like.
One that I have not started yet, you are recommending.
You had a little link to the "Palm Royale," little, I was gonna call it a trailer, but it's really more of a featurette, like some of the background.
I don't even know the background of the story on this, but just a little bit of the snippet of the video that I watched is really interesting, Jeff. - Yeah, it's a cute show.
I mean, for me, I'm a fan of Kristen Wiig.
And so if she's involved in something, it's gonna, that's usually enough for me.
But this one, it was even beyond that because she's in it and Allison Janney's in it, who's amazing.
And even Carol Burnett, God bless her heart, is still doing good shows, which is incredible.
So the cast alone was, and Ricky Martin, the cast alone was enough to get me at least intrigued about this.
But when you find out that it takes place in Palm Beach in 1969 of people trying to have all of the, and the high end of it, it's like it take place at like one of these private clubs.
So of course the outfits are over the top and it's great 1960s fashion.
The show is a feast for the eyes.
It's just one of these shows that's fun to watch.
Plus the plot's pretty fun too.
And my wife and I are only a couple episodes into it.
In fact, I'm not even sure if the show has reached the ending yet, if you're watching it week to week, but we're only about maybe a third through the season and it's been delightful.
It's been great fun to watch.
So this is one that, it's a lot of, I think it's worth giving a shot.
And since you have this on the screen, Brett, I have to mention that just above it, the item that I mentioned in today's post is my favorite show for all mankind, which I know you finally started. - Yes. - The creators of the show have said that they, what they want to have is a seven story arch.
Will Apple actually give them seven seasons?
Seven season arch.
Will Apple give it to them?
Who knows?
But Apple did just green light the fifth season.
So here you go.
Now they're at season five, which I'm so happy they did because without giving away any spoilers, season four ends with, I don't know if I would call it a cliffhanger, but let's just say that you can see what's coming.
So it's very, I'm very happy to know that season five is coming.
So that's one thing.
But the thing that was completely out of left field and completely caught me by surprise is for this article for Variety says that Apple is actually doing a spinoff for all mankind.
For all mankind starts, it's the alternative history where the Soviets get to the moon before the United States.
And the entire show is the American space program from the 1950s through today in this alternative universe.
Their spinoff show, which I think the title of it for now is, did I write it here?
It's called "Star City." - No, you didn't write it here. - Okay. - Oh yeah, you did.
Okay, "Star City." - "Star City," which is with the Soviets call, their version of NASA headquarters, Roscosmos.
It's gonna be from their perspective.
And the Soviet, I mean, as interesting as the American space program is, and it's so fun to see an alternative universe telling of it, the Soviet space program is even more interesting because at the same time that they were, at least in the beginning, keeping up with the United States, they are so much more resource constrained.
Plus you've got all the politics of the Soviet Union.
I would love to learn more about that story.
And the idea that they're doing a spinoff that takes place in the Soviet Union, there's gonna be some amazing stories. - You're really excited about this. - You know that if that show goes on for a couple of seasons, there will be times that that show, just through time, will correspond with America.
I mean, just to pick one example, is there was something that happened both in real life and in the show when they had the Apollo-Soyuz moment in the 1970s, where a US astronaut and a Soviet astronaut meet up in space and it's sort of promoting international harmony.
That takes place in the For All Mankind show.
You gotta think it's gonna take place in the alternate show, which means that some of our favorite actors that we love for For All Mankind, who may not be in the show anymore, perhaps, maybe some of them will have cameos on this show.
So anyway, for a fan of For All Mankind like me, I am so excited, so excited.
I would just quickly say, I did finally start it.
And I gotta, I'll be honest, I was even, it's done so well from the standpoint of if the Soviets had won the race, how would we feel as a nation?
I almost get uncomfortable.
I mean, I'm just in the first, I haven't even finished the first season yet.
So you know I'm just in the first few episodes, which I know, I know, I know it always gets better.
But even just how well it's done, Jeff, I'm like, I'm uncomfortable.
Like, I think this would, I'm almost sad 'cause I'm like, wait, did that, is that how I felt?
Would I have felt that way?
Anyway, I'm just saying, all that to say, like it is so well done and just, I don't know why it took me so long. - And very real, and I think what you're tapping into, Brett, is it's actually a very realistic show.
I mean, yes, it's sci-fi. - Yes, yes. - In the sense that it's an alternative universe.
And yet everything that happens in the show is totally based in reality.
It's believable. - Right, right. - And so even though in the show, especially as you get into future seasons, things are far beyond what we have in our universe in the real world right now.
It's not unbelievable.
It's not like "Star Trek" where people are, what's the thing that you go from one location to another, or in the room that you go in and it turns you into a bunch of molecules and sends you to a planet.
Like, I'm forgetting my "Star Trek" terms.
But you know, some stuff like, I'm not sure if that would ever happen in real life, but the stuff that happens in this show, you can actually see happening in real life.
Thank you, go to "Transporter." - Yeah, yeah.
In the know.
Okay, I got a quick one for you today.
So I'm traveling.
I am in Miami.
And I got to my hotel room, and one of the things I like is in the morning, sometimes if I'm in a sunny place, that's not Ohio, so we actually have, there's sunshine in the rest of the world, then I like to have, I kind of like to know where the sunrise is gonna happen.
'Cause I kind of like it sometimes when the actual sun comes in in the morning.
And so I will sometimes try to just figure out like, okay, am I facing north or where is east?
Is my window facing east?
I can go to Google Maps or Apple Maps, and I know that if I tap on that little arrow that we were just talking about earlier, in some cases it'll toggle through different scenarios where like the map will always be north, right?
Or if you toggle it again, that it'll move, the map will move as you move, so it'll show you which way you're pointing all the time.
But I gotta tell you, sometimes the map doesn't always feel like it's the most accurate.
And I always forget that the iPhone itself has a compass app, a separate compass app.
Now sometimes people can delete it now.
We used to not be able to delete it, but you can delete it now if you don't want it.
So if you don't have it, it may just need to be go and download this.
It's so simple.
Now, a lot of people might be screaming at us right now, like it's not a real compass.
I know, I know it's not a real compass.
It's a digital compass.
And so you have to take that with a grain of salt.
Like it's not gonna be the most accurate as the compass that you had when you were Cub Scouts.
I get it.
But in some cases, I just need to make sure that I want to know which way that I'm facing.
Sometimes even when I get out of a subway, for example, and I want to know, am I heading West?
Am I going to the lake?
Am I not?
And the map, sometimes I'll stand there for two minutes and I can figure it out.
But this compass map is so good.
All it does, it's an app that's free.
It comes with iOS.
And I love it now that it's so simplified that you can hold the phone like this.
But if you turn the phone, you'll see that there's like a crosshair in the center that you can match up your little bubble.
It's almost like a, looks like a level almost that you can match up the crosshair of that bubble to the crosshair of the compass.
And when you do that, then you know that you're holding the iPhone flat enough so that it will kind of actually be a little bit more accurate.
And as you move around, it'll just show you which direction that you are going.
Now, if you tap on the compass and then you turn it, it actually has this little red indicator down here that shows you how far away from that location when you tap that you are.
Honestly, I don't really understand how that works all that much, but you can tap it again to get rid of that.
And then the last thing is that it'll always show you the latitude and the longitude down at the bottom.
And if you tap on that, it'll jump you right out into Apple Maps and show you exactly where that location is in Apple Maps.
So it's just because I had forgotten about the compass map and somehow I just remembered, I'm like, how can I figure out exactly which way that I'm pointing right now?
And I just, I'm glad that I remembered that yes, I can utilize the compass.
By the way, there's a couple of settings that you have to, you can turn on or toggle off in the settings.
You have to make sure the compass map has access to location services in order to do this, 'cause it's just using the GPS like everything else.
And then there's also, you can go on and do a true north setting or you can toggle that off.
So if that's something that you care about and wanna try, then you can do that.
And that's just in the settings, you can just search for the compass in the settings and find those locations there.
But the compass app, love it.
Just forgot about it. - I'm so glad you remembered this.
Yeah, 'cause it's been there since day one of the iPhone. - Yeah. - So you may forget about it.
In fact, so like where you're recording from a hotel room, right, Rayl Brett?
There's a window behind you.
Can you tell me using the compass app, is that window, that window is facing which direction?
Is it facing east, west, north, south?
So what kind of window do you have to use? - 20 degrees north. - Okay, so that's a north window. - Is what I'm looking at right now, yes. - So as the sun was rising this morning, it wasn't coming directly in through that window.
I mean, that's the sort of thing that I could see, if you're in a hotel room at night, is the sun gonna be coming in my hotel room in the morning or not?
And sure enough, right here, I'm seeing my window, which is to my right in my office, pretty much almost directly points east, which I can tell you is true, because every morning when the sun comes up, 'cause if I'm here early enough, the sun is absolutely right there in my eye and right in my right eye.
So that's a nice deal.
But what I had forgotten about the compass app is it also tells you your longitude and latitude.
And that is useful to know sometimes.
Like you say, you can always plug that into Google Maps and you can get information, or I guess you could just say you could tap it.
Here in New Orleans, people always say, New Orleans is 30, 90.
People even refer to the city that way sometimes, 30, 90, because it's, which one's first?
Is it longitude first or latitude first?
I always forget. - I don't know. - Right now I am seeing that where I am right now in the city, it's not quite 30, it's 29 degrees and 57, almost 30 and just over 90, but yeah, pretty much. - Okay. - So I can confirm that it is work.
So that's a useful tip.
So when I saw that you were talking about the compass app, which is, I mean, 100% meets the definition of an oldie, but a goodie.
I figured I would do the same thing and talk about using the iPhone as a level.
The app is not called Level, although I think it used to be called Level way back when.
The app is now called Measure.
Yeah, but now if you look for the Measure app on your iPhone, which is a built-in app, at the very bottom, there are two tabs.
And the first tab is called the Measure tab.
And you and I have talked about this one before because it's one of these augmented reality that you can try to use it as sort of an augmented reality ruler, where you point at an object and you click, and then you point at another thing and you click in it, and it estimates the distance between them.
It's not 100% accurate.
It gives you a rough thing, but that's not what I'm here to talk about today.
What I'm here to talk about is the other button, which is called the Level button.
And this is the one that you're showing me on the screen right now, which just works so great.
I mean, you simply just take your iPhone.
Like for example, I have a picture in my office, and if you've got multiple pictures, like I can tell that one of them is not 100% level, but is it the top one or is it the bottom?
You know, your eyes sort of get confused.
And so you can just take this iPhone and you can sit it right on top of a picture or whatever it is that you want.
And then if it's a little bit too much this way, you'll say, okay, I'm 11 degrees off.
If I go this way, now I'm nine degrees off the other way.
But when you get to that perfectly level point, not only will the number have zero, but it will have, much like you're showing on your screen right now, Brett, it'll be completely green.
So it's not just the number, it's the color that comes out of you. - And it has to keep it.
It'll bump you. - Also, it'll tap you.
Exactly.
So it makes it so easy.
If you're trying to make a picture completely straight, you can just put this against the edge of it, and it makes it so easy.
Or anything else that you wanna just make sure that, you know, is this table, is the left side, you know, if you can adjust the legs from your table, is it too high on the left or is it too high on the right, or is it just right?
And you can do that with the iPhone.
So it's just such a simple little feature that uses the, I guess it's the gyroscope, is what it is. - It's so cool. - But it works.
I mean, it's a simple thing that Apple has done extremely well, and it's really useful.
So don't forget that you have this with you.
You know, things like the built-in flashlight people use all the time, and that's simple, totally useful. - Right. - But the compass, the level, these are nice little things to remember that you have. - Not only can you use it, and now I'm gonna like get my dimensions confused, but like if you, I can hold it like this, vertical, or I can hold it in like in landscape mode.
But you can also hold it completely horizontal.
And if you do that, like if you're setting it on a table like this, and it's really neat how it's got two little circles, and to get it to be completely level, the circles need to like converge on each other, and then it goes green on there.
It's just really cool.
They did a good job on this. - Yeah, now keep in mind that if you use that feature you just described, Brett, because of the camera bump, you remember your iPhone is like, if your iPhone is in a case, then it's gonna be completely level in all four ways.
But if your iPhone is not in a case, you know, when I set mine down on my table, it actually tells me it's negative one degrees, but that's not because my table's off, that's because of the camera bump.
If I sort of adjust for that, then it's completely zero degrees in all directions. - Yeah, you gotta watch. (laughing) - It's, I wish they would have said, like, can we adjust for that, you know, for the fact that there is, actually, if you tap on the screen, if you tap on the screen, you can like freeze it, and it goes in red.
I'm not really sure why you do that.
I'm sure most people are, again, are screaming at me, like, of course, that makes sense.
But I guess, you know, if you really wanted to measure something against how far would you need to move something to get it level.
Anyway, just fun to play with on this, and just good to know that these tools are still there.
Again, it's not 100%, I'm not gonna say it's a full replacement, you know, for a full compass, an actual physical compass, or an actual physical level, but it's pretty close, and you got it in your hand for crying out loud, so that's really cool. - Fun stuff. - I like that.
Woo, okay, lots of fun stuff.
Fun walk down memory lanes.
I mean, I just feel like it could have been an '80s themed thing, but yeah, no, it just, it's a lot of fun to talk about the old and the new, and I'm sure we'll have more to talk about next week, Jeff, so we'll talk with you next week. - Thanks, Brett, bye-bye, everybody.