In the News
In the News
145: Faster Chips? Broken Alarms? AFib Approvals? Readdle Tips? Yes to All!
Whatch the video!
https://youtu.be/17DvVcyh48c
In the News blog post for May 3, 2024:
https://www.iphonejd.com/iphone_jd/2024/05/in-the-news725.html
00:00 Crunchier Chips and Meatier Nits for New iPads
09:31 Transcription In Your Hands
16:17 Alarming Work
30:30 MagSafe Mega Memory
35:35 AFib Approval
40:29 Default Passwords = Easy-To-Guess Passwords
43:41 BASIC Computing History
45:15 iLesson: Get a Case
48:07 Brett’s iTip: Synced Folders in Documents App from Readdle
51:57 Jeff’s iTip: Customize the Tools in PDF Expert App from Readdle
Dan Moren | Macworld: A new iPad Pro is coming to take the tablet crown (and your money)
Jason Cross | Macworld: 5 reasons why the M4 iPad Pro rumors actually make sense
Christian Zibreg | iDownload Blog: Documents by Readdle can now transcribe audio and video files such as podcasts, interviews, lectures, voice notes, etc.
Ryan Christoffel | 9to5Mac: How transcripts in Apple Podcasts became a time-saving killer feature
Andrew Cunningham | Ars Technica: Apple confirms bug that is keeping some iPhone alarms from sounding
Tim Hardwick | MacRumors: Apple ID Accounts Logging Out Users and Requiring Password Reset
Julie Strietelmeier | The Gadgeteer: This MagSafe enclosure puts a NVMe SSD on the back of your iPhone 15 series
William Gallagher | AppleInsider: Apple Watch is FDA's first-ever approved digital AFib history device
William Gallagher | AppleInsider: Peloton producer says Apple Watch saved her life
Ben Lovejoy | 9to5Mac: Weak passwords for smart home devices to be illegal in Europe
Benj Edwards | Ars Technica: The BASIC programming language turns 60
Brett’s iTip: Synced folders in Documents app from Readdle
Jeff’s iTip: Customize the Tools in PDF Expert
Brett Burney from http://www.appsinlaw.com
Jeff Richardson from http://www.iphonejd.com
Welcome to In the News for May 3rd, 2024.
I'm Brett Burney from AppsinLaw.com.
And this is Jeff Richardson from iPhoneJD.
Hello, Brett.
Hello, Jeff.
OK, so in four days, my friend, in four days, can you guarantee us, can you guarantee we will have a new iPad?
You know, I'm going to stretch and say yes, I'm going to guarantee a new iPad.
OK, you're on record.
Beyond that, I do not know what it is going to be.
So many different possibilities they're talking about.
Oh, my goodness.
It's really, really interesting.
You know, I guess since you just jumped to the Apple page that has the graphic with the stylus, I guess I have to say there's going to be a new stylus.
I mean, we know we're overdue for that.
A swirling stylus.
The big question for me is going to be whether, yeah, one that you can spin, whether it's going to require the latest Apple hardware to use that new stylus or whether it's going to be backwards compatible with current iPads is the one that, you know, we'll have to see.
The thing that's been in the news this week is there was a rumor from somebody.
I'm just going to guess it was Mark Gurman because he tends to be the source of rumors.
But somebody had a rumor that Apple was going to have the the the latest and greatest processor, the M4 processor, which doesn't even exist yet.
You know, the M3 is only being used in a couple of Apple's computers.
And so the idea is that even though that many of Apple's computers are still running an M2, that Apple would introduce the M4 for the first time in the iPad.
And when people first announced that, you know, one school of thought was, what are you talking about?
We're not even in M3 world yet, for the most part.
Why would they be an M4 world?
But then other people said, well, you know, the thing is, it's possible that whatever the next generation is, Apple does have a couple of the M4 chips.
You know, maybe not enough to put them in a Mac, certainly not enough to put them in an iPhone.
But, you know, iPad Pros don't sell in huge numbers.
And so you could just, you know, use that.
Also, people tend to hold onto their iPad Pros for a very long time.
So there's an advantage to sort of making them future proof.
And plus, it might be that Apple wants to show off, you know, we know that that AI is going to be a big thing for Apple this summer.
They might want to show off that, you know, the iPad Pros that they introduced last month, i.e. this upcoming Tuesday, are an example of the next generation of Apple hardware that uses M4 chips.
And because of that more powerful chip, can do something really impressive with AI.
And that might be one of the things, you know, you and I have talked about, you know, I have an iPad Pro that I love right now.
Do I even need to upgrade?
It depends on what Apple comes out with.
That might be the sort of thing, like, I'd feel like, wow, I would really be future proofing it at beginning a really truly state of the art processor that would not only be cool today, but would be like this, you know, starting point for all sorts of cool things in the future, including AI.
So I just think it's an interesting rumor, but then again, it's just a rumor.
And it may, it may, you know, by next Tuesday, we might all be rolling our eyes of, aha, you know, how silly of us to have thought that there would be an M4 in it.
The other big rumor that you and I talked about last week was that it would have a nicer screen, the nicer OLED screen, which I think, you know, as you and I talked about last week would be great, but I don't know if it would, I mean, it would be pretty, but I don't know if it would make any real difference in getting my work done.
I did like the rumor that Apple was going to come out with, you know, I love my large version of my, the reason I have an iPad pro is the 12.9 inch.
And one of the rumors is that Apple would come out with a big version of the iPad Air, which would be really interesting because I always tell when, when partners or other attorneys come and talk to me about what iPad to get, I always say like, I personally love the large screen.
If you're going to work with documents as I do as a lawyer, you know, seeing things bigger and larger, and it's, it's just more like holding a piece of paper in your hand with a big screen.
So I love the big screen.
So up until now, the only way to get that big screen is to get the most expensive iPad pro.
If Apple was to allow you to get a mid range iPad, the iPad air, but have an option for a larger screen, same thing that Apple is doing on the iPhones, by the way, you can get an iPhone 15 with the big screen, even if it's not an iPhone 15 pro.
So if they took that same approach with the iPad that they take with the iPhone, gosh, I think for a lot of people, you know, that work with documents like attorneys, that perfect iPad may not be the high end iPad.
It may be the mid level iPad with the larger screen.
So that would be really interesting.
The air would indicate that it's going to be, it's going to be, it's going to weigh a little bit less, right?
I mean, I don't have an issue.
I don't think it needs that anymore.
I think it's just a marketing term that they like.
You're right when the original MacBook Air came out, that is what it meant that it weighed less.
But nowadays I just think it's a fun term that they use to distinguish the mid level iPad from, from the low level iPad because the entry level iPad, it doesn't necessarily weigh less or more or anything like that than the iPad air.
So I think it's just a marketing.
Yeah.
But I don't have an issue currently with the weight of my iPad pro 12.9 inch, but it wouldn't, I wouldn't be disappointed if it weighed just a little bit less.
Of course, I'm looking for the one day, like I want it to be fully flexible as if, you know, that I could roll up or fold up that kind of a thing.
But okay, we, we, we, we've got some years on that, but you know, when you say air, that's immediately what I think of Jeff is like, it should it be a little bit less.
And would that be nicer?
Because I feel like I could then slide it even easier into my briefcase and, you know, carry it around in a, in a, in a stack of some other documents.
I don't know, but I don't want to, I mean, at this point I don't want to, uh, settle for probably less power, which I think the iPad air might, might, might give, I don't know.
I mean, maybe the iPad air has the M4, maybe, maybe that could balance that out.
I I'm not, I'm not really sure.
I just, I'm very happy with the power and the capabilities that I have on the iPad pro right now.
And, you know, just quickly going back to that screen aspect, I would tell you right now, our iPad pro 12.9s don't have an OLED screen, right?
That's the new technology that theoretically come in.
But right now we do have what they call liquid retina XDR.
I remember when they came out with this.
It's still pretty good.
It's still pretty good.
It's very good.
Jeff, what I'm getting to is I enjoy watching movies probably more, almost as much, you know, if I have to be in a small screen on a plane or something like that, the iPad is fantastic.
I love the richness of the colors that I see and I can tell a difference as opposed to even on my iPhone, you know, smaller screen of course, or even on my Mac, but I really enjoy watching it on the iPad pro and could it get better?
I guess it could, but I right now I'm really happy with them with the way that it is.
And then lastly, I'll just go back to the M4 rumors.
I really think the rumors got some legs, Jeff, just all the things we're talking about.
This was an excellent article I thought you linked to from Jason Cross.
And it's just the idea that if Apple was going to do something, even forward thinking into the AI world, then the Worldwide Developers Conference would be a good place for them to really tout all of that, right?
Because they want all of their developers to start taking advantage of whatever kind of technology.
And so if they were not ready to do M4s into the MacBook Pros, but the M4s are going to better support some of this AI futuristic type of an options.
And this is a good way to go to throw out an iPad pro with an upgraded M4 processor that can do some of this AI stuff.
So then there's at least a platform in two months, well, in a month, when the developers are offered some of these AI tools.
And the more I look into this, you know, and especially this article from Jason Cross, like I said, that you linked to, I think it's a good possibility there.
I'm pretty excited.
I don't know if I'm ready to jump into the pool and upgrade just for all the things we've talked about, but it could be pretty tempting.
You mentioned, I agree with you on the M4 stuff, that when I read Jason's article and heard some similar commentary on some podcasts, I'm like, you know what?
This isn't just a complete pipe dream.
Maybe there's a possibility here.
You mentioned something about the, on the OLED screen, and you mentioned that your iPad screen, which is pretty good, is in some ways better than your iPhone screen because the iPhone is small.
And that is true.
But do remember that your iPhone, because you have an iPhone 15 pro like I do, right?
Correct.
Your iPhone 15 pro has an OLED screen on it.
So this is the type of screen that presumably would come to the iPad.
And you can see the difference.
The way that I see the difference, Brett, is if you take a picture that really takes advantage of HDR.
So for example, if you take a picture outside and there's something really bright and something really dark, if you look at it on your iPhone, it's truly stunning.
I mean, the brights are so bright.
Whereas that same picture on the iPad, it will be nicer in that it's bigger, but it's not going to have the same depth difference.
And then for me, if I look at it on my computer at home, again, it's not going to be quite as impressive because of the display that I have, the Apple studio display, which is still a nice display, but it's not OLED.
So it's not going to have quite the depth.
So it's just something to think about.
And again, if you want to convince yourself that OLED is worth it, if you have an iPhone with an OLED display and you have a picture that really takes advantage of HDR, take a look at that picture and just see how dynamic it is and think to yourself, how cool would it be to have something this bright, this dynamic on a bigger screen?
And that's the argument for OLED.
Okay, let's move from photos now to transcripts.
That doesn't sound so exciting, but it is pretty exciting based on maybe not so much what the cameras are going to be doing necessarily in the screens, but what some of the technology, I mean, if we get a new M4 in an iPad, Jeff, that'll really help with transcribing audio files into text.
And that would be pretty cool.
You had a link today from one of my favorite apps called Documents, simply called Documents from Readdle that can now transcribe audio and video files right inside the app, which is just amazing.
Yeah, Documents is an interesting app.
It's sort of like Readdle's version of Apple's Files app in that it's very document-centered and you can do lots of different things with Documents.
And so the latest trick that the app can do with Documents is that it can transcribe video so that if you interview somebody and record the video, you could then have that file, that audio file saved or a video file if it was a video, and then you could have it saved in the Documents app from Readdle and it will transcribe it.
And then you have all the words and that's useful for a million different reasons to have a transcription of something.
So it's an interesting little feature and it's something that I could see a lot of people wanting to have on the go, just the ability to create a transcription.
So if this is something that fits into, this is a need that you have, this looks like a cool little way to do it.
I've long been a fan of the Documents app for exactly what you said, Jeff, even before I think or just before Apple came out with the Files app available for the iPhone and the iPad.
This is exactly what I was using.
And of course, I know both you and I are big fans of their PDF Expert and some of their other apps that they have developed.
But I would always tell people use the Documents app, the Readdle Documents app.
I find this a little confusing the way that they named it, but if you know what we're talking about, if you use that Documents app, it's been free for many, many years.
And I think it is still free, except I think some of this transcript and some of the other tools now, it does require a subscription.
I want to say it's $10 a month now for the Documents Pro or Plus.
Much like many of their other apps.
Yeah.
To get most of the features, you have to pay now, but go ahead.
Well I'll just, I've got a tip I'll say for in the know section today, because I've just, I've used this Documents app for so long for so many, for so many aspects and they've continued to do some upgrades.
Like there's even a built-in web browser in the Documents app, Jeff, and I will do that and easily then convert a webpage into a PDF, for example.
Oh, they have a built-in VPN, for example, that's in there.
Like they've just continued to add some really nifty little tiny tools that you typically wouldn't find in some of these areas.
So I'm just glad to see that Readdle is continuing to update the Documents app.
And like I said, I got a tip coming up.
In a similar vein, you had another story here about something we've talked about, transcripts inside Apple Podcasts.
Because I was just thinking, even this thing with the Documents app from Readdle, you and I have talked about a very legal specific type of developer that we know very well from Lit Software, and they have an app called TranscriptPad.
So as lawyers, a lot of times you have video transcripts and you want to transcribe that into text.
And they came out not too long ago with that capability that they can transcribe some of those videos.
And the greatest thing about that for me, or the most amazing thing, is that it was all done on the device, Jeff.
Like it's all done on the device.
Going back to those earlier things about if they upgrade the processors, that could even get better.
But the fact that Documents by Readdle allows this now, and we talked about this kind of a same idea that even transcripts inside Apple Podcasts.
The fact that you can do so much of this, which used to take so much power and processing power, even just a few years ago.
It's just amazing to me that we can do this now on mobile devices.
Yeah, it's really cool.
One of the things that he talks about for podcasts is that, you know, sometimes when you listen to a podcast, you want to listen to the entire podcast beginning to end.
Like this podcast, for example.
We know that everybody that listens to this podcast wants to listen to it from beginning to end, sometimes two or three times.
No, just kidding.
But there are some podcasts that, you know, you see something from the podcast description that you're like, I'd like to hear that discussion, but I don't necessarily want to hear the entire thing.
And if a podcast is set up with chapters, it makes it super easy to do it.
And I'll give you an example of that.
There is a podcast that I subscribe to called the Accidental Tech Podcast, ATP.
It's a fantastic podcast.
But sometimes in their episodes, because they're all programmers, they will have like these segments where they talk about programming Swift or something like that.
And that's just above my pay grade.
So sometimes I'll listen to it just out of curiosity, the same way that I'll listen to somebody talk about, you know, advanced carpentry just out of curiosity, but it's not something that I do.
So I will often not have an interest in those segments, but then they'll have another segment where they talk about a topic that I'm totally interested in and their discussion is incredibly fantastic.
And so I love, you know, using the chapters to go directly where I want.
What Ryan points out in this article is that even for podcasts that don't have chapters, and I'll point out that our podcasts do have chapters because you take the time to add all of them and it's very nice.
But even if you have a podcast that doesn't have a chapters because of this transcript feature that's built into the podcast app, you can now, you know, very quickly scan and say, okay, I can skim, skim, skim.
Oh, here I see, you know, about halfway into the podcast, they start talking about the topic that I want to hear and you can tap right there and it will start the podcast right there, which is a really useful idea.
Or you might even decide, do I want to take the time to listen to it?
You could just sort of skim it real quick and say, oh, I see what they're talking about.
I already know that part.
Or you're like, oh, actually, now that I'm looking at what they're going to talk about, this is beyond what I know.
And so I actually want to take the time to listen to this.
I think those are all great ideas.
And it's yet another reason why having transcripts associated with podcasts, I think are incredibly useful.
And again, I guess I'll remind people, Brett, besides you can listen to this podcast in the Apple Podcasts app.
But if you go to our website, which is inthenewspodcast.com, you actually have transcripts set up for every episode.
So if you wanted to go back and listen to something from 10 episodes ago and just very quickly look at the transcript to see what you and I said about a specific app or something like that, you can do that.
And I personally use it myself sometimes.
I think it's pretty cool that there's transcripts there.
So thanks for doing that work.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, and I just knew that that was something that I always enjoyed when we were going through with different podcasts.
I do like to kind of skim through and just make sure, I want to be able to start at that kind of a section.
And so I just knew that that was important that we wanted to do that.
So good stuff.
Lots of transcripts.
Here's an alarming story.
If you depend on your iPhone for waking you up in the morning, I hope you've gotten to work on time.
I saw several people report this.
I don't think that I do rely on my iPhone to wake me up.
Actually, I rely on where my Apple Watch and usually that's enough just to have that little, you know, tap on the wrist like, "Hey, hey, wake up."
But I saw several people lambasting Apple, like the alarms were just not working on the iPhone.
And that's scary because that's something that I would depend on.
I would think at the very least I could depend on Apple and my iPhone to wake me up because the alarm is something so simple that I can't believe it would not work.
But it looks like I'm hoping that Apple has fixed it.
I don't really know what the latest is on this.
Yeah, the latest is that, I mean, first of all, like you, I rely upon my iPhone to wake me up every morning, every single day of my life.
And I will tell you that if that iPhone alarm were not to go off, I would probably sleep through and, you know, like wake up an hour later, like, "Oh my goodness, I'm late for work and stuff."
So I depend upon it.
And this article indicates that Apple has confirmed to, they say to today, I don't know if that means the Today Show on NBC or what that is.
But if you look in the first sentence, it has that confirmed today, click on that and see what it says.
Oh yeah.
So at least Apple has confirmed that they're aware of the problem.
Yeah, it's the Today Show they've confirmed it to, but I don't know that they've told us what the fix is.
So hopefully whatever it is, but that's the thing.
It's not something on your particular iPhone.
I mean, maybe it is on your iPhone, but there's some system level issue here.
So this is dangerous.
And I don't like the idea of there being a problem with the alarms not working correctly.
That's an issue.
This isn't the only thing that has been a little weird over this past week, Jeff.
I don't think that you actually linked to this, but I saw several people report this and I get to tell you, this one did affect me that all of a sudden there have been people reporting that they're locked out of their Apple ID.
Like there wasn't anything specific going on that I can see from a pattern for most people, but all of a sudden on their iPhone, and this is exactly what happened to me.
I got a message like you need to re-login to your Apple ID.
I don't know that I've ever really had that message other than if I was like upgrading something or if I needed to confirm like, yes, I'm trying to log onto my Apple ID on my iPad.
So my Mac book allows me to do that.
But this was, I don't know, this just seemed a little bit deeper and I was locked out and I could not get back in until I reset my password.
Anything else that you've heard from other folks or read about this past week because you haven't gotten official word from Apple on this, Jeff.
And Apple has not commented on this.
Right, to be even a little bit more.
So if you think that your password for your own personal, you know, Apple ID password has been compromised, you of course can reset it.
And if you do so, that means that you're going to have to re-enter your password on all your different devices.
And so that just makes good sense that you can do it.
What happened to a whole bunch of people, and it's interesting to me that this happened to you, is they didn't do it.
It just automatically happened.
And it happened to people around the world.
It's not just a United States issue.
I heard, you know, Mike Curley of a podcast, other podcasters mentioned it happened to him.
He's in London, England.
It's, I don't, I have not yet seen a pattern on people who use certain types of services or people who don't use certain types of services.
Like I suspect that there's a pattern here of why it happened, but I don't know what it is.
My theory and the one that I've seen repeated elsewhere is that some bad guy, some hacker was doing something to try to hack Apple IDs.
And an Apple in a protective standpoint said, you know what, we don't know exactly who this hacker is or where they are, but the hacker has this characteristics.
Like maybe they're accessing this type of service.
And so we're going to take everybody that accesses this type of service within this time period and reset all the passwords just so that we can lock them out.
And then, you know, this is the theory, but Apple has not announced it yet.
My guess is the reason that Apple hasn't announced it is they're still trying to figure out what's going on here.
But the end result is some users, including you and perhaps others listening to this suddenly had to, you know, get to do a password reset.
And the problem is that if you're home or if you're in your office, that's okay.
But for certain people, and I think you're one of them, Brett, that have a certain, what's the name of the stolen device protection, right?
If you have stolen device protection, and let me pause and remind people what we're talking about here, there was that issue about a year or two ago where somebody steals your iPhone in a bar and then they go down the street and then they try to reset your password because they happen to know your code.
And then once they reset your Apple ID password, well, then you're totally hosed because they've messed you up on all sorts of different services.
And so to protect against that, Apple said that if your iPhone is in a location, that's not a normal location, like down the street from the bar, you know, a place that you don't normally hang out, then just saying, I want to reset the Apple, you can't do it.
You have to wait like an hour to do it.
So it's a way to sort of protect you from some bad guy taking your phone and resetting your password.
But it also means that if something like this happens, if Apple triggers a password reset and you don't happen to be in a location that your iPhone considers to be a regular location for you, like let's say you're traveling or something like you're on vacation, then it can be a problem because you may have to wait before you can use your Apple services.
And it's not insurmountable, but it's an issue.
It's an issue.
I love this article that I've got up here, Apple ID accounts, logging out users and requiring password reset.
This is on Mac rumors.
This was posted in the early days of the early hours of Saturday, April 27th.
And I like how they say at the very, the bottom here, have you been affected by this issue?
Let us know in the comments.
And currently there are 453 comments on this, just to tell you probably how widespread I'll just tell you my quick story.
So I'm based, my home base, my office is in Cleveland, Ohio, Friday night.
And I would say this is probably around maybe 7:00 PM Eastern or so.
I was sitting in an airport lounge in Dulles in Washington, DC.
And all of a sudden this message came up.
It just said, you are locked out.
You need to reset your Apple ID.
And I'm thinking, okay, well, you know, I, do I need to just put the password in?
Is it, is it something that was normal?
But just the way it was worded and the way that it came up was something that I had just not seen.
I'm not saying it was out of the ordinary.
It was just not something that I had seen.
I've been using, I think, uh, you know, I've been logged into my Apple ID just fine for a while.
Plus also Jeff, as you, you and I have talked about several times, people like you and I that have been doing this for a long time, we have two Apple IDs, right?
I have an Apple ID that I use for like iTunes.
It's an old one that came from the iTunes account.
And then I have an Apple ID typically that I use for all of my other services, you know, the, the mac.com address.
And it, you know, it allows me to, to get onto my iCloud.com.
It allows me to the calendars, contacts, all that kind of stuff.
So in some cases I sometimes think, okay, was somebody trying to purchase something, you know, on, on the first iTunes Apple ID and it was at the one I didn't know which one, right?
So I actually just ignored it for a couple of times and say, well, if it's important, it'll come back up and I'll see it.
And so it did.
And I'm thinking, okay, something else is going on here.
Do I really need to reset this?
And so I went and I clicked through and said, yes, I'll go ahead and reset.
And that message came up.
This is another article here that they linked to stolen device protection.
And it said that it is, it is now turned on.
Well, actually that's a little bit different here.
I'll just pull up.
I even made a screenshot, the one that, that I had on here because I was just so nervous.
I'm like, what's going to happen on this?
What's going on?
And it said a security delay is required because stolen device protection is turned on.
And this device is not at a familiar location.
So just to your point there, they were, you know, they recognize that I'm not typically where I am at home or in my office.
And so immediately in my mind, I thought, okay, maybe that's why, maybe they see that I'm, you know, accessing all of my information while I'm sitting here in Washington DC and they realize this is not the typical pattern, even though I do quite a bit of travel.
The main thing that that triggered though, Jeff, is that it would not allow me to reset my password for an hour.
It says the security delay will last for one hour.
And again, we've talked about this.
I'm glad, but it said, you will still be able to use your iPhone during this delay, this delay, but the location of this iPhone will not be visible at iCloud.com until the delay has ended.
Well, immediately I'm thinking, well, wait a minute, I got to get on a plane.
And it's like, am I going to be able to reset it before?
Because I rely on this.
All of a sudden my, I don't really rely on my iCloud email all that much, but I do rely on iCloud for my calendar, for my personal calendar.
And a couple of my calendars I share with family and other places.
I wasn't able to get that refresh, Jeff.
And I'm sitting there thinking, well, I'm not completely dead in the water.
I can still use the iPhone.
It's just anytime that I needed to access something that was connected to my iCloud account, it locked me out and it gave me the same message.
And so I literally sat there.
Fortunately, I had enough time.
I sat there for an entire hour and I like kept, you know, I'm nervous the whole time.
Like am I going to be able to do this?
Is it going to still think that I'm out of my normal circle of places and is it not going to allow me?
After an hour it did.
And I had already like decided what I was going to change my password to because it required me to completely change my iCloud password.
And it did.
And I was able to do that.
I'll tell you though quickly, there's been a little bit of fallout for me from that.
Not in a negative way, but you know that some apps that I log into require me to use my iCloud account, but I have to create an app specific password for those accounts.
Well because I changed my iCloud password for my Apple ID, Jeff, I had to go in and regenerate those app specific passwords.
So obviously it's just more of an inconvenience than anything else, but that's what I just, you know, some of those things I've just been nervous over these last, what, four or five or a week now.
I'm like, what are some other things that maybe, everything seems to be okay and I'm glad that I updated to be honest with you.
I haven't updated that password in a long time, I'll be honest.
And it's like I'm glad that I updated it.
It was actually one that I hadn't updated in a while and it's good to make sure that that's done.
So it was much more secure, it's updated and I'm happy that that happened.
But yeah, I'm still nervous.
And then lastly, quickly is I am most nervous of the fact that Apple apparently so far has not officially acknowledged this yet.
And that makes me a little bit nervous.
Is it they're, they're working on it and they just don't want to let anybody know yet.
Do they not know a good fix and where it's going to happen again?
I don't know.
That's the stuff that really gets me nervous about this.
Right.
I heard other people mention the same thing that you just did that their app specific passwords had to be updated.
Can you give me an example?
Do you remember what, what, like an example of what kind of app you had that, cause I'm just curious.
Yeah.
So one service, it's a service that's called Calendly, right?
It's a great service that I pay for because it allows me to send a link to people that gives them a page where they can pick a date and time that I'm open.
And that because it has access to your calendar.
Yeah, you got it.
So I, and I can, and I pay for it because I have like three or four different calendars that I linked to that.
Right.
One of them is my personal iCloud based calendar.
And so because I had linked that to Calendly, Calendly could not read my iCloud calendar.
It read my other three or four.
And just to pause on that, if it had only been on your iPhone or your iPad, it could do it natively, but this is a web based service and that's why it's going to need, I see the app.
That's right.
Yeah.
And that's exactly, yeah.
Okay.
It's easy to do.
It's not that difficult.
Right.
But I had to log into iCloud.com with my brand new password now.
And of course I've got it turned on with two factor authentication.
So whenever that happens, you have to click allow and then another one of your devices will give you a code that you got to put in.
I'm glad for all of that.
But once I do, there was that little section in their app specific password.
I wish that Apple would give me a little more information like what apps, it doesn't even really list some of the apps sometimes, at least not to the extent that I want it to, but I just simply went in there, generated it.
Then I had to copy and paste that app specific password, which of course is just gibberish into the Calendly account.
And it worked great.
It, it, it, it did just fine because it just has that extra layer of authentication on there.
So again, not the worst thing.
I'm glad, you know, I'm keep telling myself this is a good thing.
I changed my password.
It's much more secure now.
So I'm trying to look at the silver lining, but it definitely is inconvenient.
Yeah.
Well, hopefully Apple will tell us what's going on here.
Again, I suspect that it's because some bad actor is doing something and Apple is just trying to protect a bunch of whole, whole bunch of users that may be within that, within that subset.
So, but it's interesting that happened to you and not to me and not to a lot of other people.
I don't know what the percentage is, but my gut reaction is this only happened to a tiny percentage of people, but again, a tiny percentage of Apple users is still a large number.
So, and I haven't looked into this and maybe these 453 comments here, I could look and see, I wonder how many of these people were not at what the iPhone would typically see as their home base or their places where they typically are.
And I just wonder, that was the thing that came to my mind as I alluded to earlier, like I was completely out of my circle, even though I traveled quite a bit.
Right.
But maybe I wasn't at that point in time in my typical circles of area, you know, geographically.
And so anyway, that's one of the things that I wanted to look at and see, I haven't had a chance to look through those, those comments.
But again, you know, I'm trying to look at the silver lining, but my goodness, Apple, like please somehow acknowledge this or just, you know, at least let us know, like this was something done on purpose.
This was something done because you're protecting it.
Maybe you just did a blanket protection aspect on that, whatever it is, you know, at some point I'm just hoping that they'll make a mention of that.
Speaking of the iPhone, if you need some extra memory, this is great.
First of all, I'm just glad that you linked to the Gadgeteer.
I remember, was it Julie Straddlemeyer?
I remember reading her even before like in 1998, 99, I'm so glad that this website is still going on because I used to get some of the best gadgets from this.
It's good.
The gadgeteer.com.
I read it every week.
The-gadgeteer.com.
I know it's so great.
Well, Julie, I know has got several other editors working on the site, but this is great.
This one is called the M, oh my goodness, NVM-E SSD.
It's basically a MagSafe hard drive is what the way I was thinking about it that can go on your, on the back of your iPhone.
And I love it.
Yeah.
So what we're talking about here is normally your iPhone does not need to have extra memory, of course.
But if you are the type of person, talk about a small percentage of users, a very small percentage of iPhone users that are using iPhones to record professional videos, they are not recording in the normal video format.
They record in something called ProRes.
And the reason that you would record in ProRes is it's basically like the video equivalent of taking photographs in- Raw.
In raw mode, exactly.
Yeah.
So if you're recording in ProRes, you could take like multiple videos taken over multiple days by multiple cameras, and you can apply the same set of colors to all of them so that they all have the same tone of yellow, the same tone of green.
So this is something that professional video people worry about.
You and I taking videos of our kids doing silly things, don't have to worry about ProRes.
But if you are a person that records in ProRes, one of the downsides of ProRes is that 4K ProRes takes up a ton of space.
So much so that it's going to quickly fill up your iPhone.
And so what you need to have is external storage.
And one way to have external storage is to plug in like a big, you know, honking drive, but that's going to be awkward.
So what this gadget is, is it's something that attaches to the back of the iPhone using MagSafe so it doesn't add much to the bulk of the iPhone.
And you can put into it a one of these high speed SSD cards and SSD cards can be pretty big nowadays, right?
You can get pretty, pretty big capacities on them.
And that way you can record very quickly to something that doesn't add a lot of bulk.
So again, I realized that for most users, this is not going to be something that you need, but I think it's an interesting solution that if you are in this category, it just attaches to the back of the phone.
So it's not going to get in your way.
And then you have to buy separately whatever SSD card capacities you want.
But that's more of a feature than a bug because people might want to be taking the SSD cards and you know, recording it on the iPhone, popping out the card, sticking it into the computer and then editing the video in Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere or whatever it is that they're using.
So, so I thought it was an interesting little option that somebody had come up with.
And you know, maybe we'll get to the day that, you know, mere mortal users like us will have a need to have external storage, maybe not.
But but it's an interesting use of MagSafe technology that I had not seen before.
Yeah.
Just so everybody's clear, like the MagSafe is not where the data transfer goes.
No, it's just using it for a magnet.
Yeah, right.
It just sticks it on the back of the iPhone, which is very convenient.
And then there are USB-C data cables that connect to that to the bottom of the, like you can see in some of the pictures here, which I think is still it's a really genius little kind of execution here.
I love how they put this together.
And I just I love it because if you do, you know, and I know she talks about it from a video standpoint, but as you and I know, Jeff, like the iPhone and the iPad will take like USB thumb drives.
I mean, you could store anything on this.
You don't have to put in a video or anything.
And I a lot of times will talk to when I talk with lawyers and other professionals about it, if they have very large pictures or, you know, police body cam footage, that kind of stuff, you know, you may not have enough space on your iPhone or your iPad to store this.
And I just thought this was a neat little thing.
And it's only $37.
Now, that does not include the SSD.
You have to purchase that a little separate, but it would be something interesting on some of that.
You know, Brad, I'm actually curious about that.
I wonder if you had like a huge, huge case file of, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of big images and videos.
And you wanted to be able to look at it on your iPhone.
You stick all of that on an SSD, stick the SSD in here and connect.
Yeah.
That's an interesting thought.
I don't see that that Julie talks about this, but if you plug in an external hard drive, like I even have one of those old lacy hard drives, you know, that I, if you, we talked about the files app.
And so this would be accessible in the documents app from retail as well.
But if you plug in a USB thumb drive or a hard drive on the iPad or the iPhone, it will just appear in the files app.
And then to your point, you could either, you know, suck that in if you need to, to copy it into, like we talked about the trial pad app, for example, or the lit software apps.
That's how a lot of people will do.
It's an easy way to copy files or move files back and forth from, you know, some computer, for example, or a server or something like that, or just even have it at have access on there.
I don't see a lot of people doing that maybe for good reason, but I would assume just like you're to your point for professional videographers or photographers, I mean, this would just be a really excellent option, I think that is a pretty clean in the execution of it there.
Let's move to the Apple watch or maybe what we just call it the, the health detector.
At this point, we've talked about the Apple watch in my mind, just becoming more and more of a health device.
And it looks like Apple's getting another step closer.
I mean, obviously there's a lot of things going on in the stories about what is it?
The blood sugar levels, right?
And measuring that.
But when it comes to your heart rate the FDA approved the Apple watch as a digital AFib device, which I just think is really cool that we're just getting some of that official recognition on this now.
Yeah.
First ever.
That's always the issue is that when Apple comes out with a health related aspect of the Apple watch, Apple will often release it.
And yet their hands are sort of, it's like they have one arm tied behind their back because, because it hasn't gone through the whole approval process of the FDA, they are restricted in how much they can say about it.
And so what you end up having is, you know, there's something that could, you know, potentially save your life, but Apple can only advertise it as just, you know, providing some helpful information that you can do what you want.
Right.
You know, they, so, but this is an example where actually Apple has actually gotten to the next level.
And so AFib detection is something that the Apple watch has been able to do for a while.
And Apple is now saying that the FDA has approved this as an AFib relation history.
And so if you go into your doctor and, you know, yes, I get a warning on my Apple watch, but what I want to know is, was this just out of the blue or, you know, look at me for the last 24 hours, the last 48 hours, the doctor could look at the data from your Apple watch to see the history.
And that's one of the things I love about the watch is it's typically on you all day long, you know, for many people.
And so everything that it measures about your body throughout the course of the day can provide this history to a doctor.
It's so much more helpful than just a, here's your one-time reading, you know, at this point in time where I'm taking a measurement.
So, so it's a cool story and Bravo to Apple.
And I hope that they continue to work with FDA and get more and more of the, of really the life-saving technology that the Apple watch has in it officially approved for doctors to use it and stuff.
I was curious in the dates on this Apple watch has had an atrial fibrillation feature since 2022 and the FDA approved its use just hours before Apple announced it.
So that was in 2022.
Then it said Apple submitted the Apple watch a fib history feature to the FDA on December 2023, December 21st, 2023.
So that's just a few months ago.
And I liked Apple supplied data from a clinical study of 280 people.
This is the Apple watch results were compared to a previously qualified reference device.
But again, that's amazing in and of itself.
I want to see all the 280, you know, data from the 280 people, but my goodness, I love the fact that something like this got approved so quickly.
Like why do we have so many delays with the FDA could do this so quick and just like three or four months, like, let's go more, let's get more stuff qualified.
Yeah.
So think about those steps though, Brett.
So first Apple releases the feature, which was approved by the FDA, you know, just before, and then the future has been out there.
And so then you have enough people using it, that Apple can do a study.
And we all know that clinical studies take time for the data to be collected and analyzed.
And so then finally they have the results of their study.
Then they can submit to the FDA based upon the study.
And so this is the reason why Apple can release the technology, but there's going to be a time delay before the FDA, which makes good sense.
You don't want the FDA to make decisions, you know, just based upon a whim.
You want it to be based upon studies.
And so that's, there's a good reason that a feature comes out in 2022.
And it's not until 2024 that the FDA is going to give it its official seal of approval for historical features.
So this is, this is what you would expect, but it's nice to say.
Looks like people at Peloton were watching the same story.
Peloton producer says Apple watch saved her life.
It just, I like how you linked to this because it's like, this shows you exactly.
She was in very good health, but all of a sudden her Apple watch was telling her we've got, we have some weird readings here and she had ended up going to the, to the ER and it saved her life potentially on this, which is great.
Yeah.
You know, and you may not necessarily realize that your heart's doing something until your Apple watch warns you.
And then it says you should go see a doctor.
And once the, once you go in there and the doctors, you know, in this case, she says, suddenly I'm just asking the doctor about it.
Next thing you know, I'm surrounded by eight doctors and they're like, Oh my goodness, what's going on here.
And so she feels like it saved her life and perhaps it did.
But you know, that's why it's, it's just so nice to, to have the ability to get these warnings on your watch.
Not for everything, but for the things that it does watch out for like a fib it truly can be the difference between life and death.
They said that a fib is an irregular and highly elevated heart rhythm.
The Apple watch has been able to detect this since Apple watch series four, which was introduced in 2018.
Now, obviously that technology was you know, a long ways away from what we have today.
But to me, that's one of the great things about updating the Apple watches that you can get access to some of this additional technology here.
Here's our cybersecurity public service announcement for the day.
If you're going to set up a new wireless router in your home or office or anywhere, please make sure that you change the default password.
I mean, to me, everybody calls this hacking into routers, but this has just been something like if you just know that the vast majority of wifi routers come out of the box using a default password, which by the way is typically password.
It's like people know that they can log on to these devices if they're just walking around.
Looks like that the EU has gotten smart about this too, and they're going to ban this or they're just going to require, I guess they're going to require manufacturers to make sure that they don't just allow a default password.
Is that, is that correct?
Yeah.
So the issue here is that it's, it's, when you say router, that doesn't necessarily mean a wifi router.
It could be like you buy a baby cam for your house and, but because it's got some router functions built into it that if you don't do anything to change it and you know what percentage of people are going to buy a baby cam and not change anything about it, probably 99% of people, right?
Built in, it's got a password and usually the manufacturers have been lazy and have had these passwords that it's the exact same password for all 1 million of the devices that they sell.
That, that password itself is usually something simple like the word password or the word, you know, whatever the manufacturer is that the manufacturer name is, you know, yeah, you know, you know, something one, two, three and you know, they do that so that it's easy for them.
And the manuals, anyone, they publish it in the manuals, Jeff.
And so all you need is if a bad guy comes by your house and detects a certain type of router or certain types of camera, they already know what the password is and they could try to hack into it.
And so what Europe is doing is they are actually saying that they're going to require that manufacturers of these routers use secure passwords, which at the very least means they're going to be complex.
They're not going to be something you can just guess.
I suspect it's going to also mean that they have to be unique so that every router has its own specific password, which, you know, you can see by looking at like a sticker on the inside of the box or something like that.
However it is that they distribute it, but that's what it needs to be.
So, you know, if you're in the EU, great, you have a little more protection, but the real point of this story is anyone out there, if you're using equipment especially if it's not from a company that's more concerned about security like Apple is, if you just have sort of a simple thing you bought off of Amazon and it has the ability to log in, take the time to see if there's a password there.
And if it's something completely basic like password 123, you know, change it to anything else and then write it down on your password manager or write it down wherever you keep your password stored because, you know, you don't want the risk of somebody being able to hack into the stuff at your house.
I will say in the last couple of times I've set up a Wi-Fi router, one of the ways that they get around this and typically it's the router for me is they actually have the password like on a label.
So it's different for every device, right?
And they direct you to go and get that label and to put that password in, which I think is more secure, but it is a little inconvenient.
In fact, you got to find it out.
But anyway, I know that some people are kind of working on this because it's like that to me is just, of course you should change the password.
That's at the very least if you're setting something up, then make sure you do that.
Well line 10, print happy birthday basic.
Line 20, go to 10.
Run.
I love this.
I saw a couple of people talk about that the basic programming language turned 60.
60 Jeff, I'm feeling old right now, but I'm glad you got to this in Ars Technica.
You have to be a certain age.
Some of our younger listeners may not remember what basic programming language was, but if you were involved in computers in the 1980s, maybe even the 1990s, I'm sure you've heard of the basic computer language.
I was surprised to see Brett that it turned 60 years old.
I would have guessed that basic had been invented in the 70s, not the 1960s.
I agree.
I thought so too.
Because when you think about what kind of computers were around in the 1960s, it was just like mainframes and stuff.
So it's interesting that the language has a history that goes back that far.
Nowadays, nobody would program anything in basic unless you're just using it for learning purposes.
But back in the day, it was the way that people would program their computers.
Back in the day when your computer didn't come with many programs, you would have to make your own programs or type them in by hand by copying from a computer magazine that had a program listed in there with all the basic instructions.
So happy birthday to the basic programming language.
I just found it.
I don't know if it was this article or another one that I was looking at.
You could program computers back in the day, but you really had to go through some intensive training.
We've been talking about assembly language and some of the really, really stuff.
It wasn't until the basic came along that we could actually use English words like print, this line, go to, this line, a lot of other stuff in there.
But anyway, just really cool.
I'm glad that we had that little walk down memory lane there.
You may have heard, I think we reported on the iPhone that was found after that door blew off of the Alaska Airlines flight a few months ago.
The iPhone was found still working completely fine in a field.
And because of that, one of our favorite reporters, Joanna Stern, had to go out and do her own testing of this.
I thought this video was so great.
I'm glad that you linked to it today, Jeff.
All of her videos are so fun.
This one is so great.
I mean, her idea is, can you drop an iPhone out of an airplane and have it still work?
Of course, the only way to test that is to actually drop an iPhone out of— Of course.
She did not use an airplane.
What she used was a drone.
And so she took the drone up to like 300 feet and found that, of course, if it lands on concrete, it's a gone-be-gone.
But if it lands on grass, even if it doesn't have a case on it, if it lands on grass, there's a good chance that the grass is going to be soft enough to cushion the blow, that the iPhone may have a crack here or there, but it won't be completely destroyed.
And so sure enough, she was able to do it.
And then what was interesting from a—this just shows, this is the limits of my science knowledge.
She talks to a physics professor.
In fact, I know this from one of the—where I live, somewhere in Louisiana.
I think it was one of the universities around here.
And the physics professor explains that there's actually not much of a difference between dropping from 300 feet and dropping from 10,000 feet or whatever it is.
Because at a certain point—what's the word he uses?
It gets to a certain velocity that— Yeah, terminal velocity.
Terminal velocity.
That's right.
Yes.
So no matter how far it's going, it's going to reach the point where the gravity pushing up on an object that's falling and the gravity pushing down sort of even itself out.
So it gets to sort of a steady speed.
And then again, as long as it lands on something that's sufficiently soft, like grass, or if you have it in a case, especially like one of these OtterBox cases that basically does the same thing, that softens the blow, it can survive a ridiculously far drop.
So it just surprises me.
In my mind, I would think that at a certain height, if you drop an iPhone, it's destroyed no matter what the circumstances are.
But no.
If you're lucky enough to land on grass, it can actually survive a very big drop.
I like in this video, she drops it from three feet, then 30 feet with the drone, and then 300 feet with the drone.
Anyway, we won't spoil it.
You can go watch it yourself and see the results on there.
But I guess I will spoil it in the sense that her takeaway is you should have a case.
You should have a case on your iPhone.
I don't know if I completely agree with that, but watching her do this experimentation is fun and we just appreciate Joanna.
It's a fun video.
Her creativity on that.
In the know.
Because we talked about the Documents app, I wanted to give yet another fantastic little tip that I love using the Documents app.
And to do that, let me explain quickly how I work with specifically Dropbox, as well as OneDrive or iCloud Drive on my Mac.
What I loved about Dropbox when these services first started coming out is that I had the ability to store all kinds of stuff in the cloud like in Dropbox, but I could download a little utility on my Mac that ran on my menu bar.
You could do this on Windows too.
That would basically synchronize any files that I had in the Dropbox app locally to my computer.
Now, the reason that that was so cool is because then I could get on a plane and not get Wi-Fi.
I could still access all of those files locally on my Mac, work on them, edit Word documents and everything.
And then when I landed and I reconnected back to the internet, it would synchronize all of those changes.
Right, Jeff?
I mean, we take this for granted today, but I know when you and I first started out, even with the iPad, that was just like, wow, that's really cool that I don't, it's almost like I can store it locally on the computer, but it also will synchronize in the cloud.
I love working that way.
When the iPad came out, I'm like, I wish there was a similar method that I could have local files on my iPad, but still have them synchronize.
Now the iPad does not have that capability.
You can't do that with Dropbox.
There is a Dropbox app and inside the Dropbox app, I can say, I want this file to be available locally.
So that's one way.
The problem was for me though, is I wanted to be able to edit that document in Word, for example, or I just wanted to be able to read it.
There wasn't as many annotation tools inside the Dropbox app for my PDFs or so.
So what I started doing that Riedel was so good about doing this, and I do this in both the Documents app as well as the PDF Expert app, is that inside the file browser, you can go in and create a synced folder.
And so what I do is on the Documents app, for example, I go to the Documents app on my iPad.
I can navigate to my Dropbox folders and say, I want this entire folder to be synchronized locally to my iPad.
And that really essentially gives me the same capabilities that I have on my Mac.
So now I take my iPad when I get on a plane, I've got a whole folder of documents that I might want to read and through and annotate while I'm on the plane.
Now I just go into my Documents app, I can pull up that synced folder, everything is local and so it all pulls up just fine.
I don't have to be connected to the internet.
I make all the annotations and edits and everything.
And guess what?
When I land and I reconnect to the internet, my iPad will synchronize, the Documents app will synchronize all of those files and annotations with the files stored in Dropbox.
And I just love that because then I can go back to my office and everything has been synchronized to my Dropbox app, which means that it's been synchronized down to my Mac as well.
So again, I do this in the Documents app, just like we talked about, it is a great alternative or I think it's an addition to the Files app already on the iPad and the iPhone.
But now this is the way, for example, that I will take documents with me before the iPad if I wanted to take documents and read them on the plane, I would print everything out before I left, right?
Now I just make sure that that folder from Dropbox or iCloud Drive or OneDrive is just synchronized locally to my iPad inside the Documents app or the PDF Expert app and that's what I use then going forward.
And then again, I have that confidence when I get back online, everything will synchronize so that it will all be available in Dropbox.
And I just love the way that I can work with that and to my knowledge, having an app like Documents or PDF Expert is the only way to be able to have that.
Yeah, good tip.
So the Documents app is a really interesting app from Readdle.
It's one that I used to use a long time ago.
Apple's Files app for me now does most of what I need.
It doesn't have the syncing feature as you described.
And so you've just described one reason that you would want to use Documents.
Readdle has some other little tricks up its sleeve that it can do with Documents.
I mean, we just talked about it earlier in today's podcast that it can transcribe video and audio, which is something that you can't do with the built-in Files app.
And they have some other things they can do too here.
My tip of the week is something to do with PDF Expert.
But before I get to my tip of the week, I just want to tell folks that Readdle's Documents app and Readdle's PDF Expert app have a ton of overlap.
You know, if you had two circles, there's a lot overlapping there.
Most of the file management stuff works on both of them.
And so the syncing that you just described, it works on both of them.
And the question of, you know, you can use both apps, of course, but usually you'll sort of gravitate one towards the other.
If you're more interested in just having files, you know, syncing files, working with Documents, that's what the Documents app from Readdle is good at.
If your real focus is PDF files, and you know if you use PDF files a lot, I do as a lawyer, so much of my life is PDF files.
I am so PDF focused that for me, it makes more sense for me to use PDF Expert because all of the features of the Documents app that would really matter to me, I have in PDF Expert.
And so when you look at the Browse Your Documents feature in Documents and the Browse Your Documents feature in PDF Expert, they look almost identical.
When you look at Annotate Your Documents in PDF Expert versus Annotate Your Documents in the Documents app, they look almost identical because Readdle is using a lot of the underlying technology there.
Yes, exactly.
You just, which app you're going to use more often depends upon what your focus is.
So having said that, since my focus is really PDF documents because that's what I use as a lawyer so often, and I will have folders and subfolders of, you know, my, the pleadings in a lawsuit and correspondence and so much other stuff, I like using PDF Expert as my main app on my iPad.
Doesn't mean that Documents isn't every once in a while sort of the Swiss Army knife that can do something.
Right.
But for me, I can usually get what I want done with PDF Expert.
But my tip that I'm going to describe in PDF Expert, but it actually works in the Documents app too, is to customize the tools of it.
And you know, at the top, when you're looking at a specific document in PDF Expert or Documents, you can have tabs across the top that have different sets of tools.
And there are some built-in tabs like Annotate, Insert, Fill and Sign.
And so let's say, for example, if you have a document that you need to fill in the information in a form and sign your name at the end, like a permission slip or something, if you open up the document in PDF Expert and click on the tab called Fill and Sign, it will have all the tools that make that easier right there, including, for example, if the document doesn't have built-in forms and you need to sort of add it yourself.
And so it's nice that you can focus on a set of tools for a specific task.
There's other ones too, like for example, one that I don't even use.
But if I open up PDF Expert and I have at the very top of my app, I have all the different tabs of tools.
And if I press the plus sign, I can see in addition to the tools that I've enabled, they have other options that I could put up there as a tab.
There's one tab, for example, called Edit PDF.
Some people know that you can actually take a PDF document and you can change the words in it.
People sometimes think of a PDF document, they say like, I edit the document in Word and then once I create a PDF of it, that's like, you know, the frozen in time version.
Well, it's not really because someone could go in there and edit the PDF file.
I don't do that as it's just not relevant to what I do PDF files for.
But if you are someone that has a need to edit PDF files, you can create a specific tab in PDF Expert with all of the tools that use an Edit PDF.
My real recommendation here, what I love to do is in PDF Expert, you can create a Favorites tab, which then you just go crazy yourself.
You can add whatever tools you want, whatever tools you don't want.
And this is why PDF Expert is such a productive app for me, is I live in the Favorites tab every day.
It's very, very rare that I switch to a different tab.
And within the Favorites tab, I have pens of a couple of different colors that are thin.
I have pens of a couple of different colors that are a little bit thicker.
Sometimes I want to write more finely and sometimes I want to write a little bit more boldly.
I've got a highlighting tool.
In fact, I have two highlighting tools.
I have one highlighting tool that works when you have a document that's been OCRed and it does a beautiful job of highlighting.
But then sometimes you have a document that hasn't been OCRed and so you still want to highlight on top of it, in which case all you're really doing is applying sort of a level of yellow paint on top.
It doesn't, the end result doesn't look as pretty, but there is a marker tool that will allow you to do that.
I have another tool for underlying.
I have another tool for adding text.
I have another tool for callouts.
I have another tool that will add any sticker that you create.
And for me, I have a sticker that looks like, you know, if you can buy in any office supply store, these exhibit stickers that are like rectangles and at the top they say exhibit and then underneath it, it's blank.
And so you could put like the number one or exhibit A or whatever it is.
I have something that will just put an exhibit sticker on a document and then I can write on top of that, whatever it is.
So the tools that matter the most for me are in my favorites tool.
And because I've set it up exactly the way I want it with just the tools I need and just the order that makes sense to me, it is incredibly, incredibly useful.
So this is something you can do with PDF expert.
Again, you could do the same thing with documents if you prefer to use that app, but that is my tool.
Now these, although they are free apps and you said that before Brett to access the more detailed features, including this one that I'm talking about, you do have to pay.
I think I pay $50 a year for PDF expert and for the documents app, it may even be more expensive to get like their full blown, every single feature under the hood.
I think it's actually $80 a year.
But the point is if you work extensively with documents as a part of your business, then you know, for me, 50 bucks a year is totally worth it considering what a big part of my business it is.
So so these are great little tools, great advanced things.
And you know, these are the things that separate, you know, are you having an iPad that you just use just to look at email or are you going to be more of a power user?
Are you going to actually get stuff done?
You're going to edit documents, you're going to annotate, you're going to sync back and forth.
And I think that's what makes you a power user that really brings you to the next level is having these types of apps that you know how to take advantage of.
Absolutely.
I agree with everything.
I just go everything you just said.
PDF expert is one of my go to apps for the exact same thing.
And I would probably use that at least 90% of the time, whereas documents app for to your point, you know, is 10% because you can do so much.
But I mean, even just that, let me just also say quickly, you can view other file types in both documents and PDF expert, right?
I can view a Word doc, I can view an Excel spreadsheet.
I can't edit any of those in there.
But you know, what we're talking about with the PDFs, but I like the fact that I think that's why I think of it more as like a file manager.
I remember back in the day, we used to use Goodreader, right?
A lot, Jeff, you and I, we talked about that quite a bit.
And I think I still have that.
But there's I annotate, which is another one.
And of course, if you have Acrobat DC, you know, subscription that Adobe, you probably have Acrobat on there.
But PDF expert, I mean, Rita really has just, I think, done some of the best job at creating what I would consider to be for professional grade apps to your point, not just for legal profession.
I'm talking about for anything, because even even in school, like in college, my daughter is using an iPad, and she's using PDF expert just simply because she can get access to that.
And you know, they get assignments and everything that way as well.
There's so much that you can do in PDF expert, man, we could just do a whole thing, just on PDF expert.
But thank you for those tips, because I love doing that.
And I pay for it as well.
Because again, this is a professional grade app that I use it constantly to be able to, you know, markup documents, or even be able to see it.
I mean, I like the fact you can even access your PDF bookmarks inside PDF.
Oh, gosh, that's huge.
Because Yeah, so okay, all that kind of stuff.
There's so much more we could do.
It's not a PDF expert podcast today.
But it is great.
It's good to talk with you.
As always, Jeff, we'll close it out there.
And we'll talk with you next week, after which we're going to have lots to talk about next week, right?
So yeah, well, we'll, we'll, we'll, you and I will talk on Tuesday with the event.
And then we'll talk to everybody else next Friday.
Talk to you then.
Thanks, Brett.