(upbeat music) - Welcome to In the News for July 12th, 2024.

My name is Brett Burney from appsinlaw.com. 
- And this is Jeff Richardson from iPhone JD.

Hey Brett. - Good to see you as always, Jeff, every week.

And boy, you got a humdinger of a story this week.

I've only seen a couple of mentions of potentially a brand new HomePod that has a screen or maybe it's a screen that has a HomePod attached.

I'm not really sure how to describe this, but some interesting rumors that popped up this past week. - It is, you know, the rumors have been around for a while and I try to avoid talking about pure rumors 'cause you can talk about them forever.

But this one, it crosses over once there's something more tangible.

And the thing that's tangible here is the next version of tvOS, the beta version, which is gonna come out this fall, is available now.

So if you get on the developer bandwagon, you can put it on your television and you can start to look at the code.

So somebody was looking at the code and they said inside of the code, not only is there the stuff that we would expect to see on a television, but we also see this thing called plasterboard.

And you may remember springboard. - Wait, plasterboard, plasterboard, okay. - For years and years and years and years now, the interface on an iPhone, the code name for that is springboard.

Like the thing that has your apps on it and that you touch it and stuff like that, that is called springboard.

And so they found this thing called plasterboard, which was first of all responding to touch, which most TVs wouldn't do.

It had a way that you could like tap in your code to unlock it.

And that would never be something you would put on a television, right?

And so the theory is that maybe what's going on is the longstanding rumors of Apple coming out with a version of a HomePod that has a screen.

And again, Amazon has had similar echoes for a while now, the Echo Show and stuff like that.

And so the idea is it would be a speaker that would have a screen.

And that instead of putting, you know, you wouldn't put macOS in that, you probably wouldn't even put iOS on it.

You would want something more simple.

So why not take tvOS and come up with a version of tvOS for this device, maybe with this plasterboard in it.

And then that would be the interface.

And so I have to admit, you know, once this is actually in shipping code, there's no reason for Apple, in my mind, to put it in shipping code, even beta code, unless they're sort of, you know, is it this calendar year, next calendar year, coming close to something. - There's still progress, right. - Right, right.

So, you know, you have something like, you're showing me your screen right now, somebody has just simply taken a small iPad mini and superimposed it on top of a HomePod.

And that might be one thing that it could do, but there's other ways that it could happen.

But it's the idea of sort of merging together a HomePod, so it's a speaker, and something with the screen, like a very simple iPad or iPad mini.

So, you know, it lets you speculate.

And obviously we'll see what Apple has to say about the device.

Maybe they'll have some incredible use for it if it does come out, that I'm not even thinking about.

But I feel like we know enough about these devices to sort of think about, you know, the thing that people often think is, wouldn't it be nice to have something in your kitchen that would be, you know, have a screen on it. - That's what I was thinking. - So you can see things like a calendar, or messages, or simple stuff like that, or maybe look at a TV program, or something on YouTube while you're cooking dishes, or watch a cooking show as you're actually cooking.

So something with a screen on it, but a very simple screen, but also have a nice enough speaker.

I mean, obviously an iPad mini has a built-in speaker, but it's, you know, you're not gonna be dancing out to the latest tunes.

I mean, the quality is just okay.

If you had a more robust speaker with it, would it be an interesting product?

So that's one level of rumors coming from OneNet, right?

But then the other that we have from the other end is that Mark Gurman at Bloomberg has been reporting that Apple is working on what he called a tabletop robot.

And you're like, what would that even be? - Hello. - A tabletop.

So it's not, it's not a tabletop.

So it's not gonna be driving around my house following me, but if it's on, what would it, if it's just sitting on a table, to make it a robot, it sort of implies that like, things move around.

And so the idea that people have been suspecting is maybe these are all the same product.

And the idea is that maybe the screen would connect to the HomePod base using some sort of an arm, and maybe the screen could like follow you.

You know, Apple has that technology in iPads that if you're on a FaceTime video call, just using a wide camera angle, if you move one way or if you move the other way, it will keep you in the frame.

What if the actual screen of this thing had some sort of an arm that could follow you and so it could turn left as you go to one part of your kitchen, turn right, you know, and sort of follow you around.

And maybe, I mean, maybe there's a lot of technology that would go into that and you wonder how expensive it would be.

And the thing that it reminds me of is the old, the old iMac G4 that had that screen that was exactly like that.

It was a base. - On the arm. - So this is 20 years ago. 20 years ago, there was this, it was an iMac that I never owned and I always wanted one 'cause it looks so cool. - Me neither. - Because you had your base right there on your desk.

And then the screen, it wouldn't move automatically.

You'd have to use your hands to move it around, but you could make it face whatever direction that you wanted.

In fact, that video that you showed- - It did move automatically in this TV commercial, though, Jeff.

I remember this commercial. - There was this hilarious TV commercial, which was almost like violating truth in advertising, where this guy is walking by an Apple store or a technology store that didn't have Apple stores back in 2002. - Right, right. - And as he's walking back and forth looking through the store window, the screen on the iMac G4 would move back and forth and he would go up and it would go up and he would go down.

And it just sort of pointed out how useful the screen was to be in an arm moving around.

So this idea that was actually in an Apple commercial two decades ago, maybe this is what this device will be.

But then if that's what it's gonna do, Brett, you have to wonder how expensive will this thing be?

Because if the bottom is a HomePod, a HomePod mini only costs a hundred bucks, right?

And I love that they cost a hundred bucks.

Sometimes you can even get them on sale for like 85 bucks, because you can just easily, it's not that expensive to get a denational.

I bought up a second, I bought up, when they were on sale, I bought an extra one and put it in a different part of my downstairs.

And it's nice because now as you walk between my living room and the room that my piano's in, the music is just in all the different downstairs rooms. - Right, I like that. - That's really cool.

But that's only a hundred bucks for a mini.

But if it's gonna be a bigger speaker, like a true HomePod, I think those go for like $300, I'm pretty sure.

And then the screen itself is gonna have to be, I guess, a couple hundred dollars, right?

So, I mean, are we talking about a device that's gonna be $150?

Or are we talking about a device with a robot arm and a nice screen that's gonna be like six or $700?

Because, you know, one of those price points, maybe I could think about finding a place for it in my life, but the other price point, I don't know.

What do you think, Brett?

I mean, what do you think about a device like this? - It had to be really compelling.

And just real quick, I like going back to this iMac idea, because I will tell you, on my desk setup, and I've seen this in many other places, you know, we have monitor arms.

And I know it's a simple thing, and some people may or may not have them or so, but I love my monitors being on my arm.

Like sometimes I'm twisting it from landscape to portrait mode.

You know, other times I'm moving it back and forth.

I guess a lot of people don't think about it because most of the time you sit down at a desk and you've got everything set up the way that you like to set up.

But I love having the monitor arms and being able to move that around.

I would welcome something like that.

I mean, there are people that already do this, like in the kitchen, there's, I think we've even talked about some arms you can connect onto your cabinet or underneath the cabinet, and then your iPad floats around, 'cause my wife uses the iPad all the time for recipes, for example.

But it'd be nice if it could do something else, you know, along the lines of playing some music, or maybe being some kind of a photo frame or something like that.

Another article you'll link to here from Dan Morin over at Six Colors writing for Macworld.

I kind of like this idea.

Like to me, I feel like I already have some of that.

When I was first reading some of these stories, that my thought was, wait, don't we already have an iPad?

Like I just need to put an iPad on a monitor arm and I'd be okay.

But I like the way that Dan's coming out this because he's talking about it could change the way we think about she who shall not be named in Siri.

In other words, if it's a speaker that could respond to me, again, this is nothing new.

Amazon's had this and Google's had it and that kind of a thing.

But if it could be a little bit more accessible than maybe HomePods, I know you've got into the HomePod world.

I never did.

I still don't have a HomePod.

But maybe something like this could really like push me over the edge.

Like I just, I've never felt truly compelled on the HomePod side.

And I think if they could somehow mesh this together with the Siri, the tvOS, the capabilities of someone on the iPad, it's gotta be a really nice screen to your point.

And maybe some kind of a robotic aspect, implementing something of Apple intelligence slash Siri.

I think that could be pretty compelling. - Yeah, it's an interesting idea.

In fact, you said a nice screen.

And for my mind, if it's gonna be just something in your living room or in your kitchen that you're gonna be looking at from away, it doesn't even have to be the nicest screen.

So I mean, Apple could save on the screen time.

But as I'm talking to here, how many times on these podcasts have I been talking over the past nine months about how much I love the way that my iPhone can just sit on a little stand here and using the standby mode, I can just see the time or the calendar.

And that's on a small little screen.

That's the size of the iPod, the iPhone, excuse me.

If it was a little bit bigger so that it could have like the time, but maybe also the weather and the date.

And like you say, maybe some pictures, just an interactive photo frame and stuff like that.

You know, gosh, I could sort of see something to this.

It's a really interesting idea because it takes a lot of things that Apple is already doing, like you said, an iPad or a speaker.

And it sort of puts them together.

So it's not really something new.

And yet sometimes when you put together things, the sum is greater than its parts.

So getting it at the right price point, you know, how complicated do you want it to be?

Is it gonna have robot arms that move around by themselves?

Or would you just move it with your hand so that it's cheaper?

Maybe there's two versions of it.

I don't know.

It has the potential to be a dud, but it also has the potential to be something interesting.

And, you know, now that I'm thinking that maybe Apple really is looking at this, it's sort of exciting to think that we could have a new Apple product come out maybe as soon as this calendar year.

So. - I do really think part of the play here has to be Apple intelligence.

I mean, if they can somehow pull that in and then I think better compete at that level with like an Alexa or, you know, a Google product at that point, you know, from utilizing intelligence.

And even if we had those three tiers, right?

Like if we have something on product, the, you know, private cloud, and then on the, you know, open AI aspect.

I don't know.

I feel like if something along those lines could really, could I think really create something that would be a little bit more interesting than just, you know, a whole pod with the screen on something like that.

So, but thanks for reporting on that.

It's just interesting to see.

Like you said, to me, the most exciting thing is the fact that something's already being baked into the, you know, the beta here, the developer beta.

And so it's like, okay, that's, that makes it even a little more interesting.

Well, even right now, before we get maybe whatever this new Apple TV slash home pod device might be, let's talk a little bit more about Apple TV plus.

One of the things that I know you are very excited about coming out in this Apple TV OS 18 or the iOS 18 is a little thing called, I think they call it insight.

Is that what they're still calling it?

Yeah, it looks like it.

So this is the idea that we've talked about this.

And I'm actually, you've got me very excited about it too.

Watching a show, watching a movie, and you want to see who are those actors?

What else were they in?

And many times, what I'm really even more excited about is I want to know what song that is playing right there.

Like I love that song.

It's got a great beat.

It fits perfectly with the scene.

What is that song?

I might want to go and download that later.

And that theoretically is going to be available with the Apple TV plus insight mode. - Yeah, so instead of having to jump over to like another app or IMDB or something like that, you could just, I guess you would just pause.

And as soon as you pause right there on your screen, you will see the information and it'll automatically be based upon who's on the screen.

And this was the first picture that I've seen of the interface and of course this is the beta.

So it could change in the future.

But what I like about it is this, it makes perfect sense to me because currently, if you have an Apple TV and you are looking at like a movie or a TV show or something like that, if you scroll down the screen to where it shows you the cast, it uses the same format.

We've seen this before.

It's a nice picture of the face in a circle, like a nice high quality picture.

It's got the person's name.

I think it currently has the real name.

I think it currently also, I think currently it's maybe only the real name or maybe it also shows the cast member that they play, you know, whatever the name of the character is.

And then you can tap on a name, you can get like a little bio for them or something like that.

But it's that same interface that they're showing here.

So this makes perfect sense to me.

And then of course they're showing a little song.

It's almost like a little widget that would jump over in Apple Music, I presume if you click onto it.

So this makes perfect sense to me, but this would be everything that I would want just like right there in front of me that I could get to just from pausing it.

And again, I know this is not revolutionary because Amazon offers the same thing on their service, but the Amazon feature is a really useful feature. - They call it X-Ray. - X-Ray, exactly.

I like the Amazon feature.

I do like it.

And why shouldn't Apple have something too?

They've got all the pieces to put it together.

And so I'm excited that this is coming in the TVOS 18 that we're gonna have hopefully in September or October.

This is the first time I've seen a picture of it.

It looks clean and it looks easy to use.

This is one of these things that like, I will use this probably on day one once this comes to my Apple TV. - No question.

And I do like the X-Ray thing for the same reasons.

Now, if I'm not mistaken, obviously this is probably only gonna be for content inside Apple TV+, right?

'Cause the Amazon X-Ray is only available for Amazon Prime shows. - That's a good point. - Even though Apple TV, you know, does, the Apple TVOS does allow you to interact with other services, but I'm guessing it's only for Apple TV+ content here. - Yeah, and in fact, you're right.

This is a TV+ feature, so that means not only would it work on my Apple TV, but if I was watching a TV+ show on my iPhone or my iPad or my Apple Vision Pro or any other device, I presume this will be built in there too.

But certainly it'll work on the Apple TV device when you're watching Apple TV+ content. - Here's the other thing about this.

I could see where something like the device we were just talking about, or even using my iPhone, I guess, like I don't really sometimes wanna pause the show that I'm watching and like pull up something that, you know, takes up half the screen or whatever.

I mean, I know it's not that big of a deal, but I would love to be watching and then have either my iPhone or maybe this new HomePod plasterboard thing kind of be watching and be able to show that information as it goes.

If that makes sense.

I don't wanna pause it.

I mean, I wanna have it going on at the same time, you know, coincidentally at the same time here. - And now that you say that, I actually think that that was announced as to be, like it would also be on the iPhone in the remote app.

So then you could do just that.

So yeah. - Well, yeah, this story, it does have a, - Yeah, so that must be what they're showing this picture here. - The insight feature on tvOS and iOS 18 Beta 3 is, I especially love the Apple Music shortcut that instantly adds tracks to one's library.

Yes, yes, that's exactly what I'm thinking.

And he's showing an iPhone screen here, apparently.

I think that's what it looks like.

Or maybe that's the remote app.

I'm not really sure.

And the other one there, anyway, that's fantastic.

Like, I love the fact that there could be some kind of, you know, synchronicity there.

'Cause I just love the fact, like I usually have my phone with me by the side when I'm watching something anyway.

I would love to just be able to bring it up and say, what is that song?

But I don't wanna pause what's on this television screen, but I can say, oh, that's the song and pop.

In fact, I remember this.

It wasn't a show on Apple TV+, it was Bosch.

I think it was Amazon, was where that was.

I love the opening credits song for that.

And every time it came on, my wife and I were watching it and I would be like, man, I've gotta find that song.

Like, what is that song?

And I couldn't usually find, you know, then I start getting into the show, right?

And I forget about it.

But the other day, I remember I was listening to, I think it was Spotify that I was on.

And I'm like, wow, that song sounds familiar.

Where is that?

Oh, that's the song.

Like, it took me a while to get there.

But, you know, just to give an example of something that I'm excited about. - You know, it's funny, Brett, because you and I grew up in the age of listening to radio.

So we would often discover new songs from over the air radio.

Nowadays, I never listen to radio anymore.

And I guess some people do, but that's fine.

But you know, for me, I'm always listening to Apple, to stuff that I have on my iPhone, everything else.

I would probably say that the number one way I discovered new music is probably hearing a cool song in a TV show or a movie or something like that.

I mean, obviously sometimes you see it in the media and, or my kids are listening to it.

I discovered it that way too.

But it is definitely a top way that I find new artists or maybe an old artist that I've never heard of.

And the next thing you know, you add it to your catalog and you start looking at their other songs and you find even more stuff.

So, yeah, this is a big deal. - I feel like it's an exercise in futility for me to get my kids to understand the power of Shazam.

'Cause we're in a store or something like that, or a movie and I'm like, oh, that's a great song.

I wanna look that up.

And they look at me like, dad, just put Shazam.

And I'm like, oh yeah, you don't understand.

You kids just don't get it these days.

Like this was just unheard of that we could do something along those lines.

Anyway, pretty excited about that.

Something I know that you're excited about 'cause you linked to a couple of other things that are coming out on Apple TV+.

One of them is apparently season two of Severance coming out soon. - Now remind me, you did or did not watch season one? - I have not.

And I gotta tell you, I have heard from like three or four different people the last week, like telling me, are you serious?

You've not seen it?

Which tells me I might have to go back and try it now. - Yeah, it's all good, Brett, because now you know what your deadline is because the new season comes out January, is it 24th?

January 17th.

So January 17th is the new season.

So you've got yourself about, what is that?

Five months now, you can calendar it, decide if you're gonna binge it all at once or do a slow binge over time.

But your homework is between now and January because it's such a great show.

I mean, it really is.

There are the shows in Apple TV+ that as I said, rise to the top.

You know, Ted Lasso, you know, a couple of them are just the best of the best of the best.

Severance was so good.

In fact, it's so good that I'm, you know, sometimes shows are amazing in their first season and then they're never quite as good after that.

But then again, sometimes shows will surprise you that they'll start off great and somehow find a way to be even better in the second season.

And, you know, I'm sure that Apple put the money towards whatever was necessary to make this an even better second season.

So anyway, that's all, you know, I don't really think that people like you that haven't seen it yet. - I know, good.

And I appreciate that. - It's gonna be so good.

And I love that we have a release date, so. - I feel like Apple's got a pretty good track record here.

I'm thinking immediately of Ted Lasso.

I'm not saying that the second season was better than the first, 'cause you know, the first is such a tidal wave.

Like everybody just jumps on the bandwagon.

Slow Horses was another one.

You know, I can tell because it's not that I enjoy maybe the second season more than the first season, but I feel like I'm just as engrossed in the story and everything in the second season.

To me, that's a win for a lot of shows out there.

Another thing you linked to, because we're talking about shows there, but what about some blockbuster movies that are coming out?

Like summer blockbusters.

I mean, we've had some pretty good movies come out from Apple, but this is another one that sounds like you're pretty excited about, starring none other, of course, than Brad Pitt.

F1, which I'm assuming refers to the F1 racing car.

Looks like it's gonna be coming out pretty soon, or maybe not really soon, but maybe another summer blockbuster on the horizon here. - Right, so what's interesting here is, I'm fascinated by this in the context of Apple TV+, sort of expanding what it is.

You know, Apple TV+ starts out very, very few shows.

It's just a couple of shows.

When I say shows, I mean like episodic shows with different episodes.

And then over time, they started to branch out into a couple of movies, not many, but a couple of them.

And then for some of those movies, they actually went out and paid big bucks to get like high-name directors, or look for stuff at Sundance, or these film festivals that were gonna be really good, like COTA, for example.

And then they sort of embraced it, and they would come out to the theater.

And so they were going after like the Oscars and stuff like that.

And in fact, you almost got the sense that when Apple was buying the content, part of the reason that they were even releasing it in a theater, as opposed to going straight to Apple TV+, is that they wanted it to be eligible for Oscar content.

And that was great.

It resulted in some movies that were really, really good.

Example, COTA is a perfect example of one of those.

But now this is something different.

Another type of movie is the summer blockbuster.

It's gonna be an action adventure.

It's gonna come out in July.

It's the thing that you're gonna wanna see on the biggest screen possible.

And this is what Apple appears to be doing with this movie.

They're filming it in IMAX, like 100 minutes of the movie is gonna be in an IMAX format.

So if you can find a big IMAX theater to go see it, and it's going to be, I mean, it's done by some of the people that were responsible for things like the, what's the new, the Top Gun, Maverick.

And of course, Jerry Bruckheimer, who's been involved for so many of these big budget action. - Incredible, right. - So they're paying money to the people that have made summer blockbusters.

They've got Brad Pitt, who's a huge star.

You know, what are you gonna do that's as exciting as military planes, you know, going through the air, you know, a million miles per hour.

How about cars racing as fast as possible?

And they're filming this thing at the actual F1 races.

And so, you know, during breaks in the action in the real races, they have their actors quickly go on there and film scenes with the real stadiums behind them, everything else.

So, you know, they're doing everything that they can.

Brad Pitt's really driving cars.

I think that the rumor is it's this article that you're showing from Deadline says, maybe it wasn't an F1 car, it was an F2 car, which is not quite as fast, although still really fast, but modified to make it look like an F1 car.

Certainly way beyond anything that I'm gonna be able to drive for sure.

And they've actually got Brad Pitt and these other people doing it.

Some of the real F1 racers are actually in the movie. - Lewis Hamilton, for crying out loud. - All of the elements of it.

Can you imagine the adrenaline rush?

If it's a good plot, I mean, he knows, it could be a dud, but if it's a good plot and it's interesting and it's filmed with these incredible cameras and it's got great actors in it and it's got great stars and it moves fast and it's engaging, that is the recipe for a summer blockbuster.

And Apple has never done one of these before.

So, just because you put all the pieces together doesn't mean it's gonna be great, but maybe it will be.

And wouldn't it be fun if Apple got into this?

And so then wouldn't it be fun if like every year we would have the next Apple TV+ summer blockbuster movie that you're gonna wanna go see on the big iMac screen.

And then a couple of months later, you'll watch it again at your home.

So I'm excited about it 'cause I'm excited about the particular movie, even though I'm not a big racing fan, but just everything about this looks like it's gonna be a huge adrenaline rush.

And I love the idea of Apple getting into this genre. - Now, just real quick, 'cause you mentioned this and I see the question right here.

So it's not going to be released to Apple TV+ directly. - Not at first. - Or first. - I mean, this is, that's the thing. - It's going to the theater and iMacs first. - Yeah, so this is my point about talking about the Oscar movies.

I got the sense in those other movies that they would just release it for a few weeks to get the awards, but then what they really wanted to do, it was put on TV.

And sometimes they would do it just to satisfy the director or the actors that they actually get to be in something that you could go to a theater.

But I get the sense for this, that Apple wants it to be a true theater movie that Apple will make money off of, just like other studios do.

But then when it's time to go to, you know, the home video, it's just gonna only be on Apple TV+.

So if you missed it in the theater, the only place that you'll see it is on the TV+ service.

You won't find it on Netflix.

You won't find it on any of the other ones.

So it's a new way.

And if Apple can make money off of this, and if it makes sense, then that sounds great.

Sounds great. - You know, it just makes me think real quick, 'cause here's the flip side of this.

I don't know if you follow Casey Neistat on YouTube, but he apparently is good friends with the director of the movie that just came out with Jake Gyllenhaal not too long ago, "Road House," if you remember that.

If you go watch, Casey did this little vignette of YouTube video of talking to this director who was fit to be tied, because this came out through Amazon in a similar way.

But Amazon forced him to go directly to the Amazon platform and not go to the theater first.

And I remember that in this video, it's been a while since I've seen it, but the director was upset and didn't, like he was fighting with Amazon, but he eventually went to like the screening with the actors, you know, the first screening that came out because it was the only time that it was actually gonna be shown in a theater.

And I just, just listening to him, you know, talk through that experience and just seeing kind of an opposite effect here.

Like he wanted it to be shown in the theater.

And I distinctly remember him saying like, this was shot with the idea, like, you know, it's a beat 'em up movie, right?

"Road House," it's actually a pretty fun movie.

But he's like, it's designed to be experienced with a bunch of people, like, you know, you're cheering for the good guy, you know, and that kind of a thing.

And anyway, just it made me think about that when you're talking about Apple is gonna go to theater first, like that's their strategy.

But others, maybe like Amazon Prime and those, I don't know, maybe they're thinking about it differently.

You know, maybe there's all kinds of marketing approaches here and I think financial interest and stuff.

But anyway, just kind of an interesting, I guess a different approach to that.

But, you know, it's just, to me, it's just seeing how a lot of this streaming versus theater entertainment approaches are coming in these days.

We've talked about tvOS 18, iOS 18.

Let's talk about iPhotos, or sorry, I still call it iPhotos, the Photos app in iOS 18.

You had a really quick little story here from Federico over at Mac Stories that he initially wasn't happy with the Photos app, the way the changes that Apple was gonna be making, but it sounds like he's coming around a little bit to this, Jeff. - Yeah, and I was happy to see this.

When we first saw the debut, you know, just a month or so ago of what Photos was gonna look like in iOS 18, you know, the first thing that we all thought of is, wow, this is a different interface, is that bad?

Because, you know, we all like what's familiar, especially for something like Photos, which is used by such, such, so many people, including people that would never think about listening to a technology podcast or a technology website. - Right, my mom. - Are they gonna see something that makes them upset because it's different?

And I was glad to see, you know, admittedly Federico is on the real geeky side of things, but I was glad to see him say that after using it just for a couple of weeks, that the changes, you know, did not seem so disruptive.

And yet the way that it exposed himself to all of the photos that were deep in his library that he may have forgotten about were really pleasant.

So it makes me, you know, what he wrote here was really short, I think, because Federico is, you know, every year he does his big iOS review that comes out in September.

So I'm sure he's saving most of his thoughts for his huge review, which is coming later this year.

But for now, I thought it was interesting for him to say, you know what, it's okay.

Like, once you get used to it, this is actually gonna be a good change.

And that's what I wanna hear.

I wanna hear that not only is it gonna have all the powerful new features, but it's not gonna be so disruptive that you're gonna say like, why did they have to change this?

So that's what made me interested to see that article. - My hope is that it is just simply going to be a little bit more intuitive.

You're right, a lot of people get into photos.

I gotta be honest with you.

Sometimes I get into photos and I'm like, I know I'm looking for a specific album or I want a shared album, not just my own album that somebody shared with me.

And I feel like it takes me two or three more taps than it should, I guess.

Or I'm like, I have to sit there and wait, like, is that in albums or is it, what tab is it in?

I'm really kind of liking some of these mock-ups here and actually some of the beta looking, because like you said, still in developer betas right now before it even gets to the public betas.

So hopefully Apple is continuing to tweak it and make it look a little bit better, but you're right.

This is very encouraging that Frederico is recognizing it here as well. - Indeed. - Where are you at?

Boy, not only, not just one, not two, but three where you're at stories quickly here, Jeff.

And these are some good ones, I like this.

Hey, we talk about air tags a whole lot.

They can work for just about anything that you might lose or get stolen, including a campaign sign. - I never- - I like this from the Wall Street Journal, but man, 'tis the season, I guess, right? - Yeah, I mean, when I saw this article, it never even occurred to me to use an air tag this way.

You know, we've all seen campaign sites that people put all over town and in lawns or busy intersections and stuff like that.

And apparently this one candidate in Florida was upset that he kept putting out signs, which apparently are not cheap.

I think he was paying, I don't know.

I had no idea how expensive the signs are, but apparently they're more expensive than I realized.

And he said that he kept having to replace them because they would go missing.

And he's like, "Who's taken my signs?"

And so he just thought about sticking an air...

Now, how exactly you stick an air tag on a sign, I'm not exactly sure.

What he should do is get like one of those thin, like eufy cards that are made to go in your wallet, because you could maybe stick it in there, but stick it in the foam.

But he somehow managed to stick an air tag into the sign.

Sure enough, the sign is stolen, and he was able to track it and find out with the aid of the police that apparently was a bunch of teenagers that thought that it would be...

I guess, I mean, it never explored if it was the opponent that was paying teenagers to do this.

That's what I was thinking, right.

Or if it was just the teenagers thinking that they were being cute because they were taking the signs and putting them in their truck.

But one way or the other, it cost him 25 bucks to get an air tag, but he got his solution.

So that's an interesting use of a fine line.

Totally worth it. (laughs) But I would feel like if you call the police and say, "Listen, my campaign signs keep getting stolen."

I don't know that that would be at the top of the list of things that the officers would consider as something important.

But if at least maybe you have an extra data point that you could provide them with like, "Hey, here's the location of these stolen goods."

They might be able to check it out.

Same thing happened, where was this, in Malaysia, apparently?

Somebody who had their car valet parked, but then it was gone.

Fortunately, they had an air tag in the car and they could track it down and the law enforcement there were able to recover that one for them.

Yeah, same thing.

I mean, he was in a shopping mall with valet parking and he goes to mall security and like, they have no idea.

They're totally unhelpful, he said.

But then because of the air tag that was in his car, he was able to figure out where it was, get the police involved and they were able to find it.

So just another one of these examples.

And something that I think about, whenever you turn over a car to a valet, you're giving them keys, you're giving them your car.

Yes, you are.

I feel a lot, I personally feel a lot better about it.

The few times that I've used a valet since I put an air tag in my car, I feel like now at least I know where it is.

Yeah, good stuff there.

Last story on this.

Little bit of a twist on this one.

Yeah.

Not involving an air tag, but an actually a HomePod that saved a family from a house fire that apparently was accidentally set by the family dog.

Boy, that's a no-no Fido, that's not good.

Let's start by address.

How does the dog cause the fire?

But apparently- I know.

That was my first question.

But apparently the people had had like some sort of a cardboard box that somebody had just set on top of a stove.

Don't do that, I guess.

Don't do that.

Because apparently the dog must have used his paw to start the flame.

And then because there was a box on top of the stove, it catches fire.

And so of course that caused the fire.

You know, they have like a little fire alarm in their device to go off.

Smoke alarm, right.

But this is the interesting thing.

So the HomePod has had a feature for a while now that if it detects a sound, it can give you a warning and it can detect things like a fire alarm sound, a baby crying.

And these are all features that I think were originally designed as accessibility features for people that were hard of hearing.

So you can't hear the alarm.

I remember that.

But if the fire alarm goes off and you have an alert on your phone saying, "Hey, there's a fire alarm in your kitchen," then you would be detected even if you couldn't hear it.

Now, I don't know that there was an accessibility issue here, I think the family was just upstairs in their bedroom and the door was closed.

And I guess they just couldn't hear it.

You know, in my house, I have these things called the Nest smoke detectors, that one of the things that I like about them, and this is a Google product now, that they're all connected to each other.

So like if one part of the house detects a fire, the smoke alarm, like every smoke alarm goes off.

So even upstairs in our bedroom, we would still hear it.

But I guess these families just, this family just had like traditional smoke alarms.

And so the HomePod hears the smoke alarm, sends the alert to them, which then wakes them up and they were able to get down there and put the fire out.

So yeah, I would not have predicted this fact pattern.

It almost sounds like something on a law school exam, as they say, something that's just so fanciful that this would never happen in real life. - Never happen in real life. - Here we go, it actually happened in real life.

So from the dog to the HomePod, to the fire detector, to the bedroom, to the iPhone, to, you know, stayed in the house. - Maybe the dog had an air tag on it as well. - Oh, that would have been another twist, I like that. (laughing) - I do remember quickly that I think this is baked into, even the iPhone is somewhere, I seem to remember there was a commercial from Apple where there was a mother that was either deaf or hard of hearing, but you know, she was, when the baby was crying, right?

Do you remember this, Jeff, something like that?

That the phone, or maybe the Apple watch could even notify her that the baby was crying.

So when you said that, that's kind of the thing I was thinking.

And I'm glad that it's not just limited to babies crying.

It's also gonna be alert to smoke alarms going off on there.

Let's talk about the Vision Pro just real quick in a very short aspect, because this was, I thought it, a little bit of an interesting clip that you sent here from a YouTube video from EFTM, apparently it's an Australian magazine, but they interviewed Tim Cook, and they were asking Tim Cook a little bit about the Vision Pro and sort of, you know, the idea of what it is.

I thought there was some really cool components in this, you know, Tim addressing like one of his favorites, like how he uses the actual, actually uses the Vision Pro himself, interesting stuff. - Yeah, that's what I enjoyed about it.

I mean, if you're interested in hearing, you know, at least from Apple's perspective, from the very top of Apple, Tim Cook himself, what you might use the Vision Pro for, this is a full, almost 10 minute interview that's all about the Vision Pro because the Vision Pro is now coming to Australia.

So that's all that they talk about.

And, you know, he asks Tim all sorts of questions about how Tim Cook uses his own Vision Pro.

And, you know, a lot of the answers that Tim gives are sort of the marketing speak answers of, you know, can you pick what's the best?

And he's like, oh, well, of course it's good for, you know, he won't answer one thing.

It's good for this and for this and for this.

And yet along the way, it's a long enough interview that he actually does reveal some of the different things that he uses it for, from entertainment purposes, to getting work done, to, you know, having different screens in different places.

And so I just enjoyed hearing him talk about all the different things that you could do with the Vision Pro and including some of the stuff that has been announced already and that's coming soon to the Vision Pro update.

So it was a nice sort of deep dive into the Vision Pro.

I enjoyed it. - Well, that's one Apple executive.

We have two Apple executives interviews to share today.

I really enjoyed this one.

It's from a channel that I wasn't too familiar with, SuperSaf, but apparently lots of other people are very familiar with it.

And he sat down with Eddie Q.

I really enjoyed this video, Jeff, just talking about not just hearing Tim Cook and how he uses the actual devices every day.

Eddie Q went even deeper into some of that, not just about the devices he used.

In fact, I love the fact that SuperSaf here was asking Eddie, what is your daily driver?

Which, you know, we know that term sort of in the tech circles is like, what are the tools that you are using every day?

Well, you know, software-wise, hardware-wise.

And Eddie was able to answer exactly like what he does for each device.

And I just really thought there was good, lots of really good nuggets in this little video.

It's only about 30 minutes, but I thought the interview was really excellent. - Yeah, it's worth watching for so many reasons.

Eddie Q does not do a lot of videos.

I don't know if it's by design or just by the nature.

You know, he is a very important executive at Apple, but he is sort of the deal maker.

He's the one, you know, he's in charge of all the services.

So it's everything from Apple Music to Apple TV, to you name it.

And so when it's time to negotiate with a studio or with a director, I mean, obviously he doesn't do it all himself.

He's got some smart people that work with him, but he's at the top, right?

And so he's involved in all of this stuff.

And it's a really interesting side of Apple.

So he's not making the next, although I'm sure he's involved to a certain degree, 'cause he points out that they have meetings all the time.

You know, he's not coming up with the next design for the iPad.

I'm sure he's not designing that, the thing that's gonna sit in your kitchen and have something that moves around. - The tabletop robot. - The tabletop robot, exactly.

But if it's in the works, he knows about it for sure.

And he's probably negotiating some rights to put sports programs on it or something like that.

And so it was interesting to hear from someone like this, that's coming from a different side of the company.

And like you say, it's a long running interview.

There were so many different parts of it.

You know, the story that I mentioned in the news this week was the story that Find My, which is something, we just did a whole segment talking about different ways of Find My being used, that this all came from someone who was a summer intern at Apple and had an idea of, wouldn't it be a great if you could find a lost iPhone.

And I have to admit, I've heard a lot of these types of stories.

I actually don't think I'd heard this one before.

And I did a quick jump on the internet last night, Brett, just to see if someone else was, like if that's a story that's been out in the news for a long time.

And I couldn't find it.

So maybe not, maybe there's, so I don't know who this person is, but I mean, hey, if you're the summer intern that came up with the idea of Find My, which has now gotten major technology, you know, air tags and everything else based on it, you know, wow, good job, summer intern.

No kidding. - That is awesome.

Good for you.

And so somebody out there has a story.

So that was just one time, that was just a throw aside story.

There was, I know you listened to it too.

So I'd be curious to see, what were some of the stories that jumped out at you that were interesting that you mentioned? - Well, I just, you know, anytime, I guess because you and I are a little bit nerdy on this, like I just love to hear those backend stories, exactly what you just said, Jeff.

I picked up on that immediately.

Because first of all, an intern, really?

Like that's where the idea came from.

And then immediately, second of all, I'm like, thank you, Eddie, as the leader, as an executive for like listening to people like that.

Right?

In other words, he gave credit where credit was due.

And I just thought that was good.

The other thing quickly that I thought was interesting is SuperSaf asked about just like music.

And I think the question, if he wasn't trying to be so nice, the question would have been like, you know, why is Apple Music better than Spotify?

Or something along those lines.

He was asking about it. - That's basically what he asked them.

Right, right. - But Eddie was really understanding about it.

Because again, I think we've, you know, underscoring a lot of this is Eddie and Tim and all the other executives use, you know, the products that they create.

But he said, listen, Eddie said, people are gonna go, you know, where they want to listen to the music.

And he even said, most, all these services pretty much have the same songs.

Right?

Everybody pretty much has the same songs.

But the thing that he listed, two that caught my eye or caught my ear is, number one, they understood that there needs to still be a human element to it.

I think that's the way he described it, or a human component to it.

Which is why that they still have radio shows.

He calls them radio shows, you know, on iTunes or on Apple Music that you can go in and listen.

Like these are human curated shows that basically, you know, that are famous DJs that can go in and play.

And sometimes I'll listen to it.

It's a good way, as you said earlier, to, you know, find new music.

The second thing that I really enjoyed hearing him talk about is, we wanted to bring that same kind of an intuitive experience to classical music, as opposed to just general music, I guess.

Because we reported on this, what, a year ago or so, Jeff, when they created the Apple Classical Music app.

Which I admittedly don't go into a whole lot, but every once in a while I'll jump into it.

And it really is just a joy.

I don't have a ton of knowledge about classical music, but just the way that they created the interface and allowed, you know, things to bubble up and genre, you know, different types of classical music.

They really do a good job.

And again, you and I have said this many, many times, and Eddie said this as well, that music is sort of baked into the entire culture.

It's something that they're very passionate about there at the company.

He even hearkened back to Steve Jobs, you know, coming back and the original work on iTunes.

Because Eddie's been there for 36 years, he was talking about, you know.

It was just so great to be able to hear about some of the memories and some of the things.

It was like, you know, like his favorite products, that kind of a thing.

So anyway, you can tell I get pretty excited about this interview.

It's always fun for me to see when people are excited to talk about sort of the back, you know, from folks that don't do a lot of these types of interviews. - Yeah, you know, he was asked, you know, something about his typical workday.

And one of the things that Eddie joked about was that, I think he said like, I only work 30 days a year.

And you know, his joke was that, you know, there's 30 days every year that he actually does that something that's sort of arduous, he continues to work.

And the rest of it, he's just doing things that he really enjoys.

And I know that that's sort of an old saying, you know, if you love what you, and you know, if you love your job, you know, you're passionate. - You're passionate about something, yeah. - Exactly.

But it's true.

You know, he expressed that passion that he, and I know a lot of other people that work for Apple, just truly, you know, as he pointed out, this is one of the rare companies that you use what you do.

You know, you create products like the iPhone and the iPad, but you use those products every day.

He's involved in creating, you know, Apple Music and Apple TV+, but then he enjoys those things.

And so, you know, what a great job to be able to make things so that you could then sit down and enjoy your own products, of enjoying your TV shows and your movies and your music and everything else.

And I actually thought that was an interesting answer to it. - Speaking of which, he's excited about "Severance 2" as well, Jeff.

Did you hear that? - And what I love about it is- - He's very excited. - He clearly could find out what's going on in season two. - He could have watched it already. - I did not.

Right, he said, "I purposefully have avoided "paying attention to what the team is doing "because I want to wait until the entire season is done "and then I can watch it as it's intended to be."

So he's exhibiting perhaps better- - How crazy is that?

The one person that could have watched it, whatever he wants to watch it, he's chosen not to 'cause he wants to do it, you know, in the final, final product.

That was crazy.

I love that. - Exactly.

So anyway, it's a nice interview.

If you have an interest in listening to Apple executives talk about things, this one is special.

It's a little better than many of the other Apple executive interviews that we've seen over the years. - I agree. - And I didn't necessarily intend to sit down and listen to it for 30 minutes, but it was one of those, like, once I put it on, I just kept listening.

It was just so fun to listen to. - Yeah, very good.

In the know.

Okay, we've talked about AirTags enough that I'm like, okay, I gotta find an AirTag tip. - This is a good one, yeah. - And it did, because I think this has only been out for maybe about eight months or so.

This came out in Iowa 17, right?

And we probably reported on this, but I gotta be honest with you, I hadn't tried it now.

AirTags, I love 'em.

I think I've got eight total now.

I just keep buying 'em whenever they go on the really good price sales because it's so good.

Like, I put 'em in, my wife has one in her purse, my daughter has her purse, I got it in my luggage.

Now I'm gonna put it on my campaign signs.

It's great.

They're gonna be all over the place.

But the fact of the matter that not only can you track it, obviously, we know that we have the Find My app on the phone, and we can track it ourselves, but I really like this now you can share an AirTag.

So I've actually done this with my wife.

So I have an AirTag in the primary roller bag that I take with me when I go traveling to places.

Now my wife, of course, can track me through the Find My app as the person, 'cause if you look down to the bottom of the Find My app, you have people, devices, and then items, and the items is under where the AirTags will appear, right?

So I've got my roller bag there, and if you tap into the AirTag, once you get it all connected and everything, you can then scroll down, and you'll see that there's a section right in the middle of the screen that says Share This AirTag.

So you tap Share This, or Add Person, I think is what it is.

I'm not sure, this Macworld article is really good about doing this.

You tap it.

Now, before you can add somebody, Apple will give you the little warning confirmation box.

Others can locate this item if you allow them, if you share it with them.

Tracking notifications will be muted.

You also have the idea that if you wanna remove them, you can't, anyway, go through all of the disclaimers there, just making sure that you fully understand what you're doing there.

But it was really easy.

I say Add Person, I say OK, and then I just go and I found my wife, and I basically sent her an invitation.

So before, you don't just share and it's done.

You send them an invitation.

I think they get an email, but I may have been sent via message.

I don't really know, to be honest with you on that, 'cause I haven't asked her how she got it yet.

But then they accept it, 'cause right now it says it's pending.

So my wife's invitation that I sent to her is pending right now, and if I tap on Pending, it'll let me view friend or I can withdraw the invitation.

I don't wanna do that yet, because I want her to go and accept it.

So then not only can she track me as a person, well, actually my iPhone, right, and to find my app, because I share my location with her, but she can now also track my rollerboard, my bag.

Now, not that she's gonna really be tracking my bag, but the reason that I wanted to go ahead and do that is number one, I could certainly see a time maybe when I would lose my iPhone and I still want her to be able to track, or if my iPhone battery dies and I have a situation where I'm trying to track my AirTag, I might be able to get in touch with her, or if she's with me, I can use her, find my app.

I feel like it's good, like if you go on vacation with a family, you can share the AirTags you're using in your luggage with all your members, right, so that everybody can see and track that, because sometimes I do find that the AirTag doesn't update quite as quickly as I would like it to be, but quick enough, you sometimes have to be a little bit patient, or frankly, sometimes I'll even share an AirTag, it might be my daughter's AirTag in her car, for example, she's tracking it, but I might also want her to share that with me so that I can track the car too, or just have that capability.

So really neat aspect there.

Maybe it was an idea of a summer intern at Apple, I don't know, but I just like the idea that I'd forgotten about this, that they added this on iOS 17, but not only can you use AirTags now, but you have the option to share an AirTag with, it doesn't have to be a family member, it can be anybody, really, anybody in your contacts, they have to be in your contacts first in order to select them, but obviously most of the time, I'm gonna see that you could share it with your family.

So try that out if you haven't already. - Yeah, and one thing that you didn't mention, Brad, is like, let's say, for example, you're in some difficult travel situation, your luggage gets separated from you, and so while you're dealing with one thing, maybe your wife could be tracking down your luggage and helping somebody track it down, so, or vice versa or something like that.

So yeah, that's a great tip.

I was really happy, or sharing luggage.

I mean, my wife and I have a, sometimes we'll, I typically use my own suitcase, but sometimes I may use the one that she primarily uses and vice versa, and so by just sharing this, you can do it.

So when I saw that you did this tip today, my tip of the day is to sort of step back from this general idea of sharing, to get into the concept of recovery contacts and recovery keys, and the reason I wanted to talk about this issue is, so once something is lost, you know, you've lost an item, you've lost a phone, you've lost whatever, you're gonna wanna track it down, and of course, hopefully you have your iPhone, because if you do, that can usually lead you to what you need to know, but what if your iPhone is the thing that was lost, or it's one of many things that's lost?

You can use somebody else's device to help define your own stuff, which is similar to what you were just sort of talking about.

Now, when you're using the Find My app, there's a distinction between things that Find My calls devices, those are computer things, a laptop, an iPad, iPhone, something like that, those are devices, an Apple Watch, those are all devices, and by default, if you have a family set up in your iCloud, I mean, I have it, my wife and I and our two kids are all part of the same iCloud family, by default, without doing anything, I can track my wife's laptop, my son's Apple Watch, all that sort of stuff, because those are devices.

Now, AirTags, on the other hand, are called items, AirTags and similar AirTag-like devices that you get from third parties, like that eufy card I referred to earlier, are called items, and the items are the things that by default, you only see your own items, i.e. your own AirTags, I don't see my wife's AirTags, I don't see my kids' AirTags, and then if you just described, of course, a way that you can get around that by doing that.

If you get into a situation where you need to use to track down your stuff, and you don't have one of your own devices to do it with, say you're traveling and you've lost your iPhone and you don't have any of your devices with you, then you get into a situation where you want to use somebody else's computer device, whatever, to find your own stuff, and you can do this, it just gets a little complicated.

Now, in the old days, what you used to do is you used to just go to a single website, and I don't say the old days, this is still current now, you can go to iCloud.com/find, which you're showing on the screen right now, and you could sign in.

Now, of course, you're gonna have to know your password, and your user ID and your password, and if your password is something complicated, maybe you only have that in your iPhone, so maybe you don't have that with you, so think about is that something that you shared with your wife or somebody else that you can get to it, but even if you get through this screen, if you've got some of the more advanced security turned on in your iPhone, and I'm not gonna go through it all today, but we've talked about this in the past, advanced data protection, stuff like that, even this website won't necessarily get you where you need to go.

Apple has two technologies, they wanna make it that, they don't wanna make it easy for a bad guy to steal your stuff, and then take over your device.

We've talked about this in the past, that if a bad guy gets access to your Apple ID, they could then delete all your photos and do everything else, you gotta protect all that stuff, but at the same time, you don't wanna have a situation where you have amnesia, or you lose your password manager, and you can't even get to your own things, and so Apple has two things set up to allow you to get into stuff, if you've lost your initial mode of access, and one of them is called recovery contacts, and one's called recovery keys, and you can use either one of them or both up to you.

So recovery contacts real quick, recovery contact is you designate somebody that you trust to say, this is somebody that if I lose access to my account this is somebody who can help me.

And I think of, you might wanna do this for your spouse, or maybe one of your kids, they might wanna designate you, if you've got a parent, especially that maybe doesn't understand technology as much, you might wanna help them to designate you as the recovery contact for your parent, so that if they just forget, or can't get into their account or whatever, you'll have the ability to help them to unlock their account, because maybe they've lost their password or something like that.

Doesn't matter if they lost their password, even if you don't have a copy of the password, you can still authenticate through your devices, yes, allow my parent to get into their device.

And so, and there's a long process that you go through and it's spelled out on this page, but it's one thing that you can do.

A second thing that you can do is called the recovery key process.

And this is where you print out this thing or store it somewhere, your password manager, that's like a super, super, super long combination of keys and letters, but it's like your, it's your Uber password.

So that even if you forget your regular password, if you have this one recovery key that maybe you keep in like a bank security box or something like that, it can be, you know, so, you know, it can be another way to get in.

I can prove to Apple that I'm really me.

Now, if you don't have this, if you forget your own password and if you don't have a recovery contact and if you don't have your recovery key, then you might be sort of out of luck.

So it's nice that Apple gives you these options.

And in fact, Apple won't even let you turn on some of their highest levels of security unless you have enabled at least one of these options, either the recovery key or the recovery contact.

And you know, if you've got friends and family, maybe recover contacts, a good way to go.

If you don't have anybody that you trust enough, then that's fine.

Don't trust a person, just trust your recovery key and make sure that it's in a location that's, but these are all these high level security things.

And I mentioned all of this now because it's a little complicated, but these are the sort of things that you want to figure out now, while everything is good.

Because if you lose your device, things get complicated and Apple is trying to protect your security.

They don't want to just, you know, anybody that calls up and claims that their name is Jeff Richardson suddenly has access to my stuff.

They want to make sure that only the right person is getting access.

It's a little complicated, but it is logical.

It's just, it requires a couple of different steps.

It requires a couple of letters of authentication and it's good to get all this stuff set up correctly now so that if you're in that situation of, oh my goodness, I've lost, you know, thieves have come in, they've taken all my devices.

They stole my computer, they stole my iPad, they stole my iPhone.

How do I get access to my stuff?

These are the sorts of things that you'll be looking towards. - Now, do you suggest doing both of these, Jeff, or do you just do one of them? - It's up to you.

I do both of them.

I have both the recovery key and I have the recovery contacts.

And for me, you know, the more that you do, the more risk you have, because if I have that recovery key, there's the risk that some bad guy would find that super secret location where I lost it.

And again, when you make somebody a recovery contact, what happens if it's a boyfriend or a girlfriend and you break up, or it's a spouse and you get divorced, or it's, you know, a kid and the kid doesn't think about putting it somewhere safe and leaves it on a subway or a train, you know?

So you're gonna always be weighing levels of risks, but you just need to decide what's the appropriate level for you.

Who do you feel comfortable giving it to?

What's an appropriate risk versus the risk of you yourself forgetting or somehow losing your password or something like that. - So my next question, if I have both account recovery, I'm sorry, contact recovery, recovery contact, and recovery key turned on, do I- - Either one could be used. - Okay, so in other words, if I got them both turned on, oh, I got some balloons happening there.

If I have them both turned on, then I can use either one, right?

I don't have to use both of them if both of them are turned on. - You don't have to. - Is that right?

Okay, good. - You can choose either one.

You're giving yourself two options. - 'Cause I see, I have recovery contact turned on, and that's my wife, but I do not have recovery key turned on.

And I guess I probably got nervous in the same way in the sense that, well, I don't know where to store this, 'cause typically where I would store it would be in 1Password, where 1Password now actually has their own recovery key as well, right?

That you have to print off and store it.

I mean, I guess you can store it in a safe, but in the situations that you're talking about, I'm not gonna have access to the safe.

I'm probably gonna be out of town or something like that in that place. - And Brett, there's nothing wrong with you making the decision that recovery key is not for you.

I think it's perfectly logical.

I have decided that I actually think it's invaluable enough for me that I've done it.

But again, whether you use it or not, my point is just, think about this.

If you feel comfortable using a recovery person, do it.

And if you don't feel comfortable, you don't trust anybody enough, don't do it.

If you feel, but I encourage you to use at least one of them because something could happen where you need to get, gosh, I've lost access through every other way.

I either need that trusted person, the recovery contact, or I need that trusted, very secure password, the recovery key. - The code, yeah. - I really encourage you to have at least one of them. - Absolutely, totally, totally agree with that.

And by the way, I'll make sure that these links are in the show notes here, but I know it's a complicated thing, but it is easy to get to it.

You go to settings, you tap your name, and there's a section called sign in and security.

And then there's a section called account recovery.

So you can get to that.

And that's where I'm looking right now that I have a recovery contact, recovery key is turned off.

But the last thing quickly I'll add to this, Jeff, is that my wife made me a recovery contact for her Apple account.

And at the bottom of that screen, it says I am account recovery for my wife.

And so at the bottom of that screen, you can see not only can you add other people, but then you can see other people have added you.

And that's good because that's how you're gonna get that code, that special recovery code for somebody if they need it, to kind of put a bow on that. - Exactly, yeah. - Coming full circle around on that thing.

I just wanted to mention that.

Great, great tip.

And absolutely, I will chime in, second that, third that, fourth that, absolutely select one of these.

I think at the very least, a recovery contact is really, really a good idea.

And then if you really just wanna make sure that you wanna protect and put on the extra layer of recovery key, that's the way I kinda looked at it.

Recovery contact to me is a no-brainer when they put this in.

Good stuff, Jeff, thank you for adding that.

Woo, okay, I think we're done.

Boy, that's a lot.

Thanks for joining me.

And as always, we'll talk with you next week, Jeff.