- Welcome to In the News for August the 30th, 2024.

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

Hi Brett. - Good morning, Jeff.

What a week.

As Apple has told us, it is now time to grow up.

No, wait, I'm sorry.

It's time to glow up.

We got an email from Apple.

They finally announced when they are going to have their keynote.

And the headline of the email was glow up, which I gotta tell you, I mean, I don't know.

We'll have to talk a little bit about what that could possibly mean, but I'm excited.

September 9th is when they're gonna have a keynote and boy, Heidi, there's a lot that hopefully we're hope they're gonna announce. - Yes, indeed.

So much to announce.

So we always know that Apple is gonna have their iPhone announcement in early September.

In fact, it's been so many years now that I actually did the math that you can almost predict them which is funny because I think that it's gonna be September 9th, both this year and next year and the year after that, if Apple holds to plan.

The one thing that was a little unusual. - You did do some math.

You had a post this week where you were doing some math of like why Monday and not Tuesday.

And I'm like, oh my goodness, Jeff, you've really gone down the rabbit hole here. - The one mystery is Apple doing it on a Monday because that's something that they've never done before for a September announcement.

And John Gruber thinks it's because of the presidential debate on Tuesday the 10th, which I guess is a possibility Apple tries to have.

But whatever it is, it'll be in a new, it means an earlier announcement by 24 hours for us.

So nothing wrong with that of us finding out early what's coming in town.

And then in terms of the cover announcement, like you say, it's glow time with what is clearly a version of Siri on it.

And you never know if you read too much into the graphics that Apple uses.

People try to do a little criminal analogy of what does it mean?

Sometimes it means something, sometimes it means nothing.

But in this case, I think there's a decent chance that we know that Apple is working on a new version of Siri that incorporates Apple intelligence.

And that might be a big deal.

I mean, Siri is a big part of using the iPhone and other products as well.

So it would not surprise me if we see some substantial, something that changes and improves the way that Siri works as at least a part of the presentation.

And that would explain the cover graphic.

So we'll see.

But of course, the good thing is new products.

Yeah, go ahead. - Haven't we seen, just real quickly, I mean, just on that Siri thing, it's like there's gonna be, we have that circle now, that kind of bubble that happens, right, when you invoke, I like how the guys at MacBreak Weekly call it slo-mo, right, instead of S-I-R-I.

But it's like right now we have that little bubble that kind of glows and moves around at the very bottom.

But we have seen, right, that now the slo-mo is gonna happen around the edges of the screen, right?

And that's some of the video that I think we've seen of some folks doing this right now.

And sort of, that's the first thing I thought of when I saw this glow time little image there.

So I really think that's gotta be what they're looking at.

But I don't know, there's always something else that could be in there, right? - Yeah, the visual indications for Siri, S-I-R-I, will probably be a little different, we know that.

But I mean, what really matters is what's underneath, that it will be more able to do a conversation with you and have you follow up on requests and stuff like that.

And then it may eventually get into the point where it actually digs into using some other technologies like ChatGPT for certain types of questions.

So again, some of that stuff was previewed at WWDC earlier in June.

We haven't seen all of it yet, but I'm looking forward to seeing more.

But it would not surprise me if that's gonna be a part of the presentation on September 9th, for sure. - What are you expecting?

You link to a good story here, a nine to five Mac from Ryan Christoffel, kind of a walk down of what we might be seeing on September 9th. - Yeah, I feel like it is certain that we're gonna, I mean, just to start at the top level, I think it's certain that we're gonna see an iPhone.

I think it is certain that we're gonna see an Apple Watch.

I think it is certain that we are gonna see some types of AirPod improvements, and we'll get back to all of these.

And then everything after those top three, and then of course, something to do with Siri and Apple intelligence stuff.

I mean, that's four things.

And frankly, those four, that could be yet, that's more than enough with all the details and stuff.

But there are other possibilities as well.

Apple traditionally does not announce iPads at this September event because they tend to have a special announcement, but there's one exception.

The one iPad that Apple treats differently is the iPad mini because it doesn't always have the latest and greatest features, but it's, you know, it's, and they only update it every couple of years, but when they do update it, they will often do so in connection with the iPhone.

And it's been long enough since Apple updated the iPad mini that a lot of people are thinking that this will be the time that we get the seventh generation mini, and which would be nice just to make it a little bit more modern.

I mean, the mini is such a nice little, you know, tiny little iPad.

It works so well for so many different things.

So I think that's a possibility.

There's other possibilities too that become a little bit even more, you know, unlikely, but things like maybe a new version of the Apple TV and maybe, you know, other little things like that, that becomes a little bit more in the periphery.

But again, the core ones that we're gonna see, iPhone, Apple Watch, and then probably AirPods as well.

That's, so that's from the big level.

So then the question just becomes, what is the iPhone gonna have?

And, you know, at this point, it's a mix of the rumors that we've been reading over the last six months, people's own hopes for what they would love to see in an iPhone, you know, it all sort of mixes together.

And you don't, I mean, we don't know.

All we can really do is speculate about it.

The one thing that I mentioned this morning that, you know, particularly jumps out at me, before I say that, we know for a fact that Apple intelligence, AI is coming.

And so Apple's gonna do some things to make these new iPhones even more ready for Apple intelligence.

Apple itself has said earlier this year that one of the things AI requires, because they're trying to do it on device for privacy reasons, you know, AI, it eats up memory.

It just does.

So it means that it would not surprise me if all the new iPhones, and certainly the pro models, have more RAM.

And RAM is something that you normally don't think about for an iPhone, like you do for a computer.

But behind the scenes, you know, having more RAM is more expensive for Apple, but it always improves the way that a device works.

I mean, one big example is people that like to keep tons and tons of Safari tabs open.

If you've got more RAM, that's gonna make that experience better on an iPhone.

So more RAM would be nice, of course, for Apple intelligence and perhaps some other things as well.

But, and then another one of the rumors, we were, it was just, I think it was last week, Brett, that you and I were talking about how when you're looking towards an iPhone this fall, one of the things that's really nice from last year's pro model was that 5X zoom.

And one of the rumors- - Yes. - Is that that 5X zoom is gonna come down to the entry-level iPhone.

So you won't have to have the pro, which is something that Apple does many years.

They will often come up with a new photography feature.

They will introduce it one year with the pro, and then the following year, it will get pushed down to the regular model.

We've seen this time and time again.

So that would make some good sense.

Another thing that I've heard is that the ultra wide lens on the camera, that that would actually have a better camera on it, which would be nice for a number of reasons.

One of which is if you're using your iPhone to try to take, you know, they have this trick that you can take 3D for an Apple Vision Pro and stuff like that.

Having a better camera there would be good.

And also it would be nice for all, you know, I don't like the fact that you get, you know, one level of iPhone quality with one lens and a little bit worse with some of the other lenses.

It would be nice to be if that is more uniform.

So, but those are the less important ones.

The one that intrigues me the most is this idea of having a new button on the side of the iPhone.

For so many years. - This is weird. - Apple was going away from buttons, right? - Right, exactly. - We were taking away the home button and taking away everything else.

And then it was just, was it, I guess it was just last year that the pro model added the action button on it, which is sort of fun.

You know, you can program it, you can do whatever you want.

And so this would be, in addition to the action button, it would be another separate button that would just be for the camera. - Right, right. - Which I think is interesting, 'cause I mean, so many people use the iPhone more as a camera than anything else.

And so to have a dedicated hardware button that you would press to take a picture, or I guess a video too, would make it just a lot faster to take that picture.

And one of the things that is cool about it is, I've always liked that I don't use my SLR camera as much because the iPhone's so good.

But for many, many, many years, I used my Nikon digital SLR camera.

And one of the cool things is that, and this was a standard feature on these high-end cameras, is if you hold down the button, you would take a picture.

But if you press the button just halfway, then it would focus in on whatever's in the center.

So what I would do with my SLR camera is like, if I was having a picture where there was a person on the left side, and then a whole bunch of stuff in the middle on the right, I would focus the camera at the person on the left, press halfway down on the shutter button to focus on that person.

And then I would move my camera towards the middle so that person was on the right, but it would keep the focus on that person and then take the picture.

And that was a cool little feature.

And so if you had that same ability with the iPhone, right now you can change what the iPhone is focusing on by touching it on the screen.

But if you could do it with just the button and stuff, that would be pretty cool.

And then the other rumor is that you'll be able to, it'll be a touch sensitive button so that you could slide your finger back and forth to zoom in and out.

And again, that could be useful too.

So I mean, all of these things would speed up and make it easier to take pictures.

You could just press the button, you could focus easier, you could zoom in easier.

Again, all of these are rumors, but there's so many different rumors talking about it that it makes me think that maybe, you know, somebody saw a prototype and maybe it's actually out there.

It would certainly, I think it would be a cool feature.

What do you think? - I just think it's a little odd.

Like I don't know if I want yet another button on my iPhone.

I love the sleekness of it right now.

The only other thing that I would say is that it would work, Jeff, is that if it was programmable, similar to the side button that we have right now, even though I've left my side button on my 15 Pro as just silence, you know, to be like, I haven't even done anything with it, which is horrible 'cause I've just left it as like what the default button was before from my 14.

But I feel like if they would allow us to maybe program it a little bit, like I might want that button to go camera just to go directly to video with like, you know, a 0.5 zoom, like I might want it to do that.

Like, I just feel like if they would give us a little bit of freedom and being able to maybe to program that button a little bit, that would be okay.

But where's it gonna go?

I mean, I'm already accidentally hitting some of my buttons still when I pulled my phone out of my pocket and stuff.

And it's like, I don't want yet another button to have to like fiddle with and everything.

But again, I'm gonna reserve, you know, my opinion until I see, 'cause Apple has surprised me many times in the past and it could work.

I mean, if it could be a double function, I don't know.

I don't know how they would necessarily do it, but then it's like yet another button that I have to get used to that, you know, is like in dealing with it.

I don't know.

I'm gonna reserve a little bit more, but those are my thoughts so far on that. - What gives me some solace on it is that I have a sense that Apple as an institution is generally anti extra button.

You know, they want it to make you sleep as possible.

So if they're gonna give you that extra button, they're gonna really think it's useful.

Now, just because they give it to you, doesn't mean you're gonna use it, much like you may not use the action button in your iPhone.

I actually do use the action button on my iPhone every day.

And you and I were just talking last week or two weeks ago, rather, that on the Apple Watch Ultra, which has the action button on the side.

When I was using an Ultra, I just used it for the flashlight.

And part of me felt guilty 'cause I'm like, well, the flashlight, that's so boring.

But the reality is I use the flashlight all the time.

So it was nice having it. - I used it.

I used it last night. - So, you know, exactly.

So I used mine last night too.

But I'm not using the Ultra right now.

So I had to fumble in and find in the menu and press the thing and blah, blah, blah.

So yeah, I did miss having that button.

And so, you know, so we'll see.

So my hope is that if Apple's gonna take this, you know, substantial step of putting another hardware button on, they're gonna be pretty darn sure that this is something special.

So that's my hope at least, we'll see. - Well, as probably most listeners can tell, I'm traveling again today.

I'll be traveling again next week.

But Jeff and I are gonna record, we'll go a little bit more detail next week in some of what we think, specifically maybe on the iPhone.

We'll talk about some of the other things.

But we'll get to the iPhone a little bit next week before the September 9th announcement.

But just a couple of things, let's run down some other things that you linked to today quickly, Jeff, on this.

How about the AirPods Max 2?

You linked to a story from David Sparks about the AirPods Max.

A lot of people have been thinking about this.

These are not the AirPods, you know, the AirPods Pro, the little tiny earbuds.

These are like the over the ear headphones.

Which I gotta tell you, I liked a couple of the comments that you had today in your post, that I've just never really seen a full on justification for getting those.

But goodness, Jeff, I see them a lot of places.

I gotta tell you, when I'm in Chicago, and like I'm on the train, I usually have the AirPods Pro in just because it cancels the noise there.

But I see a lot of people with the AirPods Max.

And I guess it's just because it's the over the ear and it really shuts out all of the noise on there.

How long has it been since the AirPods Max?

Having a second version, what I think really be cool.

So I'm kind of hopeful about that with David Sparks as well.

Along with I think a lot of other people.

I mean, I almost think about this as a little bit of a sleeper product because I used to not think it was like, that's too expensive, nobody's gonna go for that.

My daughter saved up money to get a pair of these, Jeff.

Like I see these in a lot of places.

And I really think if they came out with something new, that could be interesting. - Yeah, they're four years old, according to David's- - Four years, okay. - And I think that sounds about right.

And so, they have not kept up with a lot of the advancements that have been added to the AirPods and the AirPods Pro over the years.

So for that reason alone, I mean, heck, they still use lightning, for example, instead of a USB-C.

So even from that standpoint, it would be a reason to update it.

And again, I don't see the AirPods Max as often as you do, but I tell you, whenever I walk into an Apple store, I always see people, often teenagers over there, trying them out and stuff like that. - Teenagers, yes. - I mean, I think that there is a lot of reason for it.

And I always think about how much would I use them in my everyday life?

I don't know, but I know whenever I put them on, they really do sound better than the AirPods that I use so often in my day.

And because it's all the way around, you get the Princess Leia buns in your ears.

It really is, it's gonna be better noise cancellation just because it's physical over your ears.

So I like the idea, but they've always been a little expensive too.

I think when they first came out, they were like 500 bucks, and now you can get them for cheaper.

If Apple revamps them, will they go back up to that original high price, or will they keep them a little bit better priced?

We'll see.

I do hope that Apple keeps AirPods Max in their lineup, because I really do think that there's something special here.

And so if they could update them with the new features, I think that that would be great.

And would this be something that Apple announces on September 9th, or maybe just as we get a little bit closer, it seems like they would wanna do it in terms of before Christmas and Hanukkah and stuff shopping.

So it seems like it would come, maybe if not September, at least October.

But I do hope that there is something coming here, 'cause I think these are something special. - Even David says he doesn't use them all the time, but there are certain instances where, but I'm just gonna say, I'm gonna reiterate.

I bet if you visited a college campus, Jeff, you would be surprised at how many kids, well, I call them kids, in a nice way, how many people have AirPods Max.

I mean, that's what I'm just saying.

Like, surely I think Apple has some stats on this.

Like it's that younger generation, like that college generation, so many have AirPods Max for whatever reason.

I don't know if it's studying or whatever it is, but anyway, I'm pretty excited about that.

Let's do the Apple TV quickly.

You link to one story here from Joe Risignol about what could potentially be on the Apple TV as a hardware product.

I think you mentioned maybe a camera for video conferencing.

I don't know.

I liked how he did the kind of the walk down, like from March, 2012 was the third generation Apple TV.

And it's like, we're kind of due.

The last time the third generation Apple TV 4K came out was October, 2022.

So it would seem like that could be a good run here for maybe some kind of an update on the Apple TV. - Yeah, it's interesting because on the one hand, it supports 4K HDR, and that from a technological standpoint is pretty much what you need.

I mean, even the newest TVs, they're still 4K, they're still HDR.

There's no like new, you know, inherent television technology that would require a new Apple TV.

And yet the underlying technology, you know, as technology improves every year, Apple can do so much more.

I'm actually intrigued by the camera option.

And I say that because the few times that I have used my iPhone with the Apple TV, which is a new feature they came out with, it really, it's beautiful.

I mean, my whole family would sit on the couch and you know, it's a fantastic video conferencing tool, but it's very finicky 'cause you gotta like use something to prop up the iPhone.

You gotta connect the iPhone to the Apple TV.

It often doesn't work the first time.

You gotta look at your iPhone and then flip it around.

It is totally fiddly to do.

And so if you could just buy an Apple TV with the camera in it, set it up for your parents or your grandparents or whatever, it just works, you know, you just press one button and have it go.

There's nothing fiddly on it.

I could see it.

I mean, you know, we're past the COVID days of having to have video conferences to communicate with our loved ones.

But people still do that when you have family members and friends that are across the country.

Now, of course, some people would be nervous about having a camera on the Apple TV because they're like, "I don't want it looking at me all the time," you know?

And Apple might be one of the few companies because of their privacy focus that people would actually trust them to have a camera.

But, you know, so it's interesting.

I mean, besides the camera though, there's not much that I can think of that would really add value to the Apple TV.

Now, it might just be I'm not thinking cleverly enough, but that's the one thing that I can actually see as an interesting feature.

So we'll see. - I was listening to the MacBreak Weekly podcast.

You probably heard it too.

And this was interesting.

Typically in September, Apple doesn't really talk about like Mac products, but one of the guys on that podcast were talking about having a Mac mini because it's pretty much the same kind of size as like an Apple TV.

Have a Mac mini, a new Mac mini, which a lot of people like, but then maybe have like an Apple TV mode on the Mac mini, right, that it could go back and forth.

Because I mean, they're kind of close.

Anyway, I just really thought that was interesting.

That could really be an interesting kind of a thing because you could use the Mac mini as a Mac, right?

And if they update some of that, or you could go into the Apple TV mode because I do like that simplistic or that more simplistic mode in the Apple TV to go around your different tiles and everything.

Anyway, just some interesting because then the Mac mini would provide more power, maybe for a camera or some of the other things that you might do, you know, even gaming, that kind of a thing, but we shall see.

I think that that will be interesting.

How about the Apple Vision Pro?

This isn't really maybe something that they'll mention.

I don't know, who knows?

Maybe they'll talk about it, but I like this little leak 'cause you're always good about finding what new content may be coming out for the Vision Pro, for your Vision Pro.

And boy, Heidi, if Apple could get the NFL on board, I think that might possibly be selling a little bit more on this.

And it sounds like we're gonna have some Super Bowl coverage available in Apple immersive video for the Vision Pro, very cool. - Yeah, some of the most impressive immersive videos on the Vision Pro have been sports.

And although we don't have the technology today to do live sports, we can do recording sports.

And we know that Apple was at the last Super Bowl because we've seen previews of that. - That's right, I remember talking about that, yeah. - In their little preview reel where they show little snippets of things.

So we know that they had cameras there and apparently they put together a little, four or five minute documentary and I'm sure it'll be fun to watch.

I'm looking forward to it.

And that's coming out apparently in just a few days, I think on Friday, a week from today on the sixth.

So I'm looking forward to seeing that, yeah. - You'll have to mention that.

And then in this article you link to, apparently some, wait, more episodes of "Boundless," is that right?

And "Wild Life," some of the other content is coming out too. - Yeah, so some of it like "Boundless" have already come out in the US and they're gonna be coming out worldwide.

I don't know why Apple staggered the release before.

And then they have some other stuff, like a new show called "Elevated," which Apple has talked about in the past, which is gonna be like drone, like you know how you see this on your Apple TV screensavers where it's like drone footage on top of it.

It's gonna be something like that, but it's gonna be 3D and that series is gonna be called "Elevated" and they've got the first episode of that coming out.

So I love new Apple immersive content, can't wait. - Let's talk about another product from Apple that unfortunately is a kind of a sad story.

I don't know, I can't remember the last time we talked about Apple Books on the podcast, Jeff.

I remember when it came out, I mean, it was called iBooks, I believe, right?

When it first came out.

I remember only a few people would write for it, David Sparks being one of them.

I remembered he took very good advantage of the iBooks kind of the format and some of the books, you know, some of his, what does he call them, the field guides, right?

That he wrote from the beginning, which were fantastic 'cause he had like interactive images and videos and stuff in it.

Not a lot of other people that I knew did iBooks.

I can't even remember the last time I opened Apple Books on my Mac or my iPad.

Even though to me it had such amazing promise back in the day, Jeff, but you link to a story from Dan Moore, who by the way is also an author that has written for iBooks and some of his books are available in Apple Books.

But I thought this was an excellent article of him just kind of running down or maybe possibly lamenting the inattentiveness of Apple to the Books app.

I mean, it could go away.

I could easily see it going away.

And I think that really is just either just because they don't wanna put any resources into it or because they're just, you know, saying, okay, well, Amazon, you own this market and we're just not even gonna compete with it.

I don't know. - Yeah, it's such an interesting story.

You know, when iBooks came out, they tried to offer something new, like the ability to put video in books and stuff like that.

And like you said, David Sparks and others took advantage of it, but not many people.

And so that part went away.

And so then iBooks, which has now become Apple Books, was really just a competitor to Amazon and the Kindle and that sort of stuff with their front of books.

And early on Apple got into some antitrust trouble with the government.

And I mean, I'm not gonna get into it.

Suffice it to say, it was so silly that, you know, Apple, which was offering an alternative to Amazon being the monopoly player, they are the ones that got in trouble because of some relationships that they had with book publishers.

The whole thing was backwards because Apple was trying to say, we wanna make books cheaper for consumers.

And yet the government said, no, you can't do that.

You know, Amazon has to continue to do what they're doing, which was whatever.

But putting aside the appropriateness of the opinions in that legal case, which I disagree with.

You know, like you say, Amazon owns books.

I mean, they do.

It's physical books, they own it.

Digital books with the Kindles, they own it.

Now, Apple is still the number two player in this market, but so few people when they get books, you know.

But so Dan's point in this article is that, you know, yes, they are the number two of a small market, but they, you know, they have the resources and Apple could be doing more with Apple Books.

They could be trying to find, you know, interesting ways for people to want to purchase books from Apple as opposed to Amazon.

And instead of doing that, they have just allowed the business to continue without putting much effort into it.

And according to the latest rumors by Bloomberg, they're actually, you know, slashing a bunch of the employees just to save money even more.

So, you know, Apple has decided not to put a lot of priority into its Apple Books products.

You know, I will tell you, Brett, I personally, you know, don't even read books, you know, in physical form anymore.

And even digital books, I really do.

For me, it's all Audible.

In fact, you talk about Dan Morin, I am literally right now listening to, he has a series of books called the Galactic Cold War series.

And I have started listening to those on Audible.

I think I'm on book three of five right now.

I'm in the middle of it.

They're absolutely, they're fantastic science fiction, by the way.

I'm totally enjoying them, but I'm getting them from Audible because where are you gonna get audio books from?

I mean, in theory, I could get audio books from Apple, but I don't because Audible is just the 10,000 pound gorilla, you know? - Which is Amazon, Audible is Amazon, right? - Amazon is an Amazon, exactly.

So again, you know, I can imagine a world in which Apple was paying more attention to books but they're not, so. - You know, another quick thought on this, while Amazon is number one and Apple obviously, apparently is number two in this, I feel like the bigger competitor for me, Jeff, is if I'm looking for a book, the first place I go to is an app that is connected to my local library.

That's like the first place that I look, like Libby, for example.

What I loved about Libby, and I still use Libby 'cause it's connected to my local library, I'll go and check there first to see if they have one of the books that I wanna read.

And if they do, what I used to do is inside the Libby app, you could actually read the book.

But what I would always do is I would say, I wanna read this book in the Kindle app.

And they had a really nice connection there.

And one of the reasons that I like doing that is because when I do it in the Kindle app, I can highlight sections.

And Amazon actually offers this little, I forget the URL, it's kind of a little odd URL, but you can Google it.

But you can go there and say, show me all of the highlighted sections of all the books that I've read through the Kindle app.

So whether you bought the book from Amazon, for example, or I borrowed the book through the Libby app from my library, I could go and do the highlights.

And that just worked out great.

And then you mentioned also, the audio books.

The other place that I go to is Hoopla.

Hoopla has a great app, again, connected to my local library.

And if they have the audio book, that's where I'll do it.

Now, in some cases, like for Dan Morin or some special people that I know, I will go and I will make a purchase 'cause I wanna be able to support the author, of course, if I can.

But I'm just saying that to me, that's sort of another, I guess, I don't know if you could call it a competitor because it's not like, I mean, I obviously pay taxes from my local library and I feel like there's some support that goes there.

But to me, that's the bigger aspect.

Like that's the first place I turn to.

If my library doesn't have it, which today, it's really phenomenal.

Like even, I'll just quickly say in Ohio, I'm not just limited to the Cleveland libraries.

I can go all over Ohio.

Like they have so many really good connections in the networks that I can do.

But I will usually find the book.

And if I don't, then maybe I'll turn to something like Amazon and either purchase the book if I actually want a physical copy, or if I want a digital copy, then I can do it there and it's available in Kindle.

But I just, I rarely ever open up my books app.

So anyway, I just wanted to throw that in in a similar way that you're talking about and doing an Audible. - Yeah, in fact, I'll mention one more thing on that, which is these Dan Morin books in particular, there was actually, I think it's an FAQ on his website where someone says, "If we wanna support you the most, "where should we get your books?

"Should we get them from Amazon, from Apple, "from whatever?"

And his response to that was, "Get them anywhere."

He goes, "Because the reality is that "even if you get them from Libby, "which is quote unquote free to you, "the librarians are still paying something."

And he wants to support local libraries because they're a part of the foundation.

Like I just like, "Whatever's most convenient for you, "it's all gonna work out just fine."

And so for me personally, I've read the first book in his series.

I think I got it from the library through Libby, which was the audio book from Libby.

The second book in his series, which is actually called book one, called "The Bay Area Agenda."

That one I bought an Audible.

The next one I got from Libby.

I've been going, some of them have been on Libby just because my local library doesn't have all of them, but they do have some of them.

So the one that I'm listening to right now is one that I bought from Audible.

But as soon as I finish with this one and I go to the next one, it is available in Libby.

So I'm just going back and forth. - That's good.

Okay, let's move on to driver's license. (both laughing) I thought this was good.

Did I mention, I think I mentioned a week ago or so that Ohio officially announced that we could have our driver's license.

And I got to tell you, as much as I travel now, I'm almost getting disappointed.

Of course, now when I want TSA to say, "Oh, well, you have been randomly selected to show your driver's license."

They don't do it, right?

Now that I have my driver's license in my app and I want to be able to show it to them, I'm like, "Can you ask for it?

Like here, I'll show it to you voluntarily."

Anyway, I haven't been able to do that yet and try that.

But you link to a story today where Apple Wallet is now accepting Hawaii's driver's licenses.

Although with one little caveat, apparently on here, if you're driving, right, you still have to have the physical app.

But what does this make now?

One, two, three, four, five, six.

It's six states now. - It's seven, I think. - Oh, there's seven, okay.

Yeah, that's excellent. - Seven may be counting California, which has announced it, but it actually hasn't rolled it out yet, I think.

I've got it. - Okay, okay. - It's something like that.

So it's still a small minority of states, but it's nice.

It's nice to be able to have a digital driver's license.

Many of the states like Hawaii do actually require you to have your physical license with you too.

But even so, it's still more convenient to use when you have to show ID for something.

And I'm a big fan of digital driver's licenses.

I love them, so I'm glad.

Now, I mean, when you're traveling through TSA, keep in mind that although TSA will accept them, and I think 27 different airports in the US, that's not all the airports.

And TSA requires that you have your physical license with you, which makes good sense anyway, because the last thing that you wanna do is find yourself in an airport that doesn't support it.

But just in terms of convenience, just having your iPhone in your hand, you can just, it's nice that you can often use it. - A couple of things.

First of all, you say Louisiana is not one that has it embedded in the Apple Wallet, but you have a separate app there in the state.

And I think there's a few other states that do have that separate app.

But what we're talking about here is embedding it within the Apple Wallet, so it's available within the actual Apple Wallet.

Although I will say another thing quickly, I found one little speed bump here on having the Apple Wallet driver's license.

Last night I ran, it was a 5K for the Legal Aid Society, so I was running it here in Chicago where I am.

And I had my iPhone with me, Jeff, but I did not have my physical ID.

Well, as part of this 5K, a lot of law firms were setting up their tents and they were handing out alcohol.

And so I had to go and get a wristband to be able to say that I could be allowed to get alcohol.

Well, the lady's like, "Well, I'm sorry, "I have to see your ID."

And I'm like, "I don't have my physical license, "but I do have my license in the Apple Wallet."

I tried to show her the Apple Wallet.

The problem is, again, privacy and security, it showed that it was my name, but it doesn't have any of the information in the Apple Wallet, because the idea with the Apple Wallet driver's license is you're gonna tap something, right, that will get all of that information.

So it doesn't show on the Apple Wallet, it doesn't show the information.

Anyway, she was very kind.

She looked at me and said, "Well, sir, "I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna believe you, "but if I go to jail, it's gonna be on you."

And I'm like, "I promise you, you're not gonna go to jail.

"You're totally fine.

"Thank you for accommodating me."

But anyway, I looked at it almost like a limitation, 'cause I'm like, "Oh, no, I've got my driver's license "right here."

But when I opened it up in Apple Wallet, it just has like a really nice picture and it has my name.

Because again, the idea is I'm supposed to tap it on some kind of a machine at TSA that's gonna allow it.

But just in case you're looking for that, (laughs) there could be a potential downside on something like that.

Interesting.

This was another interesting story, by the way. - What a fascinating story, yeah. - Incredible here.

So you know what, I'm gonna let you do it.

It's basically getting an Apple replacement, Apple replacing your iPhone when there's an issue with it, right?

But they give you a refurbished phone and you take it from there, Jeff. - Yeah, I mean, you would think that getting a refurbished phone is fine because it's wiped clean, right?

It's a brand new iPhone.

But the thing is that every iPhone has an ID number associated with the hardware.

And apparently, when this person, Finn Voorhees, had gotten a new iPhone, the special hardware ID number was something that had been identified by the online service, Snapchat, and whoever the previous owner of the iPhone was, they had already banned him for improper use.

And so somehow they thought that Finn was the same guy as before 'cause he was using the same iPhone and it wouldn't let him log into Snapchat.

So I mean, that's just-- - Even though he was, yeah, he's using his own Snapchat account, right?

I mean, he was logging in with his Snapchat account, but it was because of the hardware was identified with something else, Jeff.

That's infuriating to me to even know this could happen. - Yeah, it's crazy.

I didn't even know it was possible.

I didn't know that an online service could actually find out the unique number associated with your hardware as opposed to just software.

So, I mean, I don't know how you could possibly plan around this and maybe Apple needs to find a way in the future.

I don't know how often this happens.

I mean, how often do people ban individual phones?

But the idea that this was even possible was fascinating to me. - He says that he couldn't get anywhere with Snapchat, right?

Because apparently once a device is banned or once, I mean, I can't even say an account is banned because it wasn't the account.

He had his own account, but it was the device was banned, the device number, the device hardware number was banned.

So Snapchat has this policy, they will not unban you.

So he couldn't get anywhere with Snapchat, but then he says, he calls Apple and he says that Apple says, they've never heard of this before.

Like this has never come up.

Now, I don't know if I fully believe that, but apparently they were kind enough to say, well, we'll try giving you another refurbished, replacement Apple iPhone.

And I mean, I guess you just take a gamble there.

Surely this isn't that often, but just the fact that it could happen.

And I think I'm so grateful that Finn, is being our Guinea pig to do this.

And he even says at the very bottom here, like you mentioned Jeff, maybe Apple has to somehow stop using this little piece of hardware number, or allow app developers to use this number so that this doesn't happen again, because it's a little scary.

Where are you at? - This is a really interesting, so we've used air tags to find cars.

We've used air tags to find luggage, of course.

I think golf clubs.

I mean, there's a variety of things, but hey, if you have a kindergartner, could be a good idea to put an air tag on them as well.

What a great story here in Apple Insider. - Yeah, you know, Apple itself tells you not to put air tags on, not to do it, but they don't recommend that air tags be used on people or pets.

They're really intended for items. - People or pets, right. - But you can, you can do that.

And so this mother had put an air tag in the knapsack of her kindergartner, and it was a good thing that he did because this early in the school year, I think if I understand correctly, the school put him on a bus and he was supposed to get off at one stop and they confused him with another child. - Yeah. - So what was confusing is that when she tried to find her child, the school and the bus driver honestly did not know because they didn't realize that he was in the bus.

And so it wasn't until she herself said, because this was the end of the school day, you know, I'm tracking the thing and I can actually see where he is.

And they put two and two together and said, that's the bus.

And they're like, no, no, no, that's not your child.

That's so-and-so.

And then the mom looks at the child and is like, no, no, that's my kindergartner.

So obviously it was a, you know, absurd situation and the school apologized and everything else.

But, you know, you got to admit, when you are a parent and you do not want your kindergartner to go missing, she was so certain. - Terrifying.

Terrifying, yeah. - And although this use of it for an air tag is, you know, we almost laugh 'cause it's almost comical, although I'm sure it wasn't at the time.

I actually know people who have purchased Apple Watches for their younger children, even though they have pretty much all of the capabilities disabled with the one exception of Find My.

And so that way the child can use it as a watch, see what time it is, but really not use many other functions except for Find My.

And the one other thing is that the child can call the parents and you can set it up that you can only call like a limited number of things.

And so, you know, your second grader or your third grader could use the watch to call the parents just in case something ever came up and like, by you could track them.

So I totally understand the desire of doing this.

And thank goodness for this one mom that she had the air tag because, you know, who knows what would have happened next.

Goodness gracious. - Yeah, just, I mean, she even called 911 and the police had drones looking for this kid.

And by the end of the day, the way that they were able to find was through an Apple air tag.

It's like, yeah, I'm sure this is not one of the stories Apple's gonna feature on a commercial, but it's good stuff there.

How about some Apple TV plus news?

It looks like Coach Beard might be coming back, but maybe not Ted Lasso.

Everybody's up in arms about this.

Is it really?

I thought we were done for crying out loud with Ted Lasso, but maybe not quite.

Could be coming back for season four, a little silly. - I hope so.

I mean, the show was so funny, so humorous, so well done that I would love to have more episodes.

And apparently one of the reasons that they stopped after three seasons, besides the fact that they had told the full story that Jason Sudeikis had intended to tell by starting it.

But also, I mean, they recorded it in England and apparently Jason Sudeikis did not like being away from his kid for that long, who lives in the United States.

And so he's like, I wanna be home.

So I don't wanna be filming in London, nine months out of the year or whatever it is.

And so the rumor is that that was why they filmed, but that there's enough interest and apparently enough money.

I'm sure Apple would love to spend money to bring back Ted Lasso.

So I can imagine that the season four, maybe Jason Sudeikis will be only show up in every few episodes.

Maybe he'll show up on FaceTime, like I'm coaching another team now or something like that.

But I tell you what, I mean, the writers were so good for this show that as long as they put together some good jokes with most of the characters.

I mean, I love the Ted Lasso character, but I was just as happy with some of the other funny characters, including Coach Beard, who was hilarious.

And if he has even more of a role, I would be totally in favor of that.

You know, Brett, what's Brett's last name?

Brett Goldstein. - Goldstein. - Goldstein, yeah. - Was so amazing.

You know, and he has such a funny story that he started off as a writer for the show.

And then when they came up with the character Roy Kent, they're like, who's gonna play him?

And he's like, I think I could play him.

And I'm sure all the other writers are like, yeah, yeah, like you could play.

He was like, no, really, I think I could.

And of course he was amazing as Roy Kent.

So it's funny though, that because of the actors unions, that the first thing that they did is they negotiated with the British union, which is Hannah Waddingham, Brett Goldstein, and Jeremy Smith, but they have not yet negotiated with the people that are a member of SAG-AFTRA, whatever the US union is.

And so that's why, you know, these are the first thing.

But the thing is, you have to think this is serious because you're not gonna put actors under contract unless you are serious about it.

And I've heard some other rumors that they're starting to put together the writers room and stuff like that.

So I think this is real.

Maybe a year or so away, but you can tell my enthusiasm.

I was a big fan of the show.

I love Ted Lasso.

I'd love to have more episodes.

I'm super, super excited about this one. - From Ted Lasso to "Slow Horses."

Another show we're excited about.

I thought that, you know, you linked to this little YouTube trailer and I'm thinking, I don't know.

I don't know if I wanna watch it because I don't want any spoilers.

I like watching it, but you were kind to say it's a spoiler free.

And when I started watching it, I'm like, oh, this is so hilarious.

I love it. - Yeah, it's not a trailer in case anyone hasn't watched it yet.

It's just sort of behind the scenes with the actors being silly.

In fact, it's sort of funny because for example, what you're showing on the screen right now is the guy that plays the main character, and I'm forgetting his name right now.

You know, he looks different.

This is before he put all of his makeup on and stuff like that.

So this is what he looks like, you know, before he's got, you know, all the stuff put on to look as he looks on the show.

But I'm so excited about this one coming back.

It's just a few days away.

I think it's what, September 4th.

So right around the corner.

That'd be awesome. - Who's gonna die in this season?

That's the question.

That's right. (laughing) All right, well, from 30 minute sessions of "Slow Horses," which we can't wait for, to what?

You know, maybe a 15 hour movie, director's cut of "Napoleon."

Actually, your thoughts were right on this.

I have not actually seen "Napoleon" either.

I've seen little clips and stuff like that, which just look incredible and amazing.

And I like wanna watch the movie, but I'm glad that I waited because now I can get the director's cut, which is gonna have so much more of the plot and everything. - Yeah, one of the criticisms I heard of the original movie is that although it looked really good, this is Ridley Scott by, you know, it takes people to know Ridley Scott, of course, as a, you know, a famous director who's been around for decades and decades and done such amazing things.

But, you know, one thing that Ridley Scott is known for is just beautifully filmed.

It just looks great.

And my understanding is that the battle scenes in this show are just incredible.

And now what people complained about is that between the battle scenes, the plot seems sort of disjointed.

And it was already a very long movie, but one of the things that I heard as a criticism when it first came out is, and again, I don't know the full story, so I may have some of these details wrong, but Napoleon's wife is what, whatever, Josephine, whatever her name is.

But apparently there were some good scenes between Napoleon and his wife that were cut out of the film.

And people complained about that 'cause I guess some people knew about that story and said that would be an interesting part of the story.

And apparently that's one of the things that they restored to it.

So, you know, as a general rule, sometimes I like director's cuts and sometimes I think that they make the movies go just a little too long.

So I don't know what this circumstance will be, but I'm certainly hopeful that this, I'm certainly hopeful that this will be one of those that's actually pretty good and that making it longer actually makes it better.

So. - I can't wait.

Although I feel like I've got to chunk it up.

There's gotta be an intermission or something 'cause this is gonna be crazy long.

But I also would like to just think, I wish I did have an Apple Vision Pro.

I would like to see, I wanna hear you watching some of those battle scenes in your Vision Pro, Jeff.

I just feel like that would be so expansive, right?

That you can put on such a big screen.

Anyway, one day you can report back on that.

In the know. - In the know. - I am thrilled to announce a brand new, revolutionary, innovative, courageous device from Apple. (laughing) Called the Apple Plug.

This came about earlier this year.

This week I was talking with somebody who's a dear friend and they had a legitimate question.

They're like, "Hey, I heard about this Apple Plug.

"Is that something new that Apple is putting out?"

And I go to the website 'cause she sends me the website and it turns out this is a parody site.

So, spoiler alert right here.

But it's just funny.

And I wanted to point it out because it reminded me of a couple of things.

First of all, let's go to the site.

This is appleplugs.com.

And they did a great job.

If you go all the way to the very bottom, you can see that it's made by Nicer, which I think is a marketing company.

And it says, "A parody of the good folks at Apple."

I like that they said the good folks, right?

'Cause they're just like, "Hey, please don't sue us."

But it's clearly a parody if you kind of know anything a little bit about the history.

I'm assuming that this came out several years ago with when the iPhone 7 was announced.

Because if you remember, here, let me pull up this other story that I found from "The Verge."

And I forget exactly what year this was.

This was in 2016. - Okay. - So if you remember, Jeff, thinking back all the way to this, there was a Apple announcement.

And I remember this was Phil Schiller.

No, this is Joswiak, right?

That was on stage.

And he had this big thing about how it takes a lot of courage to do something big.

And the big thing that they were doing there.

Phil Schiller, I'm sorry, thank you for correcting.

Phil Schiller.

The big thing that they were making a change here is they were taking out the headphone jack of the iPhone.

So if you remember, so we go back to the Apple plug, what the parody is about is the little, it's basically like if you took a headphone jack and you just took off the little metal part of the very end, you could put it into the hole of the iPhone 6 into the headphone jack, and it was a perfect fit.

It would just kind of glide over.

And you wouldn't even know that there was a hole there in the first place.

The idea being like it's a parody, because do you remember back in this time, Jeff, there was such an uproar of everybody saying, what in the world are you thinking, Apple?

Are we gonna actually take the headphone jack out of the phone so that all of these headphones, that we've been using for years are not gonna be able to work anymore?

I remember the uproar.

I remember the parodies, including the Apple plugs here, that people were saying like, are you serious?

You're removing the headphone jack?

And now all these years later, Jeff, I just, I feel like I don't even think about it.

Like I don't even want, now I, you know, we're big proponents of the AirPods Pro, right?

And other, you know, beats in the, all the AirPods that people can use and the different earbuds that people can use on there.

But at the time, this was crazy.

And I just feel like, I just wanna give some recognition, even though Phil Schiller was just raked over the coals at the time for saying, this is Apple and courageous.

You know, that was the word.

It was like, it takes courage.

And people were just like, what are you thinking?

And I'm thinking now, looking back all these years, Jeff, that was, they were right on.

Like it's just a vision aspect of that.

And I feel like the bravery really to go on stage, because they knew, they knew that this was just gonna get, you know, lambasted.

And it was, but now we look back and it's like, who even has wired headphones?

Now, obviously at the time they had this little adapter and I still have one hanging around.

I can't remember the last time I got it out of my bag.

So anyway, I just wanted to say, first of all, this Apple plugs, just looking back, I'm glad they still had the website up, 'cause it is funny to kind of see, but it is sort of a relic of the age now that we're talking about, that we don't even think about this anymore.

And Apple did have courage that day and it turns out they were right. - Yeah, it is a funny parody site.

And like you say, it's also a funny reminder of, you know, back in the day when Apple removed it from the iPhone.

You know, I will say that I'm certainly not anti headphone jacks.

I think that they, in some places are important.

The fact that they are still on some laptops and other Mac computers, I think that they should stay on there 'cause they're often useful for hooking up external speakers, whether it be, you know, something over your ear or just like a speaker, a bookshelf speaker.

So, I mean, they're good, but when it comes to the iPhone itself, having a corded headphone is a little cumbersome.

And I still see, sometimes we'll see people that use corded headphones.

And, you know, you think about the days of the iPods and stuff like that.

Yeah, I mean, it was fine at the time, but it really is better to be wireless for most people.

Now, some people would say that from audio fidelity standpoint, that, you know, with certain setups and if you've got like a preamp and everything like that, you can get better quality, I don't know.

But wireless has definitely been the way to go from the iPhone.

And like you say, I think that time has shown that, you know, wireless speakers, whether they come from Apple, the AirPods, or some other company are really the way to go.

You know, you really wanna have some wireless headphones. - If you still have a headphone jack, just know that the Apple plug is a still, actually, if you actually click on buy, 'cause they just did a really good job of parody this.

If you click on buy, they just said, hey, you know, if this made you chuckle, sign up and get an email.

So, good job on that.

So, interesting stuff.

That's my in the know, just kind of a little bit of a walked out memory lane there. - That's a good one. - Mine is a tip that I feel like is an old tip, but I had forgotten about it.

And I really needed it a couple of days ago.

I noticed over the weekend that my iPhone was just sitting there on the table and I had gotten in an email and the preview of the email was showing right there on my lock screen.

And at the time my son was sitting next to me and he was sort of like, you know, dad, I can read your email.

And I mean, as a lawyer, certainly I get emails that are having confidential information in it.

You know, things like, you know, make an offer to the other side, don't go any higher than $2 million, but I'd like to pay less if we could.

I mean, truly confidential stuff that you wouldn't want anybody else seeing.

And I have to admit, I thought I had had this turned off.

I honestly don't know how they started showing up again.

Something happened along the way.

And so I found myself saying, I don't want previews of my email showing up on my lock screen.

How do I change that?

And so it took me a while to sort of remember how to do it.

But the way to go back and do it is, it's in your settings app, of course.

And then there's something called notifications.

I was thinking, do I go into mail?

No, no, no.

You go settings, notifications.

And then once you are in notifications, you'll see your list at the bottom of all of your apps and scroll all the way down to the Ms until you get to mail.

And then once you are in mail within notifications, then you'll see a lot of options for notifications for mail, how you want them displayed.

And one of them that is about two third down there is called lock screen appearance.

And you have three choices.

You can either say to show the preview always, which means that anybody glancing at your phone could see a little preview of your emails when it's unlocked, which is what I had it set on.

And third, which is never.

And what I think that happened for me is somehow, I don't know, I had it on.

On the one hand, you might say to yourself, well, having my iPhone only show the preview when it's unlocked is okay, because if it's unlocked, that means that I glanced at it, right?

I'm close by.

And that's true.

But there may be times where you're just sitting there at the table with a bunch of other people and you just glanced down at your iPhone to see what time it is or something like that.

And just the fact that you make contact with your iPhone, you have unlocked it.

And so you may look at your iPhone for just a fraction of a second and put it right back down again.

But because you have unlocked it by looking at it and by using the face ID to unlock it, suddenly any emails on there are gonna start showing previews.

And if there's somebody sitting next to you, so if you turn that to never, then what happens is you'll still get an alert.

It'll say that you have the mail, but it won't show the preview of the subject of the email in there, which for me is the way that I prefer to have it just for privacy purposes.

So I cannot explain, I know that I used to have it set up this way.

I honestly cannot explain why that setting changed.

I have no idea what I did to change it.

Maybe I did it without thinking about it.

I don't even know.

But once I noticed it, and once my son pointed out to me, he's like, "Oh, I can see the text of your emails, Michael.

Let me change that back."

'Cause, you know, it's, I mean, again, not that all of my emails are super confidential, but it's certainly enough that I, you know, and for me, I think it's, you know, it's fine to just have a notification of an email because all you do is tap it and it will open up your phone and open up the mail app, and then you can read the entire full email.

So for me, you know, the slight one second delay in getting to the email itself is not an inconvenience, but the risk of somebody glancing at your phone and seeing something that you consider confidential for me was not worth it.

So that was my tip, is if you find yourself in that situation, or if you haven't really thought about that setting, especially if you have confidential emails, whether you be a lawyer or a doctor or a priest or whatever it is, you know, whatever, just personal stuff between you and your friends.

I don't care what it is.

Think about what setting you wanna use there. - I'm gonna go one step further, 'cause I like this and I'm so glad it's a good reminder.

At the bottom of that notification there, I have customized notifications.

So the way that I got around this, Jeff, is you're right, for all of my work emails, when you tap on that, it'll show you all of your accounts that you have available.

Now, this is only for the Mac mail, right?

So I think Outlook, if you use Outlook app, you'd have to do a little something different.

But I've gone in and I've turned off any notifications on my lock screen for work-related email, for exactly that reason.

Like I don't wanna be sitting at a conference or a dinner table or something and somebody could read that.

However, there's one or two personal accounts like I do wanna see.

Like one of them was for a course that I had, and I wanted to see any time that somebody sent an email.

And you can go in and customize which accounts that you wanna turn off and on for any of those accounts.

And then you can go and customize them just like you were talking about, whether I just want a badge or if I want a sound alert or if I want an alert on there.

But anyway, I just wanted to add, like that's a great tip.

It's a fantastic thing and you're right.

I think everybody needs to go in and customize some of that, especially for mail messages.

But for the work mail, I was like, first of all, I don't want them to show up.

And second of all, I'm gonna be checking my work email anyway.

So I don't need notifications necessarily for that.

But for two or three of my personal accounts, I did want it to show up.

'Cause that's sort of infrequent messages that I would get, but I wanted those to show up.

And so that's a great tip just to go in and change those settings.

But at the bottom, you can customize that even for your specific mail accounts.

Through the mail app, I should say.

This doesn't work, I don't think, for Outlook specifically on that. - That's a good addition, Brett.

In fact, one of the ways that I have that when configured right now is that most of my, a lot of my notifications don't come through, but anyone that I have indicated as a VIP, it does come through. - Yes, exactly. - My VIP universe is actually pretty broad.

It's a number of people that I work with at my firm.

It's a number of clients I have that I wanna get those alerts quickly.

So it's a pretty broad group.

And now that you're mentioning it, that was one of the emails that showed up on my phone the other day.

Because if I just get an email from a spam email or something like that, that's not gonna get a notification from me at all.

So it was one of those people that, 'cause I have that configured exactly how you have it, that I have decided that I only want the alerts from the VIPs, but I still don't want those showing up on my lock screen.

So yeah, there is a nice degree of customization you can do there.

You just need to think about it and it's worth digging in there and trying some of those things to get it set up just how you want it.

So thank you for adding that, good point. - Great tips, great week.

We're looking forward to another week here.

So next week, I think what we'll do, we'll just kind of do kind of a walk down.

This will be the September 6th.

I can't believe this is the last day of August, first of all.

But next week, September 6th, we'll kind of just walk down what we are expecting and anticipate specifically for September 9th Apple's announcement.

And as we are prone to do, we'll watch the announcement and then we'll have everything prepared for Friday the 13th on September 13th, which will be fine.

So anyway, that's kind of our next plan.

So I look forward to that and I look forward to talking with you next week, Jeff. - Exciting stuff, I can't wait.

Thanks, Brett.