Welcome to in the news for November 22nd, 2024.

I am Brett Burney from AppsinLaw.com.

And this is Jeff Richardson from iPhoneJD.

Hey, Brett.

Good morning, Jeff.

It's another week and another point, point, point, point update.

This was this is iOS 18.1.1, right?

Which you know, these small kind of what we sometimes call updates to apply to zero day security flaws, which always sounds a little scary.

But these little tiny incremental point one point point updates, they go very fast.

And it's just one of these things like, just do it like don't even think about it.

Don't hesitate, because they are usually resolving something that you probably haven't even looked at or been aware of.

But it's just good to make sure that you have these updates in place.

Yeah, when you have the multiple points, point one point one, you know, Apple doesn't doesn't release these a lot.

What they really prefer to do is just the single point one updates.

And roll them on.

18.2.

And so for Apple to take the time to actually introduce this, that should make you that should raise a red flag and make you think, wow, why is Apple doing something without waiting for the next regular update, which in this case is soon, right?

Because we know the next update for the iOS is going to be about the first or second week in December, which is just around the corner.

So why did Apple think this was so important that it couldn't wait two or three weeks?

And the answer, as you said, is that is zero day.

And again, what that means is that this is not just a theoretical bug.

This is a this is a flaw that they not only know about, but they actually know it has been exploited by hackers to try to hack into machines.

Now, I dug into this a little bit just to try to understand it.

And what I understand is that the it has to do with Safari is the bug.

You could use Safari to break into your machine and run and run arbitrary code.

The only place that it has been exploited in the wild is on Intel Max.

So not an iPhone, not an iPad and not even not even a new computer.

However, that that doesn't mean that it's only works at Intel Max.

It just so happens that the version of the hack that they discovered actually being used by hackers was only on older Max.

And in theory, this same flaw, it would have to be adjusted.

But hackers could adjust it to run.

And so that's why when Apple found out about this, they're like, OK, we're not going to wait to see.

First of all, anyone with an Intel Mac needs to update immediately.

And second of all, even if you have a more modern Mac or an iPhone or an iPad, we're afraid the hackers might permutated into.

So we got you should do this one.

And so I did the update.

It was a quick one.

Like you said, there's no reason to wait again.

You don't know that you're going to be targeted, but why risk it?

You know, so when Apple does these quick updates, they're trying to say, hey, guys, we don't really think you should wait a couple of weeks.

We think you should do this one now and you should.

I just always underscore it's not like you shouldn't use Safari, like stop using Safari.

What these what these this is like code that runs.

And typically it's if you click on a link from a phishing email or something like that, it actually goes to a website that you shouldn't be going to.

You would never go to otherwise.

And so, again, it's not like you have to stop using Safari.

You should change or anything.

These are it's just a very, very small incremental percentage of people that would even be affected by this.

But all of that said, it is worth just making sure that you roll these up into and get them done as quickly as possible.

And again, I just even did mine when I read your story today.

I wasn't even aware.

Sometimes it will pop up if you have the auto updates turned on.

It'll pop up as a notification for you.

But when I was doing reading through your stories this morning, Jeff, I saw it and I'm like, oh, OK, well, I can do that.

And I know from past experience that these point one point one or these point point updates, they go really fast.

I just went into my general settings and I said, update.

Yeah, there's an update.

Go ahead and do that right now.

And I mean, maybe it took four or five minutes.

It'll reboot.

You know, the the white apple comes on anyway.

Just all that to say, get that done on there.

Now, what you were referring to was eighteen point two is the next version that's coming up.

But how about let's just talk.

You had a couple of stories about eighteen point one still, which is really what we generally call like the base version of the iOS today, even though we just talked about point one point one.

But eighteen point one.

Boy, I've been seeing a lot of stories about the Apple intelligence summaries from messages or even from emails.

But I think what I'm usually seeing a lot of people kind of bellyache about this is in the I messages in texting Apple intelligence or the new version of iOS.

Eighteen point one will summarize those text messages and they don't always get it right.

They don't even do it well, Jeff.

I mean, there's just been some hilarious things.

There's been some unfortunate, you know, sad kind of sounding summaries out there.

But it's great.

And this is a good story, I think, from the Atlantic, from Lila Shroff that you link to as well today.

Yeah.

You know, the features of Apple intelligence that Apple released in eighteen point one are they were the low hanging fruit.

They were the easiest things to implement.

But frankly, they were also the least impressive.

And when when I'm everything I'm about to say about criticizing the summarize feature, let me be clear that I have the same critique about all of the AI systems.

If you use Microsoft Copilot because I have Copilot on my machine, on my work Windows computer, you know, it makes errors.

You know, all of these things make errors.

I have a version of a summarize feature that was built into PDF expert on my iPad.

You know, it's a flaw.

The fact that it works at all is impressive.

But the thing is, you can't trust it.

And so the article in The Atlantic talks about using this for summarizing messages.

I in my post talked about using it for summarizing emails.

But it's the same underlying technology.

Likewise, Apple linked to a commercial with what's the actress's name?

Is it Bella Ramsey, the one that was from the last of us?

Yes.

They have this silly commercial where she's talking to somebody who's giving her a pitch for a movie and she looks at her iPhone and because she hasn't read the email yet and she does a quick summary of it.

She goes, oh, yeah, then she just reads the summary as if she doesn't need to read the email.

But the reality is you do need to read the email.

And notwithstanding what Bella Ramsey did in the commercial, you will look like an idiot if you rely upon the summary because it's just not complete.

You know, it's pretty good.

And maybe 60% of the time it's going to be accurate.

I'm just making that number up based on my own personal experience.

But you know, a huge percentage of the time, maybe not half, but a huge percentage of the time it's going to miss details.

Now that doesn't mean that it's useless.

If you pull up a document, you know, what I've done before is there have been times where I've used this type of technology and I have a bunch of documents that I'm familiar with and I might pull up that one document, use the summarize feature and like, oh, now I see this is the document of such and such.

I'm not relying upon that to be a comprehensive summary.

It's just like a quick little, you know, what's, yeah, what's this one about?

But if you were trying to substitute reading your messages, reading your emails, reading your documents for relying upon an AI summary, the technology is not there yet.

But that doesn't mean it's not impressive.

I mean, it's something that we didn't have access to at all before about a year or two ago and it's going to continue to get so much better in the future.

And maybe we will have a day where you can rely upon your summary.

But so, you know, I just want people to be, it's a cool feature.

It's right there in your face.

It's easy to access at the very top.

You see the little button or Siri automatically tries to summarize it for you.

Just be wary of it because it really is often not accurate.

I have high hopes that this is just the beginning stages and it will get better.

It will continue to get better.

Certainly as Apple gathers into, you know, data on this and frankly, I mean, they're reading the same stories that we're reading, right?

Exactly.

You understand all of this.

And then, you know, to get it back to the text messages, to put this in a, in, in context, first of all, I'm thinking, well, text messages by themselves are typically shortened bits of communication already, right?

As opposed to an email or a document.

And so summarizing already what is a shortened bit of communication, it can't be that easy.

Like when I really step back and think about this, I can see where this is going wrong.

I love how the author Lila Shroff here starts off this story.

She woke up one morning, checked her phone and there was a summary text saying obituary shared.

And it was from her friend.

And so she talks about, she woke, you know, she immediately like woke up.

It was like nervous.

I'm like, oh my goodness, is this an obituary from my friend?

And it turns out it was a relative of her friends, right?

That it was an obituary that he had forwarded or something like that.

But I don't know what the message was.

Maybe she goes in and talks about that.

But the point that I'm saying is like, hey, my aunt died or something like that.

Right.

And here's the obituary.

How do you shorten that?

How do you get that down to something that is going to be summarized?

And so, you know, looking through this this past week, because there's been a ton, I mean, there's even a like a Reddit thread, I think, where people are collecting all of these crazy things.

And there was some of them.

The one headliner was one where, you know, a girlfriend broke up or, you know, one person broke up with another over texting.

And it just really was, you know, terrible.

Anyway, it's just the things like, I look at this and I see all these headlines this past week, and I have to believe that it's going to get better.

And it's just but the the the the pain point right now for me is something that you started off with, Jeff, is we can't trust it right now.

Right.

Even if I see a summary, I'm still going to look at the summary, read the summary, and then I'm going to tap into it to read the entire communication.

So in that in that context, that's not saving me any time.

Like I'm not seeing the benefit of the summary if I'm still going to go into that other than what you kind of alluded to is that it might be good just to get a general idea, but I'm still I don't trust it yet.

And that to me is the is the hurting point.

In fact, it may even waste your time, because if you read the summary and think that it's going to say X, but then the actual message says why it may take you a little bit longer than it normally would have taken you to understand the why.

Exactly.

You still have the X in your head.

But anyway, exactly.

Well, that's not the only thing people are griping about.

18.1.

This is another great story you link to about iOS 18 photos app.

We talked about this quite a bit.

It's taken me a while to get familiar with it.

I feel like I haven't run up against anything that that is distasteful for me or frustrating.

But there have been a few times where I'm like, I it's like, Okay, wait, I just want this album and I had to scroll a little bit more.

I haven't taken the time to be fair.

I haven't taken the time to customize all of that.

And I feel like that, you know, somebody like me hasn't taken the time that I know that my mom has it right or most people that it would be using these this phone.

But there are some other gripes in here about this photos redesign.

And again, I know Apple's been listening to this.

I think overall, this is a good move.

But you still got some people bellyaching about it.

Yeah, the big thing is that it used to be and for so many years that when you opened up the photos app, you immediately saw the grid of you know, all the little pictures like that from from the top to the bottom of your screen.

And then Apple changed it the summer so that when you open it up, you still see that at the top half of the screen.

But the bottom half of the screen is devoted to albums and collections and other things and recent stuff you used to have to dig into before.

And people are like, you know, I want my whole screen to show this, not just that the half of it.

And I mean, gosh, I remember right after Apple released the first beta version of this the summer, we saw some articles from people like Federico Vatici over in Italy.

And he's like, I hate it.

I hate it.

And then months later, he came back and said, oh, no, I got into used to it.

And now I actually like it.

And so I feel like so many people have gone through the transition.

And depending upon how frequently you use the photos app, plus depending upon your personal preferences, that's going to control.

Have you gotten used to it and actually appreciate it?

Or are you still thinking, why in the world did they break, change something that wasn't broken?

I will tell you that the reason that I like it is because the collections part at the bottom actually is useful more often than not.

I may think that I just want to scroll through my recent photos.

But the reality is that maybe by using the recent days tab or maybe by looking at an album or by looking at one of those other ways of getting at information, that's actually a better one for me to use if I really think about it.

Plus, from a discoverability standpoint, I like the fact that it puts these other things down there because I may not I may forget, oh, yeah, I could use the photos app and I could just instantly see pictures associated with the trip to France or whatever.

And I may not even think about looking at those pictures.

And then suddenly I'm looking at the pictures and a smile comes to my face because there's some cool stuff in there.

So when it comes to just serendipity, I like having this stuff more in front of you.

You know, the perfect example is when I and I realize very few people have the Apple Vision Pro.

But when I wear my Apple Vision Pro and I open the photos app, one of the things it has at the top is Apple automatically goes through and take some of my older pictures and applies the spatialization effect to it, which basically takes a 2D picture and makes it 3D.

And I'm always delighted by, oh, yeah, let me see the pictures that they picked out because they tend to pick out the ones that the tricks that the tricks going to really work on.

And I look at these pictures of my kids when they were really young or maybe even older pictures from the 1980s, 1990s.

And when you look at that same old picture in a 3D version, it feels more realistic.

You feel like you're there and it just gives you those happy feelings in your brain.

So I do like that Apple is trying to bring to the forefront these things.

It does enhance my overall enjoyment that I get from the photos app.

But I will not deny I will not deny that it is it is a change.

In fact, I have one little tip that I think about in the old version.

This is something that I've noticed in the old version of photos.

If you were, you know, you open up the app and you could just see the little thumbnails, right.

And you scroll through.

Let's say you maybe scroll back a couple of months in.

If you want to scroll to your oldest picture, you can tap at the top of the screen and scroll all the way up to your oldest picture.

And it used to be that if you want to scroll to your newest picture, you could just tap on the little icon at the bottom for the for the bottom left icon and you could scroll back to like your old your current picture.

That option is gone now with the current screen.

But if I find myself months ago, years ago, and I want to scroll all the way down again, here's what I do.

You know how at the very bottom when you're when you're looking at all these thumbnails, it says years, months, all.

If you have the word on there, which just looks at your focus by years, it only takes you a second to flick up from years to go all the way to the bottom.

So do that.

And then now if you flip the opposite direction again, you're no longer in the years mode.

You're back on the thumbnails.

So that's my little tip.

If you're if you're somewhere in your collection and you want to jump to the current stuff, go to years, flip down and then flip back up again and you'll be current.

So but that's an example of a feature that used to be there and people knew how to get to it.

Now, you can do something similar.

So you need to learn these new tricks.

But once you do, I think it's better.

But to get back to the article that started this, you know, as he's pointing out, I believe correctly there truly is, you know, some people are complaining.

Some people are saying they love it, you know, and you have everybody has a right to their opinion.

You know, you may disagree with me.

You may say, Jeff, I've spent lots of time with it and I hate it even more.

And that's, you know, so be it.

But I do see why Apple did what they did.

Apple is messing with probably two of the most used apps on the iPhone, right?

I mean, I don't know if I've seen any numbers specifically on this, but I just go in by anecdotal evidence and hearing somebody.

I mean, we know photos is probably what the vast majority of people are using on their iPhone almost every day.

We know that messages is something that people use every day.

It's not the phone.

You're not using it as a phone.

The point that I'm getting to is these, you know, I think overall, I think all of these changes are good and like we're saying, like people will get used to them and probably end up liking them at some point, but it's change just like anything else.

Right.

And if it's changed on something that you're familiar with and used to, then that's going to take a little bit longer to get through.

But interesting stuff.

Staying on the photos app real quick.

Now this is all in 18.1 that we've been talking about, but you lean to a story from David Sparks this week about 18.2 beta.

We have referenced that in 18.2, Apple is going to come out with some additional tools for images and photos.

And one that David is talking about is Apple's image playground.

This is where you can basically generate an image, right?

So that's similar to what chat, GPT and and Dolly and some of these other systems have been doing from generative AI.

Those tools basically let you do whatever you want to do.

David is here talking about the guardrails that have been put up in Apple's image playground, which I just have really found interesting on this.

Yeah.

I mean, when the first versions of this came out, like you say, through Dolly and and the original ones, they were interesting because you could basically create whatever kind of picture you wanted.

And that included pretty realistic looking pictures, although sometimes if you if you looked closely, you could see things that didn't make sense to them.

But it was very easy to make realistic photographs that are essentially deep fakes.

I mean, it looks like this is, you know, so and so some famous person doing something, but it was actually a fake image.

And so Apple has obviously been very conscious of this.

On the one hand, they like the idea of people making whatever image you want, because let's say you're putting together like a presentation and you're like, gosh, I really wish I had a picture of, you know, a person holding, I don't even know, a teapot, because that's appropriate for my slide.

You know, you could either go and how would you find that picture?

It would take you forever to find it or you could just tell the thing, this is what I want and it would make you a picture.

So Apple sees the utility of being able to create images, whatever you want.

Let's put aside for the second the fact that if you make your living by being an artist that creates these for people, you know, that little thing.

Again, most people are not going to take the time to hire an artist, which is a silly little image.

And so so it's not really costing them any money.

But so it's a great idea.

But Apple wants to have guardrails.

They don't want things that look realistic because they don't want the problem of deep fakes.

They they don't want things that are any problematic subjects.

So with this image playground app, if you say, you know, make me a picture of such and such, it will not let you do any, you know, any any bad words or things that it may find offensive.

It just does not let you do.

David Sparks points out that it even doesn't let you do things that Apple thinks are protected by copyright, including their own items.

So when he said that I wanted to have a picture of a guy and a Mac mini, the app says, I can't make a picture of a Mac mini.

It's like, come on.

I mean, if you just want to have somebody holding an iPhone and they're like iPhone is a registered trademark of Apple Incorporated, I will generate an image of it.

I think, come on, come on, come on.

So maybe if you just use the word smartphone or something, it would do it instead.

Right.

You know, David is making fun of it in this post because the guardrails are pretty severe.

And as he says at the end, so much so that they may even limit usefulness.

Well, yeah, perhaps.

But I know considering what trouble you can get into by creating these images, I think it is totally appropriate for Apple to say in their first out of the gate version of image playground, which we're going to see in a few weeks, we're going to make it really safe.

And, you know, we're going to be pretty sure about it.

And maybe over time they'll loosen it up and do more with it and stuff like that.

We shall see, you know, especially one thing I'll mention is one thing that image playground can do is it can take an image of a person that's in your photos app.

So if I go to my photos app and you, for example, Brett, or one of the people on my photos app, so I could say, you know, you know who Brett Burney is because I've got pictures tagged of him in photos.

I want you to make Brett Burney, you know, holding a, you know, or get Brett Burney in a red car.

It will do that and it will make a cartoonish, almost like a Pixar like version of you based on pictures.

Right.

And when you're doing this in the beta, you know, the way it works is it generates a couple of them.

So like you can have five or six to choose from.

Some of them will not even look like you at all.

I've seen some of myself and I'm like, seriously, that's just ridiculous.

But one or two of them might be sort of close.

And then, you know, you have your silly picture of Brett Burney in a red car that you could, you know, send it in a text message or whatever.

But again, the idea of you're using a real person, Apple does not want, you know, again, they want to have serious guardrails.

They want it to be perfectly clear that this is just a pretend image.

It's not, you know, a deep fake.

So they're being careful.

To your point, I remember several weeks ago, Apple has been thinking about this for quite a while.

We had that interview from Joanna Stern, right at the Wall Street Journal with Craig Federighi.

And where, I mean, she was trying to push him a little bit, like, how are, how are you dealing with this?

And I felt like he did a pretty good job of dancing around it a little bit.

But the takeaway was we have been thinking about this.

We're really nervous about this.

Maybe that's not the right word, but they've really consider it.

They're being very considerate about this and putting some guardrails around.

David links to this other story in nine to five Mac from Ryan Christoffel, which I thought was really good.

Ryan actually lists the three, the three guardrails is sort of what we're calling this, that at least Apple is putting out here, non-realistic styles going to what you're talking about.

It's like the cartoonish aspect on this, no recognized intellectual property, right?

So you can't, like you said, create an image of Mickey Mouse or Darth Vader or something like that.

And there's going to be a wait list on here, which I don't know too much about.

Let me see how long ago the story was.

Well, it was just this, maybe this past week or within the past week here.

So there might be, you know, it may not be for everybody when it's rolling out immediately on, on this.

But I, you know, I, I, I, we know because we know we've seen lots of this stuff.

We know people are going to push the boundaries on this, right.

And they're going to come up with some of the silliest things that they can possibly come up.

And that's great because I think that's what Apple does when they put some of this out.

But I, I kind of, I, I, I, you know, I, I'm a little torn on this for some of the reasons you've already discussed, but I think I do overall like the idea that Apple is doing a slow roll on this at least in putting some of these guardrails around.

We're going to wait and see how people are using it.

And then ultimately they can build on that and probably add a few more things on this.

I like how David says this here.

Apple is not aiming to revolutionize AI image generation, rather they're working to provide a safe controlled creative tool for their users.

And that's great.

Right.

Perfect.

And we're going to be able to see that you can see some of the differences there, but I like this and I like the idea just when you were talking about, you know, if I want to create a slide presentation, I may want a very specific image of a city skyline with a helicopter over on one side.

And I mean, the fact that I might be able to do that even within like keynote, for example, that would be pretty powerful.

And that's where a lot of this is going.

I know people already do that with some other tools and everything, but having that built in will be a pretty cool on that.

One last thing I wanted to mention that you linked to today from iOS 18.1, well, actually more specifically, this is TV OS 18.1.

If you have one of the new Apple TV 4Ks, you might want to make sure that you have turned on enhanced dialogue.

I'm going to do this tonight.

We Stephanie and I, my wife and I want to sit down and watch something tonight.

And I want to make sure that this is turned on.

We have a 4K Apple TV, but I don't know if I've had this turned on because it's been available for HomePod components, but now you can get this even within the Apple TV.

Yeah.

So the Apple TV 4K, it's the current version of it.

I was just looking back, it came out in October, 2022, I think is the Apple press release.

So if you've purchased an Apple TV in the past couple of years, this may be the version that you have.

If you have an older Apple TV, maybe you don't, but this is the current one.

And like you say, it's the one that has 4K.

This feature called enhanced dialogue.

It actually came out, it came out with the old version TVOS 17.

So it's been on for a year, but it only worked in the past.

If your HomePod was your speaker for your Apple TV, which I know some people use, but that's not what I have.

I mean, at my house, I have a, like a surround, you know, a 5.1 system with speakers in the front and the back that I've had for, gosh, I don't even know how long, 15, 20 years, maybe not quite that long, but a long time I've had this speaker system and I just use it with, with an amplifier and with my television.

And so what Apple has done recently, and again, I did not know about it.

So I'm glad that this article came out is you can now use the enhanced dialogue feature, no matter what speakers you use, as long as you have the current version of the Apple TV.

And again, what this does is it, it's, you can soften some of the surrounding sounds and the sound of people speaking just so that it's easier to understand in the, in the shows that you're watching so that it's easier for you to understand the dialogue.

And you know, the, the special effects and the, and the other sounds are not quite as loud.

It's just an alternative way.

I agree, Brett.

I haven't tried this yet and I was going to do the same thing as you.

I was going to try this either this night or next week just to see, you know, does, do I prefer it this way?

Do I not prefer it this way?

So so it's something to try out and I'll be curious to see what people think about it.

Well, yeah, this is also from Ryan Christoffel in nine to five Mac.

And I like how he says, he goes, I live in an apartment and have a baby who sleeps one room away from the living room where he has his Apple TV 4k.

That means he has to be mindful of the TV's volume at all times.

So that's how he's using this enhanced dialogue means I can keep the volume at a lower level without missing out on any of the dialogue.

But you know, in, in some cases we talked about some of this, you know, just the way that even modern day television shows and movies are sort of like mixed from an audio standpoint.

Sometimes it's hard.

I mean, there's a reason why both, I know both my kids and your kids, Jeff, they prefer to have like the closed captions on and it's just been sort of a different mindset for, you know, for my wife and I to be like, wait, why are we watching it with, you know, from, from our generation?

And my wife feels like that was something that we just didn't do, but they love, like they insist on having that on.

And I think that is a little bit, to some extent, that's a reflection of like, Hey, the way that things are mixed, you know, from an audio perspective there.

But I'm glad to do this.

We're going to, we're going to try this out.

Maybe we can report back in the next couple of weeks on that.

One more quick thing about this article, Brett is, and Ryan mentions it.

There's another feature that's actually not new.

It's been there for a while, but in the Apple TV in settings, there's something called reduce loud sounds.

And so if you don't like it, when you're watching a show and suddenly something explodes and it's really, really loud, you know, you can, this is a setting that you can turn on that it will specifically dampen just those loud sounds.

So that way you don't have unexpected circumstances in which the TV is a lot louder than you anticipated.

Now, again, it, you know, it's going to, perhaps that would infect your viewing experience because you want your explosions to be loud, but you know, there's other people in the house.

This is another thing that you can use.

And again, this is not a new feature.

It's been there before.

Um, I don't have it turned on myself.

Maybe, maybe I should have, maybe if I asked the other people in my house, they'd say like reduce those loud sounds right now.

But anyway, that's another feature to click on.

Quick bonus tip on this.

Cause I, my, my daughter was home with her.

She has the AirPods max and she was sitting on the couch after she had to have her wisdom teeth taken out, but she's watching movies, but not all of us want to see the movies, right?

We're all around, right.

You know, I forget about this often, but even if you have the AirPods pro or the AirPods max, you can via Bluetooth connect those devices to the Apple TV.

And I got to tell you, of course, this is only if you're watching it solo.

I don't think you can, you can attach multiple.

I don't think that's, that's possible.

But I got to tell you when I do that, that is like some of the best sound experience that I wouldn't watch it.

It's all of it didn't show.

So just like letting people know it's really easy.

And I just, I just, I'm surprised at how well that that works, the wireless and the Bluetooth.

If you have Apple AirPods pro or if you have the AirPods max, you can connect those to your Apple TV.

And that's an excellent way to watch and still be able to to enjoy the whole thing.

The only, the only downside to that is that like I do noise cancellation.

And so if, if actually somebody in real, in real life comes and taps me on the shoulder or something, I'm just like, you know, I flip out because it's a lot of fun.

All right, let's move from a 2.1, all of these updates and everything that we've been talking about to something a little bit more fun and actually something that we know at least 60% of our listeners today, thank you very much are going to be interested in the overcast app, which is a podcast app that has been around for a very long time.

That is still supported by a one man band that does the development on there.

And man, there are some really nifty.

Well, I would just say some really nifty one or two improvements that he has made over this past week, well worth the, even the slight incremental price update that he's charging on this as well.

Yeah.

That one man band of course is Marco Arment, also known from the accidental tech podcast.

Marco has been a software developer for a long time, created all sorts of apps over the last 20 years.

But when he created overcast, gosh, over a decade ago, you know, when it first came out, it was a podcast player that did two things really well.

It had this unique at the time feature that it could remove the space in podcasts.

And so if you had long pauses or even short pauses in a podcast, but you wanted to speed up your listening, his app would take away those little pauses between words.

Anyone listening to overcast, you're the fact that I just pause.

And you might not think that removing those pauses makes a difference, but it does.

I mean, there's enough pod pauses throughout an average podcast that it may reduce it by, you know, you could listen to the same podcast in 10 or 15 minutes.

Of course, you can also increase the speed of people, which I do in all of my podcasts.

I know that I'm a fast talker, so I'm a bad person to have my voice speed increased too much.

But, and he also had a great algorithm for enhancing the sound and making podcasts, talk about enhanced dialogue for making podcasts more or less.

So those marquee features from day one are the reason that so many people like to overcast and you can use overcast for free and take advantage of those features.

But he has added some extra features over time for people that pay for it, like removing ads.

And this week he's added a couple of features.

I mean, again, they're not necessary, but I think that they're really nice additions.

But as we're going to talk about in a second, they're just for people that pay for it.

But let me just describe the features first.

One of them is called, and this one is I think so nice.

It's a 48 hour history and undo.

So what this means is if you've ever been listening to a podcast and then maybe you accidentally hit the button or something like that, and next thing you know, you're only halfway through the podcast and maybe you hit the button and you jumped to the end of it, or maybe you fell asleep, you were listening to it at night and so it just ran the rest of it.

And the next thing you know, the podcast is over and you're like, oh, now I got to, I'm not done listening to it.

I got to go re-download it, find it again, figure out where I was, blah, blah, blah. - Been there. - This doesn't happen to me often, but when it does happen, it happens probably once a month. - Very frustrating. - So now he has this undo feature that again, for that you can return, and I haven't tried it yet because it just came out this week, but you can apparently go back to where you were anytime in the last 48 hours and you can bring yourself right back to where you were so that you don't have to do it.

You can find that podcast again.

You can find the specific episode.

The next time I need this, it's going to be a lifesaver for me.

I can't wait to use it.

So that's one cool feature.

And then the other cool feature is called listening stats, which is just, if you're curious, you know, what have been your big podcast you've listened to, you can go back to 2023.

Apparently the app has been tracking this.

And so all you do is, and when I opened up Overcast, you just, when you're in the Overcast app on the main screen of it, at the very top left, there is the icon with, it looks like a gear, which brings up settings.

If I tap on that, you'll see an option about five down called listening stats.

And it tells me, you know, in calendar year 2024, I could go back and make it 2023.

How many hours and minutes did I spend listening to what podcast?

And it's interesting because I actually, if I had had to guess, I would have said for me that my number one listen to would have probably been a podcast that I love called Upgrade, which comes out every Monday.

It's Jason Snow and Mike Curly.

It actually turns out that that was number two on my list.

I only quote unquote, I only spent 60 hours listening to that one, but in 2024, I've spent 68 hours listening to Mac break weekly, another podcast that I love, but it's fun to just look back.

And again, this is just based upon hours.

And so of course a really long podcast that you listen to all the way through is going to show up higher on the top and a really short podcast.

Having said that one of the podcasts that I regularly listen to is a podcast I paid for called dithering, which is a John Gruber and who's the guy from Mr.

Techery.

They have a nice podcast.

It comes out twice a week and it's only 15 minutes.

So I cannot listen to more than 30 minutes total.

And yet it's on my top 10 list of podcasts.

So it's a fun way just, and hopefully for all of you listening, hopefully this podcast is in your top 10, but it's sort of fun to look back and say, what podcast did I listen to the most this year?

Again, do you need this feature?

No, but it's a cool feature.

And one fun thing about it is in addition to looking at your list, he has a tab at the top called image to share.

And if you actually tap on that, it creates something that is ready for Instagram, ready for ready for a message.

It's a nice little graphic that includes it.

If you just want to share with somebody else, Hey, look at my top podcast.

And I think Marco's idea is that, you know, people will share it on social media and other people will share theirs.

And it gets just people talking about podcasts.

They like and share, you know, so it's, it's a fun little feature.

Do you need it?

No, but it's nice to have, you know, the main reason that I pay for overcast is I use it so much.

In fact, I was surprised to see how many hours I listened to podcasts this past year.

Quite a few.

I use it so much that I want to support the developers so that he continues to bring out new features.

I mean, I learned that I have in, in the calendar year 2024, I have listened to podcasts for 313 hours, which is a lot.

I mean, that's almost like seven hours a week.

I did not quite realize that, but I guess when you add up going to work, coming back from work while I'm doing dishes and all the times that I listened to podcasts, you know, on the weekend it adds up to be quite a bit.

So it's a fun feature.

He just raised the price for overcast.

It used to be $10 a year.

Now it's $15 a year, but you have all these new features.

So that's, that's, that's what's in the overcast.

Those are the new features.

But as you and I were just discovering, Brad, a lot of people don't pay for overcast, including for example, maybe you.

There is.

So first of all, I just want to say thanks for, for sharing your little snapshot there with me via text message, because it is fun to see that.

And I do like the fact that we can share that.

And you know, you just pointed out that you can share that little recap.

This is a perfect time.

Marco's brilliant, right?

And doing it because it's the end of the year.

Right.

And so we will probably see several of these being posted at the end of the year.

But yes, womp womp for me, because you're talking all about these great features and updates.

I have been using overcast for years, at least since 2015.

And I'll tell you why I know that in just a moment, because I have not yet updated on this.

So first of all, let's just go back and say overcast.

Marco allows you to use overcast for completely for free.

Right.

And so there might be a large percentage of people out there using it.

But if you do that, you will see ads, right?

That's how he supports the free version.

And there will be ads.

And I haven't seen them in a long time.

But I think when I've seen screenshots, they're very minimal, right?

They're kind of at the bottom of banner ads, right?

Yeah, they just and they and they just go in.

But but they've they've been nice.

So you can still continue to use it for free.

Now, back in January of 2015, apparently, I was using the free version of overcast, but I paid four dollars and ninety nine cents in January 20th of 2015 to unlock the ability to turn off banner ads.

And so that's what I paid all those years ago.

I have been using overcast very happily, extremely happily, I would say almost every day.

I don't know what my numbers are yet, because in order to get access to that, I actually have to upgrade to overcast premium.

And I'm just going to say in the story that you link to today, this is from Chance Miller at nine to five.

Matt, he says at the bottom here, he has always thought that the previous subscription price of nine dollars and ninety nine cents per year was too generous.

And so he is happy to pay the slight increase, which is now fourteen dollars and ninety nine cents per year.

I will absolutely pay that and do that right after we finish this podcast today.

But because then that means I will get access to all of these other features.

And of course, just being able to see all these features over the year to continue to see, you know, Marco, how he has continued to update and add amazing features in the podcast world here.

I mean, and we just know from our own stats that so many of you are using overcast.

And it's just a great way to also support Marco in the fact that he does this.

I mean, there's not too many single individual developers out there that are doing this.

And it's and it's just great.

Can I just say one last thing?

You know, you were doing that pause and we were talking about the what he calls the smart speed tool on there.

You don't understand how amazing that is until you go to a different app, Jeff, like the Apple podcast app or another app and you listen to a podcast and you're like, why is everybody going so slow on this?

And it's like, that's why to me, I cannot listen to podcasts at any other app anymore.

I have to do overcast because I'm so dependent upon that.

But I love it.

Like I've gotten used to it.

And it's just a way that a beautiful way that I can input and ingest a lot of information throughout the week.

And soon I'll find out how much how much time that I spend on that.

Well, I'm glad that you're upgrading because I think that you'll enjoy the new features.

Oh, absolutely.

The fact that you paid five bucks almost a decade ago and Marco has, you know, that just shows you that he has exactly using users for money.

He still makes most of the cool features available for free and you have to see ads, but whatever banner ads are not that big of a deal.

I love that he has that option.

But if you want to pay something to him, you can and you get you get some good stuff if you do.

It's it's it's nice.

So worth it.

You know, companies from huge apps, from huge companies that have a lot more money and have investors and, you know, they got it.

They got to pay off their investors.

They can't do stuff like this.

Little indie developer apps, you know, overcast.

And there's other examples like this.

Great.

It's, you know, great.

I hope that they continue to be a big part of the iPhone experience.

Thank you, Marco.

Keep going another 10 years and beyond.

Love this.

OK, I know we've been spending some time on this, but you, my friend, Jeff, had some really nice links today to the season of the year of Black Friday.

I've been seeing a lot of these things come, you know, bubbling up.

We had Apple just, you know, a few weeks ago announced the new MacBooks and the new Mac minis and, you know, a lot of those things that are new.

Of course, we have the iPhone 16 and the pro Amazon, along with several other stores are jumping on the Black Friday wagon.

It's almost like a black week.

It's not even Friday anymore and we don't even have Cyber Monday.

I mean, it's just kind of being so expanded now.

But anyway, what few things would you like to highlight today that you talked about in your Black Friday links?

Well, let me begin by saying that there are lots of websites out there that seek to be the resource for Black Friday.

And they really go out there and look for deals.

It was it.

That's not me.

That's not my intention.

But I had started by saying, oh, you know, this is a good deal.

Let me mention this.

And as I dug deeper, Amazon actually has so many good deals.

I'm like, wow, you know, you should look at this.

And so whether you're looking to get something for yourself or you're looking for a good present, you know, you can't ignore when you have these devices that you can save, you know, 70, 80, 90 dollars on something that's a few hundred dollars.

A perfect example is the Apple Watch Series 10, which just came out.

Right.

I mean, I just got it.

Yeah, it's still very, very new.

And you know, you can get the entry level one is only three hundred and thirty dollars, three twenty nine, which is a nice saving from the normal one is seventy dollars higher.

So, you know, if you weren't sure if you were going to splurge and get the Series 10 or give somebody a cheaper version, like an old Series nine that you find or an or even a see when you have a nice discount like this, almost a 20 percent discount.

It's a reason to to get the Series 10.

So that is that was one that was really good.

And of course, if you want to go with this, see the really inexpensive version of an Apple Watch, which is the version, for example, when my wife and I gave my daughter her first Apple Watch, which she continues to use today.

We just got her an SE, which that's all she needs is the basic features.

And you can now get it for eighty dollars off for only one hundred and seventy one hundred sixty nine.

Excuse me.

Yeah, that's a really credible price, you know, and this gives you the ability that, you know, they have an Apple Watch, you know, maybe it's for you for for, you know, your grandparent and you want them to have something in your wrist so that if they fall down, sure, detect sure, and it will send you an alert.

Plus, it gives them the ability to see the time and to get some alerts on their watch.

And it's only one hundred and sixty nine dollars.

I mean, that's a pretty good deal.

So those are nice details.

You know, another one that's really good is the the AirPods Pro, which, you know, we use and talk about all the time.

They just added the ability and the pro two to have the the the hearing test.

Yeah.

The hearing test and to use it as a hearing aid.

You know, the biggest discount that app that I've ever seen anywhere is right now.

I mean, these usually cost two to 60 and they're currently one.

They usually cost two fifty and they're now one sixty.

So it's a ninety dollar discount or whatever it is.

Yeah.

I think it's gone up just a little bit, though.

It's you know, it's just nine.

OK, it was I've been I've been watching this this past week, just like you have.

It's been going up and down.

It's been bouncing up and down.

So it's worth watching if you're looking for something on here.

It's one sixty nine now instead of one fifty nine.

What you posted this morning and I double checked it earlier this morning and it was one fifty nine.

I mean, that's only a ten dollar change.

But keep an eye on it.

And Amazon does fluctuate.

Absolutely.

Especially these even the one sixty nine, though, is basically a third off for the top of the line.

AirPods.

Oh, it's just such a great price, such a great price.

And there's some other ones I have listed to, you know, iPads you can save money on, you know, other things.

But, you know, these especially for these the Apple watches and the AirPods, these are really great prices.

So now keep in mind, as I put out my post, you know, you may not get the generous return policy.

Amazon does.

They they do have some return things where you can wait a little bit later.

You have to research and see if it applies to the.

You know, the advantage of buying from the Apple store is although you won't get this much of a discount, you do have the ability to return it on January 8th.

That's a long time from now.

So if you think that you might want to return it or if the person might want to exchange it for a different model, then you might want to go to the Apple store.

And keep in mind that for Black Friday a week from today, the day after Thanksgiving, Apple is going to have all of these.

The way that they do it is they don't give you a discount like Amazon.

But what they do is when you purchase a product, they give you an Apple gift card for, you know, twenty five, fifty, seventy five, one hundred, all the way up to two hundred dollars, depending upon what the product is and how much you spend.

And so it's functionally the same thing.

I mean, it's a card that you'll use on your next Apple purchased.

And I'm sure all of us will have a next Apple purchase.

So so that's the way that Apple takes care of it.

But whether you take advantage of the Amazon price or the Apple gift card, this is a great time to buy Apple products.

Yeah, it's good.

You know, including to that return policy, just quickly, I always add to the point that if you have an Apple credit card, I mean, one of the reasons that I don't do a lot of Apple purchase product purchases from Amazon is because I like to put it those purchases on my Apple credit card, which allows you to basically do 12 months of payment with no interest on there.

And so, you know, it's another consideration back to which is exactly you got it.

And so for me, and so I've even done that.

I've done that buying those gift cards, just like you said, and it's really confusing how people how Apple does this.

They actually take off like if they give you $100 gift card, they take that price off of the product, but you're still paying for the gift card.

People get very confused in the way Apple has done this.

I don't know why they continue to do it a little confusing, but I've done it several times once I, you know, comfortable with how to figure it out.

But not only do we get that discount, but I also get the 3% back and I get the 12%.

So anyway, it is the season.

So just be aware that some of those sales and thank you for listing some of those because man, now I might have to go get an Apple watch, an extra Apple watch on some of that.

Those prices are just amazing.

Congratulations to Billie Eilish, who is Apple Music's Artist of the Year, like again, right?

The second time she is Artist of the Year for 2024.

And I think this is great.

I remember we love to talk about this at the end of each year that Apple comes out with some of these awards.

Billie Eilish is having a pretty amazing year already.

I think she just won another Academy Award or something like that on a Grammy Award here.

Yeah, just crazy stuff, which is great.

Yeah, I always love it when there's an artist out there that my daughter, my teenage daughter listens to and I also like because I feel like those...

Hey, you know what?

I'm in the same boat.

Yeah.

Exactly.

There's not always overlap in listening taste because I'm much more listening to 70s and 80s music than the modern stuff.

But yeah, Apple, again, this is not just based upon downloads.

I'm sure Apple takes that into account.

But the editorial team behind Apple Music, they actually look at all the artists and they decide who they're going to give the awards to.

And they have all sorts of lists of top things and stuff.

But the first time that Apple came out with these awards in 2019, she won.

And now here we are five years later and she has won again.

So congrats to her.

And if you look at the picture that's in the Apple Press release, which you were showing a second ago, the actual physical award that they give to...

What is that again?

So that's the chip.

That's the full chip, the silicon chip, which is huge.

It's like the size of a record, which is why Apple does it.

And this is what the factory will use to cut out all of the little M3, M4, all of the little Apple processors.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

They first make it in a huge thing and then they cut it up and they put it in.

So this is, I don't know how many individual processors are reflected in what she's holding in her hand there, but it is definitely a distinctive looking award.

This does not look like a Grammy.

Beautiful.

If you've ever seen anything else, you'll recognize this award.

Speaking of music, Apple is doubling down on this today.

They announced something pretty amazing, Shazam, which Apple purchased when?

When did they purchase?

Just several years ago now, but it's still continued to be like a sort of a separate app, which I now use it as a widget.

I know it's kind of built into Siri and everything else, but Shazam hits 100 billion song recognitions.

That is 12 songs identified for every person on earth.

That's amazing.

Shazam started in 2002, Apple purchased it in 2018.

And the funny thing is when it started in 2002, gosh, you know, over 20 years ago, it was such a different, I mean, it's the same idea, but the way they implemented it is you would call something on your phone and you would hold up your phone.

Like an actual phone call.

Like an actual physical phone call.

And it would listen using the phone speaker and then it would send you a text message when it identifies it.

But the underlying technology of like, they take all the songs in existence that they know about, they create an audio fingerprint so that they could just listen to a few seconds of that song and figure out what it is, it is really one.

I mean, we've all used Shazam and it feels like magic.

I mean, it really does.

How could my iPhone know in a few seconds exactly what the song is?

Show it to me in the Apple music app or in Spotify or whatever you use.

And therefore you can listen to the full song.

So many times I use this.

I mean, the number one use for me is when I'm watching a TV show and there's like something in the closing credits or in the show, I'm like, wow, that's a great song.

I want to hear the whole thing.

I just hold up my phone or I ask, you know, who, you know, who is this, you know, who wrote, you know, what is the song I'm listening to?

And it starts listening.

So Shazam is a great service.

I love that Apple purchased them because they have been a great steward for the service.

And I know that all of the engineers behind Shazam are just super smart music people.

And like I pointed out in my post, Shazam itself is fantastic.

You know, these people are so smart.

And I think that when you combine what Shazam does and factor into it, Apple intelligence in this new world of algorithms and stuff like that, it's going to be even more important.

So that's cool.

But back to this post, a hundred billion, it's hard to even understand how big 100 billion is.

And so Apple in this press release helps you because in the first few bullet points of the press release, they point out that that is equivalent to what, 12 songs for every person on earth.

I mean, what they say, you would have to use Shazam to identify a song every second for over 3000 years to get to a hundred billion.

A hundred billion is a huge number.

It's so huge that I can't even understand how huge it is.

So kudos to the folks at Shazam.

Just to your point about how this is so integrated now into my life.

I mean, first of all, this, this still just continues to blow my mind every time that I use it.

Like, are you kidding me?

In the past, I would hear a song and I would have to like, try to go and remember it, sing it to somebody and hopefully that they would recognize it.

But I have it now at all of my lock screens on my lock screens, Jeff, I now have the Shazam widget there because I use it that often and I want it to be that quick instead of having to unlock my phone, go find the Shazam app and tap the button.

I have it as a lock screen widget now.

In fact, when we came down to New Orleans, I remember I was specifically, I was walking through the Roosevelt Hotel and you know, they have fantastic music, like New Orleans music that playing.

And I'm like, I always want to know who it is.

Like what is the artist?

What's the band?

Is it something that I want to get?

You know, I just love the feel of it.

And so boom, I tap Shazam and it comes right up and I just, I constantly have it on there.

Let's talk about something else that people use quite a bit apparently is Apple's Notes app.

I like this story from the Wall Street Journal you link to.

When did Apple Notes app become an extension of our brains?

I'm going to guess kind of like you, Jeff.

I mean, this is basically our collective brain in my family.

My kids are constantly gathering stuff.

If they want to take a note or, you know, capture some kind of an idea or a task, they put it in and then we start sharing notes amongst ourselves, whether it's shopping lists.

And there's different apps for a lot of this, but today we pretty much put everything into Apple Notes, whether for individuals or for sharing as well.

Yeah.

Great way to share your Christmas list with somebody else or something like that.

The Notes app is useful for so many different reasons, but this article points out, and it's for me, it's always been the key reason.

It's an extension of your brain.

You know, some people have photographic memories and for those people, thumbs up to you.

I am not one of those people.

And so if I hear something and I'm like, gosh, I want to make sure I remember it.

It's just so quick to jot it down in the Notes app and then I can forget about it.

And whether I need it six hours later or six months later, I know that I can just search for it and it's in there.

And it's just such a great way to jot those things down.

And so I have thought about the Notes app this way.

Apparently I'm not the only one since the Wall Street Journal article does too.

It's just, I love the Notes app.

Plus it syncs, right?

I mean, this, we almost take this for granted today with so many apps, but the fact that I know that I can get it on my iPhone, it'll sync to my iPad and my Mac.

So I have all of that everywhere, wherever I need to go.

Maybe I guess, you know, any time that I need it.

And I guess, I don't, there's not a Notes app for Windows, but it seemed like you can go to iCloud.com and it'll be synced there.

So you can even access it.

Yeah.

So you can, I've done that before.

You can access Notes from a Windows computer.

With the exception, however, there's a super high level of iCloud security, which I actually have turned on right now.

And I think if you have on that super security level in the settings, it might not work, but I definitely have done that in the past of access Notes from the Windows.

Last little video you linked to, which I just thought was great.

It is from Apple.

It is called All Systems Pro.

Not going to spoil it.

Worth watching for what, the 30 seconds or a minute that it is.

I just love it.

My favorite line though, I will put in there is 93 unclosed browser tabs.

Who can relate to that?

I'm raising my hand.

Great little video to watch.

You can all relate to that.

It's a cute video.

One thing I'll mention about the video is you say it's from Apple and that's true, but actually if you click on that link that says All Systems Pro so that you go to YouTube, it's not posted on the main Apple account.

Like this link is on Apple UAE, which is a Middle East.

So I think Apple is running this commercial around the world right now.

For whatever reason, they're not yet running it in the US.

I don't know why.

Maybe that will change tomorrow.

But I just thought, I mean, who knows if there's any significance to it.

I just pointed out that this appears to be, even though it's in English, don't get me wrong, it appears to be an international commercial that Apple has not yet run in the US for whatever reason.

But anyway, but it's a cute little commercial.

I guess I didn't even realize that Apple would have like sub YouTube channels.

They do for different countries.

For different countries.

Yeah, because we usually link to the main Apple channel, right?

There is one main Apple channel.

But then apparently they have some that are broken out, I assume for the UK, for Europe or something like that.

But you may do.

Wow.

I didn't even notice that I just went and just, huh, interesting.

But I wonder how that would be different.

Anyway, nonetheless, thanks to YouTube, you still have access to it.

And it's worth the 38 seconds to go and watch that.

I just thought it was great.

Yeah.

In the know.

All right.

So we are all still we talked about still getting used to the photos app and some of the other things, the messages app and the message summaries on iOS 18.1.

One of the things that I'm still getting used to, although maybe not as much of a hurdle, is the new Siri and the new features on there.

We have always been able to initiate she who shall not be named by either saying her name or his name, if you've turned that off.

Or one of the ways a lot of people have initiated Siri is they hold down the side button on their phone.

Right.

And if you do that, it will today, if you've upgraded iOS 18.1, it'll have like the shimmer around the screen, which I'm still enjoying very much, by the way.

Or if you have an older version, you have the little circle down at the bottom.

So we've always been able to do that.

And when you invoke Siri that way, you are basically then ready to talk to Siri.

Right.

You give a command.

That's what that talk to Siri is.

Well, several years ago, this is not new.

I think it was on iOS 11, maybe they came out with type to Siri.

There have been ways that you could type to Siri as opposed to talk to Siri.

But now with iOS 18.1, I didn't even notice this, although I had seen it, Jeff, because I accidentally invoked this type to Siri feature because in iOS 18.1, you can actually double tap the bottom of basically any page and that will actually bring up a little almost looks like a search bar.

But if you look at it really closely, it is a type to Siri little box that you do.

You can do this from the lock screen.

So I guess I just I had I had tripped upon this because I accidentally triggered it a few times.

But even on my lock screen, if you just double tap the very bottom of this instead of like Siri waiting to listen to you.

So instead of talking or invoking or telling it a command, you can type a command into this now.

And I just like the way that I mean, to me, it's really a nice way that it has been designed.

I like that.

But I haven't used this.

I mean, to be honest with you, I've always just spoken to Siri.

I haven't never really typed to Siri.

But I like the fact that now if I could remember this, and it's a fast way to invoke it, you know, I could be sitting somewhere where I can't talk out loud or I shouldn't be talking out loud and I can type type to Siri now and ask it for some kind of a of a command.

And you know, that can be helpful if you're looking something up, for example, or if you wanted to go to a website, something along those lines.

Now, if you don't like this, you can turn it off in the settings you can go into if you again if you've upgraded to iOS 18.1 or iOS 18.

There is a new settings now called Apple Intelligence in Siri.

So if you go to your settings app, you'll find that and then you'll find in there there is a talk and type to Siri you can toggle off type to Siri so that if you just want to talk to her, you can do that.

But if you want to have both of them on, then you can toggle that on as well.

So just wanted to let people know if you've accidentally stumbled upon this like I have, you may or may not have enjoyed it or like it, but you can turn it off if you need to.

But I I'm going to try to start using this a little bit more on the type to Siri aspect there.

Yeah.

In fact, as you were talking, it's nice because you can use it without it making much noise.

So while you're talking, I just type to Siri and it's already off my screen now, but I asked it what is the meaning of life?

And then it'll give you a silly answer.

It has a couple of different ones.

Someone that says it might be traveling the world or maybe just traveling to your couch, which either way, it gives you a joke answer.

But I appreciate that.

There you go.

Yeah, that's I agree.

That is a nice little feature of Siri.

My tip of the week, it grows off of something that I linked to in my post today.

So what I linked to in my post was this post from Dan Morin of Six Colors, where he talks out that one of the new features in the current version, iOS 18 with AirPods, with the latest version of AirPods, either the AirPods for or the AirPods Pro that I use, is that if you get an alert like, you know, somebody sends you a message and it's Siri will say out loud, do you want to reply or something like that?

Or do you want to send it instead of actually speaking?

If somebody phone, you know, phones you, they call you and you want to answer it instead of speaking.

What you can do is you can use a head gesture.

If you nod your head up and down, your AirPods can sense that by the accelerometers and it will interpret that as a yes.

And if you go back and forth, it will go no.

So that's what Dan's article was.

My tip, however, is two parts.

First of all, you need to enable this.

I don't think it's on by default.

And so to turn it on, if you want to try it out, go to settings on your iPhone.

This only works while your AirPods are actually synced to your iPhone.

Right.

They have to be connected.

Go to settings, tap the name of your AirPods Pro or your AirPods 4.

And then once you tap on it, scroll down a little bit, you'll see something called head gestures.

And so tap on that and you can turn it on.

But my second tip is if you're not even sure if you want to try it, when you get to that screen to turn it on or off, at the very bottom, there's a link that says try head gestures.

And this is what I encourage you to do just to see if you want it.

So what happens if you tap that, it will actually say, OK, now I want you to shake your head up and down.

And when you do it, you'll learn, first of all, you don't actually have to shake your head up and down that much.

It's not like it's a huge, you know, I'm a headbanger type up and down.

It's just a little bit of a nod, something like a recognition, acknowledgement.

If you're walking on the street, you're walking down the street, you could nod your head twice without looking obnoxious to the people around you, as you'll see from this test.

And the other thing that you'll learn is when you do it, Apple plays a tone.

I don't know how to describe it, but it's a distinctive tone.

Oh, OK.

So you know.

Yeah, so that you know.

And there's a tone for yes.

And then you'll also try to shake your head back and forth for no.

And there's a different tone for no.

And it's pretty easy to get to know these tones.

And that way, it's just sort of like while you're not looking, your iPhone might be in your pocket or your purse or something like that.

So you're not looking at your phone.

You want to make sure the iPhone correctly registered that you said yes or no.

And the tone you hear in your ear is confirmation.

So what I encourage you to do is if you have this turned off, go ahead and turn it on just to try it out.

But before you try it out in real life, tip a click on or tap on the try head gestures, because that will very quickly within 10 seconds give you an ability to get a feel for what it's like.

So I had mine turned off until I read this article last night, and I just turned it on.

And so I haven't tried it in real life yet.

But I look forward to seeing what I think.

And again, many times it's convenient for you just to speak the word yes or no or whatever or to tap something on your screen.

But sometimes it's not.

I mean, as Dan points out, you might be carrying something and there's other people around.

There may be circumstances in which just a quick little head gesture is more convenient.

And it's nice to have this as an alternative option.

The only concern or thing that what I want to know is, is it going to have false positives and false negatives?

Is it going to some, you know, if I'm driving in my car or something, I don't know because I haven't tried it yet.

I look forward to trying that out.

But but it's a fun little feature that Apple added.

So I'm going to give it a shot.

When you do the try head gestures there, Jeff, does it do the tones for you so that you can hear what it sounds like?

So you'll have a chance to hear it.

You're going through the whole training session on there.

And the last little thing quickly, I would say, I think I agree with Dan because I'm the same way.

I haven't tried this in real life.

I feel like I feel like I've had it turned on, but I've just either I don't usually have my AirPods in that I would say yes or no to maybe some kind of a notification.

So anyway, I want to try it as well.

But I like what Dan says.

I wish, though, that there were more options for gestures, because if you look in that page that you're talking about, it's up and down or side to side, which would be the up and down is accept or reply.

And then the side to side is decline or dismiss, which that makes sense for some certain notifications or something along those lines.

But yeah, I mean, I kind of feel like I just want like, you know, can you twist your head around?

Could you I don't know what else you could possibly do, but I feel like there would be good ways to maybe if I want to go mute or if I want to, you know, jump ahead to like the next episode or I want to pause, you know, something I'm listening to.

That would be the main thing, right?

If I'm listening to my three hundred and thirteen hours of podcast, I want to have some kind of a head gesture that I can say, pause it, right, because I want to listen to something.

I don't know.

There's there's got to be some other ways that they can use this.

And I feel like this is just the beginning of this.

Hopefully they will allow some additional head gestures.

But I have an idea.

What if you shake your head?

No, really, really, really fast.

That would be an undo.

Like, I really did not mean to do that.

That would be my idea.

I don't know.

I was like, I don't know if you clench your jaw.

Like what else can those can these air pods, you know, figure out?

Oh, that's just so fun.

But that's good stuff.

That's worth trying, because I mean, if that could be something that I can certainly see where that would be worthwhile.

It's just I don't know that I've experienced that in real life, but I'm going to try to manufacture somewhere so that I can try that out on there.

Good stuff there.

Wow.

Lots of stuff.

Well, hopefully we'll talk with you next week, Jeff.

We're still going to see because I know here in the United States is our Thanksgiving week and some holidays and stuff.

But nonetheless, we've got some good things planned for the rest of the year before we head out.

So anybody listening in overcast, if you do have a full subscription, go ahead and share with us.

Like maybe you could show us how much you've been listening to our podcast or other podcasts.

It'd be fun to see that from some of the audience members there.

Jeff, thanks as always.

And hopefully we'll talk with you next week or very sometime very soon.

Yeah, we'll see if there's enough.

I mean, next week's going to be a slow week.

If there's enough items to justify a podcast, we'll do it.

And if it seems to just be a really slow, sleepy week, well, then we'll skip.

But so, you know, whether or not you see one in your feed next week depends upon how much news there is.

So if one way or the other, whether it's one week or two week, I'll talk to you then.

Thanks, Brett.

Bye bye.