- Welcome to In the News for January 3rd, 2025.

Happy New Year.

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

Happy 2025, Brett, good new year.

Here we go. - 2025, unbelievable.

Good to see you again, Jeff.

We had a couple of weeks off, holidays and all, but now we're back into it.

And I loved your first bullet point in your post today, the In the News post that you had today.

You know, I knew that Apple had been busy and working on a few things in 2024, but if you had asked me, I probably would have guessed maybe five or so.

You have linked to a story today where Apple launched 29 new hardware products.

Hardware products.

We don't even count in the software aspect, which I know that made some improvements there. 29 hardware products.

Now, looking at this list, I'll be honest with you, some of them I feel like it was a little bit of fudgy because it's like, yeah, a little bit of a stretch.

Yeah, a little bit, a new Mac on there, but still, still a pretty amazing list here. - Yeah, I mean, for example, it looks like in July, they say there was a new HomePod mini, but I think that was just in the color midnight.

Which is, wasn't there already a black one?

This is a different kind of black.

Yeah, and then we all joked about, when the new AirPods Max came out in September, the only thing they did was add USB-C, and that was nothing else.

And some people were frustrated.

So some of these were not exactly the most revolutionary changes, but the very first one on the list is the Apple Vision Pro, which came out in February.

And that was the one that ultimately the people at MacRumors said was the most significant new product of the year, which was interesting.

You know, and we can talk about that in a second, but I mean, there was some other big changes on here.

I mean, obviously we've talked about the Apple Watch changes over the year and stuff.

The Mac at the very end of the year, the Mac mini, which is a whole new form design, small and powerful and stuff.

So, I mean, there were some real things, the keyboard changes.

And then of course the new iPad that came out with the M4 processor.

I mean, I'm just reminded, that was such a surprise to everybody.

It was the first time ever that Apple has given their newest processor, which in 2024 was the M4, and they did not introduce it in a Mac.

They introduced it in the iPad of all places, which surprised so many people, but it's great.

I mean, I still love using that iPad.

I'm looking at it right now.

So there were some nice big products.

Before we get to the Apple Vision Pro, anything jump up on your list that's really, was a big one?

The new Pencil Pro? - You know, the Apple Pencil Pro, I mean, to me, like that was the newer model that they released on there.

I mean, to me, that was sort of like a sleeper aspect on there.

You got it.

I'm still working with, I guess, the first generation Apple Pencil Pro on there, but I know you've talked about it and just some of the improvements that came with the new version of the Apple Pencil Pro.

I feel like that was a big deal that a lot of people, I haven't seen as many people talk about that one. - Yeah, no, that was nice too.

And I use it all the time for writing and stuff.

And, you know, the big changes is it's a little bit easier to switch tools and stuff like that with it.

So it was, so, I mean, looking at this list reminds you, even if some of these 29 are a little bit of a stretch, it was literally a new product.

And it does make me sort of think to 2025 of, you know, I don't know if the number will be similar, but if Apple is going to have, you know, a good two dozen new products this year, some of them will be more significant and that's going to be something to look forward to.

I mean, we just talked about this on our last episode where we look, you know, predicted into the future, but, you know, in 2024, we had the new Vision Pro, in 2025, one of the rumors is that Apple is going to have some new device for the home, maybe this spring, we'll see, that could be interesting.

So, so it's interesting to sort of take, you know, take a step back at the big picture here and look at all the new products.

But to move on to the Vision, go ahead. - Well, actually just one thing real quick, 'cause I think, you know, I've been on vacation for a couple of weeks, but did I not see, was, Gurman, did he talk about like a new magic mouse?

Was Apple going to be talking about like, redesigning the actual mouse for the Mac computers?

Which I know it doesn't sound like a pretty big deal, but I think I may have seen some kind of a headline on there.

I feel like that would be pretty excited, even though it's just a mouse and it's like, well, what can you do to improve the mouse?

But the magic mouse has been around for so long now, and it really still has been in that same configuration, that hardware configuration.

When I saw that, I was like, okay, you know, let's see what you can do in 2025, Apple.

That would be nice. - That was one of the rumors that came out at the very end of the year.

In fact, it was after you and I had recorded our episode where we were looking forward to next year.

And, you know, it's, like you say, it's been a very long time since Apple updated the magic mouse, as they call it. - Right. - And it's a little long in the tooth.

You know, some people don't like the fact that you have to turn it upside down to charge it on the bottom.

That's never really bothered me because you don't have to charge them very often.

You know, you can go a long time.

But there's some other things, you know, whether it's one of Gurman's rumors was voice, which seems a little bizarre that your mouse would be listening to your voice.

But that product has been unchanged for so long.

It just wouldn't surprise me.

Now, having said that, so many people have moved on.

I mean, I used to be a mouse person, and then I was a trackball person, which I still use at home and stuff.

But whenever I need something portable, a couple of years ago, instead of using my magic mouse, which I had been using, I switched over to Apple's trackpad, what is it called?

The smart trackpad, whatever they call it.

And I haven't really looked back.

And so now when I am portable, whether it's with my Vision Pro or my iPad or something, I just find it's more useful to have the trackpad 'cause it's very easy to move around and you can do the gestures and stuff, which you don't have as much.

You can do a little bit of that on the mouse, but not as much.

So I sort of prefer a trackpad.

And so I, you know, if Apple did come out with a new mouse this year, I don't think I would use it, even though in past years I would have thought, well, of course I'll try it out.

So, but you're right.

That was one of the newer rumors of one of those things and a major update to our product that we may see this year.

So we shall see.

But to the Vision Pro, I mean, yeah, it was interesting to see.

It's been funny because so many people have done their look backs at 2024, you know, as one is gonna do at the end of the year.

And, you know, I was laughing because on the one hand, you've got the people at Mac, at what is the Mac rumors website talking about the Apple Vision Pro.

And, but then on the other hand, you have, I was listening to the, I'm sorry, nine to five Mac is who gave us this award. - Nine to five, right. - But then there was another website that I listened to, the Upgrade Podcast with Jason Snell.

And every Monday they'd come out with their new episodes and they were doing their sort of year in the review.

One of the readers choices for worst product of 2024 was the Apple Vision Pro.

It wasn't the one that they ultimately selected, but I just thought it was funny that this one single product could be so, could lead to so many different points of view because, you know, there's a lot to hate upon it for.

It is so ridiculously expensive.

It really is such a very early product.

Again, we've done this before.

I mean, when that first iPhone came out in 2007, it was pitiful compared to what the iPhone would become later and the same is true for so many other products that, you know, when Apple comes out with the first version, it takes a while.

But the Vision Pro, you know, even with that, even when viewed with that prism, it's even more preliminary than many of the other products that Apple first comes out with.

And I agree with all of that.

It's true, it's overpriced, it's early.

Having said that, as I've said before, as someone who owns one, I love it so much.

I mean, there are so many experiences that I had in 2024 with the Vision Pro that were unlike anything I've ever done before.

And we've talked about them here before.

Spatial video, there's not many of the Apple spatial videos, even though they have come out with a few over the year.

But you know, any one of those two dozen or so videos, it's like you're there, it's so immersive.

It transports you to a completely different place and it's unlike anything that I've ever done before.

I mean, that alone is just mind boggling to the point that even now when I sit down and watch a brand new immersive video, I still find myself just completely, you know, my jaw drops, it's amazing.

And that's just one thing.

So many other things too.

I mean, the ability last night I was watching some shows, in fact, over the holidays, I was watching some TV shows and stuff like that.

And to be able to just sit on your couch and open up what is essentially a movie theater screen that you can size to whatever you want and just have this incredible view, it's just incredible.

And then from a productivity standpoint too, what Apple introduced at the end of the year that you can connect the Vision Pro to your Mac, even if it's a Mac that has a nice screen and then has this incredible, huge, ultra wide monitor.

It's just, I was using it last night as I was drafting in the news post because I could have, you know, one part of my screen with the articles that I'm looking at and another part of the screen where I'm typing my post.

And, you know, you might listen and say, "Oh, well that's just a dual monitor setup, which is useful, but people have been doing a dual monitor setup for a long time."

And that's true, I agree with you, but having a dual monitor setup where you can infinitely control where things are, there's no seam between it.

It's just one big long screen as big as you want.

It's really, really nice.

And I could go on forever.

There's all these things that the Apple Vision Pro enables that are just unlike, you know, it's just so, so brand new.

So what excites me is, and I doubt that we'll see a new model in 2025, at least based upon the rumors, you know, Apple will probably continue to sell this one, but at some point we are gonna see a next generation and you know, it's gonna be cheaper, you know, it's gonna be smaller.

And I just think the potential is there that, you know, just like we look back at the 2007 iPhone and say, "Oh, that the edge modem was so slow."

And you know, it was so slow when you scrolled that Apple had to come up with something new that you saw a checkerboard when you scrolled a website faster than you could actually scroll it, which you don't see on the iPhone anymore 'cause it's now fast enough to see.

You know, there's so many things that we don't need, but, and yet we still look back at that new iPhone and say that it changed everything.

And so that's why I think it was totally appropriate. - And what I liked about this nine to five article is that they have all of their authors, I mean, or just about all of them, what, seven or eight authors, each offering their take, some of whom own one and some of whom don't own one, but have just used it of why it was a revolutionary product.

And so I thought that was fun to read and interesting article. - Absolutely, that's what I enjoyed the most about this.

It's like, 'cause I've heard you talk about the Vision Pro and many of our friends and mutual acquaintances talk about it and I've read reviews and stuff, but I just, I love this approach to it where they just, I mean, all these people that we've known, Zach Hall and Ryan Christoffel and Jeff Benjamin, you know, all these people, Fernando Silva, all the people that we've been reading throughout the year and just to have little snippets of their experience with it and, you know, just to compare all of that.

I like, I think it was Zach Hall that said this on here.

"Sure, it's astronomically priced, but it's astronomically more impressive than all of the other affordable headsets that are out there."

And he said, "In short, the Vision Pro is a Mac while every other headset is a Nintendo Wii."

And so if you're a family like mine that had young kids a few years ago and you had the Nintendo Wii, which still works by the way, which we have, but it's just so comical to turn that on and to play it there.

And it's still good, but it's just, you know, it doesn't hold a candle to what the modern day computers can do.

But I'm glad that you linked to this and it was just really good, you know, to see that all of these editors basically said pretty much the same thing or, you know, even though the product is kind of diverse in the sense that, you know, it can be divisive and people with the way that they think about it, but just to kind of get all of their thoughts, I thought was just, was really great on that.

So in using the Vision Pro, you had a couple of other things here.

I feel like we're gonna have like a new, we gotta have a new segment of the show every week, Jeff.

It's called In The Vision, just because we keep talking about the Vision Pro.

I don't know, some people probably get tired of hearing about it, but I think exactly to your point that you were just talking about here, just like in 2000, if we had been doing a podcast in 2007, I would like to think, Jeff, that you and I would be have been predicting that the iPhone is gonna be such a game changer as we can look back now all these years and see.

And I know, I have such a high confidence in the sense that what we keep talking about the Vision Pro is gonna be changing the way that, not just the way we watch something from an entertainment perspective, but I think it's gonna have such an amazing effect on how we interact with computers.

In fact, I think that last nine to five article, somebody was talking about it there, that they said that once Apple started coming out with the way they interact, with the finger tapping and watching the gestures, that other headsets started kind of mimicking some of that, right?

I mean, that's just the way that it's, Apple's not the first headset, but it's probably gonna be one of the best, and it's gonna continue to enhance the way that we interact with computers going forward.

Anyway, this other article you linked to was a new app, right?

I know Adam Lissagor, he's been around, I know him as the Lonely Sandwich.

I mean, I think that's one of his handles that he's used over the years, but he has continued to be so involved in just all kinds of theater and audio visual kind of projects over the years.

And he's not one of the biggest names, but I just enjoy watching him.

I've been watching him for a long time over the years now.

But he has offered this new app called Theater 2.0 for the Vision Pro, and I'm confident you've already tried it out too. - Yeah, so Adam Lissagor has been very involved in sort of the cutting edge video stuff.

He has produced a lot of commercials and stuff like that.

He's very much in the field.

When the Vision Pro came out, being an Apple enthusiast, he got very into it and launched an initial app that was called, I think it was called Television, or maybe it was called TV.

But all it was, it was a cute little app, but you could make something that looked like a television and set it like in a place in your room, and then you could play like YouTube videos on it.

So I mean, it was sort of a cute idea that you could like look to the side and you could see a YouTube video playing over there.

So then he launched out with, later last year he came out with this app called Theater.

The initial version of it was really just used in connection with the talk show Live, which is John Gruber's live show that he does in connection with WWDC.

And with the 1.0 version of the Theater app, you could pretend like you were in the theater watching John Gruber's presentation at some of the Apple executives.

And so that was interesting.

So what they did at the end of 2024 is the 2.0 version of the app, instead of having a single theater, it gives you multiple theaters, one of which is a really fun home theater.

So like while you're watching a YouTube video, you can look around you and you can see like what a really nice home theater would look like, or you could pretend like you're in like a real movie theater or you could pretend like you're in different places.

And that's all really fun and neat.

And it's a nice way to watch videos.

So, you know, big thumbs up on that.

But the standout feature of it was this thing called a planetarium.

And I suspect that many of us have been to a planetarium before, where you have like these big comfy seats and you sort of lean back and you look up and you know, the entire top of the ceiling is this huge dome.

So basically, if you could imagine like a 360 degree sphere, it's basically half of the sphere, you know, 180 degrees is all screen.

And so when you look up, you can see typically stars or, you know, other shows that they project on this incredible screen.

So that's an experience that many of us have had at like a science museum at some point in our life.

He has reproduced that theater in the Vision Pro, which makes sense because you can completely change the surroundings.

And it's one of the first examples of a third party besides Apple that's doing something that is, you know, immersive like.

You know, we saw an example of this last year when Disney and Marvel came out with an app that allowed you to pretend like you were sort of in the Marvel universe.

It was a cartoon experience, but it was immersive.

So it was somebody besides Apple doing something immersive.

And a couple other companies have done this.

This is one example of it.

And when you're in this planetarium, what is fun about it is he was smart enough to realize companies have made, you know, video producers have made content for planetariums.

And so he got connected with some of them.

And so you can, just like you might go to a real planetarium at a museum, you can watch that same content.

And some of them are things that you need to buy or rent.

You can either like rent it for a few dollars or buy it.

And I haven't yet done that, but I have watched the trailers and there are things that are available for free.

And again, you are just lying back and you are watching.

It's just like a planetarium experience.

But instead of having to travel to some sort of a museum or something like that, or a special facility to do it, you can just do it right there on your Vision Pro, which is, you know, certainly exposing the films that were made, if film was even the right word for something that's a production like that, so that you can watch it in your living room.

So that's really cool.

So I love the idea of, I mean, this in itself is really fun and you'll try it a couple of times and maybe buy some videos, but it just is another example of pushing the boundary of when you have the ability to completely change what you can see and hear in the world around you, what could you do with that?

And this is a good example of it.

And we're gonna see more things, things that I can't even think about, but I'm confident in a year or two, other experiences will be reproduced in one way or the other with the Vision Pro.

And that's what I love about this platform is it's allowing people to produce.

Now I know that there aren't a lot of users yet.

And so as a result, people that spend money producing content, unless you're Apple and you just do it to make the platform, you know, I do worry that third parties, you have to really be an enthusiast because I seriously doubt at this point that they're making enough money, you know, but at some point it will reach the point much like the app store in 2008 for the iPhone and then exploded after that, you know, at some point we'll reach the critical mass of people using these things that you can make money.

But for now, I just think it's for people that are trying to push the envelope.

So, you know, and that sort of leads into the next article that you pulled that I linked from today where John Chu, who was the director of the "Wicked" franchise and I haven't seen the first movie yet, but I know it came out at the end of last year and the second one will be coming out next.

He was describing how as a director, you know, once they finished production and they had like a draft of the film, he was using the Vision Pro so that he could just sit there and see a big virtual screen as if it's the theater, but he was using an app that not only let him watch the movie, but also allowed him, it was sort of like it had some sort of like a FaceTime thing built into it so he could talk to other people around the world and that he, the app that he was using in the Vision Pro, you could actually circle things so that he could like draw something on the screen and say, you know, this thing, we got to change the color or we got to take this out or, you know, telling the editors what to do.

And again, how many of us are directors of major motion pictures?

Not many of us, but it's just, so it's a little niche application, but it's another example of people that are taking advantage of it.

And so it's, you know, it's fun to see more people trying to do more things with this new technology. - This video here from, is this in Variety? - Hollywood Reporter, yeah. - Hollywood Reporter, thank you.

It comes with a video, the article comes with a video that's only a minute long, and I would say, it's worth watching just because while I can read what John Chu is talking about here, being able to watch him like in the excitement on his face, I mean, to me, that just really is what made it so much more real.

It's like, oh, wait a minute, he's utilizing this in ways that it's helpful, not just because he wants to see "Wicked," you know, his movie on like a wide screen.

He's utilizing it as a tool to be able to produce the movie as well.

And like you said, make changes on it.

I mean, and just to see him and the excitement in his face when he's talking about this is really what drove it home to me.

And I had to tell this to my daughter because we have become a "Wicked" household thanks to my daughter who has been listening to the "Wicked" soundtrack over and over and over and over and over.

It just is, you know, telling me all about the story, the post story, and I'm like, wait, didn't Dorothy like go there?

Anyway, there's a whole lore that's involved with this, but it was really cool.

She thought I was hot stuff this morning when I told her like, hey, we're gonna talk about the "Wicked" on there.

And by the way, just one little note I wanna make in this, watching that video, John Chu just talks about a quote from Steve Jobs, the one that's been a famous for a long time, where Steve Jobs was talking about how computers are the bicycle for the mind.

And it was sort of in this, I even went back and watched the video from 1990 because he was talking about how, you know, human locomotion was so far behind something like a condor or something until some group put in, you know, put in the factor of like, well, what if humans can use their ingenuity to use something like a bicycle, which then just went off the charts higher than any other creature could do from a locomotion standpoint.

And he was talking about computers are like a bicycle for the mind.

In other words, it just kind of makes you leaps and bounds.

And anyway, it was just kind of cool to bring all of that full circle from that aspect. - Yeah, and John Chu's statement. - Exactly, that he's talking about that as well. - Yeah, what he says is that the Vision Pro was like a rocket ship for the mind because of the things that I think is what he says, yeah. (laughing) - It goes all the way back.

Okay, you know, we love here on the podcast, a good story about the backstory, the backend of how Apple is actually doing testing for so many of their products, including the iPhone.

I think I've lost count.

We've covered at least four or five stories in the past over the years, Jeff, about the secret testing labs of Apple.

But here's another good story today you link to from Patrick Holland at CNET, where he walks into the anechoic chambers of where, you know, we talk so much about how the iPhone's cameras have been tested and used so much, but you know, I don't see a lot of stories about the audio, like even the microphones.

And that's what this story today really hones in on, about how Apple is testing out those microphones so that it can pick up the audio, even when there's other noise going on, or it can pinpoint the audio that it needs before you're on a phone call, which I just thought this was really great.

I'm so glad you linked to this story.

And you know, it's always fun to see sort of the inside, the inside labs, as it will. - Yeah, I mean, we just take it for granted that when you record video on your iPhone, of course it's gonna pick up the sound around you, but that doesn't just happen.

I mean, that's engineers need to make that happen well.

And as he's showing off, and again, I know it's something that's, you know, who knows how important to the process this is, but it certainly looks cool.

This anechoic, as you said, chamber, I mean, the walls have these things on it that absorb all the sound, and it doesn't have a floor.

It has like a suspended floor that's like a mesh.

And so, but the upshot of this is you can put an iPhone or whatever it is in this environment, and it is a perfect silence.

Whenever I hear people like this that have been there, they say, "I've never heard," or I guess not heard, whatever the word, you know, "I've never experienced true silence this much."

It's like, it's so silent, it almost makes you go crazy.

It's just so silent.

But because it's complete silence, they can put an iPhone, and as he describes it, they may, you know, have these things that go around the iPhone's microphone and produce these tiny little sounds in different locations so that you can tweak the software and the hardware so that it perfectly can capture and then ultimately reproduce those sounds.

And so the end result is that you get something that's just the iPhone that you stick in your pocket, but it has this incredibly sophisticated technology to record sound and to produce sounds.

And, you know, I take it for a given that, you know, you can argue about whether a big, fancy SLR-type camera might take better pictures, and in some ways it does, but the iPhone takes pretty good pictures.

But when it comes to video, the iPhone, with between the quality of the image and the, you know, you have to go super high-end, these, you know, multi-ten-thousand-dollars red cameras to really get significantly better than an iPhone.

And, you know, we laugh because, again, back to the earliest iPhone in 2007, which could barely even take pictures and certainly not video, it's come so far over the, you know, decade plus, and it's because of testing like this that Apple has done to continually push the product forward and come up with new revolutionary stuff.

So it's, like you say, it's fun to get a look behind the scenes at places that are normally not open to the public, and Apple decides to let a member of the press come in and learn just a little bit about how it is that Apple tweaks the microphones and the speakers and stuff like that.

So I enjoy reading this article and seeing that, it's fun. - And so, you know, so much of all of this work, just goes into what we hear from people, like it just works.

Like, we don't know why the iPhone sounds better.

When I talk to somebody on an iPhone, we don't really know why that it works better or people are just happy with the sound and it's because of all of this testing on this.

So anyway, it's a little, it's fun to go back and look inside the bowels of Apple, as it were.

At least a year ago, maybe two years ago, we started talking about past keys, with the hope that one day, they were going to replace the dreaded passwords.

And by the way, we talk a lot about passwords on this because you and I are both very big fans of 1Password.

It was so helpful for me when I was traveling to be able to get access to all the information on there.

Past keys were going to help get things away from, you know, we were gonna be able to get away from passwords.

Hasn't turned out all that great.

You link to a good story today on the state of past keys, from Dan Morin, who also links to another story from Ars Technica, which I read.

Both of these were fascinating, just to kind of hear about the current state of where past keys are.

I think both at the time, I'll admit, I won't speak for you, Jeff, but I thought, okay, yeah, this is gonna be it, right?

It may take a while, and maybe we're still in that painful transition period, I think is how Dan Morin put it here.

I still think we're heading in that way, but wow.

I didn't realize how messy of a situation this was until I read the other story on Ars Technica as well.

I'm hoping we'll start heading that way, but it's still gonna be painful. - Yeah, I still think that we're headed this way.

I mean, the old paradigm of a username and a password really is sort of bankrupt.

You know, even if you get past the idea of, we all know that your passwords have to be unique for every website and they have to be complex, and in order to keep track of that many different passwords that are so complex, you really should use some sort of a password manager, maybe the one that's now built into the iPhone, the Apple's Passwords app, or maybe a third-party one like 1Password.

But the next step would be to not have passwords at all, because the problem with a password, as we know, is if a bad guy finds out your password and finding out your username is trivially easy, 'cause that's often just your email address, then they can be anywhere in the world and log into systems and take over your life.

And so what you want is something that prevents that, and passkeys do it, because a passkey, there's no, first of all, there's no password at all, so you don't have to remember anything.

And when you log into a system, it uses an alternative method of authentication, often just being like your iPhone, you tap something on your smartphone to say, yes, this is really me.

And the idea is that the passkey is only cryptographically gonna work with that one website, and because it's tied in with your iPhone, I mean, nobody could steal it.

I mean, even if they had it somewhere else around the world, it's almost like two-factor authentication, but the next step of all of it.

And so there's no question, it's much more convenient, it's much more secure, it's clearly the future.

And so I love that the technology was created, and we have initial implementations.

I mean, you can log into places like Amazon with a passkey and many other websites, but just because the technology was created doesn't mean it was ready for prime time.

There was a problem of lack of standards, there was a problem of lack of portability.

I mean, you want to be able to store your passkeys in a way that you can then transfer them to a new device or a new platform.

OnePassword, for example, has a fantastic method of keeping and storing your passkeys, and that's fantastic, but you wouldn't want to have your passkeys only live in one password so that you would lose the ability to move to a different platform in the future.

And fortunately, there are standards operations, and they have been updating the, you know, we're getting there, they're now coming forward with standards that will allow interoperability, and things are moving forward, it's just happening more slowly.

I mean, I can tell you here at my law firm, we have to use our passwords for all sorts of stuff, and we are slowly, and again, we're different because it's just a Windows environment, and so we don't need to be able to work with a million different platforms, but we are moving, you know, once we get to the point that we have the full Microsoft Windows, I think it's called Hello System, you know, we are gonna be moving to passkeys at my law firm.

I personally have it turned on for a bunch of my stuff, and so when I come into the office every day, you know, through the various ways of locking myself in, I virtually never have to type in my firm password.

I do sometimes for a few systems, but I'm getting less and less of it, and the idea is that because I'm using it less frequently, there's less ways for other people to, I mean, I still have to have it for a few things, but we're eventually gonna get to the point where you can just eliminate them, and that's gonna, I think it's gonna be fantastic from being more easy to use, from a security standpoint, so a long way to say, this is the future, our iPhone is invariably play a very important part of the future because of the way that passkeys work.

We're not as far along as we start 2025 as I would have hoped that we'd be two years ago, which is the thesis of Dan Morin's article and the other one in Ars Technica.

Having said that, I mean, just to be a little glass half full, we are so much further along than we were before.

You are starting to see this, and so I really do, you know, I'm hoping that at my own law firm, we're gonna move that way for our users this calendar year, and then into the greater world, I really am hopeful that in the next two or three years, this will be so commonplace that much like two-factor authentication is something that we don't really think about, you know, getting a text message sent to you that you have to confirm the code, we all do that so normally, of course, let's put aside the problems of that system because text messages are not really a very secure way of doing it because the bad actors could get access to your SMS messages, but you know, at least we're all familiar with that.

I'm hoping that we'll get to the point that, you know, we're all so familiar with passkeys that of course, that's what you're gonna use by default.

So it's a transition period, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. - Jeff, is it right that the website itself has to support passkeys, right?

And the reason I'm asking is because I will say I can maybe count on one hand, maybe less than one hand, of the number of sites that I go to where one password, you know, is operating in my web browser all the time, and it'll offer to create a passkey for me for that website, but I rarely see that, and honestly, I gotta be, I'll be honest, I've just kind of dismissed it.

I'm like, you know what?

I don't want to deal with that now.

I don't want to learn.

It's like a whole other thing.

And I want to learn a little bit more, maybe for one or two sites that I've said, okay, create one.

But even when I go back to that website, frankly, I just go back to filling in my password as opposed to using a passkey.

So the website has to, and I guess that's part of the components in this story from Dan Morin and Ars Technica is that it's not supported everywhere just yet, right?

And that's one of the issues that has to be ironed out on there.

So hopefully one day, like you said, it'll happen.

If Santa put a new car under your Christmas tree, I liked how you started this off today, Jeff, and that car supports CarPlay, here's a great article you link to from Chance Miller at 9to5Mac, tips and tricks to get the most out of your CarPlay experience.

As per usual, I love these stories, not because I necessarily learn something new every time, although often I do, but it just reminds me of like, oh yeah, that's right.

I can customize my CarPlay apps if I go into the CarPlay settings on my iPhone, just little things like this, and I'm glad you'll link to today. - Yeah, and he talks about everything from changing the background, which I actually just have the default background and I'm happy with that, but if you wanted to change the wallpaper, you can do that.

You can change it to either a dark mode or a light mode, which just depending upon what you prefer.

And of course there's different ways to use CarPlay, whether it's the wired mode or the wireless mode.

I think perhaps the most useful tip, although perhaps the most basic, is just the idea that you can go into the settings on your iPhone and go into CarPlay and you can move the apps around.

And that to me is such a huge thing, because if you're like me, there's not a lot of apps that you use in CarPlay.

You know, maybe you use your podcast app and your music app and things like that.

But I do have more than one screen of those apps that are available.

And so what I like to do is take all of the apps that I use the most and put them in the first screen.

So, you know, yes, I have some other apps on my second screen, but I very rarely have to go to them.

And then additionally for those apps, I like to position them so the ones that I use the most are maybe more for me, the left side of the screen or, you know, the top or the bottom.

So it's not, you know, just keep in mind that you can arrange those apps, just like you can on an iPhone or an iPad into a way that's most useful.

And that's especially important when you're driving because you want to be paying attention to the road.

So you want to be able to, if you're gonna tap the screen, which you don't wanna do very often 'cause it distracts you a tiny bit from the road, you want it to be as simple and as intuitive as possible.

So by setting the applications in a place that you have decided that makes sense to you, that one little change makes such a big difference.

So, you know, he's got some other changes in here too about, you know, whether or not Siri announces messages while you're driving and stuff like that.

But it's a nice list just to go, you know, it's sort of like a checklist.

You know, you may know all these things, but if you don't know one of them, you're gonna wanna read the list.

And even if you know them all, by going through the list, you can at least tell yourself, oh, I knew that you could do that, but like, do I have it optimized in the way that makes the most sense for me?

Just sort of go through it and think through it. - If I'm not mistaken, I'm looking at my settings right now, you can customize your screen for each car that you get into.

Is that right?

Like I see now, like it tells me which cars that I'm in.

And so if I go into my settings, I've actually got a list of several cars.

So if you've got two or three cars in your family and you wanna customize it for each car, depending on, you know, you're probably gonna use the same apps anyway, but I'm just saying, if you wanted to change it, you can do that.

And I actually have several cars listed in here because of, you know, I do rental cars fairly often.

And a lot of times I'll jump in and I'll wanna use CarPlay for that.

But I think you can go in and you can customize it specifically for each of the cars.

So think about that as well when you go in there.

You just go into general and your settings, go to general and then you'll see a CarPlay thing on that as well.

So I'm glad that you linked to that and did that.

And by the way, speaking of 2025, I see down here that they linked in this story.

We've talked a little bit about highly anticipated next generation CarPlay options there.

We don't want to get into that right now, but boy, I'm just, I'm ready for Apple to double down on, do more for CarPlay.

We like it. - Yep. - In the show, let's do an in the show segment.

And this, we have a little Christmas present for everybody.

Don't we, Jeff?

(laughing) Thanks to Apple.

You can all enjoy Apple TV Plus, the subscription for free starting tomorrow.

Actually, I guess starting today, right? - Starting today, yeah. - January 3rd through the 5th, Apple is giving you free access to the subscription level Apple TV Plus.

And you hear Jeff and I talk about Apple TV Plus all the time, the different shows.

And if you don't have it, but you wanna try some of those shows, well, by golly, this is your weekend.

You can jump in there.

I think people can just get into Apple TV Plus, right?

From whatever app or whatever they need to.

You probably will need your iCloud login.

I'm guessing maybe, Jeff, I don't really know, because you and I subscribe to it through the Apple One subscription that comes with Apple TV Plus.

But boy, Heidi, what a great weekend to sit and veg out a little bit, binge some shows that Jeff and I have been talking about.

In fact, you have your list, and I'll link to that here in the show notes as well, your favorite 30 shows in Apple TV Plus.

'Tis your weekend today. - My hope is that everyone listening to this has Apple TV Plus already, whether you subscribe to it directly or have it through Apple One.

And I say that because if you're someone who enjoys watching TV, I mean, I really think that Apple TV Plus is today what HBO used to be 20 years ago.

It was the place that you would go for those high quality shows, the Sopranos or whatever it was.

And now there are good shows, of course, on all the different services, but Apple TV Plus has absolutely focused on quality, not quantity.

And it doesn't mean that every show is great.

In fact, there was one show that's actually gotten some acclaim that I was starting to watch at the end of last year.

And I'm trying to think of the name of it.

It stars a Cate Blanchett and a number of other people.

I'm blanking on the name of it, but it's not working for me.

I'm about two or three episodes in, and I'm not sure if I'm gonna stick with it.

So I'm not saying that, but again, other people love it.

Just for me, it just wasn't work.

But even if they're not all gems, there are so many high quality shows. - Yeah, so good. - For goodness sakes, if you are listening to this and you have yet to see Ted Lasso, then turn off this podcast.

Well, maybe wait till the end of this podcast, but then go turn on the TV. - We're almost done. - And whatever device it is that you use to watch TV, get the Apple TV app on it, which is available for everything.

And then once you have the Apple TV app, you can go to Apple TV Plus.

And Ted Lasso is so good for all mankind, is so good.

The first season of "Severance" was one of the most amazing shows that I've ever seen on TV.

And of course we have the new season starting this month.

So get caught up on that one for free.

"Slow Horses" is so good.

There's just so many fantastic shows that you couldn't possibly watch all of the good ones this weekend, but you could get a taste of them.

So if you don't have Apple TV Plus and you enjoy watching TV, you should.

If you're not a TV person, that's fine.

But if you enjoy watching TV, you really should have Apple TV Plus.

And if you haven't tried it yet, what a great opportunity this weekend.

And I think it's so smart for Apple to recognize, I mean, they know that they are one of the less popular services.

You know, everybody seems to have Netflix and so many people have Amazon and all these other services.

But you know, if you don't have Apple TV yet, what a great idea to let everyone have a full taste of it this weekend, get interested in watching some great shows.

And then maybe once you start, you'll want to keep with it in the future.

I just think it's a perfect, such a great idea for Apple. - I like the fact that you talk about you can't watch it all at a weekend, but you can at least get started.

I remembered here and I was right.

If you want to continue, if you can't watch it all in the weekend, first of all, I think you have a, you can sign up for a free seven day trial.

And then it's 9.99 a month after that, which isn't too bad as comparable to some of the others.

But also I forgot that they did this not too long ago, Jeff.

If you buy an Apple device, they will give you three months free of Apple TV Plus.

So if you've, if you got a new Mac or a new iPad or an Apple watch or so over the holidays, make sure you go in and redeem that three months for free of Apple TV Plus subscription.

You know, then you can, you can determine if you want to cancel it later or something like that.

But anyway, that was good.

And then that last, you can see there's this three different options here.

The last one is the one that Jeff and I do is we subscribe to Apple One, which man, I hope they don't keep raising the price on that.

I think it's still about $38, $39 a month now.

I still think it's worthwhile because not only does it come with Apple TV Plus, but Apple Music and Apple Fitness Plus, which we all use here in my family.

So to me, it's absolutely worthwhile.

By the way, that's the family subscription that I'm talking about there, right? - Yeah, yeah. - For $39 a month on there.

But anyway, Apple TV Plus comes with that and it's well worth it.

So I just wanted to give people an option that if you did want to continue your subscription, there are several options there, which are really, really good. - And I'm glad you mentioned that three months free 'cause you're right, everybody listening to this, if you don't have a new Apple device right now, you're gonna get something new the year, whether it's a new phone or a new iPad.

So whatever you do get it, take advantage of those three months free for sure, yeah. - You got 90 days after you get that new device to redeem the three months.

So even if you got something two or three months ago, you still have time to go and redeem that.

And I believe it shows up like on the iPhone, if you go in there and you go to your settings and you go to your iCloud, it'll tell you, you can redeem it.

So it's really easy to do that and good on there.

'Tis the season for New Year's resolutions.

And if you are like most statistics, you're gonna start a New Year's resolution and then quit.

What did they say?

You didn't say it, but I think in the video they say, it's like the second or third Friday of January or February or something like that.

This is a great little video that you linked to called Quit Quitting from Apple.

And I love how they focus on the Apple Watch and using that.

And it may sound a little corny, but Jeff, you and I have talked about this before.

And I know even personally with me and my, me personally and my family, the Apple Watch, the fact that it sort of gamifies this, that you wanna keep going, you don't wanna lose, I know you've talked about this, you don't wanna lose your stand streak, right?

Your movement streak for every day.

And you wanna close those loops and those circles on your Apple Watch.

Yeah, it does maybe gamify a little bit, but it's worthwhile.

And if it helps you get your steps and gets you active, I think this was a really great message, a little video from Apple today too. - Yeah, it's a cute video and it's a good story that it's helpful to have things that encourage you to do the things that you want to do.

It's just sometimes you need a little nudge and you can get that nudge in different ways.

Some people have personal trainers that they work with, but then you gotta make sure you go to the gym and don't stop going.

But having that Apple Watch sort of nudge you along, I mean, for years and years now, Apple has had on the Apple Watch, the little badges that you can get in there silly 'cause it's meaningless.

It's not even a physical item.

It's just a little picture of something. - But I go for them. - But I go for them because you hear, like I just, for example, this month, I saw that if you do seven days in a row in January of 2025, that you close all of your circles, then you get like a little award.

And again, it's silly, it's stupid, but you know what?

If it's day five and you're thinking, gosh, am I gonna actually get on the treadmill today?

Or am I gonna be active today?

Am I gonna take that hike?

Or am I just gonna sit on the couch and eat potato chips?

You know, if the simple fact- - Watch Apple TV Plus. - That your Apple Watch is gonna give you a thumbs up, is gonna encourage you to stay with it for that fifth and sixth and seventh day, you know, why not?

And so I think Apple's done a nice job of encouraging that over the years.

And so it's a good video.

But I do think it was funny because the video points out that it's a quote unquote national quitting day in late January.

And that makes sense 'cause we've all been there before.

You start the new year, you have a great idea.

I'm gonna do X.

And then in a few weeks, you're like, well, maybe I'm not gonna do X. (both laughing) - That's good.

And alongside that with some breaking news, you just sent me this link here where Apple just made some new announcements to Apple Fitness Plus.

So the Apple Watch obviously is a product unto its own, but a big part of the Apple Watch experience is exactly what we're referencing and talking about is Apple Fitness Plus, which is that subscription level that you can get, you know, to have trainers from all kinds of things, from yoga and treadmill.

I use this, my family uses this almost every day.

So I was thrilled to see that Apple just sent this press release today, that they are creating new exciting lineup of new ways to stay active and mindful in 2025. - Yeah, I didn't even link to this in the news post 'cause it just happened.

If you were recording this on Friday morning, and just this morning, Apple released that starting on Monday, January 6th, they're going to update Fitness Plus to add a whole bunch of new things to it.

They're gonna have something called a progressive strength training program, which is this three week guided program that has like all of these different muscle groups that you work on in these little 30 minute workouts.

So it's the sort of thing that's way more sophisticated, certainly something that traditionally you might use a personal trainer for, but now it's gonna be built into Fitness Plus, and it's much more sophisticated than the traditional Fitness Plus programs, which is just that you select a program and you do it for, you know, five to 30 minutes.

This is something that it's sort of a meta version.

It puts together a whole bunch of those programs for you.

So that will be interesting to see.

I had to laugh when I saw that they have conditioning program for pickleball.

Apparently pickleball is so popular. - It's important, Jeff. - It is, you see it everywhere.

I mean, here in New Orleans, we've got pickleball places.

You know, Drew Brees, the former famous Saints player is opening up pickleball places everywhere. - Oh my goodness. - So I know it's popular.

I know people love it.

And so Apple Fitness Plus is going to help you with the endurance and strength training that's most appropriate for pickleball.

You know, maybe it's a gimmick, but hey, I think people are going to love it.

And there's a new meditation program.

And then they're also, and this is not a surprise 'cause they've been doing this for years now, but things like their artist spotlight program where you're doing a fitness plus and they focus on one artist.

They've announced that they're going to have some for Janet Jackson, Coldplay, Bruno Mars, Kendrick Lamar.

They've got new time to walk features.

I haven't done one of these time to walk in a while, but I might do it because they are nice.

And I do like them.

In fact, my wife did one not too long ago and she said it was really interesting, but they've got some coming out.

I mean, the first one, and this is a little bit of a cross promotion, but Adam Scott, who is the star of Severance.

Yeah, of course we all know him from things like, you know, the parks and recreation and shows like that.

Adam Scott is a fascinating person and apparently he has one of these.

So I'll be sure to listen to it.

And of course that's a cross promotion because of Severance, but that'll be good.

And other people know like Tiffany Haddish, who's really funny and Daddy Yankee, who I'm not familiar with Daddy Yankee, but if you know who that is, you can have a time to walk with Daddy Yankee.

So lots of other- - Walk with Daddy. - The last thing I'll mention is that I don't use the Strava app, but I know that a lot of serious exercise people do.

And apparently Fitness Plus and Strava are now working together to integrate it somehow.

I don't know the details of that 'cause I don't use Strava, but if you do, then I'm sure you'll be thrilled to know that Fitness Plus and Strava are gonna work together even nicer.

So it looks like, I mean, again, a perfect time of year.

This is when people are focusing on working out more and stuff like that.

But I love that we have this whole host of features coming to Fitness Plus on Monday. - That's just great.

Like I said, honestly, I would say it's really changed our lives and my family, the Fitness Plus, because we've tried gyms, we've tried doing something on your own or with a paper version of something and everything just kind of fizzles out.

But the way that Fitness Plus has continued to stay engaging, I mean, when I travel, this is how I work out and I'll do the treadmill like in the hotel gym.

And it's just great the way that they keep you engaged.

Like you get to know, you mentioned this a long time ago, I remember Jeff, you sort of get to know some of the trainers there. - Yeah, I do. - In the way that they talk and the way that they, and it's like, I look forward to it.

And the fact that that has come out of Fitness Plus, I remember when they first started this and I remember some of those interviews with some of the directors there and how they've really focused on it.

We've seen some of the behind the scenes on this too.

I'm just, I'm really thrilled that they're continuing to build this up.

And obviously this sort of underlies all of the health components that we've been talking about throughout the years of what Apple is doing.

And that's great.

Thanks for linking to that.

And thanks Apple.

Let's go get fit.

But first in the know, let's do a couple of first tips for the first tips of the new year.

Here's one real quick that I just changed that I wanted to share with everybody.

I found, I don't know why, I think it's sort of the end of year finances, that kind of a thing.

I would keep going to my calculator on my phone, Jeff, but I don't like using the built-in calculator as much.

It's fine. iOS comes on the iPhone with a calculator, but I've talked before, I like using the Calcbot app.

It's Calcbot, C-A-L-C-B-O-T, Calcbot from the TapBots company.

And I just like it a little bit better for several reasons we don't have to get into right now.

But here's the thing.

I realized every time I wanted to use my Calcbot, it's on my second screen on my iPhone.

So I would have to pick up my iPhone.

I'd have to open the iPhone with Face ID, swipe to the second screen, tap on the app to open it.

Now that doesn't sound like a lot, and I could get there pretty quick, but it's like I was using this so often.

Finally, it just, you know, I did the face palm.

I'm like, why can't I just have a shortcut to go right to it?

Now, today with iOS 18 and the newer iPhones, we have several ways that I can do shortcuts from the lock screen.

I first tried to do a widget, but the Calcbot doesn't actually have a built-in widget that I could add to my lock screen.

Now I could do a shortcut where I could just tap the shortcut and open that, and that worked okay, but honestly, this is how crazy I am sometimes.

The little icon for the widget didn't show a calculator.

You knew where I was going with that, and it's like, oh, come on.

I want it to look like a calculator.

So what I ended up doing, and this is just a quick reminder, you can change all kinds of things and customize the lock screen, which I always have fun with because I like to put things there that I wanna have quick access to, but the one thing I had not changed before, Jeff, was the bottom two buttons on the lock screen, and that, of course, is on the left.

You have the flashlight, and on the right, you have the camera.

Now I love having the camera there because if I just wanna pick up, I don't have the 16 yet, right?

So I don't have a camera button on my phone, but I love having the camera icon there because I can pick up my iPhone, tap and hold on the little camera icon that goes right to the camera, and I can do what I need to do there, but the flashlight button, I've just always left because that's what I've just been used to, and the time that I really think about it is when I accidentally hit it when I put in my phone in my pocket, and then people are like, hey, your flashlight's on.

Mine's a light in your pocket.

So here's what I did.

I went ahead and went in to tap to customize my lock screen, and you just tap and hold on the lock screen, and eventually, it goes into a different screen where you can tap a little customize button, and then you can customize all kinds of things on your lock screen.

The one I wanna focus on today is those two bottom buttons.

I determined I'm gonna change the flashlight button.

So once it goes into that jiggly mode, there's a little minus sign on the flashlight button in the bottom left corner.

You tap the minus sign, and it goes away.

Now, you don't have to replace it with anything, but it changes into a little plus sign now, and you can tap the plus sign.

Now, if you've never done this, it's worth going in and looking at all of the dozens and dozens of options there because you can add a variety of different things to that little button in the bottom left corner.

CalcBot doesn't have a dedicated button, but one of the buttons when you add something down there is add an app, and basically then at that point, you can add any app that you already have on your iPhone.

So that's how I did it.

So now, I went in to add an app, and I did a search for it, and there's a long list that you can select from, and I added the CalcBot app instead of the flashlight button in the bottom left corner of my phone, and I am happier.

The only thing you have to remember is you still have to tap and hold on that button for like a half a second or so to get into it because they just don't want you to do a tap, a quick tap on it, because then, of course, it would happen all the time on there.

But anyway, that's my quick tip.

I just wanted to make sure that people knew about, if you haven't gone in and customized your home screens, simply because I find I'm just used to it the way that it's been for years and years, and so I don't make any changes to it, but having this change there really has been helpful, and I just like the fact that I can quickly access a specific app, and for me, that happened to be my CalcBot app, so I can just jump quickly into a calculator.

So that's my tip today, Jeff. - Great, great tip.

And you know, I'm still myself going back and forth on what to do with it.

I have changed the buttons at the bottom of my screen, and then I've gone back, you know, for a while, even when I got my new iPhone, which has the camera control on the side of it so that I can instantly launch the camera app, I still found, just from muscle memory, that I found myself looking to launch the camera, so I kept it there.

I've now gotten to the point where, now that I was listening to you speak, I'm like, you know what?

I actually don't really press that anymore.

I'm now just using the button on the side, and so I need to find something good, and I'm glad that you reminded me that you could put any app there so it doesn't have to be an actual built-in widget.

So you're making me think about that.

That may be my homework, is to figure out what would be the best thing for me to update that.

I will report back.

So my tip of the day has to do with the AirPods Pro, and I think this is timely to talk about them because some people, like you and I, Brett, have been using the AirPods Pro for a long time, but then the AirPods Pro had such great discounts on Amazon just before the holidays that I know a ton of people bought them at the end of last year.

I bought one for my wife as a Christmas present.

She was thrilled to have them because she had been using the regular AirPods, and so far, by the way, she's been saying, she's been so happy that she resisted doing the upgrade for a while, thinking she wouldn't need them, but she really likes having them.

She likes the noise cancellation, everything else, but she came to me with a problem, and she said she changed the tips on them 'cause it started with the small, she put the medium or whatever it was.

So there's the different size tips. - It comes with three tips. - So she changed the tip, and then she said that the other day, she pulled her AirPod out of her ear and the rubber tip stayed in her ear, and she had to push it like, "I don't want that."

And so it reminded me, and she's like, "Is there a way to stop that?"

And it reminded me that years and years and years ago, I stopped using the built-in tips that Apple gives you, and I started to use third-party phone tips, and I've tried a number of them over the years.

For the past couple of years, I've been using something that you're showing on the screen right now made by Comply, which are nice.

You can get a three-pack on Amazon for $20-something, and they wear out over time, but I usually go through about, that three-pack will last me about a year and a half or so, a year, year and a half, and I'll replace them.

But anyway, it was about time to replace them anyway, and I was like, "You know what?

"Let me go back to, "now that my wife is using the regular AirPod tips, "let me go back to the regular AirPods."

And I found this tip.

This was an article from Mashable that I have a link to in the show notes here.

And this is from many, many years ago, gosh, 2019.

So this is five years old.

But it was just explaining that when you replace the tip on the Apple AirPods Pro, it may seem obvious, but there's a way to put it on there precisely that I had not been doing before, and this was my advice to my wife, is that when you take the brand new tip, they say that if you flip back the silicone so that it's sort of like is inverse, it shows it in the article, and then you'll find, I did not realize this, there's a small letter printed on, it's not printed, it's actually sort of raised on the inside of the AirPods Pro tip that tells you what the size of it is, small, medium, large.

And so if you take that letter, there's actually two, one on each side, and if you line up that letter with this long black speaker grill, and again, if you're watching on the YouTube, the picture shows it perfectly, that will make sure that it's in the right precise place.

And then you can snap it on really securely, and I think this is in some ways the tip.

By having the AirPods, the rubber sort of flipped open, you can really securely snap it in and you can flip it back down again.

Anyway, this is the Mashable tip from many, many years ago, that if you follow these directions for putting the new tip on, they will be incredibly secure, and according to this article, will not, or at least are less likely to stay in your ear when you remove them.

So I gave my wife this tip, she tried it, she's like, "Oh, that works great."

And so it encouraged me as well, because there were two reasons that I switched to the foam tips years and years ago.

One of them was that this would sometimes happen to me too, they would stay in my ear and I didn't like that.

And so I followed the directions in this article, I put the original Apple tips, which I still had saved, back on my AirPods Pro.

And then the other reason that I decided to switch years ago is I found that, at least for my right ear specifically, the shape of it just didn't seem perfect and I felt like they were sort of coming out a little bit.

And so I have now been using the regular tips for about four days now, just because I wanted to go back to them.

It's been so long since I used them.

And in fact, one thing I don't like about the foam tips is that when you put them in the AirPods case, sometimes the case doesn't 100% close.

I mean, it seems like it's closed, but when you open it up again, you'll see that because of the foam, the AirPods did not sit perfectly in there, which means that they don't charge.

And there's nothing more frustrating than opening up your case and your left one is at 100 and your right one is at zero, like, oh.

And you can put it back in there and set it.

Just give it five minutes and it will charge for a good hour or so, but it's aggravating.

So I have, as an experiment for myself, gone back to the original AirPods Pro.

I've used this tip for putting on the tip in the correct fashion, which seems to be working for me.

We'll see if it sticks.

And so that is my tip.

You know, if you're gonna change the tips or if you have in the past, if you ever find that they come off, follow these step-by-step directions to get them on real secure and hopefully it will work for you.

It seems to be working for me and my wife so far.

And we'll see.

So, I mean, I'm gonna stick with this for a while.

Maybe I'll stick with the original tips.

Maybe I'll eventually go back to the complied tips.

I don't know.

I love the idea that one of the nice things about the AirPods Pro is that you have this flexibility, whether you use the different sizes that Apple gives you or whether you forego Apple's tips and use some of the many, many, many third-party tips that you can find on Amazon now.

It's a real feature of the AirPods Pro versus the original AirPods.

Plus they're soft, whereas the original AirPods have that hard tip.

So anyway, I love everything about the AirPods Pro and I was thrilled to see my wife start to experience them, you know, have some enthusiasm for them as well. - Yay! - And I'm sure that there are many listeners that are starting to use it.

So that's my tip. - If I wasn't using my AirPods Pro right now, I wanna like yank 'em out of my ear and make sure that the tips are on correctly. - Exactly, yeah, mine are in there too. - And you know, the other thing quickly I would just say, I have always found, I guess I'm just an anomaly or I'm the regular Apple person that they created these for, the tip that comes already on the AirPods Pro, which is the medium tip, they come with three sizes, the small and the medium and the large.

I've always found the medium worked perfectly fine for me.

But to your point, there's other people that will use a small version in one ear and the medium in another ear or large and medium.

I'm just saying like, don't feel like you're constrained to one size just because this is the way that it should be or so.

And I've heard even people use maybe a foam tip in one ear and our years are not identical all the time.

And it does take some experimenting to make sure that you get that right fit.

And I think in this, I just wanna also point out quickly in your review, which I'll make sure it's linked into, once you do find some tips, Apple includes an ear tip fit test inside the settings app, right?

I think it's still there.

I haven't done this in a long time. - Yep, it still is, I just did it recently. - You can go there and you can do this and it will test if you get a good seal, which I think I'm gonna tell my wife 'cause she's been complaining that they're not noise canceling as much as they used to or something like that.

So this is timely for me, Jeff, because I might have her try different tips as well.

But go into the settings and find that ear tip fit test.

And I don't know how accurate it is, but it makes me feel better.

It's like, okay, good, I got a good seal.

So I know that I'm actually using it to the amount degree.

Anyway, you covered this in your post on that comply foam Apple AirPods, which is wow, that's from 2021.

And you had a couple of updates in here from 2022, I think as well, but still a good article.

In fact, I suggested these tips to my wife several years, a couple of years ago, just because of based on your review of this out here. - Yeah, now they're good, they're really good. - Woo, okay, a lot of great stuff to talk about for the first episode of 2025.

I'm excited, I'm excited for the year.

I'm excited to see what we got coming up over the next many, many shows, Jeff.

Always fun talking with you.

And we will talk with you next week as well.

Thanks, Brad.

It's great to be back.