Welcome to in the news for February the 28th, 2025.

I am Brett Burney from Appsinlaw.com.

And this is Jeff Richardson from iPhone JD.

Jeff, happy Mardi Gras.

Look I got the colors behind me for you because I know this week is a fun week in New Orleans.

You've got the purple, green and gold behind you and that is awesome.

So Mardi Gras, I mean we are well in Mardi Gras.

You know, my son was out at the parade route last night with some friends and stuff like that, but the big weekend starts this weekend.

We have tons of parades on Saturday, Sunday and all the way through Mardi Gras day on Tuesday.

So let me share a Mardi Gras story for you, okay?

Oh, yay.

Okay.

When I was five years old, my great uncle, my mom's uncle, Uncle George was the king of one of the many Mardi Gras organizations.

Oh, that's a big deal.

And when you're the king, you're at the beginning, it's a big deal, the beginning of the parade and on your float, you have pages with you, you know, much like an old time king would.

And so little kids get to go on there and throw beads.

And so I did it when I was five years old.

And you know, if you think back to what things in your life do you remember when you were five years old?

If you're like me, Brett, there's not very many.

You know, I have big memories of kindergarten and stuff, but I totally, totally remember being a page on this float.

It was so much fun and I still can close my eyes and think about it.

Okay.

I mentioned that today because one of the fantastic parade organizations on Saturday tomorrow in New Orleans is called Iris.

Iris is really one of the best parades of Mardi Gras season.

It's an all-female crew.

It's fabulous.

And the queen of Iris this year happens to be a close friend of our family's.

And so my nephew, who's five years old, is going to be a page on the Queens float.

And so I'll be out there tomorrow cheering for him.

It'll be great.

But what makes me smile is, you know, he's so young not to know this, but like, I know that 50 years from now, he will still remember tomorrow.

And so that sort of makes me smile is that, you know, he's going to that plus the rest of it because we have lots of family coming together to watch the parade.

So it's going to be a fun Mardi Gras this year.

I'm very excited about it.

As always, I love Mardi Gras.

I love all New Orleans things.

So awesome.

Anyway, so happy Mardi Gras for those people who are here, great.

And for those who are not, hopefully you can enjoy Mardi Gras instead.

What is it?

I always get it wrong.

Rolay, Rolay Tom, Boulet.

What is it?

Laissez les bons temps rouler.

Let the good times roll.

There you go.

Okay.

Very good.

So speaking of good times, you might want to check out SaneBox.

We are very thankful again that SaneBox is sponsoring this podcast.

We'll talk a little bit more about it in just a moment, but you can go to SaneBox.com/inthenews and read all about it as it were.

And we'll come back and talk a little bit about it here in a little bit.

But thanks to SaneBox for the sponsorship.

We spent quite a bit of time last week, Jeff, talking about a brand new iPhone that just came out.

Well, it's been out.

It was announced, and then I think what you referenced today in several posts is that people have been using it now for long enough that we've got some firsthand accounts from The Verge and Engadget and Wall Street Journal.

I thought these were really good.

And just the fact that it's now in the wild as it were, we can get a little bit of feedback.

And I think overall, most people are still liking it, but it only fits...

It's not for those of us that really want the latest and greatest kind of a thing, right?

In fact, I think one of the ways that you posted from Darian Fireball is somebody that just wants a decent phone.

This is perfect for them, right?

Yeah, that's the thing.

I thought the reviews were interesting.

Apple gave pre-release units to people at certain news organizations, and so they've been using them for a while.

And we finally got the release, the embargo lifted on, I think it was Wednesday or something like that, two days ago.

And so we have these initial reviews from people.

And so many of them...

One thing I was interested in was there's a brand new modem here, right?

The C1 modem.

And fortunately, the testings was that it works just fine.

It works just fine.

And there was even one of the posts that I linked to was saying that somebody did a in-depth test of the modem.

And they said, "It's really just as fast as the Qualcomm modems, but more importantly, Apple's correct when they say it's 25% more efficient."

And so if Apple is already coming up with a good modem in the C1, my hope is that by the time they get to the C2 or the C3, and then they put this in all their products, we might have a killer modem that's much more efficient, has much better battery life for the phone.

So that excites me.

The other thing about these reviews that came out is, with the exception of the one that you just mentioned from John Gruber at Daring Fireball, most of the other ones say, "Oh, well, here's the things that are missing.

And these are big deals because, for example, it doesn't have MagSafe, and people really like MagSafe, or it doesn't have this feature, it doesn't have that feature."

And I mean, I understand they're right.

They're absolutely correct.

You and I talked about it last week.

But I think that they're missing the point because if you're a tech person, if you're the sort of person that's going to read the review on CNET or The Verge, the iPhone 16E is not for you.

That's the whole point.

In fact, anybody listening to this podcast, by definition, I don't think the 16E is for you.

But you know what?

Your family members, your friends that are not super techies, they just want something simple.

And so I thought my favorite review that came out this week was the Daring Fireball one.

First of all, it's the most in-depth.

He has a real...

Like, if you're interested in the technical details, he goes way beyond the other reviews because he does a nice job of sort of placing it, comparing it to the other phones, and then really talking about it.

In fact, just to pause right now, for people watching the video, I totally missed this, Brett.

I don't know if you saw it.

I saw it.

Yeah.

You know what I'm talking about.

The images on Apple's website that have like a little screenshot, they always have a little screenshot.

They always have like some sort of a...

It's a wallpaper.

An image.

Like, it's a wallpaper.

That's some sort of artistic thing.

I totally did not notice that the one for the iPhone 16 has two circles.

And why does it have two circles?

Yeah.

Because it's got two cameras.

And the one for the iPhone 16 Pro has three circles.

And the one for the iPhone 16E has one circle with a little one inside of it, which basically indicates it's got a single camera, but you can use it in a 2X mode or a 1X mode.

So when I saw those pictures, it totally went over my head that there was some significance.

I just thought it was like an abstract picture.

But anyway, John Gruber pointed that out.

I did not notice.

Did you notice before you read this review, by the way?

I didn't know.

No, I didn't until I read this.

That's what I'm saying.

Like, I don't think I would have ever seen it or paid attention to that, Jeff, if it wasn't for John in Fireball pointed it out.

He's like, "Take note of this clever touch, the default wallpapers."

And they do suggest subtly how many cameras that they have or how many lenses.

I just, now I can't unsee it.

But in addition to all of those details, the thing that I loved about his article is that I usually don't read something, but I mean, let me just read this one paragraph from his article.

I think this is it.

He says, "The iPhone 16E targets the 'I only care about the basics' iPhone buyer.

The screen looks good.

The camera is good, but simple.

The battery lasts a long time.

The difference should be quite striking for anybody upgrading from a four or five-year-old phone.

It runs all their existing apps, and it charges fast when plugged into a USB cable.

Those are the basics, and the basics are all the casual users care about.

That it's lighter in weight and physically smaller, thanks to its minimally protruding single camera lens, is gravy."

And then at the very end, he says, "It's for people who don't want to think much about their phone, but they do want an iPhone.

Not just a whatever phone.

They just want a plain iPhone with a good screen, and good enough, and a simple camera, and great battery life, and I think Apple nailed it with the iPhone 16E."

This is what so many of those other reviews miss.

Again, I really understand where they're coming from.

You do miss a couple things when you get this cheaper phone, but I think that for so many people, this is just it.

So I really think Apple has a nice, I think it's going to be a successful phone.

It's a little bit more expensive than the SE used to be, but to be fair, it also has twice the memory.

So if you had gotten an SE with double the storage, it starts to get close to this phone.

And I think it's a little bit more expensive, but it's got all the basic features that people want.

I mean, yes, it's only got one camera, but it's a really nice camera.

And if you're upgrading from an SE, it's going to be a huge camera increase for you.

So I think this is a really nice phone.

So again, it's not for me.

It's not for you, Brett.

Please don't go buy one.

But I'm telling you, for a lot of people that you and I know and love, this is a great phone for them. - Well, that's it.

It could be for a family member.

I mean, even John Gruber says right here, "Daring Fireball readers are not in the 16E demographic.

It's the friends and family members of Daring Fireball readers who are."

And that's really just what it comes down to.

The only thing that I think, because I agree with everything on the reviews, but if this is true, and it is, should it have been just $100 less or something along those lines, right?

I mean, I know all of the balances and the trade-offs and everything that they had to do, but that's what I kept thinking.

Like if this isn't every man's phone, every woman's phone, it's like, you know, and I've heard some people push on that, like, you know, they would have been okay maybe with some of these oversights if it was just a price, just a little bit less, like $50 less, $100 less, because that was what the price point of the SEs, right?

I'm not taking a side necessarily on that, but I just know that that was some of the pushback that people were giving on that. - Yeah.

And you know, the thing is there, the SE used to start at 430, and I think Apple has just decided- - 430, okay, okay. - And this is what John Gruber says.

Apple has just decided that that sub 500 market, or just call it a 500 or less market, they're just, you know, if you want to spend that little on a phone- - They're out. - Get one of the older models.

I mean, you can get an old model, you know, you can still buy an SE in some places, you can still, you know, get the, but if you're gonna spend on a phone, Apple says, you know what, our now entry price for like a really, for a good phone, a really good phone is 600 bucks, even though it used to be a little below 500.

And that's just, you know, that prices are gonna change over time.

So that's our decision. - And I think that that's an accurate way to think about it.

It's like Apple has just decided like, we're not going to, you know, have a product in that lower tier.

And that's okay.

I mean, that's their prerogative, obviously, on that.

The last thing I know, you mentioned quickly on the modem chip, and you linked to a couple of folks that were talking about this, including David Sparks on this.

And you know, one thing as I was reading all of these general reviews of the 16E was like, to me, the one thing that I wanted to know more about, most people were not really writing in depth about it, because you would expect that the modem is one of those things that you're just never gonna think about, right?

I mean, it should just work and all of that.

And you kind of underscored that a little bit.

And one of the things that you said, because some people were, I know one was in San Francisco, right, standing on the building and trying to get satellite communications and, you know, testing that out.

But it's like, I don't even know how you would necessarily test that out.

Obviously Apple does.

But you know, from a, even from somebody that has like, sort of, you know, a higher, fancier taste and getting a 16 Pro or something along those lines, like, I don't want to think about that modem.

Like, it should absolutely work.

That is the one thing that should work without any time of me thinking about it or trying to like tweak it or anything else like that.

And for me, the fact that we haven't seen anything yet that says that this C1 chip is not doing what it should be doing is a very good sign.

Again, you already kind of alluded to that a little bit, but it's like, if we had seen some of those stories coming out, then that would have been like, that would have been a little bit of a red flag.

But so far, it looks like this is going very well on this modem.

What I thought was interesting is there were two or three reviews I saw, including some I didn't even link to today, where people said they were trying out the 16E and they suddenly got into a situation where they didn't have a good connection.

And they're like, aha, I don't have a good connection.

And so then they took a regular iPhone and that one didn't have a good connection either.

It's like, oh, I just happened to be in a dead spot, you know, because that just happens in life sometimes if you're outside of a city or something like that, or even in some places in cities that have dead zones.

And so, you know, again, right now, only a handful of people have this.

When iPhone, they go on sale today.

So you can walk into an Apple store today and get one.

And I'm sure that in the coming weeks, as more people have them, we'll get more reports.

And maybe then when there's a bigger sample size, people will find that, you know, this first generation Apple modem is a little less than Qualcomm, which wouldn't surprise me for their very first one.

But again, you know, I'm not going to get the C1, but as long as Apple, you know, they get a chance to try it, have people using it, and then they improve it over time.

My hope is that in not too long, the flagship iPhones will be including this new Apple modem and it'll be better than Qualcomm for what we need.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.

Great stuff on that.

Well, if you have an iPhone in the UK, it may not work to some extent in the way that you think about this.

I got to be honest with you, this advanced data protection and this order from the UK, we talked about it either last week or a couple of weeks ago.

I'm having a little trouble wrapping my head around this a little bit, Jeff.

So maybe you can help explain this.

But I know it's been something going around.

This was a leaked story out of the UK that basically was going to hamper some of the security settings or privacy aspects that are on the iPhone.

I hope that's even a little bit accurate on there.

But it sounds like that they're going through with it.

And Apple, this is what John Gruber and Darren Fireball, he actually posted a little.

He goes, "Apple had a very precisely worded statement that they issued to the media about this."

And I thought this was kind of interesting.

So the background here is if your iPhone is encrypted, right?

So somebody steals your iPhone, even if they can't break into it and get your data.

And so everything's private on there.

Your communications are private.

But there's one exception.

If you back up your iPhone to iCloud, which most of us do, that means that technically, I mean, there's a backup of your phone on iCloud.

So if you drop your phone in the lake and you buy a brand new iPhone, you can restore from the iCloud backup, right?

Which is exactly what you would want to happen.

Of course.

So that means that Apple has a backup of your data.

Because Apple has that backup, it means that if a government sends Apple a subpoena and says, "We're doing a criminal investigation on Brett Birney.

I want his iCloud backup," they technically have to comply with it, right?

But years ago, Apple says, "Optionally, if you want to, you can encrypt your backup in a way that Apple can't read it."

And I have this turned on just because I figured, I don't know, it seems like it's a better idea.

I'm an attorney.

I've got confidential information on there.

But when you go through and turn this on, Apple gives you a million warnings.

Like, are you sure?

Because what it means is that if I lose my iPhone and I buy a new one and I try to restore from a backup, if I don't know my iPhone, like my Apple ID passwords and stuff like that, Apple cannot help me.

Like I am, it's totally, it's just gone.

Because they may have a backup, but it's encrypted in a way they can't get to it.

Now, one of the protections is that when you turn on this data protection, you can designate people that you trust.

So for example, I designated my wife.

So if I lose my iPhone and somebody hits me on the head and I forget my password, my wife's phone, when she logs into it, she could give authority for the backup to come to my phone.

So that's circumvention.

So some governments, such as the UK, and apparently they've never officially said this.

This is all hush hush, but it was leaked to the Washington Post and then the BBC and some other places.

The government of UK says, "Hey, we don't like the idea that we ask for somebody's backup and you tell us, 'Hey, that person enabled encryption, so all I can give you is a bunch of jumbled ones and zeros.'"

And so we want to make it that there's a backdoor, that if we're the ones that ask you, then you have to be able to get into that encrypted backup.

And Apple's like, "There is no such as a backdoor.

This is just math.

If I make a backdoor for you, by definition, somebody else could exploit it too.

And then that defeats the whole purpose."

And the interesting thing is what UK said is not only did they want to be able to have access to get into any iPhone for any UK citizen, they said, "You know what?

We actually want to get into anyone in the world.

So if I tell you, I'm Mr.

UK, and I tell Apple, 'Hey, there's somebody in Ohio that I would like to get their backup,' they've never even stepped foot into the UK, but I just think they may have something to do with us."

And so, and you know, they don't, Apple can't challenge the basis for it.

And so Apple was not happy about this apparently, but they can't say anything because the UK had a gag order and said, "You're not even allowed to discuss this."

So the newspaper addressed it.

So the new things this week is here's what Apple did.

I mean, and again, like you say, it's a very, it's a precisely worded statement.

They don't say why they're doing this.

They're just announcing out of the blue, "Hey, it turns out that we're going to turn off this advanced data protection for anyone in the UK.

Can't tell you why, we're just telling you we're doing it.

We all know the reason why."

But now the thing is, technically, if the reports are correct, Brett, that actually does not satisfy what the UK wanted, because all that means is that UK citizens won't be able to use advanced data protection, but you and I still will.

And the UK said, "I want access to everybody in the world."

And so this is what is interesting is that the new director of national intelligence under the Trump administration, Tulsi Gabbard, and I criticize the Trump administration a lot, but here's something interesting.

What she says is, "Hey, the UK doesn't have the power to invade the privacy of US citizens."

And she says, "I even think that there actually might be some agreements that we have with the UK that we're not going to spy on each other's citizens."

And so she's like, "I don't think this is right."

So it's interesting that the US got, Apple has its response, which doesn't do with the UK once, but I think Apple is rolling the dice that this will be good enough.

And in fact, at the very end of that statement, Apple specifically says, "We have never put a backdoor in, and we're not going to."

They're drawing the line on that.

So I mean, we'll see if somebody tells Apple in the future, "Nope, you absolutely have to put a backdoor in, or we're kicking you out of our country."

Apple's going to have to decide, do we stop doing business in the country or do, you know, that'll be interesting if the rubber meets the road.

But I'm glad that it sounds like the US government is saying, "Hey, we're actually on Apple's side of this thing," or not even Apple's side, we're on the side point of people that respect privacy.

It's all a little esoteric because I know that most people don't have advanced data protection turned on.

When I did it, like you go through all these warnings and stuff like that.

And again, is it going to ever matter for me, Jeff Richardson, is any government going to ever try to tell Apple that they want access to my phone?

Probably not.

But you know, I have a right to privacy, and at least for now, and I just feel more comfortable knowing that it's encrypted.

And so I decided to turn it on.

And if anyone listening to this wants to turn it on too, unless you're listening in the UK, you can turn it on too.

So it's interesting because it involves these topics.

That's very helpful.

Privacy, encryption, international relations.

And again, because of the gag orders, we don't necessarily know the full story here.

Right, right.

But I suspect that we know.

I suspect that little birdies have been telling people what's actually going on.

I just looked on my phone.

I do not have this turned on.

And I think I remembered, if you go to the very bottom of this John Gruber post, and I'll make sure it's in the show notes, he actually goes through, it's a very long footnote, almost longer than the article itself, but he goes through exactly what's going to happen.

He quotes from Apple's advanced data protection documentation.

When you turn it on, because I mean, like you said, there are several warnings that go through your web access to iCloud.com is turned off.

But then you have to go through and turn on the access again.

I mean, it sounds like there's several hoops that you have to jump through on this.

And I think when I first learned about this, I'm like, okay, well, I don't have time to do this right now.

And I just never came back to it.

So like you said, it may only affect a few folks.

But I like how Apple words this in their statement, that we are gravely disappointed that the protections provided by advanced data protection will not be available to our customers in the UK.

Because you know, in foreign countries, sometimes not necessarily the UK or so, but I mean, this is even more important, right, to turn this on some of those aspects.

And so interesting.

We'll see.

We'll see where this goes.

And yeah, hopefully, hopefully, our government will continue to stand up for the privacy things because I, you know, even though I don't have this turned on, I don't want I don't want the I don't want something like this to determine whether or not that I can use it for sure.

Yeah.

I mean, it sets a precedent.

The last thing I'll say is we're talking about the UK government.

But I mean, a lot of us that live in a democracy like America for now, at least say, you know, we sort of trust the UK and America and Canada and places like that.

But like if the UK can get away with this, countries that we may not disagree with and you know, portions of the Middle East or, you know, you pick your part of the world, China, Russia, they suddenly say, hey, you know, I am Putin and I would love to have access to Jeff Richardson's phone.

I would hope that Apple would say no, you know, you do not have access to Jeff Richardson's phone.

So, you know, it sets an important precedent.

Another company that we don't talk about just a whole lot is Adobe, known for the Adobe Acrobat PDF software as well as Photoshop.

I got to be honest, when you posted this link today that Adobe has now brought the Photoshop app to the iPhone.

I'm like, did we not already have that?

I mean, Adobe has several apps I know, but that was my first thought on this, Jeff.

Yeah, they have had versions.

They have had, you know, Photoshop adjacent apps for the iPhone for a while.

And they're actually pretty good.

But Photoshop exists for the iPad.

Like it's not 100 percent of the features of the Mac or the PC.

OK, OK.

And they keep adding to it over time.

I mean, it's not unlike you can use, you know, Logic Pro or Final Cut Pro on the iPad, Apple.

And they're not 100 percent full featured, but they're getting there and they're getting better over time.

And so for a long time now, people, you know, the iPhones are great for cameras and photography.

You know, everybody knows that.

And sometimes you want to make some edits to your photo that go beyond, you know, the simple things you can do in the photos app, like cropping and stuff like that.

And so there have been, you know, tons of third party apps that do different things.

Yes.

You know, everybody knows that Photoshop is the is the hundred pound gorilla.

People even use that word like today, like I'm going to Photoshop the image.

You know, it's correct.

It's one of those words that we that we that we make it part of the vocabulary because everybody knows Photoshop.

And so for a long time, people have said, why don't we have some version of Photoshop for the iPhone?

And Adobe has finally said yes.

Now, again, to be clear, this is still pretty simplistic.

It doesn't it's this is certainly not the whole Photoshop.

They're only starting with like four or five features.

But I downloaded it last night and played around with it.

And it's really nice.

And so, for example, if you have like a picture of like a person like in front of, you know, whatever, just in your house, you can very easily use the Photoshop tools that are familiar to you.

If you've used Photoshop before to like select the person using all their different techniques for doing that and then delete the background and replace it.

And so like I took I mean, I was just playing around last night.

I took a picture of my wife.

We're sitting at a table and I just deleted the background and so that it was gone.

And then using the generative AI features, which is one of the relatively new features of Photoshop on the Mac and PC, I said, I want you just to create a beach background and put it there.

And so it generated, you know, AI, something that looked like a beach, very realistic.

And it put her right there in front of it as if she was on the beach.

And again, on close examination, is it going to fool anybody?

No.

But there are times where you just want to have a silly picture of like, I'm going to send someone a picture of them on the beach or them on the moon or them, you know, and you know, wherever.

Right.

And you can do those sorts of simple things.

Or this person has a red shirt and I want to make it blue or green.

You know, those are Photoshop skills that have been around for a long time.

Now, one thing I will say is that I some of these features I believe are free, but other ones you need to have.

And I pay for Photoshop on my computer.

I have like their cheapest account because I'm not a professional.

I have I think it's called the photography account.

I think I pay like 100 bucks a year, but it's like it's one of the lesser versions of it.

So I have access to this app and I see in fact, you're highlighting it right now on the screen to encourage people to use it.

They've actually come up with an even cheaper version than what I pay for.

So instead of the 100 bucks a year, this one is what, 70 bucks a year.

That's a little bit less than what I pay for.

But so if you wanted to get full access to it, you could pay a box a month or 70 bucks a year.

So you can decide if it's worth it for you.

I mean, if you're not going to use it very often, great.

But the way that I think of it is for those people that already pay for Photoshop, including people like me that I'm not a big, I mean, way back when I used to use a very simple program called Photoshop elements, which is still around for the computer.

And I decided, I decided to upgrade to the real Photoshop.

I don't use it often, but sometimes I use it for like a picture I'm going to post on iPhone JD.

Right.

You know, I just want to remove the background or just crop, you know, do you know, some of those tools.

So so anyway, but I mean, it's, it's great to see as something like Photoshop, you know, one of the biggest programs in the world, so well known, right, is introducing this for the iPhone.

The only, you know, just real quick, the only things that I probably the times that I've used Photoshop have been on a computer or to me, an iPad screen makes a little bit of sense.

Maybe this is why it hasn't been available on the iPhone, because I can't really imagine like having all of that power on.

I don't know.

I just feel like I would want a bigger canvas, you know, to draw.

So I was that limiting at all when you were using it?

Was it on an iPhone?

No.

In fact, they have definitely I hate to say dumb it down because these are incredibly sophisticated tools.

But this is not I mean, I get what you're saying.

When I open up Photoshop on my computer, because I don't use it all the time.

I'm I'm a little confused, you know, because and and there's so many features there's a lot when you open when you open up this iPhone app.

It's that's not there.

It's it's very simple.

It's got like six or seven.

Okay.

Okay.

It's got that makes sense.

So you're not going to have all the full Photoshop, but it's easy to use.

You know, I sort of laugh about it because sometimes I see some of my family members use Microsoft Word.

And for me, and I know for you too, Brett, like I have been using Microsoft Word since the 1980s to write documents.

I feel like I'm a total pro on Microsoft Word.

But like I know other people like, how do I do this?

I'm like, oh, that's just so secondhand.

You know, come on.

Right.

And so likewise, I have the same admiration for people that use Photoshop is like they use it and like, oh, you just do that.

Like I watch a video like, oh, like, I have no idea what you just said.

It's so good for you.

I'm glad you know what you're doing.

If you've ever complained about a lack of news about food, good news.

It's gonna be more food news in the Apple News Plus app.

And I gotta tell you, I think you mentioned this in your post today.

It was just the other day I was I was looking through the news app, Jeff, and it just occurred to me, I'm like, you know what?

I don't remember the last time I went to like a separate news app of any kind.

Like this has become and it sounds like for you, too.

This has become my morning ritual.

Like I'll go into the news app and I've kind of tweaked it over the time now that I'm getting stories that I know are going to be relevant to me.

And I just feel like it does probably the best job that I have.

I have seen in a very long time of collecting all of the news and bubbling it up for me, you know, short of maybe doing like an RSS reader, right, that I know you have where I subscribe to specific blogs.

But the news app just continues to really get better.

It really does.

Right on the when I look at my iPad, I'm looking at it right now.

One of the widgets I have on my front page on the app, and it's one of the bigger widgets is top stories.

So it shows me two stories.

And like throughout the day, I like that I can just glance there right now.

There's a story from Reuters, another one from The Wall Street Journal.

And you know, I just sort of glance.

And if the story interests me, I look at it.

And then sometimes I open the news plus app and there's all sorts of just general topics I can scroll through.

And I mean, this is what Apple promised when they came out with news, you know, so right to go is that it would just collect all the different news from and it does have ads in it, but they're not I mean, and they're a little obnoxious, but they're not horrible.

At least they're not like jumping at you or, you know, taking over the screen.

Exactly.

You can scroll past them.

So it is a place that I you know, it bubbles to the top news that might interest me.

And then if I have a specific topic I'm interested in, in fact, I have a couple of them, too.

I'll sort of add them.

And they've improved news over the years.

They they have sports now.

I mean, I can when it's when it's football season, I like to follow the New Orleans Saints.

And there's a section that I have for that.

They have a game a game section you and I talked about a couple of months ago that in addition to a crossword, they added Sudoku and other things to it.

Yeah.

And then they added a board game.

So like much like a, you know, an old time newspaper that would have, you know, the entertainment section and then this section that's that they keep adding sections.

And so now or at least coming soon in iOS 18.4.

Do I have the number right?

18.4.

That's right.

Yeah.

In April, have a food section and it says that they're going to be collecting things from, you know, recipes from all recipes, which I know is a big one.

Bon Appetit.

Food and wine.

Good food.

And then these are all, you know, real sources and it's going to have recipes and restaurant reviews and we'll see.

But if it's as nicely done as the other news plus stuff is.

Yeah.

This will be pretty cool.

So I think it's going to be interesting, you know, just as an iPhone or an iPhone feature.

Now what I especially thought was interesting was this idea that was from who posted this.

I was Ryan Christophe said that.

Yeah.

The big theory is that Apple is going to come out with a new home pod type device this year that has a screen.

Here's the big theory.

There you go.

And he says, if it's something that you put in your kitchen, wouldn't it be nice if it had recipes and cooking videos on it?

And you know, I laughed at this because it was literally just a week ago, Brett, my wife and I were talking about how we like the fact that we have home pods in our house and like you can have music playing in your in the dining room and the living room.

So like as you walk around, it's there.

And my wife was mentioning, you know, sometimes I think it would be nice to have a home pod in the kitchen too so that I could listen to music or podcasts.

And I was thinking to myself, yeah, we don't have one in the kitchen.

And maybe in a couple of months, Apple will come out with a home pod for my kitchen that also has a screen that also has recipes on it.

And I'm like, you know what?

We if the rumors are true, who knows?

This may not come out at all.

That may come out at the end of this year.

It may come out in 20 years.

I don't know.

But the rumors are that at some point this calendar year, we're going to see this device.

And I think Ryan's got a point.

Food would be a perfect, a perfect feature on that.

So very interesting.

That would be nice.

Interesting indeed.

In the Vision, let's talk about the Vision thing.

You had a great post this week about all of Apple's immersive video content for the Apple Vision Pro.

And I think did you even talk about something?

A couple of things may be coming up as well.

But this is great.

I don't know that anybody has anybody collected it like you did in one place so that you can go and see it.

I mean, this is great.

I know we've talked.

I remember talking about almost every single one of these when they came out.

But it's good to see them all in one place here.

Yeah, that's I was actually thinking about it the other day.

In fact, Brett, you know that you and I are both going to be at the ABA Tech Show later this year, which is a big thing for lawyers.

That's right.

And I'm and I'm going to be doing a session there for anyone that's interested.

I'd love to see you there.

I'm going to have a session about the Vision Pro, you know, not only what it is, but sort of what it what it tells us about the future of practicing law, being able to have these augmented and virtual reality things.

But in the context of starting to prepare for my session, I was thinking about, you know, what are all the immersive videos that are out there?

The immersive ones, by the way, these are the ones for the Vision Pro that when you put on the headset, like it's every it's it's one hundred eighty degrees.

So you can look left, right, up, down.

You feel like you're really there, you know, whether it's an elephant walking up to you and you feel like you're right there in Africa next to the elephant or wherever in a hot air balloon or wherever.

So these are really these are the best one of the best things about the Vision Pro or these videos.

They're just outstanding.

And I couldn't find a single list online of all of them.

So I made one.

There you go.

You made it.

I posted this on Tuesday and I've already added to it because Apple just announced this week something that's coming out.

Well, the other link that we have here that there is a documentary for Apple TV plus about Bono, the singer of U2 called Stories of Surrender.

But in addition to having a version of the documentary on Apple TV plus, you know, 2D, you know that you're watching a television or whatever, your iPad, your iPhone, they're going to have I don't I I'm not sure if it's the exact same video that's also in spatial or maybe something ancillary to it.

It might be the same thing.

It's facial.

Maybe they film the whole thing.

It's facial.

So you'll be able to watch the documentary on your Apple Vision Pro and it will feel more 3D.

So I'm really curious to check this out so that and that's coming out in a couple of months, sometime soon.

So I added that to my post that, you know, this is an upcoming thing.

So, you know, anyway, keep it going.

I like it.

There's one place here.

I'm going to keep updating it, you know, for many years until and I'm going to keep updating it until we get to the point where we have so many immersive videos that it's silly to list them.

And I can't wait for that day to happen.

You know, it's like saying, is there a website that lists everything on Netflix?

No, that would be crazy.

I mean, except for Netflix itself.

True.

I look forward to the day when there's so many, there's so many videos that are immersive that I can't even list them all.

Well the good news is you can maybe share your Vision Pro with your family members a little bit easier.

This is interesting.

Vision OS 2.4.

It's in beta right now.

But one of the features I think this was from Andrew Orr over at Apple Insider is that it'll be easier to share your Apple Vision Pro with someone else.

They call it the guest user feature.

It looks like.

This is so needed.

This is a great idea.

I have had so many people that have been at my house or I've brought my Apple Vision Pro with me and they've wanted to try it out.

And right now, Brett, it's a total pain because I need to put it on.

I need to enable something that I take it off and then they have a very limited time that they got to put it on and it's a pain.

It does not work.

But with what they're doing is they're coming up with an iPhone app for the Vision Pro, much like we have an iPhone app right now for the Apple Watch, as you know.

And so using that, I'm not going to have to do anything.

They can just put the Vision Pro on.

Now, hopefully, you know, they won't have eye inserts.

So hopefully they don't have glasses or they're wearing contact.

But they can just put the Vision Pro on.

And then with my iPhone, I can say, give them access.

Either let them see all the apps or maybe I just want them to see that immersive video we're talking about.

So just give them access to Apple TV Plus.

So it's simple.

So they can just go right there.

And then I can even on my iPhone or my iPad, I can easily follow along so I can see what they see at the same time.

So I could say, OK, look left, look right.

And so it's going to be that I'm so glad I was doing this because it really was a pain before and it's really, really nice.

In fact, I'm just thinking, Brad, not that long ago, you were in New Orleans and you were at my house.

I don't know if I had the Vision Pro then, but you didn't try it.

I don't think you did.

No.

You find yourself in New Orleans again or any any other friends.

Let me have this out.

I know that so few people have a Vision Pro, but when you have a chance to use it, it's like, oh, my goodness, this is really cool.

And you know, you can go to an Apple store and you can watch a demo there.

But it's so much nicer if you've got a friend that can say, here are some of the cool things that I enjoy doing with it.

So this is great.

So that was one of the cool new features coming in a couple of months.

And then the other one is Apple has a new app called I think it's called Spatial Movies or something like that, that in a spatial gallery.

Yeah, it looks like a gallery.

In addition to the immersive ones, like if you just have regular things that are immersive, I mean, that are spatial, you know, that are 3D, this would be like a central place, not stuff from I mean, there'll be some stuff from Apple, but like a lot of stuff from third parties, too.

So again, it's just going to it's another new app that is unique to the skill set of the Vision Pro.

So I'm excited.

The Apple Vision Pro keeps getting better and better.

And this looks like it's going to be a big update.

Let's do a where you at segment.

We haven't done one in a while, but another store you link to.

I hate to say it this way, but it's like, well, it's another story about the Apple Watch saving somebody.

But it's like for that person in that family, that was the greatest thing about this.

So I'd never want to downplay these stories.

A Texas man credits Apple Watch with helping save his life after a heart health scare.

Apparently, it was it just gave him, let's say a number of irregular heart rate notifications and an AFib detection alert.

There's actually a little video here.

I didn't get a chance to watch it here.

But, you know, I just I never I really, truly never get tired of these stories because it's just amazing that what it can do.

You know, we reported what a few weeks ago that Tim Cook talked about his father, you know, had an Apple Watch and when he fell, I think it was, you know, it had fall detection on there.

But it's just so great that it's it's every time I see this story, the thing I keep telling myself is, man, I need to make sure I get an Apple Watch for my mother, for my aunt.

It's like for all the people, it's like I need to make sure that they have that they have one of these because it's it's so it's so great that it can help save lives like this.

Yeah, no, I think it makes and, you know, for every time that you and I talk about one of these stories, I'm sure there's, you know, X number of additional stories that never make the local news or something like that.

But they're just as important.

So exactly.

Yeah.

Whether it's whether it's, you know, finding you when you're lost or giving you health alerts or, you know, crash detection when you're in a car accident, you know, your Apple Watch, your iPhone, all of these devices.

It's it's it's great stuff.

The hearing stuff from the AirPods Pro, you know, Apple is doing a lot with its technology devices to improve your health and protect you.

And it's awesome.

I love it.

Well, still in the where you at segment, if you have not purchased air tags yet, which I I'm almost getting a little crazy, like how can you not have a set of air tags?

Look at this.

They are down now.

They're even lower than what you posted this morning.

I know.

They were down to sixty four forty nine.

Oh my goodness.

I just noticed that.

Right here.

You see it literally the all time low.

Now, why?

Why?

Wow.

Amazon.

OK, she's got to be there clearing them out, don't you think?

I think so.

I think so.

Yeah.

That, you know, another one of the rumors we talked about the rumors, you know, another one of the rumors is that there's going to be a whole air tag to coming out this year.

And one of the rumors is that, like, it'll have a better battery life and it might have better detection that you can find it more precisely and stuff using, you know, the white trains up.

So but hey, the existing air tags work really well.

And so if you've got some items I was just listening.

It wasn't an air tag.

It was a device by Chipolo.

But as I was driving into work this morning, our friend David Sparks, who we talked about earlier today, was talking on one of his podcasts that he was that, you know, he lives really close to Disneyland in California.

He said that he was there and he realized that he had he had his bag with him and he left it somewhere by mistake.

And he's like, oh, no.

And so he was able to use because he has one of these tracking devices.

It wasn't the air tag.

It was it was a similar device that worked with OK, my and I was able to go back and find his bag.

But it's like, you know, this this is a thing, you know, you lose things or God forbid somebody steals something.

Wow.

The air tag can help you.

So I'm a huge fan of the air tags.

It's nice to see them get into credible.

Like you said, like, yeah, get them now.

Like I mean, or just think about what might be coming soon.

So, yeah.

By the way, I always like to mention this because I was just talking with somebody the other day that each of these air tags already has a CR2032 battery inside.

But I got to tell you, one of the things that I recommend to folks is like pick up another little pack of like six or eight of these.

You know, they're the little I call them the Necco wafer batteries because that's what kind of they look like on there.

But I always tell people, like, go ahead and pick up a little pack, you know, you can get them you can get those for like seven, eight, you know, nine dollars, you know, fairly inexpensive on on Amazon.

Just throw it in your cart when you get that, because in my mind, it's good to have those extra ones on there, because when the air tag does, you know, give you a notification that the battery is getting low, then at least you have some that are on hand already.

And I think that's a that's a that's a good thing to have on that.

But wow, sixty five dollars.

I'll put your Amazon affiliate link in the show notes, Jeff.

So hey, if anybody out there doesn't have it yet, you know, get it, get it set today in the show.

Here's a quick little beautiful little interview from somebody who has become one of my favorite actors already.

I don't even I unfortunately I only know his real name because I can see it here in the interview.

But I know him, of course, as Mr.

Milchak on Sephiroth.

It was just so great.

You know, I love these when you think, you know, a person because, you know, you see them and he plays this character so well as an actor.

You know, it's just like I don't know if I could even if my brain could get wrapped around the idea if I saw him in life as a live person walking around.

And I thought this this article kind of did the same thing.

The author of this article was talking about this interview here, here in the in The New York Times.

But this this is really nice.

I like this.

Yeah, we all you know, we all know how wonderful it is when you're watching a great TV show or a great movie and suddenly there's like a character played by an actor that you've never seen before.

And you're thinking, oh, my goodness, this is awesome.

Like this is so good.

And you know, so maybe it's the maybe it's the writing.

Maybe it's the show.

Maybe it's the photography, the cinematography.

Maybe it's the actor is really good.

It's probably a combination of all of them.

But this is an example of it.

You know, this Severance show, I mean, in like the Star of Severance, Adam Scott is somebody that we all knew from Parks and Recreation and stuff like that.

But when when I first started watching Severance and of course, you just started watching it very recently.

Yeah, the actor, his name is what is it?

Tramiel Tillman.

And he's a see you had to look at it.

This Mr.

Milchak.

But I don't know, Mr.

Milchak, because I know Mr.

Milchak very well from the show.

He is.

And I mean, if you haven't watched Severance yet, oh, my goodness, you're in for such a treat.

And the it's just it's a wonderful performance.

It's it's wonderful.

And so since I didn't know this guy, I mean, he's done a few things, but I didn't know him from anything.

And so this is a nice New York Times interview that talks about his background.

And, you know, she has things like, have you worked at an office before and stuff like that?

Right, right.

Yeah.

So I'm not going to run the interview, except to say that if you watch the show, then you then I know you're a fan of this actor because he's one of the I mean, there's so many.

Everybody on the show is great, but he's particularly great.

And so I encourage you to read the article.

It's it's really fun.

And he's he's much better at paperclips now.

So he's a really good dancer.

Would you agree with me that he's a really good dancer?

He's a very good dancer.

And the fact that the very that's that's why I like it at the very end.

They say, hey, you've danced on there.

Can we see singing?

And he's like, well, possibly I haven't sung yet, because that would be fun.

I love to sing.

I'm like, OK, bring it on.

Mr.

Milchak singing.

Come on.

That that would totally play into the storyline.

I love it.

All right.

And then lastly, you have a really nice post here about Steve Jobs.

If he were still with us, would have turned 70 years old this week.

That's amazing in and of itself.

But you link to a video where Tim Cook came on stage and basically dedicated the Steve Jobs theater in the brand new, you know, Apple ring.

And like you said, just watch the first 90 seconds of this little video.

And it was so great.

So touching.

I guess I'd be honest with you at one point, it was kind of I feel like Tim Cook's a little bit over the top in some of this.

But, you know, obviously they're paying homage to, I mean, the entire personality of Steve Jobs that, you know, has has become what Apple is today.

And still, you know, even with that, it's an amazing little video to watch.

Yeah.

I mean, Steve Jobs was an interesting person and he certainly had some things that might be character flaws.

I mean, there are some times that he was very demanding and he did some things that, you know, you can you can roll your eyes at.

But when it comes right down to it, he had just incredible knack for figuring out what was the next big thing and then for communicating that in a way, you know, his introduction of the iPhone is one of the all time best introductions of any product in the history of anything.

Oh, yeah.

And but his introduction of the iPad was also very good and stuff.

Absolutely.

It's you know, he's missed.

And I had forgotten.

I mean, it's been 2011 that he passed away.

It's been a long time now.

That's right.

That's right.

It's been that long.

He passed away way too early.

It's a real shame.

But if he had still been around today at 70, I have no doubt, you know, I can only imagine how, you know, what great products we would have that we don't have now.

But we would have had if Steve was still around to have the innovation and the creativity to to to herald the efforts and stuff.

So anyway, it's on his seventh birthday.

I think it's a nice time to say, you know, let's let's raise a raise a glass to Steve Jobs and thank him for founding Apple way, way, way back in the 1970s and then for coming back and being a part of saving the company in the 1990s and then being a part of the you know, the resurgence when the iPhone was introduced in 2007, which completely changed, you know, the course of Apple and frankly, changed technology for all of us.

You know, I would I would not be here right now talking to you if it wasn't for the iPhone and the influence it had on me and starting iPhones and everything else.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Good stuff.

Absolutely.

Let's also say thank you to Sanebox.

Sanebox has been with us now for several episodes and we are thrilled to have them back as a sponsor for the podcast.

They have a special page that you can go to and get some more information.

Sanebox dot com slash in the news, all one word.

And in fact, you can try it for free without even putting in a credit card.

And if you decide that you want to continue with it, which I think you're going to enjoy it, you can get a twenty five dollar credit towards a one of the subscriptions that you have.

So Jeff, I know you continue to use the Sanebox.

I think you even posted about it not too long ago, maybe a couple of weeks ago or so, and just continue to enjoy the freedom that it can give you from your crazy, insane inbox.

Yeah.

Sanebox is sponsoring our podcast right now.

They also happen to be sponsoring my website.

And so I've done so many posts about them and we've talked about them here, too.

When I had a post that ran earlier this week and I was talking to the guys over there and like, is there anything, you know, I've talked about what's so great about the service and stuff like, is there anything that you want me to emphasize in this month?

And they said, you know, one of the things that people really like about Sanebox is reducing interruptions because nobody wants unnecessary interruptions when you're trying to get work done.

I mean, I know this is an attorney, but whatever your profession is, you know, you're focusing on what you're doing.

You don't want aggravation and interruptions unless it's important.

And what I like about Sanebox is, you know, we all know that the dings from your inbox can be distractions and sometimes they're important.

Don't get me wrong.

You know, something important comes in.

I need to act on it.

I get something from a court, something from a client.

It's important.

I need to know about it.

But then there's the other things that, you know, and I'm not just talking about spam because nobody wants that, but even something like a newsletter or a less important email.

I mean, yes, it's, I want the email.

I'm glad that I received it, but I don't need to stop my work right now and think about it.

And what Sanebox can do is just, just streamline everything so that your inbox is just the important stuff and then you have other sub folders and it automatically moves things into folders like Sane News or Sane Later.

And goodness, if there's something you never want to see again, I just drag it into the Sane Black Box and it's gone forever.

You can take a message and you can say, I'll deal with this later and have it tell you later.

So it just, you know, by helping to tame your inbox, it gets to very quickly to a point where you have fewer interruptions and you can focus more on your work.

And again, you're still going to get to it eventually.

You know, you're going to get to that newsletter later on today when you want to take the break and do it.

Or maybe, you know, you're having lunch in your office and you want to, you know, go through your newsletters.

That's fine.

But I don't need that interrupting me when I'm working on my brief for a client, you know, I want to focus.

And so that's just one of the many advantages of Sanebox.

So again, I've been using the service for a long time and I'm really happy with it.

And so if you're interested too, you should check it out.

I just, I like that tip just quickly here because, you know, people tell me all the time, well, I can just move a message, you know, from my inbox into a subfolder.

And I'm like, yeah, you can, but that's going to take, you know, two or three seconds.

And if you do that for all the email you get every day, I think you've also mentioned these snooze folders before, you know, because one of them here you can see is like snooze for Saturday or say, you know, all of these emails, these kinds of emails that come in, I want to put into a snooze folder so that on Saturday morning, when I have a little bit of time, that's when I'm going to go through those newsletters, those kinds of things.

And that's great.

I like the fact that it's the productivity enhancer there.

Sanebox.com/inthenews, all one word, get all the information there, get the fact that you can try it for several days for free, a free trial.

And like I said, once you understand how important this is for your productivity, you can get one of the Sanebox subscriptions.

There are several different price levels there, but you can get a $25 credit towards one of those subscriptions, which is very, very helpful there.

So thank you Sanebox for sponsoring us, Sanebox.com/inthenews.

Now let's talk about in the know.

We got a tip.

So something I did not know that was coming out in iOS 18, Jeff, and I saw somebody talk about this earlier this week, and I'm like, I have to try this out.

Apple calls this vehicle motion cues.

So I'll tell you, one of the things that I realized, even as a kid, a little bit younger is that I could get what I generally would call it motion sickness, right?

If I'm in the front seat of a car, typically I'm good, or if I'm driving a car, but if I'm in the back seat, like at an Uber or I'm right into the back seat, if I try to read like an actual book, or certainly if I try to read something on my phone, I will start getting nauseous pretty quickly.

That's what, you know, some people get dizzy, some people have some other issues there.

But I learned, you know, early on, especially when I'm traveling, if I get into an Uber or Lyft, I'm like, well, I would like to read something, you know, I have time to read my emails or I could read this article, you know, maybe from a sandbox folder that I could go through, but it's like, I know I'm not going to feel well, like, and I don't want to do that.

And, you know, once I get out of the car, it kind of subsides, at least for me.

So I was thrilled to see this vehicle motion cues.

It sounds a little odd, but I got to tell you, I've tested it out now a little bit, and it works.

It is an accessibility feature in the iPhone.

You go to settings, accessibility, and go into motion, and you can turn this on.

And it actually adds a little tiny icon in your control center so that you can either turn it off or on, or you can put it on auto mode.

And when you do this, in fact, let me see if I've got one other story here, I'll show you a screenshot from it.

It's a little bit odd the way that this works.

It puts dots up and down on the right and the left side of your screen.

Yeah, let me see if I can find you a screenshot here from Gadget Hacks, if they're showing it here.

Oh, they may not have an actual one.

But it explains all of this to you when you turn it on.

And these little dots, there's like four or five of them that go up and down each side.

If I'm sitting in a car and the car accelerates, these little tiny dots will go down.

If the car breaks, the dots will go up.

If the car turns, the dots fly to the other side of the screen.

It's a little odd, I understand, but you can try this and turn it on and people can see it.

But Jeff, I got to tell you, whatever that motion is happening, it's almost like it's the opposite motion of what the car is doing.

I've tried this now on a train when I was in DC, and it was great.

I didn't feel nauseous at all.

I've tried it now in about three or four Lyft rides, and it works, for me at least.

Now everybody's a little bit different, right?

In fact, I've seen a couple of stories where people were saying they tried it, it didn't work for them.

Everybody reacts to this just a little bit different.

But I just think this is brilliant.

The dots sometimes can be a little distracting, but if you are just focusing on the content that you're looking at, they kind of go away.

I think that's what it's meant to be for.

It's in my periphery, right?

So that my body or my equilibrium or my brain, whatever it is that gets me typically motion sick, is just kind of doing it on its own.

In other words, I just don't feel any sickness.

So I just wanted to throw that out there.

I had no clue that this was something that was available, but I love having it available in my control center now.

And if I get into an Uber or a Lyft or I've got a ride in the backseat and I still want to be able to look at things on my phone and focus on things, this has started to work brilliantly for me.

Maybe not for you and use it at your own risk if you get nauseous as well.

But in my cases, it's been something that's pretty spectacular.

I was not really – I had heard about this, but I'm not familiar with it.

Can you just pause right there with that image that you're just scrolling on?

It says on here – so tell me if I'm right.

It puts these little dots on the side of your screen, but the dots are not stationary.

So this says like when the vehicle turns, dots move side to side.

And when the vehicle changes speed, dots move forward and backward.

And so I guess the idea is that because your eyes sort of consciously or subconsciously see the dots moving, it helps your body understand that it's okay that you're moving and it makes it so you don't get as nauseous looking at the screen.

Is that what this is?

Sure.

I mean I guess like that's the whole thing.

I don't know the science behind it.

I'm sure that I could dig a little bit deeper in this.

But for me, I'm just like, well, that would be fantastic if it just gives me that freedom, which I know sounds a little silly, but I would always have to consciously say, "No, I can't look at my iPhone there.

I don't want to feel sick.

I've got a 15-minute drive, right, and I don't want to feel sick for that time."

But I have turned this on.

I have used it.

And like I said, the dots will kind of go around, but I just kind of focus on what I'm reading.

And whatever those dots are doing, at least for me, your mileage may vary, literally, at least for me, it just seems to take off that edge.

And I could sometimes just barely maybe start feeling a tiny bit nauseous on there, but then I feel like it goes away, where normally in the past it would not, if any of that makes sense.

But yeah, it's worth a try.

Don't do it while you're driving.

This is not meant to be used while you're driving.

It's when you're a passenger in the car, or typically for me at least, and when I'm a passenger in the back seat.

And it's really great.

So you can turn that on, go to the accessibility, go to your motion, and then like I said, it adds this little tiny—this is what the icon looks like.

It's kind of these dots up and down that will appear in your control center.

And so that now is where you can go in and toggle it on and off.

Cool.

Well, it's very neat.

So that's— Try it out.

Tell me what you think.

Yeah.

Especially when you're on the Mardi Gras float, you can try that.

Maybe that'll help too.

There you go.

Okay, good tip.

So my tip of the week has to do with the lock screen on an iPhone.

Now I will tell you, Brett, it will not surprise you that I'm somebody who's always trying out new technology, new gadgets, everything else.

But there are some aspects of the iPhone that I just—I find that, you know what?

I haven't really changed in a while.

And a good example of that was the front of my iPhone for a very, very long time had the same photo of it of my kids.

And it was a great photo when I picked it, but like it probably stayed there for I don't even know, years.

And I just never really thought about changing it.

It was just a fine photo.

I never really thought much about it.

And then for the winter this year, right before Christmas, I changed it because I saw somewhere there was an app called Wallaroo that I tried and it had a cute image of a snowman.

The image is actually taken from the Charlie Brown Christmas special.

Oh, okay.

And it's an image of a snowman.

It was a cute little thing and it made me smile because it made me remember the Charlie Brown Christmas.

So I made that my lock screen on my iPhone with the snowman in the snow.

Hey, parenthetically, New Orleans had the first big snow in over a hundred years.

So that may have been because I put the snowman on my iPhone.

I don't know if there's a cause and effect there, but there's definitely a correlation.

Okay.

But now we're getting close to Mardi Gras season and the snowman's done.

We got no more snow in New Orleans.

So I was like, you know what?

I should change my lock screen.

And instead of going back to that same picture that I've had for years, I'm like, well, let me sort of, you know, see what happens.

And so, you know how you're on your lock screen and you sort of hold down and the little option comes up that you can change the lock screen.

One of the suggestions that Apple has, and this is nothing new, it's been out, I guess it's been around since iOS 17, is that you can have a photo, you know, either a static photo like you could have it change from time to time, but it also has the ability to have live photos.

And I think we've mentioned this in the past, but I had not really played around with it much.

And so earlier this week, I changed it to it and you select live photo and it gives you a whole bunch of suggestions and they were all really good suggestions.

So I picked a fun photo that was, it was another photo of my kids, but we were at this place that you were outside and they had like a, like a fire pit.

And so my kids are standing in front of the fire pit.

And because it's a live photo, which I always think of as like the Harry Potter photo effect, you know, it has like a little bit of animation in it.

And so if I'm looking at it in the photos app, if I hold down my finger, it will animate for about a couple of seconds.

And since my kids were standing in front of a fire pit, it means that the flames from the fire animate.

But when you choose a live photo for your lock screen, what's really cool about it is whenever you sort of turn on your lock screen, you know, my, my, right now my, my phone's locked and if I just sort of, you know, turn it on, it animates.

And so that little like fire, you know, and it's a subtle little thing.

I mean, we're talking about two seconds, one second, whatever it is of animation, but it's, it's cute.

It's clever.

It's nice.

I love it.

I just did it.

It's been around for a while, but I am here to say that it is delightful.

And these simple little features that bring joy and delight.

I love it.

So my recommendation to you is, oh, that's so great.

If you are ready for a change in your lock screen, as I was, in fact, I should have done this a long time ago, check out if there's a good live photo that you have.

And which means a photo that you took with your iPhone while you had the live photo tech thing turned on.

Right.

And it's fun.

I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's not a big deal.

It's just a minor thing, but it gives me a smile.

And so maybe it will for some of you as well.

I love it.

I, this is brilliant.

I had not done, I, I had, I changed my wallpaper from time to time, but it just, I'm still photos.

And I get this lovely one with my wife and my daughter, um, be in front of an ocean and I just see the waves go and their hair is like blowing in the breeze.

That's so cool.

I did not.

I mean, again, like you said, I knew that it was a possible, but I have never done a life.

I don't do a lot of live photos.

I feel like I would just, you know, should just do a video if I'm going to do a live photo, but this is so cool.

I'm going to take a little bit more life photos just so that I can have it on my lock screen.

Thanks for that tip, Jeff.

That's really good.

Excellent stuff.

Woo.

Okay.

Lots of stuff today.

Well, uh, I'm sure we'll be talking about the 16 even more as we go through and that's okay.

Nothing wrong with that.

Just want to say thanks again to our sponsor, sane box.

You can go to sane box.com/in the news to get a little more information about them.

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

Happy Mardi Gras, everyone.

Thanks, Brett.

Happy Mardi Gras, everybody.

Happy Mardi Gras everybody!