
In the News
In the News
207: Glassy Comparisons, Weird Workout Buddies 🏃♀️ and FindMy Shoes 👟
Watch the video!
In the News blog post for August 1, 2025:
https://www.iphonejd.com/iphone_jd/2025/08/in-the-news789.html
00:00 Thank you LIT SOFTWARE for sponsoring this episode!
00:59 New iOS Update! (No, not that one … yet)
03:39 Comparing Glass
08:40 Don’t Steal My Bluetooth (Audio)!
13:10 Weird Workout Buddy
18:52 Don’t Look Now, But the iPad is a PC
30:48 Better Team Player
32:35 Thank you LIT SOFTWARE for sponsoring this episode!
41:17 Where Y’at? Segment - FindMy Shoes
47:39 In the Show! Seasonal Lasso
52:58 Back to Mac Sale
57:40 Brett’s App: Saily eSIM
1:05:09 Jeff’s iTip: Orange and Green Indicators in your iPhone Status Bar
Sponsor: LIT SOFTWARE www.litsoftware.com
Juli Clove | MacRumors: Apple Releases iOS 18.6 With Photos Bug Fix
Benjamin Mayo | 9to5Mac: iOS 18 vs iOS 26 compared: Here’s all the new app icons coming to your iPhone home screen
Ryan Christoffel | 9to5Mac: iOS 26 lets you keep AirPods audio from auto-switching to speakers
Jonathan Reed | MacStories: watchOS 26: The MacStories Public Beta Preview
Frederico Viticci | MacStories: Thoughts on iPadOS 26: Hello, It’s Good to Be Back
Marques Brownlee | MKBHD: iPadOS 26: Ready for Laptop Duty?
Riley Hill | Slate Pad: Microsoft Teams 7.13.0 Update for iPadOS Brings Multi-Window Chat Support
Andre Revilla | Engadget: Skechers releases kid shoes with a hidden AirTag compartment
Marcus Mendes | 9to5Mac: Another airline joins AirTag luggage tracking program, now supported by 30 carriers (list)
Amazon 13” MacBook Air Sale
Jibin Joseph | PCMag: Too Soon? Apple Kicks Off Back-to-School Sale. Here's What You Can Get
Brett’s App: Saily eSIM from NordVPN. Glenn Flieshman from Six Colors: Don’t overpay for cellular data while traveling
Jeff’s iTip: About the orange and green indicators in your iPhone status bar
https://support.apple.com/en-us/108331
Brett Burney from http://www.appsinlaw.com
Jeff Richardson from http://www.iphonejd.com
Welcome to In the News for August.
Watch out, it's already August.
August 1st, 2025.
I am Brett Burney from AppsinLaw.com.
And I am Jeff Richardson from iPhoneJD.
August, yeah, you're blowing me away.
That's crazy.
August, already the very first day of August today.
It's a nice Friday though.
Before we get started, we want to say thank you
to a returning sponsor, somebody that we have,
both Jeff and I are very familiar with and we like a lot, Lit Software, LitSoftware.com.
Let me go ahead and just open up the webpage real quick.
We'll talk about them a little bit more here in a little bit.
LitSoftware.com has been around since the iPad pretty much has been around
because they originally started making apps for the iPad and they still do.
And the only reason I'm kind of hinging on that is because some of these apps now run on Mac OS as well,
which is really cool.
We'll talk about their apps here coming up in a little bit.
But in the meantime, you might want to check your updates on your iPhone and your iPad because the update, the brand new update is here.
All right, but not 26 yet.
This is iOS 18.6, which may possibly be the last like point update maybe, Jeff, before the new iOS comes out.
We don't know, but I would have a safe guess on that.
Could be, could be.
You know, it's not going to be the last forever because Apple still goes back and occasionally updates.
Like, I think they had an iOS 17 update not that long ago, mostly for security and stuff like that.
You know, at this late in the cycle, you're not going to really see new features.
And this update is fixing some bugs in the Photos app, which makes sense.
But it does have security updates, which are always important.
And so even though, you know, we're all looking forward to the future and everything else.
I mean, for example, on my Vision Pro, that's the only thing I'm running beta software on.
I have the beta version of Vision OS 26.
And I noticed that, you know, Apple has updated, you know, the prior version of Vision OS, which I think was two, three, a big, big, big number difference there.
But I'm like, OK, well, that doesn't matter to me anymore because I've already moved on to the beta.
But for all my other devices, my iPhone, my iPad, my Apple Watch, I guess those are the three.
I haven't yet updated my TV, my Apple TV, TV OS.
But so, yeah, so there are new updates out there.
And so just something to look for and, you know, makes sense to do.
These are security updates.
So I wouldn't, I wouldn't ignore them.
I would install them.
Right.
Right.
And they go really fast.
I mean, I did my phone and my iPad this morning.
I think my watch said it didn't do the update overnight.
Cause you know, sometimes it has to be like charging or it has to have enough charge on it so that it goes through, but it just tells you.
And then I just basically said, well, go ahead and update it tonight.
Hopefully when you do have enough charge, go ahead and do that.
You can always force those installs to go, but I like the Apple watch, how it does that on well.
And, you know, I was going to say I have no qualms about telling people to upgrade to 18.6 because at this point with a 0.6 upgrade, it's pretty mature.
And then I'm thinking, we're not even a year into this though, right?
I mean, it's amazing that we're saying that, that it's mature and it's just amazing.
But by the time that Apple starts rolling out like a 0.5 or 0.6, yeah, I'm like, go ahead.
You don't have any issues.
When it goes to iOS 26, whenever that is going to be the day, there'll be some people probably like me and Jeff that will do it probably on the day that it comes out.
And some of you that might want to be just a little more careful, I think that would be okay, right, Jeff?
We know there's going to be some things that will change on that, including the way that your icons are going to look, right?
I thought this was a good article you linked to today from Benjamin Mayo at 9to5Mac.
When iOS 26 does come out, we've been talking about the liquid glass interface, and I like how he put all of these little screenshots together to give you a side-by-side comparison of what your new icons are going to look like in iOS 26.
Yeah, yeah.
In terms of one last thing on when you update, you know, I definitely know some people that say whenever Apple has a big update, and this will be a big one this year, you know, just as a matter of course, they're going to wait for the.1 or the.01 or something like that.
Because, like, there's always going to be something.
That's up to you.
But anyway, this liquid glass discussion is interesting because what you and I have been talking about for a few weeks now, ever since Apple first previewed it, is, you know, two things, a good and bad.
The good liquid glass is that it looks cool.
You know, it really does look interesting.
It's a fresh new look for the first time in a very, very long time.
And it's interesting that, you know, as you're moving like a button, because it's sort of like it's almost like it's a gel or something like that.
As things go under it, you can sort of see reflections and just it looks really interesting.
And there's also arguably a usability issue, too, because you can see content below the buttons, which may be useful, may not be useful.
So that's the good part.
And the bad part is people say, oh, well, sometimes because of this see-throughness, this transparency, it makes things hard to read.
And people will show off like the Apple Music app and like you're trying to read the name of the artist underneath the button and you can't read it.
So, you know, it's going to be, it's good to bad.
And I suspect, you know, it'll be somewhere in the middle.
It'll be interesting.
And there'll be cases where it doesn't work great, but other cases where it looks really
good.
But that's what I've been focused on.
So this article talks about how another part of the interface is app iPod cons look different,
which means that if you're a third party app developer, you're going to want to update
your apps to be consistent with the new interface.
And to have an example of that, or to see what we're going to have, what you're showing
on your screen for folks looking at the video is the actual before and after, you know, here's
what an icon looks like right now and here's what it looks like with liquid glass um and so as you
can see the ones with liquid glass are a little bit more transparent in different parts of the
elements in some cases it's more subtle in some cases it's more it's more noticeable um you know
the one that you just showed for was that shortcuts i mean it's very very journal excuse me the journal
changes are very very subtle it's really more of the the square around the icon but then other things
like the, everybody knows the mail, the mail icon, you know, the envelope, it used to be a white
envelope that you can't see through anything like a real world envelope. Whereas the new one has got
just a little bit of sort of transparency to it, which is interesting. One also that's interesting
to me is if you scroll back up to the clock one, that was interesting because the clock app,
that new clock app, what that actually looks like is, and you actually saw it, remember
one of the last times I brought my Vision Pro into my office and we used it for the podcast,
I actually took, remember I showed you how you can take like a widget and you can place it on a wall.
Stuck it on the wall. And I actually showed you that it looked exactly like that, almost exactly
like that. And it was really cool because it's right there on my wall in my office. And if I move
around, the clock stays in place and you can actually look close to it. You can actually see
there's like 3D layers. The second hand is literally higher. It's above the other ones.
And so this is a good example of, and it's a rare example of an icon.
It's a widget in this case, but the same idea, a picture from the Vision OS that they are
now bringing to iPhone, which is, you know, something for the masses.
So that's sort of interesting.
So, you know, you can argue for some of these if you think they're better or they're worse,
but it just shows you how everything is going to change a little bit, even just on the icon
level.
And just another reason that it will be a fresh new interface.
I feel like this is going to be a little more stark for people than maybe Apple realizes because we use these iPhones every day and people are just familiar with it.
Now, you and I feel like we can be a little bit more flexible and amenable to some of these changes on here.
But some of these are a little stark.
I don't think it's enough that somebody is going to question it like, wait, what is that app?
I don't think it's quite that stark.
Although, here's the tips app.
I mean, that looks a little bit different.
You're going to have to pause, I guess is maybe what I'm saying.
People are going to have to pause for maybe another second or two and be like, oh, yeah, okay, okay, yeah, that's the Safari app.
It just looks a little bit different.
I think that will go away really quickly, but that is going to be a pretty stark difference, and that's the first thing that so many people are going to see once they get into iOS 26.
And when you look at the side-by-side like you're showing right now, it's very easy for your eye to see, oh, I can see what's different.
But you know what's going to actually happen, Brett, is you're not going to have the side-by-side.
You're just going to be looking at your iPhone and you're like, something seems a little different about the mail app.
And you might not even think it's like, what is it?
So that's how it's going to actually play out.
I can't put my finger on it.
Right, right, right.
You can't put your finger on it.
That's what you're supposed to do, put your finger on it.
But you're right.
It's like it'll be just subtle.
But you're right.
When you see it side by side, it is a lot more stark.
You're right.
We also know that there's going to be numerous little tweaks that hopefully will be improvements for iOS 26.
Here's one you linked to today from Ryan Christoffel at 9to5Mac.
iOS 26 lets you keep AirPods audio from auto-switching to speakers.
Thank goodness.
I don't know if you've experienced this too often.
I don't do it too often because I feel like it's actually gotten a little bit better when I switch my AirPods between my Mac and my iPad and my iPhone.
I'm not as frustrated with it, but there are times when it kind of goes the other way.
Like, I don't want it to switch, right?
And so hopefully iOS 26 is going to help with that a little bit too.
So there's two, you know, AirPods switching can occur in two different ways.
And let's make sure we know what we're talking about, because you might be talking about the
first way and this is the second way.
I think I am.
One way is I have my AirPods in my ears right now and my AirPods are connected to my PC
because I happen to be talking to you from my office where I've got my Dell computer
running Zoom.
One feature of AirPods is that it can switch between one Apple device and another Apple
device.
So let's say I'm using it with my iPhone and then I start playing a YouTube video on my iPad and they're both right here in front of me.
The AirPod is smart enough to switch to the iPad, which is really nice.
And then if you're done on your iPad and you go back to listening to music or a podcast on your iPhone, it'll switch back and you don't have to do any settings.
You don't have to press any buttons.
It just happens automatically.
It works really well.
Having said that, sometimes you don't want it to happen.
Literally just this week, I was having lunch in my office and I was listening to a podcast and I happened to be looking at something on my iPad at the same time.
And a video came up and I'm like, I want to keep listening to my podcast.
I don't even want to listen to that video.
If the audio comes on, just play it in the background.
Like a commercial sometimes.
That's a horrible example.
Yeah.
And yet it switched over.
And so that is one thing.
That is not changing, to my knowledge, in iOS 26.
What iOS 26 is changing is something different, which is where the audio coming out of your device.
So let's say I'm using my iPhone to listen to a podcast.
And I'm currently having the sound go to my AirPods.
But I walk into a room that has a Bluetooth speaker.
It could be a HomePod or it could be something else.
And it switches over to that because it thinks, oh, this is what you normally listen to.
And so what you really want to do is listen to it over there.
And again, it's a useful feature if you want it.
For some people, for example, if you walk into your car and you have wireless CarPlay, it will switch over to your car.
And I'm like, yeah, thumbs up.
I actually want that to happen.
But what happens if you walk into your house and you're listening to something and it switches over to the main speaker in your living room and suddenly everybody in your family is listening to the podcast?
You know, that's not what you want.
And so that is a feature that could be annoying not only to you, but to the others around you as well.
And that is the feature that in iOS 26, when it comes out this fall, you can turn that off if you want.
And so, you know, I think it looks like it's called, you're showing it right now, keep audio with headphones and this sort of stuff.
So it's nice to have those more controls.
But again, there's two different hand, and it's tough because Apple is trying to be so smart.
They want to do what you want automatically, which is great when it works.
But when it doesn't work, it drives you crazy.
So it's a tough situation.
Yeah.
I'll give you, now that you mentioned, I'm so glad you clarified, because this morning, even, this exactly happened.
So I was upstairs in my bedroom getting ready for the day, and I had my iPhone playing through a Bluetooth speaker.
Now, this is a JBL Bluetooth speaker that my wife and I will sometimes share, right?
So I'm playing my music away, just having a grand old time.
Well, I knew that my wife was downstairs, and she started listening, I think, to a polo from a friend.
Well, she had been using the Bluetooth speaker previously, and so where did that audio come out from her iPhone?
It came into my speaker, right?
So in other words, I knew that she had her AirPods in because when I left her, she had her AirPods in.
She could have used – that's exactly when she could have used this setting.
Is that right, Jeff?
Yep.
You got it right.
You got it right.
Okay.
So that would have been great because I remember I was – I'm like, what happened to my music?
And I jumped on and I hit play again, and it started playing my music again.
But then obviously she was fighting with me downstairs because she started playing her polo again, and then it jumped into my Bluetooth.
And so I'm yelling, like, hey, what's up with my music?
Okay, but see, I need this now.
We need this now.
I have to wait to iOS 26.
But okay, but thanks for clarifying because that really helps quite a bit on that.
Let's go to the watch.
We've been talking about watchOS 26.
Not always in the most favorable way, Jeff, I have to say.
I mean, I am excited for watchOS26.
Do not get me wrong.
And there are several great things coming up.
But it seems like every story that we talk about, we have to land on the weird workout buddy that comes in here.
This is another great article or review from Jonathan Reed at Mac Stories.
Goes into a lot of details of what we can expect with watchOS26.
Yeah.
And I'll say that, you know, he does a really nice job.
This Jonathan Reed review, I'm not as familiar with him as a Mac Stories writer, but he really does a great job of talking about the big, important changes coming to the watch.
He has lots of pictures to show it off.
So if you're interested in what your watch is going to look like in a few months, it's a good article.
I recommend it.
The one that you're focusing on, though, and that he does as well is, you know, a lot of these changes for the watch are going to have to do with workouts.
And the Workout Buddy is the big new one because that's something we don't have now.
Workout buddy, remember, is something that when you're doing your workout, your watch will talk to you.
It's actually coming from your iPhone, so you have to have your iPhone in the same room.
But it is talking to you, and it's saying, you know, great job.
You just passed one mile, or, you know, that was your best workout this week, or, you know, whatever sort of encouraging things.
But it's specific to you.
And so because it's specific, these are not prerecorded.
It's a computerized voice, although it doesn't sound like a computer, as you and I talked about in the past.
It mimics the voice of one of the workout instructors on Fitness Plus.
And I say one of them.
I think there's three different voices or something like that.
But so one of the things that he discloses in this article, which I did not know, is
that in addition to commenting on the workout that you're doing right now, it will sometimes
comment on what you're listening to.
It might say something like, you know, I'm just in this part I'm imagining.
Let's say you're listening to an album from, I don't know, Oasis.
and it says, okay, now let's get back to Oasis
or something like that.
Or if you're listening to a podcast,
it may say, let me get you back to the In the News podcast
or something like that.
So something specific to you, which is interesting.
And I suspect that they'll do more of this.
It's obviously involving,
I don't know if you call it AI or machine learning
or just regular computer smarts,
but it's the idea of making it more personal to you
and what you're doing.
And I'm in favor of it.
Now you say, Jonathan in this article
doesn't sound like he's thrilled about it.
I mean, he makes it sound like it's the voice.
He didn't use the word creepy.
He used some word in there.
I found the voice.
Yeah.
Bizarre familiarity.
I can't put my finger on.
He didn't seem that thrilled about it, but like I'm all in this.
I think this sounds good.
I haven't tried it yet, but I'm looking forward to this.
So my interesting.
Okay.
Well, he actually has this link.
I didn't click through to this, but I'm sure this is the link.
I remember this specifically from WWDC.
That's from the right, right, right.
Yeah.
Where they're showing this and they, and I remember you and I texted each other during this keynote presentation.
And we're like, that, that sounds like Emily, coach Emily, who is one of the fitness plus trainers.
And she's very, very exciting.
And I enjoy her quite a bit, but you could just exactly what he says here.
It's like, she just sounded just a little off.
It just, it was a little bizarre hearing it because I know what she sounds like.
And I've done several treadmill exercise sessions with Coach Emily, and she's fantastic.
I love her.
But it was just a little weird to hear it as sort of like almost like a robotic Emily on there.
Somehow it's a little weird.
My hope, though, is I am looking forward to it just like you are.
I am.
But it's got to get better.
I think this kind of stuff should be getting better even if it starts out a little weird when it first comes out a little bizarre.
but the nature of AI and what it can do should be getting better as it goes through. And that's,
you know, that, that's really what I'm hopeful on some of this.
Here's the quote that it was in there. He says, the enthusiasm level is not for me. That was his
complaint. But you know, as you and I know, Emily is an enthusiastic trainer. You know,
she pumps you up. She sometimes gives you that extra. And I think that's a good, I mean,
I don't want my workout trainer to be like, oh, I guess you should do this now.
No, I want someone that's enthusiastic.
So I'm here for it.
So, you know, anyway.
I just remember last week we talked about Dan Morin's piece, right, where he was specifically talking about how he likes Fitness Plus.
But he starts – he has been more using that – it's the Nike app.
I can't remember exactly what they call it.
The Run Club, I think it's called.
Run Club, something like that, where they have live coaches, right, that somehow – I don't know if they're live while you're running.
Yeah.
Somehow it's live people prerecorded, and he goes, that's much more interesting and engaging because as humans, I think we can tell that this is a little off if it's sort of – anyway, my hope is that it will get better because it's going to start off a little weird and it will get better.
The other thing quickly on the workout side because all of these workout features, like you mentioned, Jeff, are sort of what's coming in WatchOS 26.
I am thrilled to see some of the new layouts here for the workout.
He talks about that there are other ideas like metrics and views, the experiences, some of the media on here.
I got to tell you, I'm okay with the way, like when I'm in the middle of a workout to look down on my watch and I can see some of the metrics already.
But I feel like there could be more.
Like I could take more time to learn it, but I don't want to take more time to learn it.
I just want it to be a little more intuitive when I look down on my watch.
And I hope that that's what's going to be happening with watchOS 26.
Yeah, so I mean, it's going to be two things. All of those statistics, number one, they can be spoken to you by the workout buddy. And number two, the interface is going to be refreshed, which and both of those I am in favor of. So sounds good to me.
Absolutely. Well, let's go then to the iPad. And you and I have been talking about iPad with iPadOS 26 more specifically is what I'm kind of referencing here.
Somebody that we are very familiar with at Mac Stories, Jonathan, keep riding. We like you.
But Federico Vittici, of course, there were two people really that I was looking forward to to hearing about their experience with iPadOS 26, Jeff.
And you linked to both of them today. One is from Federico. We'll talk about him first.
And then the second is Marquez Brownlee, who you provided an excellent video today, which I just thought was excellent.
But let's go to Federico.
Someone who has, I don't want to say it's a love-hate relationship because I think he's always loved the iPad.
But it's almost like he's had like all iPad and not as much iPad, you know, ups and downs, right?
Because he was one of the first, I think, at least on a public level, to say, I am only using the iPad.
And he wrote about it extensively.
I mean, you can go back and see all kind of his writing.
But he is very encouraged, it sounds like, with the changes he has seen so far with iPadOS 26.
In fact, he says, hello, it's good to be back.
Yeah. Federico has done a great job over the years talking how you can make the iPad your primary computing device.
And for him, it was really all iPad all the time.
Earlier this calendar year, he started using a MacBook more because there was he was frustrated that there were some things he couldn't do in the iPad, even though he found some real interesting ways to do workarounds.
But what he's saying is, you know, because iPad OS 26 is going to so fundamentally revolutionary eyes, the interface and everything else, you know, he's now got that newfound enthusiasm for it.
And, you know, you don't have to be an either or, you know, it's OK to me if you want to make your iPad your primary computing device, that's fine.
But like, for example, for most lawyers, I don't think that you're going to do that because you just need to use a PC or a Mac for, you know, intensive word processing and stuff like that.
But just because it's not your number one device doesn't mean that you don't want it to be a really good number two device.
And also there are many times, Brett, where I have, you know, I'm traveling or whatever it is.
I have my iPad with me and I actually don't even bring a laptop.
I just bring my iPad when I travel.
So I want that iPad to be able to step it up and be pretty close to be a computer substitute, even if it doesn't do everything.
And so with new iPad OS, you know, with the new windowing and the new multitasking features, it has just gotten, it's getting a lot closer.
And so these reviews do a great job of talking about how, because you have so much more flexibility with working with multiple windows, because you can, you know, swipe down from the top or hover your cursor if you're using an external device.
And you can get the file, edit, view, you know, the traditional windows that we're used to on a Mac or a PC.
and all of the other features, you know, you can just do, if you want to be productive,
you can do a lot more. Now, don't get me wrong. You don't have to do it. If you, you know,
there are many times, but both this review, and I think Marques Brownlee talked about this as well,
is like, you know, maybe 75% of the time, or you pick the percentage, you're going to be using an
iPad with just one app at a time. And that's fine. And it works great for that. But then for that,
for that other smaller percentage of the time that you want to say, you know what, now I'm going to
be doing a couple of different things at once, you just switch over and then you are, you can
have multiple windows. And I do this all the time. You know, I'm using one app, but then now I'm
going to be in a mode where I'm in mail, but I'm also in Safari, but I also am logging into things.
So I want to have one password up and I want to be doing this. And you're just switching back and
forth and being able to have things layered on top of each other, or they have these great things that
you can automatically have it put two on a screen or four in a screen. And you just have so much
flexibility and you can go back and forth to marquez points this out in his video that you can go to
ipad full screen and then you click one button or forget where it is and it goes right back to
yeah but wherever that window was before and um and that's not even and what you're talking when
you say control center that's switching in and out of the modes but even if you keep it in the new
model yeah yeah you can actually temporarily make it you know full screen even most of the time and
and then go back. So there's just so much more flexibility. I've read about this since June when
Apple debuted it. And I've seen some videos showing it off. And so in Federico's article is a good
example of reading about it and talking about how he's actually using it. And I'm like, this is
really inspiring. And then Marques Brownlee's video, because just it is a video on YouTube,
you know, when he actually shows you, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do this and I'm going
to do this. It's really, it's really, really powerful. And so again, both Federico and Marquez
do have sort of a bent of, can your iPad replace your computers at certain times? And that's fine
if you want to think that way, but I'm here to tell you that you don't have to, I mean, that,
yes, you can think about that, but what's more important to me is the times that I'm working on
my iPad, I just want to be able to be more productive. And this new operating system,
it really, everybody, even some of the detractors of people like Harry McCracken
for the Technologizer who we talked about last week.
He has more misgivings.
Everyone agrees that this is a huge step forward.
And you know, Brett, we have some years
where there are very few changes for the iPad in the release.
And then some years, not as many,
perhaps once every four or something years
that we get major releases.
And this is a major one.
This is going to be a big one.
I'm going to go back real quick to one thing you said
about lawyers needing a laptop.
I don't personally think it's so much from like a power aspect.
I mean, most of the time legal professionals are not going to be doing enough like video editing or audio editing that would really require the processing power maybe or the overhead of like a computer.
But in this video that Marquez has, one thing stood out to me.
I think it was toward the end here where he was saying, I need to sign a PDF, which is something that, you know, a lot of lawyers, like we would have to sign documents all the time.
And his point was with the iPad, can you do this?
Yes.
But it took like two or three additional steps.
And he even just said, he goes, I had to figure this out.
Like I had to stop and think, okay, this is an iPad.
I've got to put it in here first.
Do I open it in, you know, share into Chrome and then sign it and then share it back.
And the point that I get to is could a lawyer use an iPad in this way?
Absolutely.
But the thing is, Jeff, that just seems like it's too many steps.
Like, in other words, can a lawyer use an iPad as your replacement for a laptop?
Yeah, but it's just going to take some additional learning.
And frankly, I don't know that we have the time or the patience in order to do that because all of these workflows have come around for so long on the computers, whether it's a Mac or PC.
And we're just familiar with it.
And it just seems a little more seamless.
And I feel like that is sort of the hurdle a little bit for, you know, maybe sort of professionals like us, you know, from that standpoint on using that.
I hear what you're saying, and I hear what Marquez is saying.
And there are certainly some times where I do agree with you, Brett.
But I will actually push back a little bit because – and I know the part of the video you're talking about where he says, oh, it's so much easier to sign a document on a computer than on an iPad.
I'm like that would actually struck me as odd because I'm like I actually think it's easier sometimes to do this on an iPad.
Maybe that's just me.
I get where you're going.
You know, when I'm on my computer in the PDF program that I use on my PC, I actually have my signature saved as a stamp.
And so I can apply it to a document.
So, yeah, I guess that is.
I mean, I guess I can do that pretty quickly.
And I do do that from time to time.
But sometimes on my iPad, when I'm working with documents and adding things and annotating, and especially because of the Apple Pencil, I actually find it a lot easier to do it.
And there are so many times that I actually find the opposite.
I'm sitting here at my office like I am right now, and I have my computer screen in front of me and my iPad right here.
There are every single day, there are times that I'm doing something on my computer and I tell myself, wait a minute, this is going to be so much easier to do on my iPad.
And I'll switch over there and I'll do it on my iPad.
So it goes both ways.
And I'm a strong advocate of the best tool for the job.
And this is, I guess, what I was getting to before.
The people that feel like they need to say, I love the iPhone and everything I do is on my iPhone.
Like, okay, good for you.
But the iPhone is a tool and the things that it does well, I want the iPhone.
The things that the iPad does best, I want the iPad.
And I want those things to get more.
I want an expansion of it.
The things that the Mac or the PC do best, that's fine too.
But so anyway, so I happen to disagree with him on whether it takes more or fewer steps
to do signing things on an iPad than a computer.
But the point is the same.
Everybody's going to have their own things.
There are some things that you're going to find easier to do on a computer.
Goodness knows I do.
And that's fine.
Do it.
But for the things that you might like to use an iPad for, I love having that universe expand that I can do more in a way that's still just as easy so that I just have more options.
So that those times that I do have only the iPad with me because I'm sitting on my couch in my living room and I just want to have an iPad.
I just want to have a tablet with me.
I don't want to have to get up and say, oh, this next thing I need to do, I need to go and go walk to a computer and do it.
I want to be able to just stay there on my iPad or I'm traveling.
I'm in the hotel room.
I just have my iPad.
So anyway, so I cannot be more excited about this fall.
Videos like this from people that really get it, you know, Marquez, Federico, you know, they're very insightful.
And I just learn a lot reading and hearing what they say.
Well, the big takeaway we have been discussing for a while, and both Federico and Marquez kind of doubled down on this,
it's like that gap between a MacBook Pro even and an iPad Pro is just getting so much smaller.
In fact, one of the places in this video for Marquez, he compares, he puts the MacBook Pro and the iPad Pro with a keyboard side by side.
And he's like, it's about the same weight.
It's about the same height and pretty much the same price.
The both of them together.
He goes from that, you know, that physical aspect, it's almost no difference.
At the very end of this video, so we'll make sure we link to this.
I thought he did just a great job of like, okay, if you are, you know, kind of looking to determine whether you go for a PC like a MacBook Pro or an iPad Pro.
First of all, he says, think of the five things that you do.
Just similar to I think what you were just saying too, Jeff.
The five things that you mostly do, would you rather do that on a PC or a laptop or would you rather do it on an iPad?
But then the other thing I just like at the very end he's talking about, you know, if the iPad Pro can almost be like a MacBook Pro, then the iPad has cameras on the back.
Like that's something more.
The iPad is all touchscreen, right?
Whereas on the MacBook Pro, you don't have a touchscreen aspect on that.
And then again, back to your point, you got the stylus.
You're absolutely right.
To your point, when I'm reading a PDF file and I pull it up on my MacBook Pro and I start getting to a point where I'm going to highlight something or I'm going to write in the margins, I don't do that on my MacBook Pro.
I literally pick up my iPad right next to me and I pull up that same PDF that I've shared through Dropbox or whatever, and I work on it right in front of – on my iPad in front of my MacBook Pro because that is an easier thing for me to do because I use the stylus and I do my highlighting and writing notes in the margin.
I love living in this world where I've done for several years now with an iPhone, a MacBook Pro, and an iPad Pro because I can't have that continuity.
And I talk about that on a higher level than what I think Apple is saying.
But anyway, just wanted to point that out.
We'll obviously link to both the story from Frederico and the video from Marquez.
But they're both worth your time, I think, if you are as excited as Jeff and I are about iPadOS 26.
And even if you're not, it would be great just to, if you've got to watch one, do the Marques video, I feel, Jeff, because I just think he does such a great job of kind of comparing everything.
And to your point, showing, he answers a lot of my questions about how do we get to the file menu on an iPad?
Well, he answers that, right?
To where you can like swipe down once and get the file menu, swipe down again to get maybe that, you know, the notifications panel and everything.
Just a brilliant, all-around good video on that for sure.
Let's switch to a couple of other news items that you link to.
Many of you out there might be using Microsoft Teams for better or for worse.
I think a lot of people like it for better.
It's great.
I'm not poignant to say anything.
Many people use Zoom, but often when I work with anybody that is in a bigger organization, Jeff,
in fact, including your law firm probably, Microsoft Teams is the way to go.
And I am thrilled to see that Microsoft is continuing to play some updates.
They just released an update for Teams 7.13.0 that now supports multi-window chat support on here, which is good.
Yeah.
The Teams app for the iPad, it's really good.
And, you know, many big offices, mine included.
You know, most people think of Microsoft Teams as a video conferencing platform, an alternative to Zoom.
And it is that.
It certainly is that, of course.
It's very good at that.
But it has other things, too.
It has chat features and it has, you know, all sorts of advanced features.
And the iPad app is very useful.
Many times I just have my iPad with me and whether I'm with or even my iPhone, too, for
chat purposes.
But I like the fact that I can do a chat within Teams just on my iPad and I can do conferences
and stuff.
But what this article by Riley Hill points out is that they have an update to the app
that I haven't seen at work yet.
But what he's talking about is you can have the chats and channels in different windows.
I don't my firm doesn't currently use the channels feature, so I'm not seeing this.
But I like the idea that within the app there is it doesn't have to be everything on the
screen at one time.
You can apparently layer things and have different windows.
That is always a good idea, but it especially seems relevant as we're approaching this world of iPad OS 26, as we just discussed, where Windows is going to be a bigger deal.
So Teams is a useful app.
It's a big part of my law practice, and I'm glad that Microsoft is continuing to advance it.
We have a Where You At segment coming up.
But before we do that, Jeff, let's just take a couple of moments to talk about our sponsor today, Lit Software.
Let me bring up their webpage again here.
Lit Software is a company, as I said, that started, I think, around the middle to end of 2010, right after the iPad came out.
Because the developer, Ian O'Flattery and Tara Cheever, who co-founded Lit Software, knew that the iPad was going to be something pretty amazing.
And they did a lot of trial support or trial presentation support in their, I guess, former career, even though they continue to do that even today.
But they decided, hey, this iPad, there's something here.
There's something that we can do based on our experience.
And that's when they first came up with this app called Trial Pad, which obviously is for trial presentation.
They now have a whole suite that you can get the Trial Pad app, Transcript Pad, Doc Review Pad, Timeline Pad.
And there's a couple of other ones that call it like Exhibit Pad.
But we are thrilled to have them back as sponsors.
We've known them for a long time, and we are very big fans of their apps.
not just because we talk about them, but because we use them as well, even in our professional life.
So we're thrilled to have Lit Software back in sponsoring us and that you can find more information at litsoftware.com, Jeff.
Yeah. So one thing I want to talk about for Lit Software, we've talked in the past about the individual apps, and there are just so many good ones.
I mean, the new timeline pad came out earlier this year, which is really cool for creating timelines, which for litigators is just so important.
The ones that I use, you know, the one that I use the most is TranscriptPad, which I love.
You know, as a litigator, I am often taking depositions or maybe somebody else in my firm
is taking an associate that I'm working with is taking the depositions and I'm reviewing them.
And when you get those deposition transcripts, I mean, this is just, I was just talking about
things that work even better on your iPad than your computer.
This is one for me.
This is one.
I always review transcripts using Transcript Pad because it's just so easy to put codes on it.
Like I can, yes, you can highlight something, but it's more than highlighting it.
It's saying, I'm not just highlighting this because it's important.
I'm highlighting this because it is important for this issue in my lawsuit.
And that this one is important for a different issue in my lawsuit.
And so after you go through an entire transcript or multiple transcripts, then with just one tap,
I can create a report of I want everything that I said was important on the issue of, you know, whether the stoplight was red or green.
Just take a simple example.
And it's just right there.
And, you know, oftentimes as I'm putting together my motion for summary judgment in a case with just one tap, I can pull up all of the testimony that's relevant to it so that I can see it and I can draft my brief associated with it.
So that's transcript pad.
You know, trial pad, of course, is just the king.
I mean, when it comes to, you know, walking around a courtroom in front of the jury or just a judge tried case, if you have it, and you want to be able to, you know, have things on your iPad that you display on the screen for the trier of fact to look at.
And you want things to sort of come out and get bigger and highlight and annotate.
I mean, you can just you can look like a total pro by having trial pad.
It's just amazing.
So those are the individual apps.
We've talked about that in the past.
But I think the thing to talk about today about this LitSuite is, you know, when you purchase the LitSuite, you get all these apps just as part of a subscription.
That's right.
And you can buy it for yourself if you want.
I think it's $600, so like $50 a month for, you know, it's cheap in terms of legal software.
It's a very good deal.
But if you work for a larger organization like a larger law firm or a larger company that has a bunch of lawyers, you might want to have a bunch of your folks using this.
And LitSoftware totally will work with that.
It can be very frustrating to pass around just a single iPad to different team members just because that's the iPad that happens to have trial pad or transcript pad on it.
And, you know, you don't want to do that.
That's patchwork stuff.
So Let's Suite has something called an enterprise program where if you have 10 or more licenses site-wide, you can have it that, you know, the entire team, you know, partners, paralegals, associates can work seamlessly on the products because you all have access to the software.
And, you know, it could even be, you know, collaborating with co-counsel.
You can sync case materials.
So like you go through and you do the transcripts and then you have somebody else look at them.
And the nice thing about the enterprise program is, first of all, you save some money, you
know, depending upon the size of it, which is good.
But you have all these other advantages too.
You can, I mean, even just the way that you pay for it, you can pay for it like outside
of the app store through, you know, purchase agreements or the types of things that your
firm would typically use for purchasing software.
You can decide when it starts, when it stops.
There's even flexibility.
Like you can say, I'm going to have 20 licenses at my law firm, but it doesn't have to just
be the same 20 people.
Not just because like, what if like somebody new comes to your firm or something, but you
may say, you know, for this couple of months, here's the people that need this.
But, you know, after that, their trial's over and they're moving on to the next product.
And now I want to reallocate that license to a different set of people in my organizations.
And you have that flexibility that, you know, that you can be efficiency, you know, efficient
and stuff with the enterprise program.
So if you work for a larger organization, whether it's a law firm or in-house counsel or whatever it is, you will want to look into this because I think that it's really useful.
I'll just say a couple more things on there because, again, you mentioned most people will buy a LitSuite license, and you do that to associate it with your Apple ID, Jeff.
So if you were to go on your iPad and you went to the App Store and you purchased the LitSuite software, that's tied to your Apple ID.
So you can't freely give that to somebody.
You were mentioning passing an iPad around.
But I just want to tell folks, because I've worked with this sometimes with the Enterprise Program,
Lit Software has done a fantastic job of being able to let you assign these licenses.
If you purchase this as an enterprise, you can assign the licenses to different Apple IDs,
or in some cases, some law firms, Jeff, do have a firm iPad.
It's not assigned to anybody specifically.
Well, of course, the iPad has to have some kind of an Apple ID.
But if you have an enterprise version of this, then you can assign a special license to a specific firm iPad.
So it doesn't have to be assigned to a certain person.
And they can help you work on the back end to reassign that.
If somebody leaves, you can reassign that license to somebody else so that they're not just walking out the door with it that way.
So I just wanted to mention that because every time that I've answered questions about this, it's typically from the logistical aspect of like, well, how do we do that?
How do we assign the licenses?
Lit Software has figured that out.
They do an excellent job.
And also from the logistical side, this is compatible with MDM solutions, mobile device management solutions.
So most larger organizations will use, I think it's called Intune or some of these other mobile iron or whatever it was, that will manage these mobile devices.
And the enterprise version of the Lit Software licenses will work with that.
So don't let that be an impediment as well.
And then lastly, I would say they put in some complimentary training hours.
If you get an enterprise license, they throw in some additional training for free.
So they've got a great page here.
You can see I'm reading from with all some of these frequently asked questions about the enterprise program.
Definitely worth going and checking it out if this could be applicable to you.
Yeah, we'll finish up by just I'll say that if you if your company, if your firm has 10 or more team members, litigators, paralegals, associates, whatever.
That's right.
Who you think can use these tools.
The LitSweep Enterprise Program really is for you.
And so what you can do to get more information is send an email, reach out to hello at litsoftware.com, hello at litsoftware.com, and they will guide you through the process for this.
And here's a special bonus.
When you send that email, if you mention the In the News podcast, you know, that you heard us talking about it in your email, you will get an additional license for free.
So you want 20 licenses?
You get the 21st one for free.
So thank you to Lit Software for sponsoring the podcast today.
And thank you for all the fantastic tools that they've been providing for, gosh, 15 years now.
And thank you also for this special promotion for listeners.
Yeah, no kidding.
A free license.
I mean, that's huge.
So just send an email, hello at litsoftware.com.
Tell them that Brett or Jeff sent you or just mention in the news a free extra license.
Okay, that's – I feel like I need to – I feel like I'm going to email them and say, hey, I heard it on it in the news.
Can I get an extra license too?
Great stuff there.
Let us know.
If you have any other questions, you can tell both Jeff and I are pretty big fans, and we're happy to answer any questions that you might have on there as well.
Where you at segment.
Let's do a where you at segment.
I love this because if you've ever had a need to track your kids, sometimes you put an AirTag maybe in their backpack, but the backpack can be left somewhere, right?
Well, typically they're not going to leave their shoes somewhere.
Hopefully not.
But thank you to Skechers.
Find my Skechers.
And it's not just like throwing an AirTag like in the shoe, right, and just hope it doesn't fall out.
No, they've got like a secure compartment in the bottom of these brand new Skechers.
Thanks for reporting on this, Jeff.
It's very important.
Yeah.
The idea of putting an AirTag on your child is not new.
And, in fact, even putting it on the shoes is not new.
You can buy these things.
I think they're on Amazon that like you lace it in with the shoelaces and it holds the AirTag.
But this is really nice because it is part of the shoe.
First of all, it's hidden.
So somebody else can't see it.
And it puts it very securely inside of the shoe.
And I pointed out that, you know, way back in the day of the iPods, gosh, 20 years ago,
they used to have the Nike plus iPod activity tracker, which was this little bitty fob type
thing.
And it was the same thing.
You bought a special Nike shoe.
I bought one.
I bought multiple ones.
And you lift up, you know, the insole thing and you put in the tracker and you put it back
down.
You totally could not feel it when you, even if you're running and stuff, I could not feel
and it put that tracker in your, and so that same idea, you can now put the air tag in there.
Now you can talk about whether you're tracking your kids is appropriate, is inappropriate. Is it,
is it, you know, is it, is it the best thing since sliced bread or is it creepy? You know,
I certainly have no trouble with tracking my younger child, you know, to find out where they
are on their phone. Right. I will share a story here. This was in the, in the long,
the old technology days. I don't know if I've told the story in the past back in 1984,
the World's Fair came to New Orleans. It was a huge deal. It was totally fun. I mean,
this was a major thing. It also didn't make a lot of money, but I remember that during the World's
Fair, I was there with my mom and my siblings and my little brother who you've met before,
Brett, but back in 1984, he was like, I don't know, three years old. And he was with us. And
there was a whole bunch of people at the, you know, the world's imagine like Disney world.
It was that sort of thing. Tons of people, tons of places, and suddenly he got interested in
something and he ran off towards it and suddenly like we couldn't see him and my whole family for
like 10 seconds was like oh my gosh where is he and then sure enough as we're looking around because
he's you know he's three years old where could he be we see some guy walking by with a child on his
shoulders and my my little brother was there this person was smart enough to say if i put him on my
shoulders maybe others can find him and we did find him so that was back in the mid 1980s when
technology was, you know, Byzantine. But nowadays, if you're, you know, little brother or your child,
if you have these sneakers on them and they do run off because they're, you know,
interested little kids and they want to go see something and you don't know where they are,
you know, goodness, hope that doesn't happen. But if it does, you could find them with this.
Or if they're just at school and you just want to know, you know, after school, where are they?
You know, so you decide whether that's creepy or whether that's appropriate. I know a lot of people
that say that I gave, you know, my kid is too young for an iPhone, but I'm letting them have
an Apple watch with most of the features turned off specifically so that I can track them and
specifically so that they can call me or text me. So, you know, if you're in that lifestyle,
and again, I think it's totally appropriate. I could totally see these shoes making sense for
you. So it's interesting to Skechers that they came out with this type of shoe. I'm almost
surprised it hasn't happened before now. Or if your kid just loses their shoes a lot,
this would be good. Also good. You can find your shoes. I don't know if you can see. I mean,
I had this video playing. They, it's not like they just kind of, you know, you slip it in the side,
like, no, there's like an actual hidden compartment underneath the little insole that you put into the
shoe and you click it in there. And I don't know if it's like locked or something. They say it's a
secure compartment. I don't know if you need that much of a lock and key for your air tag in the
shoes, but I just thought that was great. Thanks for reporting on such an important component.
on there. Staying with the where you at segment
just real quick, great little story
you linked to from Marcus Mendez
at 9to5Mac.
30 airlines now
allow you to share
AirTag luggage tracking
with them. We talked about this several
weeks ago when it first came out. There was like one or two
I think United and maybe Delta or somebody.
But now there are 30 airlines
to where we know
that the AirTag is great for tracking luggage.
I've even personally used it.
I think you have too if I'm not mistaken.
Oh, yes. But the fact that you can just track it yourself. But what if you could share this with the airline? Because even in my experience, I remember I went and showed the gate agent my iPhone to say, look, there it is. But now I can share it with the airline so that we're both tracking it, which I think is really cool.
I try not to check bags when I travel as much as possible.
You know, sometimes you just can't help it.
You know, it's a big vacation thing and you're not gonna be able to carry everything.
And, you know, I always get sort of nervous.
Are they going to lose my luggage?
Where is it?
So I love being able to track my luggage.
You know, every one of my suitcases has a little thing on them to hold an air tag.
And I really like that so many airlines are now letting you work with them so that, you
know, hey, you guys need to go get it because it's, you know, it's on the tarmac or it's
at the wrong gate or it's in a different place.
I can't go there.
You can.
but now I can share with you this information so you can find it. And, you know, for those of us
here in the U S it's now working on American airlines, Delta and United, which is great.
You know, most of my personal travel happens to be on Delta, but it might, my number two airline
for me personally is probably Southwest and Southwest is not an airline that currently
supports the program. So, you know, hopefully they'll get on the program as well, but they
now have 30 of them. So the number is getting, and these are worldwide, you know, all around the,
all around the world.
So I'm glad that more and more airlines are getting on board for this.
I think it's,
I think every airline should offer this service.
Yeah.
There's a lot of great UK,
you know,
Europe based out here,
but in the U S in addition to the big three jet blue is also on there now.
And breeze airlines,
which flies out of the Akron.
Oh,
I didn't actually see jet blue.
I put them on a map in my post-op and they did not have it.
Oh,
good.
I'm glad that I'm wrong about that.
So jet blue does have it,
but I am right though.
The Southwest still does not.
Yeah.
I do not see Southwest.
Ouch.
That's like a big oversight, I feel like, on there.
Yeah.
But, okay, good reporting on that.
In the show, we talked last week about a nice little video from none other than the big Apple leaguer Tim Cook himself,
who put a picture of Ted Lasso and the gang from Ted Lasso sitting at a Kansas City barbecue joint.
Well, now we kind of know why.
A week later, we don't just have a fun feeling to look forward to one additional season of Ted Lasso.
Apparently, there's like three more seasons coming out, which I can't wait.
Sometimes you have a beloved TV show that's over, and it will come back, and it will have like its Christmas show.
Or like you'll get one more opportunity to be with people.
And that's always fun.
Exactly.
A little special.
But this is – and so I thought that when they said another season of Ted Lasso, I thought it might be the same.
But I love the fact that, no, according to Deadline, which is obviously one of the more industry trade publications, the key actors have been signed to a three-year contract, which is also consistent with – I remember when Jason Sudeikis was talking about first conceiving of Ted Lasso, the original show, he said that he had a three-season arc in mind.
And of course, now that we've all watched it, you know, we know what that season arc was of, you know, going from the, what is it, relegated, I forget all the terms there, but, you know, you know, they went from one lead to another.
And then, of course, they eventually went at the end, which is as you would expect.
And so it's, you know, an open secret that the thing that's going to be for the next version of Ted Lasso is it's going to be a woman's soccer team, which will be a little different.
And what you're showing on your screen right now is apparently we know some of the actors that have been signed up.
Now, don't get me wrong.
Apparently, some of the soccer players that you know and love from the original Ted Lasso series, this article says that they're going to come back and do cameos from time to time.
Like Brett Goldstein.
We've got to have Brett Goldstein.
Well, Brett is, of course, going to be a key part of it because he's one of the writers and stuff.
But like Jamie Tartt or the – what was the guy that did football?
All of those characters will come back from time to time.
Oh, yeah.
He's from like Argentina or Chile or something, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So they're going to come back.
So, but no, this is great.
So with a three story arc, and I'm sure that Apple has not announced this, but I'm sure
that they have committed to all three seasons.
You know, it means we're going to get a robust story.
It's going to have a full season beginning, the full season middle, and then the full season
end.
I'm excited.
Hopefully the magic will still work in that the next three seasons will be just as delightful
and funny and charming as the first three seasons.
So this makes me excited.
Jeff and I talk a lot about Apple TV Plus.
If you have not subscribed yet, there's, you know, several options.
Anytime you buy a new Apple device, I think you get three months for free.
You can try it out.
But every once in a while, in addition to the subscription,
Apple will run, it's like deals on certain rentals or promotions
to purchase, you know, different movies.
And it looks like they got a few going on right now.
You can get the Hangover Trilogy for $9.99.
That's pretty good because they're usually a little bit more expensive than that.
Looks like there's a few other deals that are available right now too.
Yeah.
So every day it's a different deal.
And so there was three that have happened so far.
They had the Hangover Trilogy.
Then they had the Men in Black Trilogy.
Yesterday it was all the Harry Potter's movies for 40 bucks.
Whoa.
And I'm looking on my iPhone right now.
So I just went to my iPhone and I opened up the TV app.
And if you tap on the store button and I see that today's deal for Friday is the summer deal of the day is, oh, this is too funny.
It's the vacation.
It's the National Lampoon vacation series.
So National Lampoon's vacation, European vacation, Christmas vacation, Vegas vacation.
All the vacations.
Exactly.
So if you're a fan of the vacation series, you can get all of them for whatever the price is.
And so anyway, I typically don't buy movies.
But I know that some people do.
And they say that's nice.
So this is pretty good.
You get, what is it, five movies for $10?
So that's pretty good.
Oh, I see.
Because I'm like, what is this last one?
The last one is there's a movie.
I totally forgot about this.
There's a movie called Vacation, which it came out more recently.
So instead it came out in 2015.
So instead of starring Chevy Chase, it stars.
Oh, what is this actor's name?
He was in the office.
Ed Helms is that yet?
Ed Helms.
Apparently Ed Helms plays the father.
Yeah, I do remember that this came out.
So if you want, you know, the four, quote unquote, original Chevy Chase movies and the
other one, you know, 10 bucks for five movies, two bucks a piece.
You own them.
You can watch them forever.
You know, not a bad idea.
And I just quickly say Apple does a very good job like any of the movies that I've purchased over the years, which isn't a whole lot of them.
But I can still find them, even the ones that I purchased years ago.
Like they do a very good job of keeping that organized to where, you know, you can get access to them and go back to them if you ever wanted to, which is.
Back before the iPhone, when I used an iPod in like 2005, I remember purchasing through Apple.
Remember that series Lost, which was such a big series.
And I remember purchasing Lost so that I could watch it.
This sounds silly now.
on my tiny little iPod screen, I would sort of curl up on my couch and I would watch it.
But those Lost episodes, that season of season one that I purchased in 2000,
I think it was around 2005, 2006, I still, I still quote unquote own them.
And if I wanted to watch them on my big Vision Pro, my license is still there.
I could still go back and watch it.
In fact, I probably should.
That first episode of Lost was really good.
One of these days I should go back and watch it again.
So anyway.
Couple of deals right before we get into our tips for the day.
you mentioned that Amazon has a really good deal right now on the 2025 MacBook Air 13-inch laptop
with an M4. What is the price? $799, $799. That's incredible. That's like 20% off.
Yeah. So, I mean, this is like a $1,000 computer and don't get me wrong. This is a heck of a
computer. I mean, this MacBook Air, this is the new 2025 edition. It's got the M4 processor,
which means not only is it super fast today, but like if you're buying something for a college
freshman or a high school freshman, wouldn't it be nice to have something that's going to remain
a solid computer for the next four years? This is it. And you can debate whether the MacBook Pro
or the MacBook Air is better. The processor is the same in both. The MacBook Pro just gets you
some extra hardware features like a nicer screen and some more input in and out and stuff like that.
But I think that for most people, the MacBook Air is the sweet spot.
And that's been true for years.
People love the MacBook Air.
And so you can get, you know, even this entry version of the MacBook Air is really all that
a lot of people need.
It's got 16 gigs of memory.
You might want to add more.
But if you get the basic one, it's a fantastic computer.
And to get it for $800, $799, that's a pretty good deal.
And the other one that's on there too on Amazon is you can get the watch that you own, which
is what the Apple Watch.
Actually, you have the regular Ultra.
This is the Ultra 2.
Now, keep in mind, there is a rumor.
There is a rumor that Apple might come out with an Apple Watch Ultra 3.
So keep that in mind that in the next month or two, we might have an update.
So maybe that's why they have a discount.
But, you know, I suspect the difference, you know, we'll see how big of a difference there
is between the 2 and the 3.
This Apple Watch Ultra 2 might be perfectly fine for you.
And instead of spending $800, you can get it for $650, $649, technically.
So that's a good deal.
So that's one good set of deals.
But you told me just this morning, you found another interesting set of deals, right?
Well, so just quickly, I'm going to say, going back to that MacBook Air, it looks like all four colors are actually on sale, which I don't normally see.
Sometimes, you know, it's just the black is on sale.
Oh, I agree.
Right, right, right.
But all of them are on sale.
And that bottom entry level, just like you were saying, Jeff, is 16 gigs of RAM.
And the hard drive, though, the SSD is 256.
But if you did want to upgrade that just a little bit, this is still an amazing deal.
You have 16 gigs of RAM.
If you wanted up to 512 gigs for your SSD, it only goes up $200, which is typical for Apple.
So that's $999 if you wanted to get that 512 gigabyte.
That's still an amazing deal either way that you go.
And again, it looks like all of those colors are on sale.
But the other thing that I did bring up is I know that every year,
Apple typically has some kind of a back-to-school promotion, right?
Right, right.
They will typically at any time, if you go in through the educational store, we've talked about this before, or you go into a physical store and say you're buying it for education purposes, kids in college or kids in school, whatever, you usually get, I think it's only a 10% discount, right?
I think that's kind of the standard across the board that Apple will give you a 10% discount on this.
But typically, leading up into August, they'll also have a promotion.
They don't publicize this a whole lot.
But in the past, it has been sometimes you can get like a gift card back.
Like if you buy a MacBook Pro, you can get $150 back as a gift card,
and then you can turn around and use that on something else.
In other times, they have offered like you buy a MacBook and will throw in a pair of AirPods.
Not the Pro typically, but a pair of AirPods or something like that.
In the past, I think as you buy an iPad, you get a stylus.
So they've kind of done a little bit of this on this as well.
They have kicked this back-to-school sale off.
You can go and look at it.
Now, you can't use this in conjunction with the Amazon price,
but if you go through the special Apple educational portal
or you go into an Apple physical store,
you can say, I want to buy one for my kid in school.
You get a discount, but you can also get up to $129 with iPads
or $199 with Macs to purchase other accessories.
There's only a few things that you can purchase.
I think some of it is like a keyboard or AirPods Pro or a Magic Trackpad or something like that.
But it's worth going.
I'll put this link from PCMag in there.
This is going on right now.
Again, you have to go through Apple in order to get this.
But it sometimes can be a very good way to get not just an iPad or a MacBook Pro or a MacBook Air,
but then you can get an accessory for that with a little bit off on as well.
Yeah, good deals.
Like that.
In the know, one of your links today, Jeff, I thought was really interesting.
This is at Six Colors, but not from Jason or Dan.
This is Glenn Fleischman, who some of you may know that name.
He's been around for a long, long time.
Glenn has always been excellent.
And, of course, have known both Dan and Jason Snell for a long time.
And I just have been really enjoying his articles on SixColors.com.
One you linked to today, don't overpay for cellular data while traveling.
Now, I know both you and I have stories in the past of swapping SIM cards is one of the ways that people will do this.
So, for example, if you're traveling over to Europe or South America or somewhere else where your typical cellular plan isn't covered,
one of the ways you could do this is when you got into Europe, you could literally take out the physical SIM card of your phone and replace it with like a local SIM card.
Or one of the things that you discussed in here as well, when you went to Italy a year, a couple of years ago or so, Jeff, you just paid AT&T extra.
I forget.
It was like $10 a day or something like that.
I think I paid $10 a day.
Apparently, it's not $12 a day.
My memory is I paid $10 a day at the time, but yeah.
And that gave you the ability to continue to use your phone even though you're in Italy and not typically where AT&T.
And some people will just do that because it is very easy.
You just have to pay a little bit extra, but you don't have to swap anything.
You don't have to do anything.
Well, one of the things when I took my family to Europe over the holidays is I got a little deep into eSIMs.
So this is where basically you don't have a physical SIM card.
And most iPhones today, I think after the iPhone X or something like that, or maybe the XS is what Glenn says here, that it actually doesn't have a physical SIM card in there.
Or if it does, it's like it can be overwritten or something like that.
Anyway, gone are those days where you need to actually swap out a physical SIM card, unless you're Jason Bourne or something, right, that you're doing something else like that.
But today, what you can do is you can just basically download an app.
So one of the things that I did when we went to Europe is I researched all of these, and Glenn at the very bottom here has some excellent comparisons.
He talks about the different systems that you can get into here, right?
Yeah.
Airolo, A-I-R-A-L-O.
That's one that a lot of people know.
Holafly, H-O-L-A-F-L-Y.
But one of the ones that I decided on was, I call it Sally, but it's S-A-I-L-Y, Sally.
And one of the reasons is because before we traveled, I knew that I needed, I wanted to do two things for me and the family.
One, I wanted a VPN because we went overseas.
We were at a hotel using the Wi-Fi there.
I wanted a good VPN.
Well, there's many of them out there.
One of the more popular ones is NordVPN, N-O-R-D VPN.
Well, I went ahead and got like a family plan of NordVPN.
Well, NordVPN has several other options and services that they offer, including they own this Sally option.
And I compared them all, and there's some that are better, and there's a bunch of YouTube videos out there if you want to go down the rabbit hole like I did.
But Sally just seemed like it was the easiest thing for me to do.
And it was as easy as this, Jeff.
I downloaded the Sally app.
I didn't really get any much of a discount or anything because I had NordVPN.
It was just kind of easy.
It's a separate app than the NordVPN app.
But I downloaded the Sally app.
You go in and you can just say, I want to purchase, you know, 10 gigabytes for 30 days.
Or there's multiple ways you can do it.
You can pay $50 for unlimited, whatever.
But in the case when we got overseas, I literally went into my cellular.
In fact, I think I've got a little image here that I can just show you.
I went into our phones and I turned off my AT&T cellular plan.
So you can go into your cellular in your settings and you can say, I want to turn off AT&T.
And then at that point, I knew that I wouldn't be able to get phone calls on my AT&T number.
Because if I did, it would be extraneous.
It would be crazy costs because they would be calling a U.S. number while I was overseas.
But then I turned on the eSIM.
So you can see you actually will list your eSIMs in your cellular settings app.
And you can turn them off and on.
So when we were overseas, I only turned on the Sally eSIM, turned off my AT&T.
Now, some of you may be asking, well, wait a minute, how did you make phone calls?
Well, first of all, we didn't make any phone calls.
We didn't do any phone calls while we were there.
If I needed to communicate with somebody, I would have typically just texted because the eSIM that we purchased was data only.
So you need to know that before you get into any of this eSIM, and Glenn, I think, goes into some of the details on this too, Jeff,
that you can get eSIMs that are both voice and data,
but I just knew we did not need any voice.
I wasn't planning on making phone calls.
I didn't need to.
There were other ways that I could get access to it if I needed to,
although I will tell you, at one point I did use the Skype app
while we were there to make a phone call to the United States
because the Skype app will work over data Wi-Fi and I didn't get charged.
Or FaceTime, too.
You could have done a FaceTime audio call.
FaceTime, exactly.
So exactly, Jeff.
So that's the way that we were thinking on this.
And this Sally E. Sim worked fantastic.
We'll link to Glenn Fleischman's article here because he goes into a lot more great detail.
Today, in today's world, if you plan on traveling anywhere outside the United States, more so than just Canada or Mexico, because most of our U.S.-based cellular plans will work both in Canada and Mexico, although you do need to check your plan.
But if you're planning to travel anywhere else internationally, definitely look at an eSAM because I got to tell you, once you get familiar with it, watch a couple of YouTube videos, it is the best way to use and get access to data when you are traveling.
And the service that you used, you said you were mispronouncing it as Sally, but I see on their website, it's the word sail, like you're sailing on a sailboat.
Oh, sailing.
It's sailing, S-A-I, and they even have like a little like waves under it.
I see it now.
Okay, Sally.
I still like Sally.
But I got to tell you, I mean, it was just so much easier than I thought because I was a little intimidated by this.
It was like eSIM.
I don't even understand the difference between SIMs.
But it was great.
Like we were able to go, and I think we got the entire region, Europe region, because we were traveling to UK and France and Germany.
So I didn't want to just sit on one specific country, although you can do that if you wanted to.
And it's just so easy that now in at least the current iPhones that you can switch between any of those eSams.
Now, I'm sure a lot of Android people have been doing this for a long time.
This will work for Android as well.
But for the iPhone users, it was just really, really easy.
And most of these other systems are pretty much the same.
It's just I just happen to sit on Sally, but Aralo or Holofly, any of those others.
And I think there's like GigaSky or GigSky, I think, is another one, too, that I don't even see Glenn mentioned here.
but there's several of them out there.
And I would just say stick with at least this list here with Glenn,
because there are some shady ones out there that you just don't want to,
you know, go.
But if you go with some of these that are trusted,
it's a great way to get data and access data while you're over there.
And also it tells you like how much you're using on a daily basis.
So that if you're getting, you know,
to your cap or you're starting to run out,
you could just reload it and get some more at the same time.
Good tip.
My tip has to do with something that happened this week.
So I was driving to work and, you know,
listening to a podcast as I do. And I parked my car and I look at my phone real quick. And I happen
to see at the top of my phone, I'm like, what is this bizarre dot? Yeah, I sent you a picture.
Oh, here. I got a picture.
At the very top of my screen. So there you go. It's 9.02 in the morning. And I saw this green
dot. I'm like, what is that? Why is there a green dot on my phone? And I just couldn't remember.
So I went and I found what I gave you a link to is, you know, there's an Apple page called
about the orange and green indicators.
And of course, now I know what I know it from.
Anytime you turn on the camera on your phone,
Apple gives you, your iPhone gives you an indication
that your camera is on,
which is a good sort of security,
you know, privacy type thing.
And it is a green dot.
And as this page describes,
there's two dots, two color dots
that show up at the top of your screen.
If the microphone is being used on your iPhone,
an orange dot shows up.
Okay.
So if the camera is being used, a green dot shows up.
And if both are being used, both the camera and the microphone, it also is a green dot.
So camera means, you know, you know, the green means camera and orange means only the microphone.
So now I know what the dot is.
And now, of course, I remember that every time I go to take a picture, I see the green dot.
I still have the question, though, on my phone, like I was listening to a podcast.
I was using the overcast up.
I was not I wasn't doing a video call.
I wasn't doing anything else.
um and um and you know normally when you're using your camera the dot shows up sort of in if you if
you have the um uh the what's the dynamic island on your iphone dynamic dot shows right in the
dynamic island um for me show here yeah the thing that was in my dynamic island was the was my
location services and that makes i'm sure something i was using was using location services of seeing
me get to work um to this day it's been like a couple days now brett i don't know when i was
driving to work. Like I certainly was not using the camera in my car, of course, that would be
illegal. So I would never do that officer, but I don't even have the reason to do it. Well,
I'm not taking pictures while I'm driving and I'm doing video calls while I'm driving.
I, I don't, I mean, and I, and I wasn't doing it that morning as I was getting ready.
Why was that green indicator there? It's really bizarre. I even did a test that I started up my,
my iPhone and I go into my camera mode here. I'm doing it right now while we're talking.
So I've turned on my camera and my green dot is there. And now I'm going to close the camera app,
One Mississippi, it was like literally one Mississippi later, the green dot was there for a second and then it went away.
So why was it still persistent?
Maybe it was a bug.
Maybe I was being surveilled.
Were you watching me, Brett?
What were you doing?
Tell me now.
Why were you watching me?
But that green dot that you just saw right now, that was inside the dynamic island, right?
Well, it was.
But when you close, if you open up your camera app, you'll see it in the island.
And if you close your camera app for about a half second, you'll see that green dot move off to the side.
just like in the picture you're showing right here.
And then it disappears completely.
So maybe it was just stuck there.
This is what I was thinking is,
I had been taking some pictures like the night before.
Maybe it got stuck in that mode.
I don't know what it is.
So either it was a fluke or Big Brother was watching me.
I don't know.
But at least I know that something was happening.
So that's what the green indicator is.
So if something bizarre happens to me,
if you also are being surveilled,
or if someone's listening to you,
it's good to know that the orange dot or the green dot
you at least a clue that it's going on now further than that you need to investigate yourself so
wait so you don't have a resolution to this i don't i know why the green dot was there
listeners oh my goodness let me know i wish i could find out and of course now i've long since
you know closed up all the apps and everything else so i don't know how to go back and recreate it but
um it was uh it was curious this is a helpful uh little support article though that orange dot and
the green dot because i i people will i've gotten that question several times jeff it's like what
is that thought for what does that mean and i do remember the orange is the microphone is turned on
or the green is like the camera is turned on and sure enough you know if they go into snapchat or
something like that right then that will show like that's what it's or if you're in a zoom call i know
i see that come up quite a bit on my phone uh i'll see that come up but it wow now i want to know
I thought you had the answer to this, Jeff.
Okay, well, somebody will know, hopefully, and they will write in and help you figure out the mystery there.
Solve the mystery for us, please, folks.
Appreciate it.
I want to say thanks again to Lit Software for being a sponsor this week.
Go ahead and send them a quick email at hello at litsoftware.com.
Let them know that you heard about it in the In the News podcast.
You could get a free license.
Now, that's enterprise, right?
You can't just get a free license right off the bat.
I don't want to put anything in there.
But if you inquire about the enterprise and you go through with some of that, go ahead and ask them.
And we thank Glit Software for being a sponsor today.
And thank you, Jeff, as always, for being here.
And I look forward to talking with you next week.
Thanks, Brett.
Bye-bye, everybody.