Welcome to In The News for January 23rd, 2026.

A lot of 20s in there.

I am Brett Burney from AppsinLaw.com.

And this is Jeff Richardson from iPhoneJD.

Hi, Brett.

Hi, Jeff.

Is it snowing down there in New Orleans yet?

Maybe.

The world is going crazy.

It's like snowmageddon all over again.

I loved how you started off your first, your post here,

that it was one year ago this week.

In fact, you sent me the screenshot here

from the Times Picayune

that I remember we talked about this

because we recorded, I think,

maybe a day or two after all this happened.

It was nuts down there,

but no snow yet in New Orleans.

No, no.

I mean, I'm wearing short sleeves right now,

so not quite snow.

And we'll probably get to 29.

But I tell you what,

it was funny to walk down memory lane.

And, you know, kudos to the iPhone

because, I mean, I guess I could have used anything, but when I walked around taking pictures with my

iPhone, taking videos with my iPhone of us and our kids, I even did like the spatial video feature

so that if I put on my Apple Vision Pro, I can like, you know, feel like I'm in 3D sort of walking

around in my backyard with all the snow. Because again, I will probably never, I mean, I will say

probably almost necessarily never see that in my lifetime because the last time I did it in New

Orleans was in the 1890s. And I don't know, you know, if I'll be around at 110 years, who knows,

maybe technology will allow my head to exist in a, in a jar or something like that. But anyway,

absent that happening, this is probably the one and only time I will see this.

So, but it was fun. It was interesting. I got one of your pictures is my background here.

There you go. That's beautiful. Spanish moss with snow. That is St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans,

where the streetcars go down. There were no streetcars that day, but it was a nice memory,

But it was interesting that it was one – I mean, I guess it makes sense.

This is the time every year when we have some bad weather, and it was interesting to think back to a year ago in New Orleans with that article that was in the New York Times, which I thought was sort of interesting.

Yeah, indeed.

This is an article – it's funny.

I'm so glad that you linked to this New York Times article because we're dealing with this, right?

Anytime somebody sees a crazy forecast like the snow, it's like it's snowmageddon.

This is going to be nuts.

What are you going to do?

Everybody stay home.

Now, I'm not making fun of that.

I mean, my mother is in Texas right now, and they're under a freeze warning, and you should absolutely listen to, I think, a lot of the officials.

But looking at this article, it was like, where are they getting the information?

Because I've asked this question many times.

My weather app may say we've got snow for, you know, the next two days and it's going to be freezing temperatures.

And then tomorrow comes and there may not be anything or maybe it rained instead of snowed.

And it's like, how is it that we know so much, but yet we know so little when it comes to the weather?

Yeah. All of this first came to my attention earlier this week because I noticed a report from the coach from my daughter's high school basketball team that they we were supposed to have a game tonight.

And they canceled it because the team they were playing in northern Louisiana was worried about the road conditions.

I'm like, road conditions?

And so then I did what the article is talking about.

I looked at my iPhone because I mostly used the Carrot Weather app.

And sure enough, I saw that this bad weather was predicted to come.

And it did remind me that sometimes this is completely right and sometimes it's just way off.

It's many degrees warmer or colder.

And so with the author, what's his name?

Judson Jones, who said he is both a reporter and a meteorologist for The New York Times.

So I guess that's interesting.

But he points out that all of these iPhone apps, whether it's Apple's weather app or another app, they will pick a particular model that they use.

For example, Apple, you know, for weather, they purchased the app that used to be called, oh, but what's the app we used to all use for weather on the iPhone?

I'm blanking out.

Dark, dark sky, right?

Dark sky, yes.

Dark sky.

Dark sky.

I was going to say dark weather, but dark sky.

Yeah.

And it uses that model.

But as he's pointing out is, you know, these models, by definition, they have like a certain bias.

And that's the whole point.

They try to be the best bias.

But different models will predict different things.

And, you know, sometimes we'll hear about things like, you know, the European model says this.

The American model says this.

I know here in New Orleans, whenever it's hurricane season, we will often see our local meteorologist will have like a map of the Gulf South.

And they will have all of these different colored lines on it, the spaghetti lines that all are predicting where the hurricane is going to go.

And the point is that every model is going to predict something different.

Some models are more right elsewhere.

But his point in this article is that your app is going to basically pick one model and go with it.

And it might be 100% accurate.

But a good forecaster for like someone who knows the local weather and has been around and doing this for a long time, they will tend to look at all the models.

They will sort of, you know, not necessarily average it because they may say based on my personal prediction, which hopefully is right based on their experience.

I think for this type of condition, it's actually more likely that these models are right than that model.

And so it was an interesting explanation that that makes sense.

And of course, it's evidenced by the fact that in some of these apps, Carrot Weather is a perfect example.

You can actually choose from, I forget how many, 10 different models in the Carrot Weather app.

So like I currently think that I use the Dark Sky Apple one, but there are others that I could pick from.

And it's like if you don't like one answer, you know, look at a different model and see if you like that answer.

But it's a good reminder because since the apps can be so precise, I mean, they say the temperature is going to be 29 degrees with a, you know, 20% chance of snow, whatever it is.

You know, it's easy for our brains to look at that and say, oh, it'll be 29.

And sometimes you forget, well, you know, yes, it might be 29.

It might be 26.

It might be 32, which, of course, makes a difference if it's above or below freezing.

I'm told as if I know anything about freezing weather living in New Orleans.

But, you know, that can be significant. And it's just based on the model. So it's a good reminder of, you know, take what they give you with, you know, there's something to it. It's more than just a grain of salt. But, you know, whether you want to salt your roads, you might want to look at a couple different models or look at the newscaster or somebody that you trust that has a little bit more experience to it.

So it's just something I don't think about very often.

And this weekend with all the, like you said, some of the, some of the really crazy weather

productions and some of them that are more tame, it's, it's good to remember where this

is all coming from.

You know, out of those two options, I think I would lean towards, okay, if I know this

and I know there's different models, then I'm going to get two or three different apps

and compare them.

I think even in Karen, you can like go in and it's not, it's not the model that it's

based on, but it's like where you can determine where you want the source to be from, right?

Which is the same thing. Yeah. Okay. So it's like, I feel like in my brain, I would say,

I want to check multiple places and then compare them myself. But to your point, I'm an amateur,

I have no idea about weather. But the conclusion of this article is that you should find,

you know, your second option that you gave, Jeff, you should find a local meteorologist or source

that you feel is right most of the time and provides quality information and

then just stick with them rather than constantly switching between outlets.

I guess, you know,

it depends on sort of your personality or whatever,

maybe which way that you would go there. But, you know,

I think reading through this just made me feel a little bit better just

because it's like, don't, don't, don't take it at face value. In fact,

he starts off this story, which is great. You know,

that crazy snow was, was anticipated for New York. And,

And he even says today in places like Instagram and TikTok, he goes, it's those crazy images that get the most attention, right?

It's like it's signaling that it's going to be the most extreme conditions.

And that's what everybody reposts and just kind of whips everybody up into a little bit of a fury there unnecessarily.

But that's the reality of it.

Let me give you an example here.

So I'm looking at carrot weather.

We're going to get our coldest weather on Monday morning in New Orleans.

And when I look at the different sources, the one that I had been using as my default was the Apple weather one.

And it says we're going to get down to 29 degrees.

But if I switch it to another one called the open weather, it says it's going to be 35.

I'm like, wow, that's a pretty big difference.

If I go to Forica, F-O-R-E-C-A, it says it's going to get down to 28.

And if I really want to go down, if I go to N-O, I'm sorry, AccuWeather, and that's certainly one I've heard before, AccuWeather.

AccuWeather says 27.

There's a big difference between 27 degrees and 30.

What was the other one?

35 degrees.

That is a huge, you know, that's a, you know, do you need to bring your plants in or are

they going to the outside?

Are they going to all die?

You know, so that's a huge difference.

And part of this is because we're talking about something that's a few, a couple of days

away.

And so they're going to have different predictions and, you know, a little degree of a difference

from day to day.

But, but yeah, I mean, if you don't think about this, if you just have one model in your,

whatever your weather app of choices and you never think about changing it and you just

on that, you know, different people with different iPhones, one person thinking it's going to be 27,

one person thinking it's going to be 35. They're going to make different, completely different

planning activities. So, you know, right. Uh, just interesting. I appreciate you sharing that. And

can I, can I just say from a public service, uh, directive, uh, don't take any chances out there,

please folks. I mean, you know, with all of this and the disparity, and if you're, if you're going

back and forth, just don't ignore that information and please be careful. Maybe listen to some of the

law enforcement you know unfortunately sometimes they come out with hey we should stay at home and

you know hunker down and then nothing happens and so that you know i'm sometimes the public i think

chicken little yeah trust but it's like please just don't take any chances i mean wasn't it was

it in this article or somebody was telling me like in 2021 i remember especially in texas for example

that the weather was just nuts i mean there was a couple hundred people i think had passed away

just due to that weather.

It just compounds everything

with not just the dangerous road conditions, for example,

but then power outages and all kinds of stuff like that.

Just be conservative, please, folks.

I just want to make sure.

We're not telling you to ignore what the weather apps say.

Just do it from an educated perspective, please.

And maybe when you're in Walmart

to get those extra toilet paper or something,

to prepare for that,

know that they'll take your payment

And as long as it's not in Apple Pay, I thought this was a great story because you and I have talked about using Apple Pay or even really just the Apple Wallet at multiple locations.

And at the very end of the story, it's something that I've brought up several times.

I would get upset when I would go to HEB when I was in Texas.

I would go to visit an HEB grocery store and they didn't take Apple Pay or my Apple Wallet.

I almost like to say Apple Wallet because I don't want to think of I'm using Apple Pay to pay with my Apple credit card, but the Apple Wallet allows me to pay with any credit card.

I mean, I know that that's Apple Pay, but it's just a little confusing to me.

The other story that he mentions at the bottom here is Home Depot.

That was another place that I was frustrated.

Now, I haven't been as frustrated at Walmart not taking Apple Pay because I use the Walmart Plus subscription.

And he talks about this Chance Miller and nine to five Mac talks about the fact that you can have credit cards in the Walmart app and pay for it that way.

What was interesting to me about this article from Chance, well, there's a number of interesting things.

Like you mentioned the stores that did not previously do it, like Home Depot and HB Kroger.

And so there's another one that he mentioned.

But a lot of people got, you know, their instinctive responses.

Oh, Walmart isn't doing it because they don't want to pay Apple.

You know, of course, people just naturally think that.

And as he points out, no, that's actually not how it works.

It wouldn't cost them anything.

In fact, it probably cost stores like Walmart that don't support it.

They probably need to disable something that would otherwise be enabled by default by these terminals that they purchase from third companies.

And so why would they go through the trouble of turning off something that is just built in?

And he provides the answer.

It's because they want to provide – they want to get the data on you to build a profile of your spending habits and make decisions on that.

And again, as I tried to allude to in my post, I don't know if I did it eloquently or not,

that at one level sounds nefarious, you know, ooh, they're learning about me.

You know, the example from about a year ago of Target being able to predict when somebody

was pregnant, you know, even before, you know, the person's spouse might know, just because

of, you know, buying habits, which is sort of an extreme example.

But the flip side of it is, you know, some people say, well, actually, I actually don't

have a problem with you knowing my spending habits.

I mean, a good example is the one that I referenced that even though when I go to my local Walgreens,

I use Apple Pay and I've always done that.

And Walgreens is one of those reporters.

Not only do I use Apple Pay to pay, but I actually use my Apple card to pay because I get the 3% back at Walgreens.

Oh, that's right.

But Walgreens also has like a rewards card that's right there built into my Apple Watch.

And I voluntarily log in, so to speak, when I purchase things because when I do it, I get sort of, you know, points and you get cash back and I get coupons.

And the fact that Walgreens know that I'm likely to purchase these types of things,

they're more likely to give me a coupon for it.

And I might actually want that coupon.

So I have decided, you know, that's okay.

You can know my purchase.

Now, on the other hand, if I was, I suppose, I mean, I've never had this actually happen,

but if I was purchasing something at Walgreens that I wanted to keep confidential,

I don't know, like, I don't know, condoms or something like that.

I guess I could pay cash and not giving them my rewards cards.

They wouldn't know who I was.

This has not happened to me, but I suppose in theory it could.

So, but at least, at least you can know it.

I mean, for me, it's just all about convenience.

Apple Pay, especially on my Apple Watch, but also on my phone, is such a fast and easy way to do this.

I don't have to log into anything.

I just tap two buttons and do it.

And that's what I like about it is it's just so fast.

Sometimes I'm waiting in line between someone else that's using another form of payment.

I'm like, what are you doing, taking out a bank loan to pay for this burrito or whatever it is?

And so that's what I like about it.

And so it was an interesting sort of analysis on here's why Walmart is not doing it because they see this value otherwise of collecting data about you.

And it's just interesting to think about that.

And I would also say more secure to use the Apple wallet.

Well, that's true, too.

I go to a restaurant.

I don't I I almost don't like giving a physical credit card to somebody now or even if even if I try to use it in a place where it lets me slide it in.

I mean, there's just so many stories and we've covered them before to where, you know, they're scammers that will put something on.

It's like, I don't want to take the time to do it.

Like I know it's secure.

If I use Apple Pay, it's very it's much more difficult, you know, to to scam that or to compromise that.

I love just on that real quick.

I love this trend that I'm seeing in many restaurants here in New Orleans.

And I know this was started in Europe, but like the waiter or waitress will come around to you with a little handheld.

I'm sure you've seen this.

And I can use Apple Pay to pay on it.

And then it makes it really easy to calculate the tip and to email me the receipt and everything else.

I'm a big fan of that.

I wish everybody had it.

You had another good link here to John Gruber talking about this, you know, as to it's all about the data.

And a couple of things I was thinking of.

Number one, this also makes me think of Apple CarPlay, which, you know, we've talked about this many times.

Like, why do some of the car manufacturers not want to allow Apple CarPlay in the car?

or they're at least putting up some roadblocks to that.

And it probably is because of the data.

Like they want you to log in and do all of that.

And that is just, it becomes a little frustrating.

I understand from a business perspective why they're doing it.

But to the point we were just making, my second thought is,

is Apple going, is Walmart going to eventually capitulate?

Like, are they just going to give in?

Because obviously Home Depot did, H-E-B eventually did,

and Kroger of these others. I mean, I guess if there's one behemoth out there that could maybe

try to stand up as long as possible, that could be Walmart, right? They're huge. And so they're

the ones that it's like, okay, no, we can refuse. But I just, I feel like the writing's on the wall.

And just like even with CarPlay, I would say like, at some point, I feel like you've, you're,

you're going to have to give in just simply because the public is going to insist about it.

Yeah. And, you know, he points out at the end of the article, in fact, he added after he posted it,

that Amazon is also a company that I don't know that they support Apple Pay.

But again, for me, that's okay.

Because when I'm using Amazon online, it's not like, I mean,

I know there are online places that I can use Apple Pay and that's fine.

Especially if it's a vendor, I don't know.

I actually feel more secure, like you say,

not giving them a credit card and instead using Apple Pay.

But for a company like Amazon that, you know, I'm just, I'm familiar with them.

They're a known quantity.

It's fine to me that they have saved my credit cards that when I purchase.

And of course, we all know that Amazon knows your purchase history.

it knows your browsing history. I mean, you look at one thing and suddenly they keep, or you buy

one thing and they keep showing you ads for it. I'm like, I've already bought it. Why are you showing

me more ads for it? You know, that sort of thing is, you know, Amazon is probably one of the biggest

of collecting data about people and using the algorithm to analyze that. But in my, for my mind,

I'm okay with it because of the convenience. I mean, things are there, the prices tend to be fair.

Yes. You can sometimes get ripped off by some, you know, Chinese or something companies that are,

But for the most part, especially if it's Amazon Prime, I find it trustworthy.

I like that it gets delivered quickly.

But you need to weigh all of the different sides of privacy and security and convenience and everything else.

You know, the last thing on here when you're talking about Amazon, I guess for most of this little section here, I'm thinking of like in a physical environment, right?

Like I'm taking my phone to an HEB at a grocery store and I'm checking out through the line.

Yeah, but you're right. When you bring up Amazon here, that makes me think, yeah, like I've just default. Well, I have an Amazon credit card. So obviously that's what I typically will default to. But when I go to other stores or when I purchase other things online, sure enough, I can either manually put in my credit card, type that in. Right. Or many times they have buy with Apple Pay button. Right.

So in other words, I could just use that because typically I might be on my MacBook, for example, or I could be on my phone.

But in that case, I just would use my thumbprint or my face ID and then I could pay for it that way.

And that is very convenient.

Yeah, you're right.

I kind of was just thinking about this in the physical scenarios, but you're right.

Amazon does not have buy with Apple Pay button on there and many other stores do.

Interesting on that.

Well, let's stay with John Gruber.

last week we mentioned a new subscription service from apple um i believe they officially call it

the creator studio right creative studio oh yeah is it creative or creator studio i think it's

creator studio oh you're right creator studio yeah i've got am i am i correct on that yeah yeah yeah

creator studio you call it creative i think i think i was thinking of photoshop exactly but i

I remember we talked about this last week and we were kind of like,

there were some good and some not so great things about it.

I mean,

you know,

John Gruber,

as he is want to do every once in a while,

we'll post a very long post with lots of amazing insight.

He spends a lot of time here on something that even you said in your post

that doesn't bother you too much,

but we know it bothers John Gruber.

He's very,

very picky when it comes to like fonts and design,

which I always enjoy reading about him.

but because i just thought it was really funny like if you he he wasn't very happy with the new

icons that are coming out with the creator studio and he's taking issue with uh the pages icon for

example which has always been very nice and i love the fact that he included on these but he says if

you look at him in reverse order you can see that the first one which was what back in i don't know

1998 2000 whatever it was it's is more professional looking than the one that they just came out with

Now, that's a little tongue-in-cheek, but that's John Gruber, and I think it's great.

But lots of interesting insight here as to what's happening with this Creator Studio subscription.

Yeah, I don't want to get too much into the icon stuff, except to say that, you know, people have opinions on it.

And, you know, in some ways, those older, more chic icons that really have tons of artistic detail, they are works of art.

But at the same time, you know, it's just a little icon at the bottom of your screen.

The big thing is just that you can very quickly look at it and know what it's going to do.

And, you know, Apple has said that if, you know, if you have subscribed to the Creator Studio, which comes out in just a couple of days this week, it'll be a different version of the app.

So, like, you might be familiar with the Keynote app on your iPad, and that will continue to look like what it looks like.

But there will be a separate app that's part of the Creator Studio, which, as you and I have talked about, make it some additional features.

And so you want a way that your eyes can quickly see, oh, this is the Creator Studio version of the app.

So I can understand the directive of let's do something that looks markably different.

You know, they all have sort of this dark theme to them and this, you know, and then different colors so that your brain can remember, oh, the purple one is this, the green one is this.

And, you know, that's sort of the purpose of an icon.

As for the bundle itself, though, you know, he does point out that if you use more than one of the apps, it can be a pretty good deal.

And as you and I were discussing last week, I mean, I personally do use Final Cut Pro.

I don't currently use Pixelmator, but maybe I'll start using it.

And so that maybe will make it worth it for me.

It comes out in a couple of days.

I'll probably at least try it out and see what it says, whether I do a one year or a

one month, I don't know, and go from there.

But for other people, like if you don't, you know, maybe you consider yourself a creative

person, but not creative in this way, in terms of video and photos and music, then this might

not be something that's worth it to you.

And he points to the same thing that we remarked on last week that Jason Snell raised the point.

If you use the traditional iWork apps, you use Numbers, you use Keynote, you use Pages, and you want to have all the features, unfortunately, there's going to be some features, some of them that rely upon AI, that are only going to work if you pay for this bundle, which is fine if you want the bundle otherwise.

But otherwise, it's sort of a waste of money.

Now, fortunately, you can do a one-month subscription, so maybe you can just dip in for a month and get the feature then, but that's not really ideal.

So it's not a perfect fit.

I think that this is a very valid complaint that John Gruber and Jason Snell and others have raised.

But anyway, we'll see.

The whole service will come out in a few days, and we'll see what people think about it when it's actually out.

And we haven't heard Apple respond to any of that.

Not yet.

yet right i mean we're we're hopeful maybe that apple could come out with some kind of a

smaller subscription or include maybe some of those um advanced ai tools in keynote and pages

that we already get those apps for free i mean i hate to look at gift horse but it's like we're so

used to having those apps that included i mean to frankly that's a huge plus of going and staying in

the Apple ecosystem is the fact that you do have these amazing apps that you don't have to pay

anything extra for. And again, to be clear, right, that is still the case. It's just that if you

wanted some of these additional AI tools, that's what Jason Snell and John Gruber were talking about,

that you would have to pay this much more expensive bundle and get other things if you

wanted those extra tools. Anyway, we'll see how that plays out. I kind of tend to agree with Jason

Snell and John Gruber that I don't that that part doesn't make sense the rest of it does I mean I'm

willing to pay maybe even a subscription for you know uh Final Cut Pro and even he talks about

Photometer here or Pixelmator Pro which is going to be bundled in that as well I'm pretty excited

about that I know you are too like that's going to be interesting how that's going to come down

good stuff on there well let's stay with John Gruber uh because this was the one

article that you linked to that I saw several places link. Uh-oh, I forgot. Yeah, sorry,

I've got a problem. I like, I need to fix that. Yeah. Yeah. Here's the one that you hear. Try

this one. Is this the one that works here? Yes, it is. So Apple and AI are in the news once again.

John is always good. John Gruber is always good to cover it, but I've seen several places

cover this this past week.

Not only is Apple maybe getting upgraded into the AI world,

we talked about partnering with Google and using Google Gemini,

but now maybe we have an AI wearable pin from Apple.

Are you kidding me?

On one hand, I'm like, are you kidding me?

On the other hand, I'm like, okay, I'm interested.

I want to see what's going to happen here.

Yeah, so this comes from a rumor.

And we all know that rumors may never come to fruition

or maybe they are just seeing a part of the elephant

and mistaking what the entire elephant is, all those analogies.

But I will say this rumor does come from a publication called The Information, which I

don't subscribe to, so I couldn't link to the actual article.

It's Wayne Ma.

There's a couple, you know, we know that there's a couple sources for Apple rumors that are

not 100%, but they tend to be more reliable.

You know, of course, at Bloomberg, Mark Gurman at Bloomberg has a pretty good track record.

There are, you know, rumors that come from the supply chain that can be more reliable.

but the information has an okay track record. So my guess is that if they're reporting on it,

there's probably something. And the next thing to remember is Apple is a huge company. So of course,

they are always trying many different things that may never see the light of the day,

which is what you would want them to do. I want them to try 20 different things

and decide that 19 of them don't make any sense and then pick the one that really is the good one,

whether it's the iPhone or the AirPods or those sorts of things. So with all of those caveats that

this might not happen at all, even if they do have good sources. What they're saying is that Apple

is working on a pin, something you would wear on your shirt, and that it would use AI to interact

with the outside world. And we've seen this story before, because there was a company that came out

with the humane AI pin, and it was a big splash. It was some former Apple people, and it was a

complete dud. And after a month or two, the whole company went belly up, and they got purchased by

hp for peanuts and you know it went away but just because that device did not work i do think that

there's something about this category now let me say i i think about this all the time and i'm

thinking about it a lot right now brett because i don't know if you've heard brett but at the end

of march there is a convention coming up called the american bar association tech show have you

heard of it this year oh that's right you're running it this year you're the chair this year

and of the many sessions there are two sessions that i'm doing um on there one of them has to do

with like iPhone and iPads, big surprise.

Yes.

But the other one that I'm doing is with Sean Harrington,

who's a professor at Arizona, I think.

Yeah, University.

He's in Arizona now.

He was at Arizona for a long time.

Yeah, he was at Arizona State University College of Law.

And we have our topic.

Our topic title is Wired for Justice,

Wearable and Augmented Tech for Law Practice.

And we're going to be talking about this whole category

of wearable things, things that you put on them,

whether it's something like a Vision Pro

that you would put on your eyes

or the future, like the meta rain band glasses,

or WAPA watches, which is on your arm. But part of this category are these devices that might

affix to your body like a pin, and that would look at the outside world. And you're like, well,

why would I want to do that? Well, there's advantages because we all sort of talk about

the idea of this imaginary little assistant who would be with you at all times. If I was some big

star in Hollywood and I could afford to have someone with me to keep track of things and help

keep me on my schedule and everything else, this would be a person that would know what's going on

And as people talk to me, I might forget that Mr. So-and-so said something such on this date, but the assistant with me would remember it and take notes of it. And so the idea is that this little pin might be able to do that. It might have a camera so it could see the outside world. It might have a microphone so it could hear what's saying said and transcribe that. Obvious, huge privacy implications here. We all know that.

Which is the reason why the technology that is currently available, I think to myself, I couldn't use that as an attorney, you know, not alone as a person, but certainly as someone who's privy to confidential attorney-client privilege information.

But again, we've been down here before.

I mean, my iPhone knows, quote unquote, knows so much about my life, but it's secure.

I mean, it uses encryption to communicate with Microsoft Exchange, except when exchange goes down, as it did yesterday.

That's a different story.

But and so it and I trust it because it's got built in privacy.

So if there's anyone, we often say this, if there's anyone that I would trust in this

category, it would be Apple.

And if Apple comes up with something that they think works, what could they do with

having access to a lot of the information?

And again, you wouldn't need a pin because your phone is always with you.

Your watch is certainly always with you.

If my watch had a microphone that was turned on all the time and listened to the outside

world.

But I like that Apple is doing this because I think I was going to say someone is going to do it.

People are already doing it.

There's already companies that are making products in this category.

They may not be very good.

But as Gruber points out, the original MP3 players 20, 25 years ago, I remember those.

They were huge.

They were big.

But you could tell that there was something there.

And then Apple comes out with the first iPod and you're like, oh, that's how this really makes sense.

And so it would be interesting if Apple, likewise, came out with the first version of a wearable

pin that uses AI to help you remember and take advantage of things in the outside world

that your brain might forget.

I'm curious about this.

So I hope that this report is right.

I suspect it is, that Apple is working on it.

When they predict that it would come out in 2027, that's, you know, my guess is that maybe,

maybe not.

But I hope it's right only because it means that maybe Apple has figured it out because I do trust that if Apple comes out with it, that probably means that they think that there's something there that they can actually contribute to someone.

And I would love for Apple to be the company that comes out with this with their privacy focus and everything else.

And I'll say one last thing, Brett, which is that when that device came out from the Humane AIP in a while ago, it was trying to say, you don't need the iPhone.

This can replace your iPhone.

And I'm like, well, you know, that's probably too much.

Whereas if Apple does it, much like the Apple Watch, it would be this is a companion to your iPhone.

Your iPhone is still the central source of all data, but this would just sort of work with it.

Now, as we know, over the years, the Apple Watch has developed that you can occasionally, if you've got a cellular Apple Watch, you know, I could go out into the world and leave my iPhone at home if I'm, you know, jogging on the snow on St. Charles Avenue, if that ever happens again.

And it will work.

But that's not really, the Apple Watch doesn't work great when it's a standalone device.

It works much better when your iPhone is nearby.

And I presume that this device being something small enough and light enough to wear would

be the same thing.

So it's a really interesting category of emerging technology.

I will be curious to see where it leads.

They say that it could be the size of an AirTag.

If it could be something so small.

I remember the Humane Pen was, I don't know, maybe like the size of almost like a half a

pack of cards or something like that.

wasn't that big and it had the cameras on there and you know to your point i remember we talked

about this uh several weeks ago right that johnny i formerly uh of apple teamed up made this big

splashy announcement i remember they had a video of them walking through san francisco downtown right

with open ai that they were going to create some kind of a device there was no details on this uh

just the other day though somebody was saying maybe they could be earbuds that this is from

tech crunch right that that was sort of the latest uh idea that it could be earbuds instead of like a

pin or something that are you know glasses or whatever but you know like like john gruber is

already saying and you said they may come out first like they're expected to have some kind of

this year this year we'll see and apple may not have that device they said these rumors that as

early as 2027 so they may let others you know try this just like humane did and a couple of others

And as history has shown, Apple could come back around a little bit later and just take over the entire category.

Yeah, it'll just be very interesting to watch.

You know, we keep talking about the Apple Vision Pro and the glasses.

We know the Apple Watch, you know, from like a health perspective, it's just going to continue to grow.

It's really interesting.

It's a fun time to watch a lot of this.

Well, we're not getting rid of our iPhones just yet.

In fact, probably one of the main reasons people buy the iPhone is for the camera.

Everybody knows what the iPhone camera can do.

You take pictures.

But I love this article that you linked to today from Make Use Of.

There's a few other things that you can use the iPhone camera for that can solve everyday problems.

Good reminder because, you know, we probably all know this, but it's a reminder that you can use your iPhone, of course, to measure things, which the measure app.

He also mentions grabbing text and scanning documents.

The grabbing text is a good one that like, you know, sometimes you don't think about that, but it is really useful.

If I'm looking at a physical document and I try to say digital as much as possible, but like I might want to just grab some text off the document.

And this was added to the camera app a little while ago that you can just point it, you know, and then you can use the camera app to actually, you know, capture the text and then copy it and paste it into a note or a text message or an email.

Super, super useful.

I do it all the time.

I mean, I've even done it where, you know, sometimes there's a sign off in the distance if I'm, you know, visiting somewhere and I can might, you know, zoom in on it and take a picture and copy the text and put it here.

And then I've got that text.

It's a that's a great feature.

And whenever I don't use it that often.

So whenever I do use it, I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm so glad that they do this.

It's a really cool feature.

And of course, he also mentions digitizing documents, which, you know, I pretty much use the scanner pro app to do it.

but there's also built-in ways to do it using the Notes app and stuff like that and other apps.

But these are all useful things that rely upon the camera,

but it's different than just taking a picture or video.

I also like this first one, you mentioned it, measuring something.

I show this to people and they just are like, are you kidding me?

I had no idea that that was in there.

But I think this is like the actual measure app.

Yeah, you have to go into that.

There's an app called Measure.

Most people don't even know that it's there.

But not only will it let you like you can turn on the camera on and you can say start at this corner and then you go to the next corner of the table or whatever you're trying to measure and you tap it again and it'll tell you with I think a pretty accurate representation of what that length is or what that measurement is.

You can even use this.

I've done it.

I think this is one of my tips a long time ago that if your kid stands up against the wall, you can measure like how tall they are, which is funny.

And then I think included in that measure app, I haven't looked in a while, there's also a level in there, right?

I think that's where it's in, is in that measure app.

That's a great reminder, like you said, you know, then using the camera for something that's a little bit more than just taking pictures like that.

Here's a review that you put in today for Satechi.

I think it's Satechi, S-A-T-E-C-H-I, 7-in-1 on the Go Hub.

The minute I pulled this up, Jeff, I thought that looks hideous on the back of my phone.

But as I read through here, I'm like, I'm going to have to get this because it's not just for the iPhone.

I like how they show it on the iPhone, but this could really be a useful little hub to take along with you.

Yeah. So techie is a company I've purchased products from before.

They're there. I think they're a reputable company.

And, you know, a hub is something I certainly use all the time on my iPad when I want to connect my iPad to an SD card or HDMI output to do a presentation with Keynote.

Or, you know, sometimes, you know, occasionally I might have a reason to use regular headphones, you know, the old plug-in style as opposed to wireless Bluetooth.

So a hub is useful.

I don't think of using a hub on my iPhone, but I guess you could.

And so if you had a reason that you wanted to just do everything from your iPhone, that is your key device.

And sometimes that means that just having USB-C is not quite enough.

You might want regular USB.

You might want an SD card.

You might want these other things.

I do think it's a cute idea that this one little puck device that's relatively small and can even attach to the back of the iPhone could do everything that you need.

It's even got the cord built in to plug into the bottom of the phone.

Am I going to buy this?

Probably not because I don't know that I would really ever need it.

But if you if this is if you've ever had a situation where you're like, gosh, my iPhone, I know it's like a powerful little computer, but I wish I had more ways to connect to the outside world.

Well, here you go.

I think it might be on the Amazon page where they had a picture of somebody that's using the the iPhone for camera.

And, you know, you may want to have the photo stored on like extra storage or something.

Right. And so that is a good way.

You could just plug that right into the USB-C port on the bottom of the iPhone and then plug in a thumb drive or something like that.

You know, so you could offload that.

Like, that's really neat.

I mean, it's great.

And then at the same time, you could put an HDMI cable in there.

So anyway, just really interesting.

I just, I had never seen a hub like this.

It kind of makes sense.

And I just, I think it's really unique.

So thanks for linking to that today.

This could almost be an in the vision section, I guess.

necessarily name it but uh especially if you have a dog or you uh have a very keen sense of love for

your dog everybody you know i feel like with thanksgiving today isn't it thanksgiving you

know in the current year we watch the macy's day parade and then what does everybody watch right

after that it's the dog show right right this is not the same dog show here but apparently apple

vision pro is going to stream is it the crufts dog show but in immersive video like do we really

have a need for immersive dogs at this point i guess we do you know we were talking recently

about you know feeling like you're up and close at a basketball game and some of the other immersive

videos but you know something that i think everybody would probably love is cute dogs

and uh i had never heard of crufts um but uh i guess who was it a chance or the the mac observer

Rajat Singh says that apparently it's been going every year since 1891.

So I guess I've missed it all this time.

And I think that was the last time it snowed in New Orleans, 1891.

But anyway, so it's been going on for a long time.

And it looks like Apple brought some of their immersive cameras there.

And so they are going to get up and close with the dogs.

And when does that come out?

January 30th.

So a little bit from now, it'll be, you know, one of those, I suspect it's, and it's a two

part even, but I suspect it's going to be one of those things that for some people, they're

like, oh, this is the reason to really try immersive video on a vision pro, you know,

from, from my, my son's going to prefer like the action sequences of like, you know, the

motorcycle racing and the car racing on a vision pro.

And, you know, I like just about everything, but for some people, this, I think will be

the thing that they're like, yeah, this is what I want to see first on a vision pro.

So I just love that, you know, again, this is, I've said it before.

Now that we have these, uh, blacks, uh, black magic, uh, or so cine cameras, whatever they

are you know there's enough cameras out there that can film immersive video that i think we're on the

brink of like having tons of immersive content out there and this is just another example but i want

to see more i want to see more unique things that i will never in my life go to england to see this

dog show but if i can just flip a switch and pretend like i'm there and watch it like i'm

like i'm immersive and look around look up down around and up close with the dogs yeah i'll do

that for five minutes for sure. And I want more experiences. I want places in the world that I

would never go to experiences in the world that I would never do. Because when you wear the vision

pro and future devices that are immersive, it does really sort of feel like you're there. You sort of,

you know, you, you lose track of the fact that you're just watching something. It's not like

watching a 2d screen where it's got the, you know, the, the rectangle, you really do feel like you're

there. So I'm ready for it. This comes out on January 30th. That's next Friday, right? That's

I would like to hear your review of it next week.

How much you have enjoyed the dogs.

I will give you the bow out report.

Top dog.

You're also going to be watching Pluribus.

I love the little video you posted at the end here.

I have still not started this, but watching this little trailer here tells me, okay, I might have to start tonight.

This is going to be one of those shows that it's just going to be Brett Bernie by himself because I don't think my wife is going to watch along with me.

But I continue to get excited.

I'm always more interested in the science fiction stuff than she is.

Don't watch the trailer.

I don't know if you have yet.

Don't click play if you haven't watched Pluribus yet.

I wouldn't say that there's outright spoilers in here, but it's better to go into Pluribus knowing as little as possible.

Having said that, if you have watched it, it's a cute little video.

And it reminds me of so many TV shows over time.

Here, I'll just pick one example.

The Friends TV show.

We all know the theme song to Friends, right?

And I remember the first time that I realized that that wasn't just a quick little 20-second song.

but there was actually a longer version of it.

It was a real song.

What was it?

The Replacements?

Was that the name of the band?

I don't know why.

I believe you're right.

If I have that right,

why that band name is taking up space in my brain

is a mystery to me.

But anyway,

but I remember the first,

you know,

when the first time you realized,

oh,

there's a longer version of this theme song,

it's just sort of interesting.

And that's the audio for this video

that Apple released

is the longer version of the Pluribus theme song,

which is a very distinctive type of melody and music.

And I was fascinated to hear the longer version of it.

I'm so used to the shorter version, you know, having finished the entire series that I thought it was interesting.

So if you have watched Pluribus, I recommend that you take 30 seconds, whatever it is, to watch this.

And if you haven't watched Pluribus, comma, Brett, comma, you should watch it.

It's a great show.

You were so close.

It wasn't the replacements.

It was the Rembrandts.

Oh, the Rembrandts.

There you go.

Okay.

My brain is not taking up space on that.

Thank you for fact-checking me on that.

In the know.

I'm in the know for Rembrandt's thanks to Google Gemini.

I got a gadget for you today.

So yesterday was my son's birthday.

And one of the things that he asked for was a brisket for today.

He's going to have some friends over later tonight.

I am not that crazy of a grill head or anything, Jeff.

But a brisket, as you probably know, takes several hours, right?

And it's good to make sure that you're keeping it at a very low and slow, but consistent temperature for a very long time.

Now, because I don't have any fancy equipment, I have a very old, almost like a 25-year-old Weber kettle grill.

You know, the iconic little kettle grill.

Everybody probably has one.

So I'm doing it on this.

Now, this is a whole rabbit hole in this, but it's been fun to go down on YouTube.

There is a snake method that you can put the briquettes around the edge so that they all burn.

You have to go and turn it.

But one of the important things, of course, is I want to make sure I know what the temperature is in the kettle grill itself.

And I want to make sure I know what the temperature is inside the brisket because you don't want to keep opening it up and poking something in.

So there is a multitude of wireless meat thermometers or just wireless thermometers that you can get.

you can spend as little or as much as you want you know everybody has those kind of instant

thermometers right that you just poke in and it kind of pulls up but i wanted something that would

sit there this is the one that i landed on thermo pro most people will probably you know recognize

that name or if you start doing any kind of uh googling for this kind of stuff you're going to

come up against thermo pro i didn't want the bottom edge and i didn't need anything above just like

two temperature probes and I wanted it to have an app that I could connect and I could monitor

it on my phone. So I landed on the Thermo Pro TP920. This fit all of my needs. It was very

economical. It's like $34 even. I mean, at the most it's going to be 50 bucks, but you can see

right now it's at 3324 on Amazon. It is rechargeable. So I don't have to worry about getting

batteries and this is the second time I'm using it now and the first time it was still like fully

charged so I was very happy about that. The app is excellent you can see a little picture of the

app on here all it does is tell me exactly what I need like what is the current temperature of both

of these you can rename you know what it is I think I got my my first one is the king kettle

temperature and then the next one is the bussing brisket temperature but you can also set alarms

on here so i've got my iphone with me and i'm following along with like what the temperature is

inside the kettle as well as inside the brisket and if it gets to 280 for example inside the kettle

it'll give me an alarm so that i know i can go and turn it down because this is all manual right

so i've got to go and fiddle with the uh the vents there to make sure that it keeps going

a little bit but this uh tp uh 920 i'll have a link in the show notes so anybody that wants to

go and look at it. It's great because it's got a little kickstand so that you can just sit. I've

got it next to the table. It also has a really cute little hidden hanger that you can flip up and

down on the back of it there so that you can hang it, I guess, next to your grill. Or you could even

use this in an oven or something along those lines if you wanted to. Anyway, just very, very happy

with this. Medium size of a price tag on this, which is great. And it's just really worked out

continue to monitor the brisket all day long and my son and his friends will be happy this evening so

that's my pick for this week jeff that is a good tip and you are making me hungry just thinking

about it when you first said it was your son's birthday and you showed this page i'm like and

what your son worked wanted for a birthday was a meat thermometer that's an interesting birthday

but no no no he just wants the food that that makes more sense that makes much more sense to

So my tip of the week is a follow-up tip.

A couple of weeks ago, we talked about how there was a Apple newsroom announcement right

at the beginning of the year when everybody's starting to think about fitness and getting

back into it.

And Apple talked about different fitness things that you can do with the Apple Watch and the

fitness press program.

And one of the things that we mentioned was that they had a couple of these programs that

were sort of introductory if you're brand new to a type of a workout or refresher if

they're using it.

One of them was for yoga.

I don't really do yoga, but they have something called build a yoga habit in four weeks, which

I might try at some point.

But the one that I have tried is called strength basics in three weeks.

And what that is, is I like the fitness plus I have it on my TV and I will use it with just

sort of like weights and stuff like that.

And I've been using it for a while and, you know, I'm not like, you know, super great

on it, but I think it's probably good to, you know, I probably help with my body in some

way to be doing this from time to time.

And I just sort of jumped into it with no training or anything like that.

But the purpose of these programs is if you're new to it, or again, if you just want a refresher

like me, they sort of start from the basics and it, Apple builds it as a multi-week program.

But just to be clear, they drop all the episodes at once.

And so like, but you have to scroll down.

So when I go to the Fitness Plus app on my Apple TV, I scroll down and then it gets to

like the strength basics, the yoga basics and stuff.

And then once you go into that, they have a series of the idea is it's three programs a week for three weeks.

So I guess there's nine programs maybe.

But and some of them are 10 minutes.

Some of them are 20 minutes.

And you just sort of go through them and they start really basic.

Like the most basic thing with using a dumbbell is this.

And and you go through it.

And the idea and I've only just started it.

So I'm only we're only in the second week here.

So I'm just starting into it.

But by the end of it, the idea is that they have gone through all the basic moves that you're going to do in the strength program so that you now feel like you know what you're doing.

And so far, I do like it.

It's, for the most part, the same format as all Fitness Plus programs in that you have like an instructor and the two people behind them.

And one person behind them is more advanced and one person is more basic.

There was one I did this week where they actually had four people instead of three with two in the front.

I was like, I don't know why they did it that way, but that was just a different way to do it.

And it's got the music behind them.

I do wish there was a little more information in them.

When they're describing it, they will say this type of move is good for this part of your body.

But I actually wish there was a little more science in it.

Maybe we'll have this in the future episodes of the reason that we do this is this.

They have a little bit of it.

I would love to have even more for the basics because that's sort of what I'm interested in to understand why we're doing this time.

But I do like the idea that they start with basic versions of a move and then they build upon it and they have twists on it and understand it.

And so if you're going to do a workout anyway, don't just look at the very top of your app where they have the regular workouts.

Scroll down to the bottom to check it out.

And again, if I ever do do the yoga, and I don't know that I ever will, that's something that I know that there are all these different yoga moves that are different things.

But I would definitely want to start here.

And Apple, I will say one more thing.

Apple has always had sort of an introductory thing.

they had this from the beginning of Fitness Plus

that if it's your first yoga, some introductory things,

but this one is actually made to be a program

over a multi-week.

And I like this approach to it.

So anyway, I think it's a nice thing that Apple's done.

If it's something that interests you, check it out.

You need to go look for it, you know?

But I think it's worth, you know,

given the time that I put into it so far

and I'm not finished the program yet,

so far I do give it a thumbs up

and I recommend that you check it out.

I have long been a huge fan of Fitness Plus.

In fact, it's even, it's so good. Even when I'm traveling, it's a, you know, it's like,

I almost feel like I've got my personal trainer there as well, but I typically go in and I say,

okay, I'm going to do a strength rating. Right. But then Jeff, the, the, the, the, the quote

stress comes in. It's like, I can filter down. Can I do a 10 minute, can I do a 20 minute?

And that's fine. But then there are so many workouts now that I'm like scrolling through,

scrolling through. And it's like, okay, do I want to use heavy dumbbells this time? Do I want to

use no dumbbells. And it's like, I don't, I have to sit there for a couple of minutes and decide.

So I like that you're pointing this out. I remember when we talked about it before,

because maybe I'll just go here and with the basics, you know, it'd be good. Not only as a

refresher, but then it's like, okay, I don't have to think about it. I'm just going to follow along

with what they say. And that's good. And even quickly on the yoga, I got to tell you, I have

never been a yoga person, but I've done several of these now in fitness plus. And I almost wish,

at least in my mind, uh, I, I just think of it as stretching exercises. I mean, it's yoga. I know

there's one thing, but I got to tell you some of the moves that they do. I feel like I just feel

wonderful. Like I've done a great stretch on there. So at least that's helped me a little bit.

So I might even try this build a yoga habit in four weeks to Molly, I think is one of the trainers that does such an excellent job of the yoga and you know they're, they're very good just like what you were saying about explaining why you're doing this or, you know, how to how to get it into the position.

Just really, really good stuff. I mean Apple I feel like it's just continuing to knock it out of the park with fitness plus and, and I, you know, I'm excited to see where it's going to go.

And it is just fun, even though I'm stressed about how many sessions to choose and pick from.

I'm glad that there are so many.

You know, I keep now I save some so that I can go back to them just because I really liked, you know, the different moves and things like that.

But they're just going to keep adding to them.

And I think it's great.

Yeah. In fact, that's a good little bonus tip.

Like if there's a particular workout that you really enjoyed it, maybe you like the music or maybe you like the moves that they do.

You can add it to your library.

And I have done that before, like since I've been doing it for a couple of years now.

Sometimes if I'm not sure what to pick, I will just go back to the library because I don't really mind doing it over again.

You know, if the songs are good, you want to listen to them again.

And like, you know that this is the one that like you felt like, oh, yeah, this one, it wasn't too hard, but it was also challenging enough.

And I've got a nice little selection of those over time.

And it's nice to know which ones to go back to.

So that's another good bonus tip.

Good tip on that.

All right, sir.

I've got to go and check on my brisket.

There you go.

Thanks as always, Jeff.

We'll talk with you next week.

Thanks, Brett. Bye-bye, everybody.