iOS Today 649 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

Mikah Sargent (00:00:00):
Coming up on IO s today, Rosemary Orchard and I, Micah Sergeant, take a look inside our bags. Stay tuned for this episode.

V.O. (00:00:12):
Podcasts you love from people you Trust.

Mikah Sargent (00:00:22):
This is iOS today, episode 649, recorded Tuesday, April 11th, 2023. What's in our bags? This episode of iOS Today is brought to you by Electric E-Bikes. Start your next adventure with electric e-bikes. Ready, set, spring sale. Visit electric e-bikes dot com to learn more and explore the new expedition, cargo e-bike, and all of the other epic models electric has to offer. Welcome back to iOS Today, the show where we talk all things iOS, tv, os, home, pod os, watch os, iPad, os, send Os and Os. Send Os. It's all of the platforms that Apple has on offer. All of the devices running those platforms and everything in between. That's what we talk about here on iOS today. We being me one of your hosts, Micah, Sergeant

Rosemary Orchard (00:01:12):
And me, Rosemary Orchard. And Hey mic. I found a teleporter, Mike.

Mikah Sargent (00:01:17):
Yes. Rosemary Orchard is here in person for this episode of iOS today. It's so exciting. Yes. Oh man. Thank you for making the trip over. First we got to have you on a very special episode of Ask the Tech guys called Ask the Tech Geeks. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so Leo and I both appreciate you joining me as co-host for that show. That was a great episode. We had a lot of fun.

Rosemary Orchard (00:01:40):
Yeah, it was good fun. People should go back and watch it if they didn't usually watch it. It's a great show They should tune in for. Yeah,

Mikah Sargent (00:01:44):
You can check that out. Twit.Tv/Ag. and then today we've got you for iOS today and later on we'll have you for Mac Break Weekly as well. So it is a Rosemary Orchard Day and I'm very excited about it. But I am pumped about this episode because every once in a while mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, we get the opportunity to do a what's in your bag? We should make like a stinger or something <laugh> where we take a look at the things we're carrying with us or you know, in some cases we may carry when we go places. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> And now is the perfect time because you've just flown, what was it, an 11 hour flight? My

Rosemary Orchard (00:02:22):
God. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it was like, it said 11 hours. Like we took off a bit late, but I was definitely on the plane for like 11 hours or so. You know, I had a really good nap on the plane actually, Micah. Oh good. So, yeah. That's

Mikah Sargent (00:02:34):
Good. So, yeah. And since you came over, obviously you're gonna bring a lot of your gadgets and gizmos with you to make sure you're prepared. Do you, do you consider yourself an under packer, an over packer or a Goldilocks packer?

Rosemary Orchard (00:02:45):
I am very definitely an over packer. I have way too much stuff with me at all times. I turned out this morning with like a humongous <laugh> and I do mean like a giant, like it's a Kipling tote bag. It's like their shopper tote. So it's huge. And that was full. And then I had like a giant shopping bag with me stuff as well. But that is, to be fair, because I threw most of the contents in my hotel room in that bag before I came into the studio this morning. Cause I was like, I have a list of things I definitely wanna show off, but like, just in case, like I've got like my shift cam here, I've got my d g I pro go with me and stuff like that just in case. Cuz you know, I, I dunno what we're gonna talk about. Like, we, we have a plan and then we, we sort of

Mikah Sargent (00:03:24):
Follow it and it's jazz after that, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean I, I obviously, I was really impressed whenever you pulled out that entire IKEA box and built your own stool <laugh> to sit in. I thought, wow, <laugh>, she's really prepared. We shouldn't even have to have a stool for

Rosemary Orchard (00:03:35):
Her. I mean, yeah. I mean, I should have brought the electric screwdriver for that really <laugh>, but you never know.

Mikah Sargent (00:03:40):
So let's dig in. Let's kick things off. You've got some stuff to show mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, I've got some stuff to show. We'll just kind of go back and forth as we talk about some of the things that you brought with you. And I'm curious too how do you in particular, cuz we talked a little bit about this whenever I was taking you back to San Francisco on Sunday mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. my big concern would always be I'm traveling between countries mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And so you've got all of this security that takes place. Yeah. Does that ever limit your decision on what you choose to pack or do you typically feel, I mean there are a lot of cables and wires and all that kind of stuff. Do you find yourself ever getting, you know, pulled to the side and having them look through things or have you been okay?

Rosemary Orchard (00:04:26):
So I did have one little instant where I kind of got pulled to one side. I was traveling on Eurostar. And I had bought, I was living in Germany at the time. I bought some Marzi pan. And so it was like a special mar zpa with like Christmas decorations and stuff on it. And I was bringing it back to the UK cuz I was gonna like, share it with my family and friends. And I put that on top of my like, little tech bag now for people who are not familiar with marzipan and X-ray machines. Unfortunately, when Marzi pan goes through an X-ray machine, it kind of looks like C4 <laugh>. So I did have a little side detour with a security guard who very gingerly unpacked my bag and I explained, he was like, what have you got in there?

(00:05:06):
I was like, I don't know, like, you know, like dirty laundry, which of course is right on top <laugh> fortunately in a little bag. So I was like able to say like, that that bag is just clothing. Like it's dirty underwear, you probably don't wanna go in there. And he was like, I will reserve this until after I've looked through the rest of the bag. <Laugh> like, we'll, we'll make shorten and, but like I was listing stuff off and then I get to like marzipan. And he was like, ah. And like you could just see like the color come back into his cheeks. Hmm. but aside from that, no, I've never had any problems. Like the thing that does worry me a little bit when I'm traveling is my hydrate spark water bottle because this was Matthew Castelli's app cap a while ago when he was on the show, and it's got this little electrical puck inside of it. So like when you're flying, you obviously can't take this much water, so I empty it out mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. and then what I do when I'm going through the scanner is I just, I just pop the puck out and I just put it in the tray like next to each other so that, that when they're looking at it, they're not like, okay, this is a bomb of some kind. Right. They can just see what it is. But yeah, in general it's never really been a problem. That's

Mikah Sargent (00:06:01):
Good. So let's start there. Actually, if, if you don't mind. So this is a really cool water bottle. You'll tell us about that, but I, well, in fact, as, as you describe it, you'll explain why it's got a puck in the bottom up mm-hmm. <Affirmative> that is like, Hmm. Yeah. What is that for?

Rosemary Orchard (00:06:13):
Yeah, I mean, so this is the hydrate spark water bottle. It's this is the steel one. It's the 21 ounce. They come in a couple of different sizes and they've recently brought out a 32 ounce. But this is a smart water bottle in the fact that when I put it down it should glow. And it's probably not gonna do that right now because I have been drinking a lot of water. But I can make it glow. But what it will do when I put it down is it weighs the amount of water inside of it. So whenever you drink then it should actually there we go. It's glowing. Ooh. It's doing a little rainbow, which is quite fun. And I'll just do that again. Oh, that's, there we go. Pretty. It is so pretty right? Kinda great. You can see the different colors. Yeah. and you can actually change the, the different colors as well so that you can, you can choose to have it be like a little purple color or maybe, maybe I should do lemon lime. I think you might like that. Micah there.

Mikah Sargent (00:06:59):
Oh yeah. Now we're getting some green. Yeah,

Rosemary Orchard (00:07:01):
Yeah, there we go. Nice little green for Micah. And it changes the kind of greens that it's doing as it, it goes through it. So, you know but what it does is it will flash to remind you to drink and then it flashes to tell you that it has drunk, which is quite cool. Got it. So, so

Mikah Sargent (00:07:15):
It's not just for show?

Rosemary Orchard (00:07:15):
No, no, it's not just for show's. No reason for it. It's, it's a subtle way to remind me to drink water throughout the day. And it also tracks how much water I've drunk, so I don't need to be using different water tracking apps to log how much water. I've drunk now. If I pop the puck out again then I can just show Fox. What, what you've got here is you've got some little magnetic connectors on this, which is how you pop on the charger. I've stuck a little label here that says tall because ah, yeah. So Matthew Castelli recommended this, and so I bought like a smaller one with a straw and that's pretty cool. And I was like, well, it would also be good to have like a beer one. And I wanted like this chug top on the top of it.

(00:07:52):
 And so I got that and then it turns out they came up with a Tumblr, which is good for fizzy drinks. And I do love fizzy drinks. So I kind have three at the moment, <laugh>. But the guine is, is the pucks can actually be changed between them. So you can actually swap this and put it a different one. And there's a calibrate feature in the app. So you can just like, and they sell spares on the website, which is great. So, and the spares were actually pretty affordable, like aside from the puck, the puck is the expensive bit. That's not dishwash safe, but the steel ones in the plastic ones are dishwash is safe, so

Mikah Sargent (00:08:20):
Yeah. Oh, that's nice too.

Rosemary Orchard (00:08:22):
Yeah. Yeah. It's it's a really great feature. So yeah, that's the only thing I worry about when going through security really, other than like making sure I get the stuff out and lay things out flat in the tray. Like, you don't stack like your iPad on top of your laptop and put a Kindle or a Cobo or whatever on top of that. It is flat. And the number of trays that I use when going through security has been large at times. Like it, the worst thing was when I was moving country, I had like a desktop, like four laptops and a bunch of stuff, and I'm going through security. Fortunately I had airline status, so I went through the priority security line, which is like, I'm gonna need more trays than this.

Mikah Sargent (00:08:54):
Like <laugh> keep, just keep, keep bringing them on. Yeah. Yeah. Matthew is actually watching today. Thank you for joining us, Matthew. And has asked if you've tried, I didn't realize a sharing feature. Yeah. So you can kind of keep each other going on water. I might have to give this a go. Yeah.

Rosemary Orchard (00:09:10):
So there is a social feature built in to this. And I'll just see if I can actually share my screen because I haven't tried this. Matthew. it is a cool idea. It's essentially kind of like for folks who've tried things like the Fitbit and so on before where you can share it and there's activity sharing built into Apple's activity as well. So you can go ahead and add a friend. I'm not gonna let it access my friends. But then you can just type in an email or do a scan thing. And I will get that changed really so that we don't have to worry about the QR code. But yeah, I haven't tried it. It, it sounds kind of cool. But at the same time, I don't necessarily do a great job of using the water bottle all the time and looking everything, so I feel like I'm l I'm liking behind here that might not work so well for me. But yeah it's, it's pretty cool as a, as a thing that you can do. I'm, I'm not sure how much it would actually motivate me to

Mikah Sargent (00:10:02):
Drink the future. No. In fact, I don't want anyone knowing how much water I'm I'm drinking or how much water I'm not drinking, because for me then I would just get annoyed with the person <laugh> like, no, I don't need you drinking in on my water drinking. But if you sort of have, have come to that agreement together mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and, you know, you, you want to kind of keep each other honest.

Rosemary Orchard (00:10:21):
I mean, I could imagine

Mikah Sargent (00:10:21):
Each other hydrated.

Rosemary Orchard (00:10:22):
Yeah. Say you're working from home and your partner is you know, like tracking it as well. Like they could maybe like see that you've drunk a bunch of water and if you like, you have like a lot of meetings or maybe Micah you do podcast recording or something. Like your agreement could be like, you'll leave the water bottle in a certain place when it's empty. And if they're tracking your intake, they could be like, oh, it's probably empty. I'll like, stick my hand in and grab it and refill it for them or something. Yeah. That could be really useful. But also messages exists. So,

Mikah Sargent (00:10:47):
And the, the competitive, which I think is what Matthew's showing where, you know, you're both wanting to get in as much water as you're supposed to drink in a day. And if you can see, oh, they're ahead, I gotta, I gotta move quicker. That part is, is I think a great way cuz that gamification would work for me more so than just having each other keep each other honest, but yes. Yeah. sort of racing to see who can hydrate is not a bad way of doing things. Yeah, for sure.

Rosemary Orchard (00:11:15):
Yeah. So I mean, I've just, I've just managed to get ma Matthew's screenshoted up on my phone so that people can see what that looks like. You know, it's pretty, pretty, pretty nice. Yeah. I like that. I think somebody needs to probably drink some more water <laugh> but you know, it's all good. It's all good.

Mikah Sargent (00:11:28):
<Laugh>. All right. The next thing I'm gonna talk about, this one's mine is there's a company, I remember I went to CES several years ago, and we were there and I saw from across the room this gigantic photograph of a Petri dish blown up by blown up, I mean, enlarged, not exploded. So in a large photo of a Petri dish with all of these gross

Rosemary Orchard (00:11:57):
Colonies Yeah. Could say like, this is, this is not sounding like a, a a, an a, a positive friendly start

Mikah Sargent (00:12:02):
No to this bacterial colonies growing all in the, the Petri dish. And so obviously I had to say what that was all about and I came over and it was talking about how our devices and our our, well, yeah, all of our tech has a bunch of germs on it, as one might imagine. And so someone had taken a swab of the screen of an iPhone and had then grew that on a plate to see what bacterial colonies were there. It, you know, it's gross. <Laugh>, I think we all are, or many of us are aware of the fact that yes, there's bacteria there cuz there's bacteria everywhere, but just seeing kind of all the different kinds and everything was a little bit surprising. But that booth was for a company that to this day I still use their products and recommend their products.

(00:12:53):
The company's called Whoosh, W H O O S H, exclamation Point. And they make screen cleaning products. And what I like about Whoosh is that not only does it it's specifically made to clean screens, but also the fact that it has this, this built in understanding that on top of cleaning the screen, you also want to kind of polish the screen. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. You want that screen sparkling and beautiful. And so they make a a non-alcohol screen cleaner. It's non-toxic, it's ammonia and alcohol free. And it will not only remove oil and bacteria and all that jazz from your screen, but it makes it look really nice. And and so the one that I bring with me is a tiny little bottle that's refillable. So I can put new whoosh cleaner into it and it's got the spray nozzle, and then I've got a whoosh cloth with me. These whoosh cloths are just microfiber cleaning cloths that work both sides and they're easily machine washable, although, as Rosemary has pointed out in the past, when you do wash them, don't use fabric softener mm-hmm. <Affirmative>

Rosemary Orchard (00:14:13):
Or you probably wanna wash microfibers with just other microfibers, because otherwise they pick up lint and then they stop making good and then

Mikah Sargent (00:14:19):
They stop microfibers. Yeah, exactly. And then we use it here in the studio as well. You can see there's a gigantic bottle of whoosh right here 16.9 fluid ounces. And we will clean off screens with this. And I wanted to mention it because I have at home lovely. I have at home a ambient light rejecting projection screen with a, a projector that, a short throw projector that goes onto it. And there have been over the course of, of having the screen from time to time as you're watching something, you'll see that at some point something got on the screen and it's just, you know, in a few different places where that happens. And so I did a bunch of research because with ambient light rejecting screens, they're not just white fabric or white material. They actually have they're, they're specially made.

(00:15:16):
So they've got these sort of ridges and the ridges are, are almost triangular in nature. And so when light from the ambiance hits them, it does not refract or reflect into your eyes. It's essentially only taking or doing its best to only take the light from the short throw projector that's underneath it and then projecting that at your eyes. So it sort of the, the, the triangle is on the, on the screen is in such a way that the light from below hits it and then it reflects out towards you. And any light that's hitting it from other places doesn't get to reflect back into your eyes. Therefore, it makes it so that the screen can show up even in brighter environments point is because of those special way that it's designed, you have to be very, very, very careful with the screen.

(00:16:05):
You can't put your fingers on it because that will leave oil residue, which can damage it, all this other stuff. So cleaning it there's a, a special ostrich feather duster for dusting it. And then I did the research and every sort of home theater person recommended whoosh as the way to clean off any kind of spots that are on it. So I sprayed a little whoosh onto the cloth and I ran it back. You have to run it back and forth left and right horizontally so that you're not going against the grain, so to speak. And it cleaned it up so well. And I thought, oh man, I wish I had a big ole bottle of whoosh and a big ole cloth so I could just run it across this whole thing. But anyway whoosh, it was recently, if anyone's looked this up recently, it had been sold out on Amazon for a few weeks and they're just now getting their supply back in stock. So I don't know if whoosh had updated their product design or what was going on, but Whoosh was out for a while. I'm now seeing it back in stock on Amazon again. So yeah, you can check that out and it's just a, a great way to keep your screens clean and you also get a nice cloth right along with it. So yeah, that's the, that's the next one I want to mention.

Rosemary Orchard (00:17:24):
That's pretty cool. I like that. Honestly, I usually just have like a, a microfiber cloth in my bag like wherever I'm going, because then I can always keep things nice and, and clean and, you know, you get fingerprints on screen and you know, that, that, that can be kind of annoying. But one of the things that I have done so that I don't have fingerprints on a screen is I actually have a screen protector on this iPad. So I'm, I'm sure some folks have noticed, and I'll, I'll get to the, the pretty colors on the outside in a moment. That, you know, my iPad here is not entirely normal, and that's because I have this paper-like screen protector on there and it's a little difficult to see exactly what that makes it do because it's, it's kind of not really reflecting the light a little bit.

(00:18:06):
 But Micah, I can pop this off. And you saw this earlier and you were like, wait, what <laugh>? This is a paper like screen Protector. It's actually from esr and it's a paper feel one, but it magnetizes on and off of my iPad screen. Wow. so when I wanna write something, then I can just, you know, pop it on and it does just magnetize into place. It's called a little cutout so it doesn't cover the camera, so it doesn't you know, like mess with that. But then if I open, say for example, Notability then I can actually show people you know, with the, the, the pencil, like how easy this is to write. So if I just write Hello and do that, and then if I just take this off and then try and write like, I can do it because I've practiced mm-hmm.

(00:18:46):
<Affirmative>, but it's, it's a bit more difficult to do it like just straight onto that smooth screen, especially because the Apple pencil has, you know, it doesn't have like a, a rubbery grip to the end of it. And so this, yeah, this is just a little great thing and it also focus comes with a little plastic sleeve. So when I take this off I actually have it right here which I was talking out of the way. I keep it just in my, my screen thing. It comes with like a little folder so I can just pop it in there and then that keeps it out of the way. If I'm not wanting to use it, for example, if I'm wanting to watch a show, then I don't have that horrible, like, fuzzy effect instead. Yeah. and so, yeah,

Mikah Sargent (00:19:20):
See, and that has been the problem that I've had in the past. I've always wanted to have that sort of resistance that can come from one of those screens, but reading about how much it affects mm-hmm. <Affirmative> the viewing experience, it,

Rosemary Orchard (00:19:33):
It, it really does when you're trying to watch something. Like, it's very obvious to me when I'm trying to watch it. And I'm sure if if folks are looking, watching the video and they compare it like two minutes ago with now yeah. As they look at my iPad screen, they will be able to see a difference, like even there. But yeah, it is pretty nice. It's very clever. It still works very well. Like the, the iPad works perfectly without that. But yeah, so there's that. And then I have a couple of other things attached to my iPad here because my iPad's pink. Wow.

Mikah Sargent (00:19:57):
Look at this. Look at all the colors on that. I

Rosemary Orchard (00:19:59):
Know.

Mikah Sargent (00:19:59):
Did you, did you hand paint that? 

Rosemary Orchard (00:20:01):
So I, I didn't. Okay. there's this amazing little company called Slick Wrap and they make well wrap for your, your iPad, or in my case, the magic keyboard. And like, I like the fact that it actually covers like the area either side of the touch pad and the touchpad as well. So this is specifically the oil pattern. And yeah, it's, it's super pretty. Like I just, I love, like, it's, it's kind of difficult to show it on camera because it it is, you know, very colorful. But they, like, they even cover the spine and Myco, they even included dots for the end. Whoa. They also included like a little one for this end, but I haven't put that on because I have a, a magnetic charger in there, which we can get to in a minute. So yeah, like, these are great and they're often on sale, so like I think they're supposed to be $45 full price.

(00:20:45):
 And screen protector was like 19 point. But they come in a variety of like colors and finishes. I've had the carbon fiber one before, which I really liked. And yeah, it, it's just a, a nice way, especially if MIC and I were both here in the studio and we both had like our iPads out, like in the magic keyboard, it, it would be very difficult. Like, we'd have to like open it up and be like, okay, so what is like the wallpaper like, or something to, to figure out, you know, whose IPA was whose, but this way I know this is mine. And the other thing, which I'm just gonna throw in here because I I'm right here that I've got is I've got a little cover here from my Apple pencil. So the Apple pencil usually just magnetized on the side, and that's the magnetic attachment point here.

(00:21:25):
 But if I'm trying to put my iPad in a bag and I'm not putting it in a case first mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, the Apple pencil gets knocked off so easily. And I have a really great little Tom bin bag. It's the Prum, but the, like, the iPad fits perfectly in there, but like the pencil is just a little too tight with like the, the, the Mac Magic keyboard on. And so this Largo apple pencil protector, it magnetizes onto the back of the iPad. So it's just like here. And then it just covers the Apple pencil and holds it in place, but it's got a little cutout so I can easily just, you know, pop out the Apple pencil without worrying about it falling off. And then because it gets pinned like in between the magic keyboard and the iPad, it's not going anywhere.

(00:22:06):
And that was like 11 99, 0, 19 99 on Amazon. Sorry, I did try another one first, but on the 11 inch iPad, it was like coming out diagonally. And the, the volume buttons are right here, so there's volume button, like literally I'm touching like the, the Apple Pencil protector and the volume button. And it was covering like most of the volume buttons, so I was having to go, like, go in from a side, which was not great. Right. so this one I really like because it is very narrow, but it, it keeps the apple pencils in place.

Mikah Sargent (00:22:34):
Beautiful. yeah, I, I love what you've done. In fact, I'm planning now on getting

Rosemary Orchard (00:22:40):
It comes in green

Mikah Sargent (00:22:42):
<Laugh>. Yes. Does that come in green? But Slick wraps also makes, and I, you may have even mentioned it little wraps for the Apple Pencil. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. And those are really clever. And then they've also got this retro series Oh yeah. That you can get these retro skids.

Rosemary Orchard (00:22:56):
Yeah. They do it for like, they do them for MacBooks, they do them for AirPods cases, AirPods, like all the different kinds of AirPods. They do them for iPhones and so on as well. So you can actually just like wrap your iPhone instead of putting it in a case. And honestly, Micah, like I love my purple iPhone. I'm gonna miss it when there isn't a purple iPhone next year, because purple is the best. Apple purple should be a permanent part of your lineup. I know you won't do that though, so next year I might just have to do slick wraps and make my app iPad, iPhone purple, because then I don't have to worry. I mean, like, they even, they'll even do like ones around the, like the camera. So like the cutout is gonna be purple too which is nice. So yeah, it Slick wraps has some great options.

Mikah Sargent (00:23:36):
Yeah. That they've, they've certainly just got my money. So <laugh>, they will have to thank you for that <laugh>. Alright, let us take a quick break before we come back with loads more. There's a lot to talk about and I'm excited to talk about much of it, but I do wanna take a quick break. So we can tell you about our sponsor today. It's electric E-Bikes. We're bringing you this episode of iOS today. There's no better way to get outside and enjoy the spring season than with a electric e-bike. You can transform your trips across town or to the beach into a carefree and fun adventure with fun, fast and F f f foldable electric e-bikes during the ready set spring sale, you can go to the store for some quick pickups. You can go for an outdoor adventure. It doesn't matter because electric e-bikes are creating a mode of transportation that anyone can ride with quality, feature filled models financed as low as $73 a month.

(00:24:39):
Your adventures aren't going to cost you a fortune. And what I love about electric e-bikes is the way that they are so portable, so customizable. They include a powerful removable battery, a bright L C D display, seven speed gearing, and five levels of pedal assist to power your ride. Plus you can lower your gas costs and reduce your carbon footprint. I might have to start biking to work on the electric e-bikes. You can see right now if you're watching Leo is riding around on the cargo model of the electric e-bike and it has this cargo rack on the back of it where you can you know, put your, your, in this case delivery boxes. But there are different attachments that you can install. I gotta tell you, these things are so much fun. It's like, it's like a, a a, a slimmed down version of a motorbike in terms of you get a little bit of that wind in your hair feel without feeling like things are out of control.

(00:25:37):
And I also love how collapsible and foldable they are. Leo is taking it outta the back of his vehicle and putting it together. He is able to fold it, unfold it rather, and make a bunch of different adjustments. You can adjust the seat height, the handles everything in between to get it just where you want. And then it's got some fun features built in, like headlight and taillight that can come on, which, which is also quite lovely. So if it's getting darker, you know, you're able to do that. You'll see soon Leo and I both biking around on a two of the electric E-bikes. And that was some good fun as we were using the pedal assist and moving around in the TWIT parking lot, but also in on the road nearby. Just going around and having a good time.

(00:26:23):
I could see taking one of these into San Francisco and going biking there. And knowing that when it came time for those hilly parts of San Francisco, that it would not be a horrible experience for me, which is what I think it would be if I didn't have that pedal assist technology. You can make Electric e-bike your own because they offer a wide range of customizable and adjustable e-bike options to accommodate an array of different lifestyles, including rides from the effortlessly fun XP lights to a highly capable cargo e-bike. The expedition, like the one Leo is on join more than 250,000 dedicated rider on the road thus far. It's your Adventure Companion roam freely and reach up to 28 miles per hour with the twist of a throttle or next level pedal assist. You can add cargo baskets or bags, comfort upgrades and even passenger accessories to certain e-bike models.

(00:27:19):
And they cost way less than the competition. They're foldable, they ship free and they come fully assembled. So you don't have to worry about getting all of that set up, especially whenever you've got gears. That can be quite the process of getting that set up fresh. So start your next adventure with electric e-bikes. Ready, set spring sale. Visit electric e-bikes dot com to learn more and explore the new expedition cargo e-bike and all of the other Epic models Electric has to offer. That's L E C T R I C E-bikes dot com. And we thank Electric E-Bikes for sponsoring this week's episode of i o s today. Will of course be back with more Thank you so much Electric e-bikes and it's time to get back to the show. On this episode we are talking about the stuff we have in our bags and boy, howdy. There's a lot of stuff I have in my bag. I'll quickly show some of the things that I just kinda want to give a, a quick mention for cuz you know, I don't carry all of this stuff with me at all times, but occasionally I do need a place to store.

Rosemary Orchard (00:28:30):
I just have to ask Micah, was it my suggestion for those bags with the labels on them that made you do that? Because this is what I do at home, that's how I manage all of my cables. I have like these plastic mesh sip bags and I use a label maker to label them so that I know

Mikah Sargent (00:28:42):
100% this is all Rosemary's idea. And you know, the, from the bags to the labels and everything in between, I thought, oh, I've gotta try to do that cuz it's, and it is, it's great. So I've got a bunch of them at home. U s BBC to U S B A or vice versa. Different audio ba I mean everything. But these are my Dons and adapters. And so I've got a standard array of apple cables, including throwback. This is a Thunderbolt two to vga cable. So <laugh>, you can imagine how old that one is. Most of the rest of these are, are quite new, including this U S BBC two or SD Card two u s bbc. So I can plug that into pretty much any of the modern IO iPhone excuse me, iPad or MAC devices and use that. This is lightning with H D M I on the side so that I can

Rosemary Orchard (00:29:37):
And it's got the power h my output, the thing there as well because I have one of those with the u sb. And then I have the one with the U USB and the power. And if I want to use basically anything, then the one with the USB and the power. And you do need to provide power to it. So if I'm plugging like a U SB stick into my phone or something, then it's the one that has power that I need.

Mikah Sargent (00:29:54):
Absolutely. And then one of the most common cables that I use is simply U s BBC two U S B A. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And, or I shouldn't say even the cable. This is just a dongle. And this is great for any U S B A device that I need to plug into the side. And then the last one I'll mention is this. Apple used to make a Thunderbolt two to ethernet ca dongle or adapter. They do not make that anymore. And so now you have to use a third party option in this case. Or I shouldn't say they don't make that, they make that one still, but what they don't make is u s BBC slash Thunderbolt three and four two ethernet. And so you've gotta use a third party. I have the Bekin version. I don't have it with me cuz I stopped using it, but I did Frankenstein together in the past A oh no, I guess I still do have it <laugh>.

(00:30:47):
So before Belkin needed to kind of update some of their firmware to get things working. But what I had to do at the time was if I wanted to use, cuz this is the Apple made adapter where it's thunderbolt to, to ethernet. And so I had this and then <laugh> from there, I did Thunderbolt three to Thunderbolt two adapter. So then I was able to plug this in. And then I had ethernet to Thunderbolt three <laugh>. So this very long adapter was what I plugged into the side in order to get that. Now that that shorter BELTCON cable works just fine, or adapter works just fine. Mm. But at one point that was what I did. And then the other thing, of course, always have a u sb C and lightning cable. The reason that I'm even showing this is because you can never go wrong with some hook and loop cable wraps. And so I've got those on many of my devices. And then a short little Apple Watch charger here. And this of course now also charges the AirPods Pro. The most recent model can be charged by an Apple Watch charger. So that has a dual purposes when I need to. All right. Rosemary, what's next on your list? Well,

Rosemary Orchard (00:32:02):
I was just gonna mention because you brought your dunkle, I I for u s BBC to U S B A I, I have a tiny, tiny, oh, tiny and I just picked up a pack of three of these on Amazon. But they, they work really well. Like, it's very difficult to show what it is because it's just a tiny little thing. It's got u s BBC and then U S B A at the other end. And yeah, I keep that with me cuz sometimes you do end up with stuff that needs, you know, U S B A and there's only U S B A, like the hydrate spark water bottle. Those, those charging cables are only U S B, that's what they provide with them. But what I was gonna talk about next and I'm kind of torn because you, you've kind of you know, derailed me by, by by showing me stuff <laugh>.

(00:32:40):
 But what I, what I will just show people is this is like what is usually in my, my bag for just what I carry everywhere because I have this, by the way, folks is a Tom bin ghost whale size small. And it usually has this cable in there. I had this cable out cause I was gonna talk about it. But what I have in there is like, I have a Satche wireless charger, which is just a little dongle. I have a Satche watch charger dongle this and then I just have the, the extension cable for, for the watch charger as well. And then this unfortunately, like, I'd like to recommend it, but the, the company is going out of business because they tried to do a Kickstarter during the pandemic and it didn't go well for them. Mm-Hmm.

(00:33:20):
 but this is a very, very small UK charger because the UK plugs are huge folks. Like this is a UK plug. Like it, it's big and the fact that this folds down is very, very unusual. But I always have this with me and this is a spare charger for my Uber ring. So that I can always charge my Uber up when it's charging because Yeah. But I carry this little pouch with me everywhere because it doesn't take up all that much space. And especially with this cable inside which is usually the other way around. That's how that fits. It is very much a little game of 3D Tetris to get this in there mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. but like this then it's nice and bright turquoise. It just lives in my bag. And then if I need to charge something, I have like a charging kit with me and I can charge anything.

(00:34:05):
Oh. because yeah. And so I will kind of just continue for a moment with this cable because you saw one of these on Sunday Micah, and you're like, I did, what is this? Tell me more. So I have a couple of these. And like I have a longer one. So this one is a three meter version of it. And unfortunately as red, I should have in hindsight brought the yellow one with me. And then I have a nice little two meter version. And then just because and I should say they come with like these little rubbery things as well as hook and loop cable ties on them. There's a tiny, tiny, tiny one. Oh. and these folks are in charge cables from a company called Rolling Square. And they're special because they aren't just one charging cable.

(00:34:50):
So at the moment I'll push the others outta the way. This is U S B A at one end and then this other end is Lightning and micro U S B. But if I maybe need to charge something that needs a more power or I don't have a U S B A like socket handy, well I can just pop off the end and then it's u s bbc. And then at the other end, if I don't wanna charge something that's lightning or Micro u sb and it is both of those then I can just pop that off and that's u s bbc and these can do a hundred bots of para pass through. Wow. That's, that was gonna be my question. Yeah, because like some of these like multi cables can't do that. Now, I should say this is within U USP C spec I've checked, but because this end is U S B A and U S P C, this is the end that has to go into power.

(00:35:34):
 And that did briefly confuse me at one point when I managed to plug it in other way wrong. So I was like, yeah, I just need like u US BBC to USS BBC at the moment and tried to do it like that way with this in the plug and was like, why is it not charging? And then I looked at it and was like, let's try the other way. Yeah. But like it works both ways up. So it's within U US BBC spec. But yeah, this is the incharge, this teeny tiny one is the in Charge X and the other ones are the in charge xl. And they come in like 30 centimeter versions. And they've got like this, like, so they magnetize together the two ends and then there's like a little plastic covering that just stays on there. That's

Mikah Sargent (00:36:05):
What I love the most is that at every step of the way they're thinking about how the cable will be managed. Yeah. It's not just, you know, one, one wrap put on the side or mm-hmm. That it has the, it's got all of it to make sure that it it does what you want it to do.

Rosemary Orchard (00:36:19):
Yeah, exactly. And so yeah, like there's the, the in charge X, which is the, the key chain size one, which is just tiny, tiny, tiny 30 centimeter, two meter and then three meter. And the two meter and three meter come with these like rubber cases that you can then just, I'll use this one cause it's a little easier to do, just slide it back in. And they come in a couple of colors as well, and it's braided and it's flat. So like if you need to like work it like behind some furniture or something, then it's easy to do that. And honestly, like the, these are just great. I, I love them. Like, this one literally goes with me everywhere. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and usually one of these as well, <laugh>, just because there's always the, like everybody has a friend, right? Who doesn't have a charging cable with them. <Laugh>. and it's, it's kind of got to be a joke where a couple of weeks ago at work, I was in the office and somebody put in one of the chats like, oh, does anybody have a cable that can charge my iPhone? It's, it's running outta battery. And I, I've got like a three hour train ride later. And somebody who wasn't even in the office said, Rosa's got one

Mikah Sargent (00:37:18):
<Laugh>. If anyone's got it, it's

Rosemary Orchard (00:37:19):
Wrong. They were right. I, I did. And yeah. And it was good because when they, when they said Rosa's got one, they actually pinged me. So I was then aware of the message and just like went over cable ferry drop. Here you go. Have a charging cable. You're good. Now

Mikah Sargent (00:37:32):
<Laugh>, that's so funny. While we're on the subject of charging, I'll show a few of the devices that I have. So Nomad Goods has been a sponsor on the network before, but has been a long time company that I've recommended in terms of the, the products that they offer after Yes, no offer. This is the Nomad Goods or the Nomad I guess the goods kind of has been dropped. But the Nomad Charger, it's a 65 watt charger and it has the nice fold out plug, which is great. So it's a little bit compact and collapsible. And on the front you've got two u s BBC chargers. So you can plug in two devices at once and you know, get a full charge on something like an iPad while you're also charging an iPhone in that bottom part.

(00:38:19):
I really like this cuz it's very lightweight, which is nice. And again, the fact that it has two there. So I keep this, I've got so many different chargers, but many of them are plugged in in places where I regularly need to charge. This is one that I keep mobile so that I am able to add a moment's notice plug this in. So while some of the stuff that I'm showing today, I don't carry with me all the time, this is almost always with me because I can plug that in and know that it's gonna give me a bunch of juice that I need for it. So that's the Nomad 65 Watt Charger. The other charger that I wanna mention this is another company that I learned about a billion years ago at c e s called My Charge and My Charge, what I like about it, and we, we've started to see other popular charging companies like Anchor Do this is that they include as part of the charging bank itself a power plug.

(00:39:19):
So this folds up, but I can fold it out, I can plug it into the wall and recharge this device, but then it also can be plugged into the wall. And then you can use the the, the power as a power brick instead, or as a charging hub as opposed to just being the built-in battery. And there's a U S B A port on the bottom specifically to plug something into it while it's in the wall, and then you can charge something from that. But what's great about this is that on top of just having that built in plug for recharging it, and then there's a little button on the side of battery button to show with, with four LEDs to show you how charged up it is. You don't have to remember extra cables with this because it comes with the cables built into it.

(00:40:04):
It's got u s bbc in one spot that folds out and then it can kind of just get pushed back in. And then on the other side is a lightning cable. So there I can easily charge an iPhone or another Apple device. And then with the u s BBC, I can charge most modern devices. And these are all just built right in, so I'm not having to carry an extra cable with me at the same time. And then when this runs outta juice boop, I plug it into the wall, we're good to go. This is a 37.2 watt hours. So that's what, 3,700 milliwatt hours I think is the, or is it megawatt? I don't know. <Laugh>, it's, it's 3,700 is is the number you're looking for. But this will let you charge u s BBC and Lightning, which again, fantastic, especially just being able to pop this into the wall and recharge it when I need to.

(00:40:58):
And then I couldn't do a show on iOS today without mentioning Apple's own MagSafe battery pack. I have to say, of all of the charging devices I own, this is definitely one of my least favorite. I think it's a little bit overpriced for what it does but if you kind of want to be all Apple and you want the, the built-in usability of Apple, then it's n it's not a bad choice for you. It has lightning charging on the bottom. So you plug this in and you can charge it on its own. It'll give you juice for an iPhone. But what's great about it, and what I will give it credit for is as kind of a mo as a a travel charger, you can plug this in and then you put your phone on it and it will charge both of those with the phone getting priority so your phone gets charged and then it goes ahead and charges up this battery pack.

(00:41:55):
So I've used this on occasion when I needed a quick little boost on my phone. You slap it on the back and because it's made by Apple, it's got special sort of integrations where it can be smart about using the battery itself and then using the iPhones battery after that. And then last but not least, I don't think we can talk about charging without mentioning Anchor. I do have one of anchor's chargers here, and this is, this looks a lot like the Apple charger because it is MagSafe. So you can see the MagSafe symbol here. And so this th walks to the back of the iPhone, which is quite nice and will charge up the iPhone. But what's great about this is that it's also a stand. So up at the top there's a little lip that unfolds, so I can fold that out and then I just reposition the stand so that it magnets into the middle. And then I can set this down on in, in a vertical view like so, or horizontally like so, and then afterwards slap that back and it's kinda hard to see. But right now this is actually charging my phone. So this plugs in with U S B C, not lightning. But I, I quite like that it's U SBC instead. And this is the MagSafe, let's see, what's this one called? The magnetic battery mag. Go. 

Rosemary Orchard (00:43:22):
I'm surprised Micah. It also comes in a color called bud screen. You've got powder blue.

Mikah Sargent (00:43:27):
I do.

Rosemary Orchard (00:43:28):
Misty blue. Sorry, that one's misty.

Mikah Sargent (00:43:30):
Yeah, this is Misty Blue. I think at the time they didn't the, I got this right as it came out and so they didn't have the green yet, unfortunately. I don't use this very often, mostly because I've got a big honk and iPhone that has lots of battery. But it is a great little, the, the fact that it can also serve as a stand I think is what makes this unique and great. And then I know you've got a newer model of that, but there's, there's my little rundown of the charging devices I have.

Rosemary Orchard (00:43:58):
Yeah. so on, on the battery charging front, I was just gonna say, I also have an anchor battery and this is the pop socket one. So it has a pop socket and it's an easy swap pop socket. So you can actually swap this off because I'm person who I mean, I have an iPhone that I also have a pop socket on, but this is the Magi pop socket, so I can just pop that off and drink, pop this one on. And then my phone's charging, which is great. And I will also note that there is a little bonus that I'm gonna say, which is if you've got a label maker, get some thin label tape and put your name on the side of any battery packs because if you accidentally, I don't know leave it in the seat pocket of a plane or something like that, or you lend it to a friend, then they will see this and be like, oh, thi this, this isn't mine. I need to give this back. And then you, you hopefully get your things back. So yeah, that, that's,

Mikah Sargent (00:44:47):
That one's so thin and light, I guess. Yeah. Grab as a comparison here. Yeah. All right. So yeah, you can see it's a little bit thinner than the one that I have. Of course it ditches the, the, the magnetic stand that's on the back, but you do have the pop socket there, so yeah, that's quite nice. And it charges, yeah, u s bbc which I love.

Rosemary Orchard (00:45:10):
<Laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, the fact that these use us BBC is great because in my mags safe battery pack in the bottom, I actually have a little magnetic charger thingy. Oh. which I've talked about on the show before. Those are from in charge. And yeah, so I can actually just have like a cable and bunk it magnetizes on there. And then the same one, actually even I have a little magnetic no in my iPad because they do lightning micro SB and u s BBC like things. And it's like, it's not like super, it's not as good as MagSafe, but it's pretty good. And like, yeah, these come in a couple of length. So that's, that's pretty nice. And again, I have my email on the side of my max safe battery pack, because otherwise these all look the same. Like, is this mine or it, or is it, who knows?

(00:45:50):
Right. so while we're talking about charging, I thought that I would mention a couple of things that I have with me. Because, you know, I, you, you always travel with cables, right? And so one of the things I found in the US is so I'll go to plug a charger into the wall and I'll plug it in. Okay. So this is the wall. And then what happens is it goes <laugh> and it kind of like just tips and falls out the wall a bit. And then it's like, this feels not safe. Now I know if I electrocute myself over here, it's half as bad as it is in the UK <laugh>. But that still feels like a not great way to, you know, live my life. Right. And also, the last thing you want is to wake up in the middle of the night with like this

Mikah Sargent (00:46:27):
Surrounded fire. Well,

Rosemary Orchard (00:46:28):
Also like just the dunk as like this falls out Oh, yes. Of the wall or something. And then your devices aren't charged, or not wake up when it falls outta the wall. And so I have a extension lead with me and I usually have some kind of extension lead with me when I travel. These are elastic bongo ties, by the way. People, they're great because they aren't hook and loops, so they're not gonna like fray anything. But they're really strong elastic. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (00:46:51):
They remind me of those hair balls. That

Rosemary Orchard (00:46:53):
Exactly. So my family, so like, I can just wrap this around and then like Yeah. That goes in. But this is a Phillips extension cable. I just picked it up. It's like $8. It's a braided one. Happens to be in Micah Green. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, that's not the color. It's just green <laugh>. But it's, it's an eight foot extension cable, but it's flat and it goes into the wall. So like when this goes into the wall, because this bid doesn't weigh anything, it doesn't fall out. Yeah. And it stays there. And then at the other end I, it's got three places where you can plug stuff in. So, you know, there's, there's one on the back and then there's two on the front with a little slidey thing, which you showed me this morning that I didn't even realize was there.

(00:47:30):
Yeah. so yeah, so there's, there's places to plug stuff in. This is great for hotel rooms that have decided you don't need to charge things anywhere near the bed. <Laugh>. like this combined with like the three meter, like charging cables that I carry is definitely a bonus. But it's also just great for things not falling out of the wall. And yeah, I can use it to plug in my minutes chargers, which I have two sizes off here because I found that it's nice to have a charger, like at the desk area where I will be using my laptop and stuff. And then a charger near the bed, which is for like the, the, the charging things that I use for my phone. Like this, which we've talked about on the show before. It's the this is the MOFI three and one charger.

(00:48:08):
It's available from the Apple store and moi. But yeah, so this mini charger, there is a hundred wat version and a 66 wat version. So the 66 wat version is, is smaller, and then the, the hundred bott version is bigger. And basically the difference is like the amount of power that they can output. Pro tip box, if you've got one of these multi chargers, put your biggest device at the top smallest device at the bottom. It's easier to remember when there's U S B A involved, but even if it's just u s BBC biggest device at the top, like your laptop and then like your Apple watch at the bottom or your AirPods or whatever. But these are great because like they have the foldable prongs, which I know a lot of Americans love for me, these foldable prongs are useless. They don't plug in, I need a UK plug, but I want a US plug. And I also have EU adapters, and these just slide on so that I can just swap the

Mikah Sargent (00:48:53):
Box. Whoa. And it slides onto the Yeah, the US plug. Yeah.

Rosemary Orchard (00:48:57):
And, and the EU ones are the same. And it can comes, like, each one of these comes with a teeny tiny little bag as well. So what I have at home is I have the bag with just like the EU adapters in, and then like, I, I have the, the bag with the UK adapters in when I'm not using these. But like, these, these are just great chargers and they, they go loads of places with me. That

Mikah Sargent (00:49:13):
Is

Rosemary Orchard (00:49:13):
Nice. So yeah. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (00:49:15):
There we go. That's really nice. All right, let me see. I've got a few more things I'll talk about and then we'll get a move on. I wanted to mention some of the, some of the stuff that I carry with me pretty regularly. So we've talked a lot about AirPods Pro on the show. But I did want to mention the little lanyard I have on the side. So this is an Apple exclusive well, actually it, it's not anymore. It was at one point an Apple exclusive lanyard. And this is, oh, now I'm forgetting, is it Incase or is it bekin? 

Rosemary Orchard (00:49:50):
That is from Incase. Thank, thank you. Because I have the same thing here, Micah only. Mine is of course purple, because of course it is. And I've got a little case with it as well. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (00:50:00):
So this is the Incase lanyard and apple as the new generation with the new generation of AirPods Pro, have added a little lanyard loop on the side so that you can plug that in and or so that you can put on a lanyard. So this incase loop is available for 1295 from the Apple store. And what you can do, of course, is carry it around on your wrist, but there's a little loop that is a sort of rubberized, and it has an area that slides into a little circle at the end. So what you do is you can put it on, you know, a bag or something like that. You loop it around, and then you slide it into that little clip. And if I pull it tight, then it slides into the area at the end, and now I've got a pretty well fastened loop that to undo.

(00:50:51):
I just simply pull the opposite way and then it comes undone. So very easy to stick it on something and, you know, go about your day and then be able to take it off whenever you're ready. And I find that the other great thing about having a little lanyard on the side of your AirPods is that it makes them easier to find because it's just a little bit more visible with it taking up a little bit more visual space. So that is the incase lanyard for the AirPods Pro. Well, rather for any AirPods, whether you use a case that has a lanyard loop on it or not this you could quite literally type in. I think you could even type in fidget toy on Amazon and you'd be able to find this specific one. But I wanted to mention these little fidget toys.

(00:51:32):
They're little green peas and they have little faces, and I carry one of these with me everywhere because it is a silent fidget, which is very important for me. If I want to have something that I can keep my hands busy when I'm not or when I'm, you know, doing a show or, or doing something else that requires my audio to be clean, then I can just play with this in the background. But they're also just fun to look at because it pops up little faces, which are very difficult to see on camera. But these are adorable. And I think they come in like packs of six. So if they start to wear away, then you can just get another one. I've got one that's actually attached to the side of my bag. And then this one I just carry with me in a, in one of the pockets so that I can easily get to it.

(00:52:18):
 Can't do a show without mentioning UCOS UBI Key. This is an N F C in U S B A UBI Key. This is for doing two-factor authentication, or in some cases multi-factor authentication for different sites and accounts that I have. So with an iPhone, I can simply tap my phone to the sort of middle of this UBI key, and then it does the N F C connection for it. Or if you've got a U S B A, you can plug it in there, you touch your finger to the Y and then it will properly authenticate. I have this on a ring key, R I N G K E lanyard. These come in usually like packs of three or four, and that just makes it easy to find and grab. These come in multiple colors. And so I can plug in my UBI key and anytime I need to and authenticate.

(00:53:11):
 And you'll see that I've got a one on the back of that. That's because anytime you use a hardware key as part of your authentication process, always do two, especially if that's your only means of doing two-factor authentication. So to be clear, if you are you know, you have your, your username, your password, and then your only means of authentication that you've set up is a a hard work key, make sure you do two. Because if you lose that first key, how are you gonna get back into your account? So that's why I've got this labeled with a one. The second one is in a special location. And then last but not least what has quickly become, honestly one of my favorite sort of additions to my bag is this MagSafe wallet from Apple. This is a Green Mag Safe wallet, which of course is gorgeous darling.

(00:54:08):
 I can fit three cards in it, and that's all I ever keep on me at one time. Anyway, I've got my credit card, my id, and then my health insurance card. And those three cards are what I take with me everywhere I go. And in fact, this is normally not even attached to my phone. I normally keep it in my bag, but when I wanna travel super light, then of course it magnets to the back of the iPhone. And what's great about it is I'm hoping eventually that Apple will add an actual sort of air tag hardware inside of it so that you can track it directly finding it if it becomes detached. But what Apple does do for now is if the wallet is detached from the phone, then the moment that it's detached, it drops a pin in the MAPS app.

(00:54:58):
And that way you can at least look into the MAPS app and go, this is where we last saw the f the the wallet attached to the phone. So popping it back on will then of course sort of undo that, that pin, and then the moment it becomes detached again, then it will drop that pin. So, you know, even if it's not there when you get there, at least you know where it was. And that's the hope is that you can find it again. I also like that it will notify you when it becomes detached and you can set it up so that at certain locations it does not notify you because they're, you know, if it's at home or something like that. So yeah, there's thx to the back of the iPhone and you can see I'm doing this even while I've got a case on there.

(00:55:39):
So the MagSafe technology works with or without that. And then the last thing that I'll mention is part of kind of this, this round is the ufi security card. And this is a card, it's called the Smart Track Card. And this card works with Apples Find My Network. It is one of the thinnest cards I've been able to find that still supports find my technology. The cards in the past have been thicker and they're usually meant to accommodate an air tag, but this is relatively thin in comparison. It's about the size of, I'd say one and a half credit cards in terms of thickness. And it is one time use. So it's, the battery is not replaceable is what I mean by that. But the battery will last you a long time and if you use it directly with the Find My App, it works a lot like an air tag minus the direct find.

(00:56:35):
So it's got a little speaker built into it and you can, no, you can have the Find My App send out a a, a pulse pollster signal you, so you can find where it is if you set it up with the UFI security app, which you totally don't have to, but if you do, then you can reverse the feature. So if you have the card with you and you're trying to find your phone, you can press this little button here and it will make your phone make sound because it uses a special feature that Apple is included for sort of emergency notifications. And so then it will push through even if your phone is on silent. I don't have it set up with the UFI security app because I didn't want the UFI security app to have my location at all times. But that is something that you can do if you choose and even just using it with the Find My Network.

(00:57:20):
This is great. And I think it's especially good for folks who have a wallet that's a little bit bigger than the MagSafe wallet that fits on the back. A standard Wallet is gonna fit this just fine, which is great, and it'll go in there in, you know, one spot and you'll be able to find your wallet if you lose it. So yeah, that's the UFI security smart track card. Alright, I'm gonna stop talking. Rosemary, why don't you round us out with some more picks and then we'll continue on with the rest of the show.

Rosemary Orchard (00:57:49):
Well so I have one more pick that I'm gonna show people, but I did wanna mention, first of all, you said that that the the, the card there doesn't or the Apple Wallet doesn't have the, the, the full air tag integration with there is currently a product from ESR on Kickstarter, which is a max Safe wallet with Full Find My integration. Ooh. So I've, I'll put a link to that in the show notes. It's currently on Kickstarter. I have backed it which is great. And the other thing I wanted to mention is something we, we did talk about a little while ago when we were doing the Find my with Air air Tag alternative episode. I have the Pebble Bee charging yes card, and that is rechargeable rather than, that's so a one-time charger one-time use thing. So the battery lasts six months or so.

(00:58:29):
I have two. So I've got one in my passport and then one, one in my, my purse. So I was gonna try and get it out, but I didn't wanna like, unplug everything and, and move because that, that might break things. So yeah, that, that's that. And the last thing I was gonna show is you know, we've, we, you mentioned Velcro cable ties, I mentioned the bongo ties or the elastic bobble ones. I did also want to mention these, because these are gear ties and they are from night ties. So it's just, it's, it's a rubberized band like metal thing. And there is a flat end on one end, a little bubble on the other because then what you can do is you can actually, if you've got something big that you kind of like need to wrangle, you can like hook it through and then you've got like just a big loop.

(00:59:12):
But if you've got a smaller cable like this Mac safe charging cable for my MacBook, then you can just wrap it around a few times and they come in bright colors, they come in boring colors. So the peck that I is has I think it was blue, yellow, pink, and black in it. But they, they come in, you know, a couple of different options. I actually picked up this set the other day at rei because they have a bunch of stuff there, including part of my app cap today. Surprise spoiler folks. But yeah, these are really good. Night eye stuff is great. I think I I also have the torch from them, which is u s BBC rechargeable. Yes. So good. But these are great because, you know, like wrapping cables can be tricky. And it's nice to have. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (00:59:50):
Just like, cause you've got different sizes and you don't know, especially depending on how you fold it up the next time it might change.

Rosemary Orchard (00:59:55):
Yeah, exactly. And honestly I will say folks, I much prefer using something like this over the trick, which I will show folks using this cable that some people do, where they wrap it around their hand. First of all, if you're wrapping a cable, please do this loosely. Do not do this tightly. The last thing you want when you're traveling or anyth anywhere is a a afraid cable. But what some people do is they will get to this point and then they will like, tie this up, ugh, in some way that hurts me. Like that, that is a, a way to damage your cable in the end. So what I will do is I'll just loop it a bunch of times and then grab something like a gear tie or you know, a Velcro cable tidy or one of the bongo ties. And then I'll just wrap it up like that. And that's it. And I don't have to worry about my cable being frayed or damaged. I'm, I'm good to go.

Mikah Sargent (01:00:38):
Yeah, that looks great. Honestly, and I, I love night Ices stuff too. In fact, just for this week in Google, that was my pick was a few different night ice products that I have for managing my keys and some of the little accessories I have on my key chain. So night Ices make some great stuff that is just perfect for organization and management. Anything else that you want to mention before we move on?

Rosemary Orchard (01:01:06):
I mean, I will mention I have talked about this on the show before. It's been my app cap. This is A D G I ma camera. Ooh. So d g I make drones. And so their image op stabilization is amazing. It's so little. It's tiny, tiny, tiny, right? But what I love about this is it has a great pano feature. Which what I can do is I'll, I'll do this here in the studio okay, right now. And so what I can do is I can take a picture and this is probably not gonna be great cause I moved the camera down as I was recording it so that people can kind of see what's happening. But as I take a picture, I'll, I'll do it again so people can see it points the camera in different directions and it does a pano because if you've ever tried to do a panoramic shot on your phone, and like what you do is like, you pick up your phone and then you're trying to do this and it's got like a little error and you're like, oh no, I need to go down.

(01:01:54):
And then you end up with like this weird bit that's like cropped out. And then what I can do with this is I can actually just slide. So I've got an extra control wheel that's, that's an optional thing on there. But I can slide that off. Like, it, it's, yeah. Like, don't worry, it's fine. It's so little. It is so little. But it has a little le lightning. What it, that I can just slide on there. So what I can do is I can actually just pop this on. And then if I just quickly unlock my phone, which I can do like this and I plug this in, you're kidding. I can plug this in and I can actually download the photos straight away to my phone. So this is the D G I mimo. I should note that this case is not a case that I usually use with this.

(01:02:35):
I have another case, which I'll save as an app cap for another time. But yeah, so I can just plug this in. And then it will pop up and then I can actually see and control everything. So I can actually do a pano shot, like right here on my phone from here. And it will go ahead and just do it. And it's moving like the actual camera. So if I just move it down a little bit, then people can see. And then, yay, there's a Micah <laugh>. And so, and then it will actually stitch it together. So all this is doing as it takes pictures is it just takes pictures or videos. And then like when I, there's Panos and stuff, when I go to download them, it'll stitch them together. <Laugh>. So like, this, this is not the best photo cause I've been like putting the lens down and stuff.

(01:03:14):
I should get that microfiber cloth outta my bag and clean the lens <laugh>. But then I can actually like go into like the pictures section and then I can see pictures. And so I took some pictures. Let me see if I can just find one from like the other day very quickly where I took a really great picture of the sunset. And I'm not seeing it now. But yeah, I, I can just download one of these, for example, that one, and yeah, this is a low rose preview, and then we go to download it. It'll actually, you know, do that or this one, it also does nine by nine. So it'll take like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 pictures. Wow. And then stitch them together and

Mikah Sargent (01:03:50):
Holy moly,

Rosemary Orchard (01:03:51):
Like that's, that's a pano taken on on this D g I camera. And so yeah, it's, it's

Mikah Sargent (01:03:57):
Awesome. That is really cool.

Rosemary Orchard (01:03:59):
Yeah. And also get like for folks who are interested in this, like I, it's been my app cap before, like this is the original, not the second version. So like, look and see if you can get the original cheaper, like, secondhand on like eBay or refurbish from somewhere. Because like the new version is amazing, but the, this version, it's still great. Yeah, it's brilliant. Like, yeah, I just turned off when it like, stows its own lens and that's it. We're done.

Mikah Sargent (01:04:21):
Oof. That's really cool. I, I had no idea. Was as cool as it is.

Rosemary Orchard (01:04:24):
Oh yeah. Super

Mikah Sargent (01:04:25):
Cool. All right. I think, I think we're gonna wrap that up and we'll move along to the news. I'm sorry to many of your bank accounts out there. I wouldn't be surprised if you end up picking up some new gadgets. Mine's gonna be crying after I get one of those little gizmos for sure. But it's always fun to see what's in, you know, the bags of the folks who are talking about all the stuff and, you know, regularly making use of it. Right? It's, it's, it's us trying to make sure that we are aware of all the fun stuff that's out there, and then making sure that it works as expected and that it's something that you will want to use yourselves. So if there's anything that we missed, you know, something that you just, you think absolutely every iPad user, iPhone user apple Watch user needs to have, let us know. Ios today@twit.tv, we'd love to hear what accessories you think are the most important to have in your bag. But let's go ahead and move along to the news segment. The news is up next. All right, it's time for the news and up first we'll talk about how if you've been having trouble as I have

Rosemary Orchard (01:05:41):
Yeah, me too. <Laugh>. So I, so I thought this was a me problem, Micah. Yeah. I was like, did I like not finish like updating like this Mac or something for a while? Because usually I, I use universal control mm-hmm. <Affirmative> while I'm working, so that I've got like my personal machine there. So if something comes up for iOS today, on the Tuesday, you know, while I'm finishing off my, my day job before we start recording, cuz usually I'm sitting at home and, and you know, that's what, what happens. Then like, I'm aware of it and I've been like trying to like use my mouse and like, usually you can just push your mouse through the side of one Mac onto an iPad or something else. It's not been working. And I, I've, I've been going crazy. I've been rebooting all the things and stuff. Cause every so often it will just like, like falter and then let you reboot one machine and it's all good again. Yep. But like, it's, it's just not been working for me. Turns out there's update problem.

Mikah Sargent (01:06:27):
It's not your fault. Yeah. So if you have been having trouble using universal control, as Rosemary just described, where you're basically using the mouse and keyboard of one Mac or an iPad to control multiple devices, then you are not alone in experiencing those issues. The same thing applies to handoff where you can be working on one device and say a notes document and then be able to pull that up on another device or having a call in one place, pull that call up in another place. All of the sort of continuity features that exist in Apple's ecosystem have been having some struggle bugs thanks to the iPad OS and Mac OS updates. There has now been a rollout of a, I think 0.1 update. And I know they're working even more on, on making sure everything's fixed. But what it what ha what had happened was the update that rolled out had some problem in it, some bug in it that did not want to play nice with universal control and handoff. So again, don't feel alone if you thought, what did I do wrong? Why is this suddenly not working? This feature I use all the time is not working as I expect it to. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you are experiencing it. It is very real and it's not something you've done. So yeah. Be on the lookout for an update that fixes that. Yeah.

Rosemary Orchard (01:07:50):
Though we should mention Micah, there is a new iOS update out mm-hmm. So 16 3.1 is available now. So for anybody who installed 16.3 and has had any weirdness or you haven't installed 16.3 or you know, you're just the fam friend and family member who goes, Hey, you should probably install an update on your iPhone an iPad and Apple TV and HomePod and all of the things yeah. That, that's available. And that does fix a number of small issues that folks have been having. 

Mikah Sargent (01:08:19):
Yeah. And to just to clarify, it's 16.4 0.1,

Rosemary Orchard (01:08:23):
4.1. Sorry.

Mikah Sargent (01:08:24):
No, totally. By exactly the numbers. Are you, you never know. Yeah. but

Rosemary Orchard (01:08:28):
Yes, especially cuz I'm actually running 16.5 because I've got the beter installed. So I've, I've lost track of all the version numbers there.

Mikah Sargent (01:08:34):
So yes, along with those issues, apple also notes. And if you can show my phone on screen the pushing hands emoji if you were trying to use that one, it does not show skin tone variations. So that's been fixed. And then Siri not responding in some cases is the other thing that's been fixed along with for many people, if they were having trouble with handoff and universal control, that too has been fixed. So get that 16.4 0.1 update and the latest one update for Mac Os in place and you should be good to go. Let's see. Apple is continuing to, its itself and also with its suppliers make sure that its renewable energy chops are up to snuff. They have expanded the renewable energy to 13.7 gigawatts, which is a lot more than any of my chargers could actually provide, which is just too bad.

(01:09:32):
<Laugh>. according to Apple, over 250 global manufacturing partners are now on a path to decarbonize Apple production by 2030. So they are doing their best to make sure that they're using renewable energy and decarbonizing. And in doing that, you will see an overall change to Apple being as carbon neutral as they can be. Tim Cook said at Apple, we are carbon neutral for our own operations and innovating every day to go even further in the urgent work to address climate change. So while they've addressed it internally, they want to address it externally as well and make sure that they are remaining carbon neutral. Let's mention, because Easter just happened there is a great guide from IOR about some Easter eggs in apple's. Siri. So Easter eggs are little secrets that exist in operating systems. They are things that you kind of come across perhaps naturally or other people have told you that they exist in there. And it's just kind of a little nod to between hu from one human to another where you go, oh, someone took the time to put this little joke or this little secret in there. It's just a little moment of delight that happens in, it's, I think video games are, are one great place to find Easter eggs. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, but also software and in this case 129 Siri Easter eggs. Although I'm sure we won't be able to get to all of

Rosemary Orchard (01:11:07):
Them. No. I am gonna just show folks one because it's pretty fun. And that's that I can actually share from my iPhone because it, you know, who doesn't love Siri being silly. Right, right. So I'm not gonna use the magic phrase just in case I trigger all of your home boards <laugh>. But what you can do is after you've triggered the Apple lady which I'll just stop and restart again and I'll just make sure that I am indeed sharing my screen just because you may actually want to see what Siri says is, can you beat box? And it turns out you

Speaker 4 (01:11:39):
Want beat a beatbox, beatbox beat, beatbox, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat box, beaten box, beaten box and beaten box and beaten Box and beaten.

Rosemary Orchard (01:11:49):
Yeah. Beaten box

Mikah Sargent (01:11:50):
And beaten. Oh my goodness. I just keeps going. Keeps.

Rosemary Orchard (01:11:53):
And, and, and when it gets to the end, it'll give other options as well. My favorite one is when, where it goes, boots and cats and Boots and Cats Boots

Mikah Sargent (01:12:00):
And cats

Rosemary Orchard (01:12:00):
<Laugh>. And, and then when it gets to the end of that, it swaps it around. So it does Cats

Mikah Sargent (01:12:03):
Get cats and boots. Yeah. Oh

Rosemary Orchard (01:12:05):
Wow. So yeah, like it's, Siri's got a number of cool things built in and there's a bunch of hidden features as well. And some of those you may find you know, thanks to, to this article or, you know, just watching iOS today in Shortcuts Corner and all of the other great stuff here on TWiT.

Mikah Sargent (01:12:19):
Yeah. Go check out that guide and then you can be a little what is that called? A Bar trick? Is that what those used to be called? Parlor Trick. The Parlor Trick. Thank you. Yes. Parlor Trick. Let's actually, cuz we're running out of time. My goodness. We had a lot to share in the first segment. I think I can hear the music. It's time for Shortcuts Corner. Welcome to Shortcuts Corner. The part of the the part of the show, not the part of the time, the part of the show where you write in with your shortcuts corner requests. And Rosemary Orchard, the shortcuts expert provides a response this time in person. Hmm. before we get to the Shortcuts corner request, Rosemary has a fun demo for us Yeah. Involved with packing. So tell us about Yeah,

Rosemary Orchard (01:13:10):
Well I thought seeing as I'm here in the studio and I brought a bunch of gear with me and I've, I've mentioned this a little back here on iOS today before, this is the Ina Tech travel bag looks very similar to the peak design bag, but it's like 20 bucks. I've mentioned one of the things that I do as I'm traveling to keep track of stuff, because, you know, most people make a packing list. I am no exception. I have a very fancy packing list system. But what I do as part of this is I have a little N F C tag, which is attached. So that what I can do in shortcuts and this is just an n ffc keychain by the way, folks. It's just a little plastic bubbly Watson that is right there. And then when I tap my phone to it, then it will actually go ahead and once I've set this up, open everything for my packing list.

(01:13:54):
So what I can do is I can actually just tap on plus in the automations and create a personal automation. And then from that personal automation, what I need to do is the N FFC tech. And then this is the magic, okay. When I scan this N FFC tag so that your N FFC reader is kind of like near the bump, you don't actually need to tap it, you just need to like hover it over it. And it will then register it tadda magic, and then I can, I can name this. And so what I will do or would do if my keyboard was showing up <laugh> that's a little weird. Let's try that again. Just because every so often things do get a little locked up. It's usually, I think it's got performance anxiety like

Mikah Sargent (01:14:32):
Yeah, it's going, oh, we're doing this in

Rosemary Orchard (01:14:33):
Person today. Yeah, we're, we're in person. Okay. well if I could name this, then that'll be better than that. What I could actually do, and I'll just try force quitting shortcuts every so often it gets a little stuck. And yeah, it's probably because I'm running the beter and I haven't installed like the latest update or something like that. So there we go. Do that. Don't touch anything and then

Mikah Sargent (01:14:53):
Please pop up this

Rosemary Orchard (01:14:54):
Time. It's, it's not, it's not trying, looking for it. That's really

Mikah Sargent (01:14:56):
Weird. Do you wanna try doing it on mine? I mean, yeah, because I've got non-beta, so, yeah. We'll, well,

Rosemary Orchard (01:15:00):
What I can do is I, I can show folks the rest of this because the rest of this I've already done inside of shortcuts, so I can actually just share my screen and then fo people can see that there. So what we have inside a shortcut is I, I made a little shortcut and what it does is it opens the packing lists. So however you do your packing lists you can just open an app, you can go to a specific tab, you could go to a specific list and reminders. In my case, I have a drafts workspace for my packing lists where I can just open all of those. And then I'll actually see there we go. The, these are the packing lists. And so then I can see, you know, like San Francisco stuff and I've got all the things I've checked off and I've got some things.

(01:15:38):
I did actually bring my raincoat. I did bring a hoodie, I did bring a hat. Yeah, I remember my hat for the app cap. I didn't bring gloves, but I am and I, I end up buying some shoes, but I, I'll have to pack those to bring back. So yeah, I have my packing list and I can just open all of my packing lists to get to that. But I could even have like a specific packing list for like this bag and go straight to it to check it off would be great. Yeah, and you can, you can do like a bunch of things with NFC tags, but I really like attaching them to things like my travel bags so that I have like, you know, a way of being like, okay, like what am I supposed to be doing here? Just tap my phone to it and then I can find out and continue from there. Yeah,

Mikah Sargent (01:16:10):
That is really cool. All right. We're gonna do one shortcuts corner request and then we'll head into the app cap segment of the show. The Shortcuts corner request comes from Darren. Darren writes in Greetings, Micah and Rosemary. I want to start by saying I'm a new listener and have loved and enjoyed all of the tips that I've been introduced to. I have a question pertaining to automating either a shortcut or focus mode. I haven't yet been able to locate an answer to this question and thought I'd write to see if you have any suggestions or possible solutions. The question is, do you know if the feature is available or if it's possible to have either a shortcut or focus mode launch based off of a calendar entry or entries in the stock iOS calendar app? What I'm looking for is to find a way to have a work focus. I have set up auto launch three minutes before the start of an event and end one minute after the event is finished. The calendar entries are a part of a subscribed internet calendar. I hope this email was clear and makes sense. Mm-Hmm.

Rosemary Orchard (01:17:10):
<Affirmative>, well, I mean, this is a really good question cuz a lot of us use focus modes, but, and you know, for example, coming here, I've got my focus mode enabled until I leave this location. So that's a geo-based focus mode. And when I'm working, then that usually just turns itself on nine to five, Monday to Friday. But the good news is, is doing something like turning on a focus mode can actually run an automation, which is pretty nice because then it gives us some other options. And so what I would recommend that Darren does and I'm gonna just do an example based on like one calendar event in the day, but he could be doing this for multiples. So in shortcuts what you need to start by doing is creating a personal automation. And so I have my iPhone here and what I've done in the automations tab, just tap, create personal automation.

(01:17:54):
And then what you'll need to do, Darren, is figure out like a time every day where you can run this to like figure out what's in your calendar and what's gonna happen for the day. Or at least what's gonna happen next. Because I think what we should do here is assume that there's a little fluidity in the calendar perhaps. And also the you know, we're, we're gonna figure it out when we are doing things. So we're gonna create an automation based on the time of day. And I'll, I'll just leave this as default, but whatever works for you, you can actually change from daily to weekly and just select the days of the week. So if you don't work on Saturdays and Sundays, you can uncheck those, but I'll just leave this as daily. And then what we need to do is go through the calendar and this is a little trickier because you're gonna need to make sure that you, you follow this quite closely.

(01:18:38):
 So we are going to need to use the find calendar events where I'm just gonna go into that. And so we want the start date is today mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. Okay. And then we need to probably say the start date is after now. And then what you can do if you tap on this if you tap on the date and the time, then what you can do is select the current date and that will be the current date, including the current time. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And then Darren has that specific calendar. So I'm gonna go down and I'm gonna pick the iOS today calendar, wherever it is. There it is cuz this is also a subscribed internet calendar that TWiT very helpfully shares with me, which is good because the US changes time zone slightly different times to the uk. And then what we wanna do is we wanna sort by start date and then limit it and we just want one because we just wanna plan for the next event.

(01:19:25):
Okay. And so when I run this, this is gonna get the next event. Now it's not gonna find anything right, right now because obviously like Iowa, today's in progress as the show goes, but it would return a calendar event. So what I'm just gonna do is I'm just gonna remove that filter for the calendar, but you will need that there, Darren. Okay. So then I will actually, or I should have a calendar event, but that's fine. And so then what we need to do is we need to get the details of the calendar event and get the start time. Now the trick is we're gonna have to use another focus mode to be enabled until that mode Oh. Until we wanna turn the work focus on. But with the changes to focus modes where you can just say, Hey, like I wanna turn off notifications for these apps. Yeah. Like you can just have a focus mode that is a general

Mikah Sargent (01:20:08):
Focus

Rosemary Orchard (01:20:08):
Mode place older or something and it doesn't have to change anything. So we'll get the details of the calendar event and we're just gonna get the start date. Okay. And then we need to adjust the date and time. And so I'll use the adjust date and we can change from ad to subtract. And then we want minutes. Okay. And we wanna subtract three minutes from the start time based on what Darren said. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> okay. And then we are going to enable our general focus mode. And there we go. Whoop focus, where is focus, it's hiding from me. And that's very unhelpful of it, but I will Yeah. That's weird. Did It's definitely hiding. It should be actually under the scripting options if I remember correctly. Get current focus set focus. There it is. And so now we need to turn on and we'll turn on, I'll, I'll use my holiday focus mode as a placeholder on until, and then we change turn off and then we can say time and then we can just insert that variable for the, the adjusted date where you're taking away the three minutes.

(01:21:14):
Uhhuh <affirmative>. So that's part one. And then we'll tap next turn off us before running cuz we don't want it to ask before running. And do that. And then what we need to do is when our holiday focus mode ah, turns on turns off, sorry. What we need to do is then we need to get the current calendar event uhhuh, adjust the date at a minute, ah, and use that term focus mode on until the end. Got it. And then when work focus ends, we wanna turn holiday back on and use the holiday to run what we've just done. So what I will do after the show is I will cha take that, that automation that I created mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and I will put, turn that into a shortcut and add some comments. Why am I turning off the focus mode?

(01:21:56):
I didn't want to do that. I was just gonna stop sharing my screen for a moment. And then I can add some comments in there to explain what else you need to do because, well, we need to run that shortcut first thing in the morning to figure out what we're gonna do. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and then also run it at the end of each calendar event so that you ha so that then you can plan for the next calendar event. The only thing that you're gonna need to watch out for Darren, if you've got back to back calendar events, this may be a bit tricky so you may need to adjust for that, but I'm sure we can figure it out.

Mikah Sargent (01:22:22):
Wow. Okay. That is a little complicated. It is,

Rosemary Orchard (01:22:26):
But I'm gonna write up some comments so we can get that into the show notes so that people who download that shortcut will be able to figure out how it works.

Mikah Sargent (01:22:32):
It's good that it's possible. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> to do that. Alright, with that I hear the next set of music. It's time for app caps, funk, it's different music apps. This is the part of the show where we wear caps, a top hour heads to honor our app or gadget picks of the week. These are the apps and gadgets we're using now that we want to share with all of you. And while we're doing that, we think putting things on our heads makes it more interesting. So we do that <laugh> today, Rosemary and I are matching in honor of the end of Easter and also in honor of spring where lots of bunnies are born. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So we're both wearing bunny ears, the top of our heads, Rosemary Orchard, you don't have to tell us about the cap top of your head as I just did, but please tell us about your app cap.

Rosemary Orchard (01:23:26):
Well, I, I will describe because we are wearing subtly different ears, Micah. That's true. So my ears are longer white ears. They've got some little wire in so that I can sort of bend them and so I can have like a nice little crooked ear. And then it's got a nice little pink lining. And Sebastian, oh also works here at TWiT, did a really great job of finding these cuz they don't pinch behind the ears. I wore them for the entire ACETech guy episode super comfy. So thank you very much for that Sebastian. But what my app cap today is, is it's not an app it's a feature. I'm kind of on a little accessibility feature kick because every so often it's nice to be able to control, say your iPad from your iPhone or use your Apple Watch to control your iPhone or whatever it is.

(01:24:06):
Now, some things like music playback are a lot easier to handle than others. So you can, you know, for example, now playing will show up on your Apple watch when music is playing on your iPhone. But in settings under accessibility on your iPhone, there's a feature called control nearby devices. And if I tap on control nearby devices, look at that, I have an 11 inch iPad pro and my iPad here at the top has just popped in and said that my iPad my iPhone's connected. And what I can actually do is I can actually, you know, do things like open the app switcher or I can press the home button or I can show the notification center and tapping on that get hide that again. I can also show control center I can turn on and turn off Siri which I'll do by pressing the home button. And then there's the triple dot, triple.one of your favorite buttons. I

Mikah Sargent (01:24:54):
Love the three dots

Rosemary Orchard (01:24:55):
<Laugh> on this. There's media playback, so I can actually play and pause, go to the previous track, the next track and turn the volume up and volume down. So if you wanna be able to control playback on your iPad from your iPhone, then unlike me, you don't have to have a Bluetooth remote in your headphone case when you're traveling. I do have one of those cuz it's really nice to be able to just like press a button and pause something when you know somebody like brings you food on an airplane. But you can actually use your iPhone to control your iPad. And this is great and it works the other way around as well. So that can be really nice, especially if you have like lent your iPad to somebody and then you see them like going to open the photos app like Universal control is, is really useful for things, but, and so it's also the feature where you can lock somebody into a particular app by doing the like triple press, but that only works if they only need like one app. So this is a great way to be like, no, I'm sending you to the home and that's it. Like, I'm just gonna take the iPad back right now for

Mikah Sargent (01:25:52):
It

Rosemary Orchard (01:25:53):
<Laugh>. So yeah.

Mikah Sargent (01:25:54):
Nice. There we go. I am also talking about a feature, and this is a feature, oh, I forgot. I am wearing some sort of pink, almost all pink bunny ears that have these polka dot and satin inner ear. They're also bendable. So I'll bend those down so they're a little bit more in the shot, but they are bunny ears as well. The feature that I wanna talk about is it a feature in maps and it is called share e t a. And this is the feature for the worrywarts in your life. I am one of those worrywarts, I'm probably not in your life as you're listening to this, but in amongst my friends and family, I am definitely the worrywart who goes, okay, if you're on your way, can you please let me know when you're going to get here, what time you think that might be.

(01:26:42):
Because if you don't make it, then I'm going to be thinking that you're in a ditch somewhere because you've spun out and had an accident and I just wanna make sure that you're still alive. And okay. So what Apple did was they said, you know what Micah, I'm going to make this feature just for you <laugh> and make sure that you don't have to worry about people being in ditches. That's what I call it. It's the it's the ditch worry remover. The anti ditch. The anti, yeah, the something. I don't remember what

Rosemary Orchard (01:27:10):
Stop Micah Panicking. Let's pull the feature. Stop

Mikah Sargent (01:27:12):
Micah Panicking Stop Mica Panicking feature. So I've, I've launched the Maps app and let's say I was gonna go to Trader Joe's. And so I'm driving to Trader Joe's. I set my my, my directions to go there. And what you'll immediately see is at the bottom of the maps app is a, is a little button. It's a label that says share eta. If I tap on that, then I can choose a person with whom to share my eta. And what happens is it will give you, or will give this person a live location for where I am. And it will also talk about the stops that I take along the way. So when I, and I'm gonna share this with Rosemary when I do this, then Rosemary will get a notification saying, oh, you've chosen to share your e t a Rosemary will be able to see on her device that I am, you know, moving along.

(01:28:07):
And what I love about this feature is if you end up in traffic that comes around mm-hmm. <Affirmative> or if you end up taking a different route for whatever reason, it will update that person Yeah. And let them know, hey, it's gonna take a little bit longer for Micah to arrive because he had to take this different area and you can actually set this up to happen automatically. So if you regularly want to make sure that your, you know, your partner or a family member, somebody has your location and your eta, then you can use that you can share your ETA with multiple people and you, you might think, okay, so this is a feature where I can share my ETA with just Apple people. No. Mm. In fact you can, if there's somebody who doesn't have iOS you'll, you'll see that when I tap on the share eta each of these names is showing a little map icon in the bottom right hand corner. But if it was a person who had like an Android device or their number wasn't registered with iMessage, it would have a little messages icon. And instead what it does is it sends a text message to that person that says the person is on their way, they're scheduled to arrive at this time if they don't arrive. Or if, if I were then to have a stop along the way or something happens, it actually updates and texts them again. What can we see from your end?

Rosemary Orchard (01:29:22):
Yeah, that's what I was just gonna show folks because I was also gonna mention the, the little fire feature. So I got a notification that appeared on my phone. And then I'm actually and I'm sharing my screen. Perfect. so now I can actually see Micah's Route two Trader Joe's which Woo is gonna take you like 10 minutes to get there, Micah Dunno. I'm very concerned. And I can actually say that like, Hey, I, I don't wanna receive updates about this if I wanted to. But I can then see your route and if you were driving then I would, I would see you progress and, and the time update as it is, the time will update because you're not actually leaving here. And yeah, I can also get directions and there's a contact button. And this is really nice and it's also there in the series suggestions as well.

(01:30:02):
What I was also going to mention is under the messages option. Then I can actually you know, you, you sent me your location but I can, I'm sharing my location with you right now mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. and that's a really nice little sort of bonus because this does share the location for like your travel time. But then under find my, what I can do is I can actually say, Hey, like notify Micah when I leave this location, for example, or Micah's current location. Apparently Micah, you're two doors down like <laugh>. Yeah. I I didn't realize you were that far

Mikah Sargent (01:30:34):
Away. It's not a hundred percent precise mic,

Rosemary Orchard (01:30:36):
You're right there. But there we go. But like I can notify Micah when I leave, but also you used this, this morning to get a notification when I arrived here at the studio because this is something like, because I was sharing my location, you could request a notification when I arrived at a particular place and I got notified that you requested that. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But that can be another really useful feature as well. It all ties into this together.

Mikah Sargent (01:30:55):
I love it. I love this. You know, we're, and I don't have to then bug the person about it, it's just automatically happening in the background. We're all on the same page. So I know, you know, my partner and I use this feature a lot whenever they're, we're going to a new place or whatever. Oh, share your eta, won't you? And when Leo and I used to do this show in particular together, he had it set up so that when he connected to CarPlay it would auto well connected to CarPlay on Tuesdays.

Rosemary Orchard (01:31:20):
I think I happened to set, this was probably the one that, yeah, I think I helped set that up. Yeah. Cause I think I helped set that up with Megan. And then you came to TWiTter as well, so it was already set up, so we just had to change out the person from Megan to you. So I would notify you when he got in the car on Tuesdays to let you know when he was on the way. Yes. In case he was running a little bit behind.

Mikah Sargent (01:31:37):
And it also came with a little text message that says Leo was on his way and he is not in a ditch. So it was especially helpful in that sense. Excellent. Okay, so that share e t a we also got to see that great control nearby devices feature. And that folks brings us to the end of this episode of iOS today with Rosemary Orchard in person. Woo. hope you enjoyed this episode. Again, I hope we didn't hurt your bank accounts too much, but maybe you saw some new gadgets and gizmos or some new options for things you can do. Yeah, yeah. We, we love whenever that happens, we love also hearing from you. You can email us iOS today@twit.tv to send feedback, to ask questions, to send shortcuts, corner requests, all that jazz. If you'd like to watch us record the show live, we do that every Tuesday around about 9:00 AM Pacific.

(01:32:25):
You just go to TWiT tv slash live, and there you'll see the multiple places that you can stream the show. But we think that honestly, the best way to get the show is by subscribing to the show. We're following the show, depending on what service you're using, you can do that by going to twit.tv/ios. There you will see links to subscribe to audio or subscribe to video. You click on those and then you choose your platform. So Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, YouTube at setera. I also wanna mention Club TWiT. Please consider joining the club at twit.tv/clubtwit. When you join the club, starting at $7 a month or $84 per year, you are supporting the network directly. And so in doing so, you get something in return, actually several somethings. First, you get access to every single TWiT show with no ads.

(01:33:13):
You also get access to the TWiT plus bonus fee that has extra content you won't find anywhere else that's behind the scenes before the show. After the show inside looks and Club TWiT events and access to the Club TWiT Discord server. That is a place where you can go to chat with your fellow club TWiT members and also those of us here at TWiT. Rosemary, in fact, is in the Club TWiT Discord at this moment responding to folks and sharing some links. So it's a great place to be. And that, again, starts at $7 a month, $84 a year. When you join the Club. You also get some Special Club TWIT exclusive shows. There's the Untitled Linux Show, which I think has some of the best show artwork on the network. You also get access to hands-on Windows, which is Paul, a short format show that provides Windows tips and tricks, hands on Mac, which is my show where I cover tips and tricks.

(01:34:08):
And we just released an episode talking about keyboard shortcuts for text editing. So yeah, you should definitely check all of that out as well. And access to the newly relaunched Home Theater Geeks featuring Scott Wilkinson, where he covers all things home theater. That's just some of the stuff you can experience in Club TWiT. So we'll continue to make it even more valuable. And we appreciate you for signing up and supporting the network directly so we can keep, keep on keeping on. Mm. Rosemary Orchard, if folks wanna follow you online and check out all your great work, where do they go to do so?

Rosemary Orchard (01:34:46):
Well, the best place to go is rosemary orchard.com, which has links to podcasts. I make books of written apps that I, I'm part of the development team of. And of course, other stuff. I'm gonna try and put some more the stuff that was in my bag like that I didn't get to talk about today. Like, you know, this, this charging like riser for the E g I Osmo that I mentioned and stuff on a post on there later today. Beautiful. So that people can find out about that. And other than that, you know, social media links are all at the bottom on my webpage. What about you, Micah?

Mikah Sargent (01:35:16):
I can be found at Micah Sergeant on many a social media network. Or you can head to Chi wawa.coffee, that's C hhi, H a H a.coffee, where I've got links to many of the places I'm most active online. So please head there and check it out. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of iOS Today. We appreciate each and every one of you. And we will be back next week with another episode of I o s today, once again from across the pond. But for now, Rosemary Orchard, thank you for being here.

Rosemary Orchard (01:35:49):
Well, thank you for having me. Can I stick around from Berry Weekly? Do you think we can make that happen? I,

Mikah Sargent (01:35:53):
I've just checked and I'm getting some nods, so we'll definitely make that happen. Awesome.

Rosemary Orchard (01:35:57):
And I'll just stay. Why not? Yay.

Mikah Sargent (01:35:59):
Yay. Awesome. Thanks everybody. Bye. See you next week.

Speaker 5 (01:36:02):
Do you wanna hear about the latest news happening in the tech world from the people who write the article sometimes from the people who are actually making the news? Well, we got a show for you here@twit.tv. It's called Tech News Weekly. Me, Jason Howell, and my co-host Micah Sergeant. We talk with some amazing people each and every Thursday on Tech News Weekly, and we share a little bit of our own insights in each of us bringing a story of the week. That's at twit.tv/tnw. Subscribe right now.