iOS Today 729 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.
00:00 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Coming up on iOS Today. Rosemary Orchard and I help you bring your friends and family together for the start of the holiday season. Stay tuned for this episode of iOS Today Podcasts you love From people you trust. This is Twit. This is iOS Today episode 729, with Rosemary Orchard and me, micah Sargent, recorded Tuesday, november 12th 2024, for Thursday, november 21st 2024, bringing friends and family together. Hello and welcome to iOS Today, the show where we talk all things iOS, ipados, tvos, watchos, visionos and all the other OSs that Apple has on offer. We love to talk about them on this show. We love to talk about the features, the apps, the gadgets and gizmos that help you make the most of your devices. I am one of your hosts my name is Micah Sargent of your devices.
01:04 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
I am one of your hosts my name is Micah Sargent and I am Rosemary Orchard and always very excited. We don't have Thanksgiving over here in the UK and I know Canadian Thanksgiving was a while ago but we are coming up on the time of year where people tend to spend more time indoors, at least up here in the Northern Hemisphere. I understand the Southern Hemisphere they're a big fan of barbecues at this time of year, but that's fine. I wish it was barbecue weather, but either way, you know, spending some time with your family and your friends and all of those things seems like a great idea. So why shouldn't we make the most of that and use our tech to help us rather than hinder us?
01:51 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Indeed.
01:51
Yes, there's the complaint of people spending too much time on their tech instead of spending time with the family.
01:54
Well, sometimes we use our tech to spend time with our families, particularly for those of us who live in different places, and one way that that has become more and more possible is through technologies like FaceTime, because, during the pandemic, there was a big shift in the focus of the different companies, the different tech companies out there, to help people come together, be it for work or for play or for anything in between, and so these companies, you know, strove to find ways to use their technology to make that possible.
02:27
And one thing that came out of that was many an improvement to FaceTime to give you the ability to share in content with others who are in different places, through a feature called SharePlay, who are in different places. Through a feature called SharePlay, you can watch movies and TV shows together. You can also play games together, you can play music together. All of these features where multiple people kind of collaborate together while either watching or listening to something, is all under the blanket that is known as share play. So how does one do that and sort of where is it possible to do that? Is this system wide? Does an app need to support it? How does it work?
03:17 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
Yeah, well, to start with, people are going to need Apple devices of some kind, something that supports FaceTime, which does include the newest Apple TV as well. So that is worth knowing, because if you have the newest Apple TV, then you can actually start a FaceTime call from there. So the first thing you're going to want to do is hop on a FaceTime call Doesn't have to be video, can be audio with your family, your friends, all those people that you love and that you would like to share an experience with, because SharePlay is about sharing. Okay, and so you start. You're having a chat, everyone's there. Grandma finally arrives and she figures out that it's, you know, a video call, and she needs to put the phone in front of her face instead of to her ear, so you don't see the inside of her ear for the whole call. Once you've dealt with all that, then you start by opening the Apple TV app, for example, and playing the music, or play Sorry, not playing music. You can also do that, but you start by playing the video in the Apple TV app and then you can share it with SharePlay, and once you've started that, everybody has control.
04:26
Okay, so there's no. Oh, can you pause it? Can you pause it? I mean, there might still be some of that, especially if somebody's in the kitchen cooking, because that's where my mom always is. I swear, every time I call her, she's in the kitchen cooking and she wanders away from her phone and she's not wearing her AirPods. I love her. She drives me crazy, but that's family, right, that's family. You love them even though they drive you crazy. But yes, when you start playing a video that has share play functionality so not every app has this. Some services like Netflix, disney+, plex, they have their own way of sharing a playback session, which you'll need to go into those apps to find out how that works. But for FaceTime and SharePlay things, you tap on play, it'll pop up and say hey, would you like to SharePlay? You say yes and everybody can control it. They can adjust the volume individually and close captioning individually. So if you've got one person who loves subtitles and one person who hates subtitles and gets driven crazy by them, that's fine. If they're watching on different devices, they both get to have their preferences and so everybody can watch a video together in one of these SharePlay sessions and this is really nice.
05:34
So if you are on an iPhone or iPad. It's very simple. If you're on an Apple TV, it does depend which generation of Apple TV you're on as to how it works. So if you're on the Apple TV 4K, second generation or later, then you start a FaceTime call in the FaceTime app on the Apple TV and you can use your iPhone or your iPad as continuity camera for that, and then you start watching a movie, a show, music video, whatever and if you're on an Apple TV HD or 4K first generation or earlier for the ones that support it then you start the FaceTime call on your iPhone, your iPad or your Mac and then you join the SharePlay session through Control Center. So, yeah, this is all documented on the Apple website, but it's a really fun way of watching a film together, watching a TV show together, especially if there's a classic that you will watch around the Apple website. But it's a really fun way of, you know, watching a film together, watching a TV show together, especially if there's a classic that you will watch around the holiday season, if maybe one person can't be there or you know, traveling is a bit much for some people this year, or it's just friends that you've not seen in a while and you'd like to catch up. But not everybody has the bandwidth to sit on a call for multiple hours. But you want to spend that time together, then it can be really nice to put on a film as something in the background to keep you entertained. And yeah, that's just one of the ways that you can use SharePlay.
06:52
But there's also more together SharePlay. So we've talked about SharePlay over FaceTime, but there is also SharePlay in person. So, for example, if I were visiting Micah and I went to Micah's house because he'd invited me, like the lovely person he is, and he had music playing on the Apple TV, then I would be able to, if he has enabled this, join a share play session for on the Apple TV, which means that I can, you know, control playback. I can add music to the up next list and so on and so forth, which is really lovely, and it also means that a share play session is not going to be necessarily reflected in your music listening history. So Micah doesn't necessarily have to worry about me having Dancing Queen on repeat, ruining his Apple Music recommendations forever. I'm sorry. I love ABBA, what can I say? I also love Queen and Freddie Mercury, and so that is something that you can do with the SharePlay on Apple TV Now this does also work with HomePod and also say, for example, you were going to go on a little road trip together.
07:58
Might be 20 minutes down the road, might be 20 hours across the country, depending on how big your country is. It might be 20 hours across the country, depending on how big your country is, but if you're going to be driving together, then Apple Music has SharePlay in CarPlay as well. So whoever's phone is hooked up to CarPlay is doing CarPlay. But then passengers can join SharePlay either by tapping a notification on their phone or by scanning a QR code which can pop up in the music app in the car in the now playing screen. And so people will need to have devices with iOS 17 or later, and the driver, or, more specifically, the person whose device is connected to CarPlay, needs to have an Apple Music subscription. Nobody else needs an Apple Music subscription for this to work, and everybody needs to allow their contacts to discover them when playing music in the cars, and that's under settings, apps, music, and then there's discoverable by nearby contacts.
08:54
But yes, once you've done that, then that means that if I were on a road trip with Micah, that I would be able to queue up Dancing Queen and then Micah because I'm assuming Micah would be driving would be able to hit skip on the driver's steering wheel controls every time it came on um, but that would be okay because you know, I, I wouldn't, I, I would be doing it for fun, not because I desperately needed to hear the song um. So that's just some of the ways that you can use um apple's media apps to share with everybody else, and that that's music and TV, which music, tv and film, which is really lovely. Also, if you have purchased a film through Apple TV, through the Apple TV app or TV show, I believe the SharePlay also works for those as well, which is really great if there's something that's not available for streaming that you would like to rewatch.
09:46 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I think these features are fantastic. It's one of the, in my opinion, best additions that Apple has made to iOS, ipados, et cetera in a long time, and the collaborative nature that is there that was predicated on that horrible, horrible thing that we went through. I am glad that this came out of it at least. It is A great set of features that has made the difference for me, as someone who all of my family lives in Missouri, and so the fact that I'm able to do that is great, and so the fact that I'm able to do that is great. So those are some of the ways that you can use SharePlay to kind of interact, both in person, which is cool, but also when you are in two different places. But there are some other tools as well, and Rosemary's going to talk about a newer one, but I want to talk about one that's been around for a while that I am always telling people about and they don't realize is possible. It's called Share ETA, and it's a feature that's part of Apple Maps. That is so awesome. So when you use Apple Maps, be it on your phone or in CarPlay, and you are in driving mode or you're using CarPlay and therefore the phone knows that you're in driving mode. You are able to share your ETA with another person iPhone or has some other app that uses or rather device that uses iMessage, or it can actually be a person who just does SMS texting or RCS texting for modern devices and when you do this, the system keeps track of your estimated time of arrival and tells the other person about that estimated time of arrival. So if they have an iOS device or an iPadOS device, if they're able to follow along with an Apple device, basically they are given a constant ETA that also shows your current location. I use this all the time when I am going, whether I'm leaving the house or I'm coming back to the house.
12:07
I like to share my ETA with people, in particular my significant other, to make sure that if I was to be in an accident or something like that, they would know what it does, is it updates the person on top of just being something they can check in on and say okay, this is where they are along the route. If my route were to change because of an accident on the road, or if I needed to stop and get gas or something like that, it will send a notification letting the person know oh, this person's ETA has changed and it's actually going to take X amount of time for them to get there now. Now what's cool is that, again, this works with people outside of the Apple ecosystem as well. If you share your ETA with someone that is using a non-Apple device or doesn't have an iMessage account, then it will update them via text message if that ETA changes, and so you are able to keep them up to date on what's going on, which I think is really, again, such a cool feature.
13:09
So sharing your ETA through that means is very simple, in fact. You'll see it pop up where it will just say share ETA in the Maps app. But you can also just ask Siri to do so. So while you're driving, you can hit the button on your steering wheel or say the phrase out loud and say the words share ETA with, and then the name of your contact. Siri will confirm and then you're able to move along with that confirmation. And again, that's going to be the whole time that you're doing that route, so it will automatically keep them updated. You don't have to constantly text them to keep them updated. I love that feature. Leo used to use it whenever we did iOS Today together to keep me updated on his location as he came in in the morning, so that I didn't have anxiety about him having had an accident or something like that on his way into work, which is mostly where my mind goes whenever it comes to people driving. So it's nice to have that ETA shared as well.
14:15 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
Yes and yeah, eta can also be added permanently to pins. So if you have favorite locations in Maps which then pop up in the car, then you can also add people to that to have them automatically notified. So, for example, my parents' house I have set up as a pin and whenever I tap on that it automatically shares my ETA with my mom. I have discovered there is no point sending it to my dad, because I get there and then I've been there for an hour and then he goes what's this? And he hasn't seen it, because he doesn't check his phone that often, but my mom does, and this way it's only a 10 minute drive, but they know when I'm going to get there, which is great if I'm running a little late for lunch or similar. But sometimes you want to check in with somebody to let them know that you've arrived home okay or something else. And maps isn't necessarily the solution to that, because maybe you're doing a workout and it's like whenever I finish my workout, like whenever I finished my workout or just in an hour I want like an automatic check-in sent that you know everything's okay unless you know something isn't okay. And so there is a new feature called check-in which is built into messages, and so I'm just going to pop open my messages with Micah here and then I will start showing everybody. So if you tap on the little plus next to messages, so over on the left-hand side, this is where you can take a picture with your camera, photos, send Apple cash, do audio, send later it's also in here, which can be really nice. So if you know that you're probably going to get a message from somebody at like 7 o'clock in the morning saying is everything okay, then you could schedule a message to 705 saying I'm not awake yet, try later. And then, if you're already awake, then you can cancel that, obviously. But if you scroll down a bit, then there's check-in, and check-in is a great feature.
16:11
Where it it pops up and it says hey, check-in okay, around 1735, so that's about in an hour from now and if I pop in and tap on the edit on this, then there are actually three options here so I can check in when I get to a particular destination. Um, I can check in based on a timer, um, and this. So timer means that I will be prompted at a particular time and if I don't respond to that on my end within 15 minutes. Then Micah gets a notification. Okay, this is what's commonly referred to as a dead man's switch. So by something not happening, then the automation will continue to go ahead. Which basically means that, hey, if I don't check in in 15 minutes, then that means that something could be wrong and I'd like to let people know.
16:48
And then there's the workout option, so the workout check will automatically notify the person after you finish your workout, which can be really useful if you are, for example, going for a run and it's wintertime up here in the Northern Hemisphere, it's dark, outside It's's rainy, the streets and parks aren't necessarily super well lit. I could be very enthusiastically licked by a golden retriever if I go for a run in the park. Um, so fortunately I live in a very safe town. But either way, if I were going for a run in the park, I would absolutely use this check-in feature to let my parents know that I got home safely. Um, you know, and if I, and if I didn't and they got this notification, then they would know to come look for me and that would be fine. But, yes, so check-in has these different options.
17:31
When you get to a particular destination with the timer or workout, but if you go into Settings and then Apps, messages, and then scroll down, there's check-in data and you can change this. So full data will send somebody, for example, the battery level of my phone and the battery level of my watch, how my phone's connected, like, do I maybe have very little signal, in which case they know that it's going to be a bit more difficult to call me. So they should probably try messaging me, but I they can see I'm on wi-fi so they can try fac FaceTiming me and then they can see also my route. Okay, and don't worry folks, this is sample data, this is not showing my home, and so here I can see the person. I can see a green pin of where they were intending to go.
18:15
I can see some points on a map and I can see, oh, their phone was unlocked. At this point it shows us the little padlock that's open. Phone was unlocked. At this point it shows us the little padlock that's open, and then the watch was taken off. At this point, oh, that might be not so great. And then there's also a limited one which just sort of shows where the person is on a map, and it does still show battery level and signal level of devices, but it doesn't necessarily show that, for example, the watch was removed and taken off or that your phone was last unlocked, because if they can see that your phone was last unlocked two minutes ago, then I would hope that the person that you shared the check-in information with is going to try calling you first and going is everything okay? Versus immediately jumping to the oh my God, everything's on fire. Call the police. But yes, this is a really great way of letting people know that you got home safely.
19:00
I particularly like the workout one and the destination one, because if I get to the place, then it just lets them know hey, she got there, it's all good. The time one, however, can also be really good to let somebody know that, like, hey, they didn't check in by this time. Were they supposed to? I've actually used this a few times Not quite as Apple intended, I don't think, but, for example, when I was meeting my parents and my uncle for lunch recently at the weekend, I had this set up, so if I didn't like stop it by 9.30, it was going to message my mom, so that then she'd be like okay, well, rose definitely hasn't woken up. She's clearly sleeping very heavily. Maybe we should go around and knock on the door and check that she's okay. And I woke up and I had turned it off before it popped up, so that was great, but it is a nice option if you maybe need a little extra help with things like that every once in a while.
19:55 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yes, when Apple added this feature, I definitely celebrated the addition of it, the fact that you can choose how much information to share, uh, and that it can be kind of a temporary thing. It's great for particularly sharing with friends. I'm not somebody who likes to share my full-on location with hardly anyone, um, oddly enough, uh, one of the people who does have my location is friend of the show, james Thompson, but I just don't share my location with too many people yeah.
20:30 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
James is collecting a variety of podcast hosts. He also comes on to Clockwise, for example, which you host with Dan, quite often, and hosts there occasionally. But yeah, he seems to be collecting a lot of people. It's quite entertaining. When you talk to him, he's like oh, I see that you're visiting Micah. Oh, I see you're visiting Kathy. Oh, okay, cool, thanks.
20:50 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
So that's the way to use check-in, and particularly around the holidays, I think about people who gather you know we're planning to, because we won't be near family. The friends that we have nearby will be gathering together, and so check-in is a great way to do that, even if you don't want to go as far as to share your full-on location at all times. Now, one way to also bring family together is by making use of some of the features that Apple has introduced to make it so that family can share in Different things, and, as a rosemary points out, around this time, this is a great Opportunity, while everybody is together, to set up features like family sharing, which does require Interaction from individuals within the family who are hoping to like join the team. I remember when I set up family sharing with my family me as the one kind of hosting the family sharing I had to kind of set aside some time, talk people through the process, let them know what they needed to do and it's involved, and so having someone there physically makes that process a lot easier, and then you can walk them through and talk about what they're opting into in different places in different ways.
22:14
So family sharing, though, means that you and your family can gain access to app subscriptions with you know one person's app subscription if they have family sharing turned on. It means sharing photos if you would like to set up a shared photo album. It means easier access to a shared calendar, shared reminders. Location can kind of be built in. So's a lot of. There are a lot of benefits to using family sharing, but I do think it's still a little complicated to get set up from a distance at least, based on my own anecdotal evidence.
22:55 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
Yes, and I certainly understand why it can be a little challenging. Especially the thing that often takes a while for people to wrap their head around is that they are no longer paying for their purchases. It is the person who is the head of the family, the person who's set up family sharing, who will be the person that gets billed for all of the things. Now you can work around this, and in my family we do work around this by buying a good old gift cards and we buy what was previously iTunes gift cards and now our app store gift cards for any apps or purchases and subscriptions that my primarily dad wants. But, honestly, most of the time, if my parents go to download an app, I've probably already bought it and have a subscription for it anyway, because I'm the one that recommended it to them. So that works incredibly well in my family. However, there are some things that you can do with your family that don't require you setting up family sharing with all the apps and everything as well. So, for example, if you don't want to share app purchases, icloud storage, etc. You can still create shared photo albums and share them with each other. You can still create a shared calendar and shared reminders lists and share them with each other. And you can also choose to share your location or not. Share your location with your family members if you would like to do so, through the Find my app and also you can set this up through messages and I will just remind folks how you can do this in messages, because that is quite a nice thing. So in messages, if you tap at the top on the person's picture at the top of a message, then you can see I've got the option to request my location.
24:38
That's not what I'm going to do. I'm going to share my location. And if I'm sharing my location, I get three choices for one hour, until the end of the day and indefinitely. And this can be quite a nice thing to do with friends and family members, especially if, say, for example, family gathering oh, we forgot. Insert super important, crucial ingredient for the dinner that we're making here.
24:58
Ok, I'm going to be the one that runs the store to get it, because I'm not as useful in the kitchen necessarily, so I'll run off, but I will share my location with them so that they know where I am. You know, if there's like three stores I need to run to and they go. Oh, no, shoot, we also need this. They can check. Oh she's, she's at that store. I'll message and ask her to to grab that. So the one hour or the until the end of the day, location sharing can be extremely useful for things like that. But there are a lot of things that are available through family sharing. But you don't necessarily have to go full on with family sharing if that's not for you.
25:32 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yes, I like that too, the fact that it doesn't need to be everything. I think we have purchase sharing turned off, but everything else is enabled with some of the family members. Some don't want to share their location, which is fine, and so that's also disabled for some users, so it's you know how much you want to share or, excuse me, how little you want to share, and that works for people. But giving shared access to my Apple subscriptions, like news and music and whatnot, is also quite handy and, as I mentioned, it just makes it easier to share some of those things. All right, the last thing, of course, is the fact that there are some third-party apps out there that are great to bring friends and family together, and there certainly is one that I think rises above the rest, because I don't think I've ever had a gathering that was not uh, that was that used this app, where people were not happy with the fact that we were, we were using this app. Um, do you want to tell us a little bit about jpg?
26:58 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
yeah, sure, uh. So jpg are jackbox party games and they make apps, not just for Apple TV and Mac, but they also make them and you can purchase them on Nintendo Switch, steam for Steam Deck and so on and so forth. They're available on a number of platforms. For example, if we were to select Jackbox Party Pack 7, which is one of the many apps that they have, their party packs tend to be around $30.
27:32
But those ones contain multiple games, and so it pops up a game, or it pops up a choice of games. You select one and everybody pulls out their device. It does not have to be an iPhone. Androids are also welcome.
27:43
If you choose to allow such devices in your house, which personally I think you should. You can't convert people to the better way of doing things unless you let them in and show them. But either way, you pop it up, you select a game, everybody joins. It pops up a code for everybody to join the room, so everybody types in the code and then you, you play the game, uh, whatever it is. So sometimes it'll be that you get given a word or a couple of words and you have to draw a picture of it, and people get points based on how well they guess, uh, what it is that you've drawn and if they get the exact right thing, and so on and so forth. And honestly, there's a whole bunch of games which are really fun and I could probably spend hours explaining them all to you and I'm not going to, because I think it is worth playing yourself to find out.
28:34
Now, the games do go on sale on a fairly regular basis, so I would recommend looking out for those sales, especially with Black Friday coming up.
28:42
But the Jackbox Party games are excellent and I love having the Jackbox Party pack as a tool that I can just bust out at any entertainment thing for whatever games it is, because, yeah, their games are great and it's not like you need to teach grandma how to use an Xbox controller or anything like that. You can just like set up the game and then people do you know the little bit, and then it's basically just tap on your phone screen after you've done the first part of the game to, you know, continue playing it, which hopefully everybody can participate in. And also a reminder if not everybody's got a device or is super comfortable using it, you can play these things in pairs or little teams. So you know, you get one person who's really good at drawing to do the drawing part and then everybody else takes it in turns or something like that, so everybody can join in and have fun. But yeah, I've always had a lot of fun playing the Jackbox party games.
29:37 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, it's always great there's a little lull and you're feeling like, oh, I'm hosting and I need to, you know, make everybody excited or whatever. This is a great opportunity to do that. So I really recommend them and you'll get you'll definitely get your money's worth Not a sponsor, just a really good set of games. All right, If you have some ways that you bring your family and friends together using iOS, iPadOS, etc. Well, all you need to do is reach out to let us know iOStodayattwittv is how you can get in touch, and we would love to hear about the apps and settings and features that you use for that. It is time for feedback and Rosemary's going to take it this time.
30:26 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
All righty. Well, we have a couple of feedback questions this week, and our first one comes from Mike, who has written in Hi there, I wasn't sure if this was more of an iOS Today or a hands-on tech type of question, but here goes with it. With the release of the new Mac Mini, I think I finally want to upgrade my 2009, seriously Mini that I use basically as a headless server for home bridge channels, et cetera. The old Mini doesn't really update anymore and I'm falling behind on those services as well as a result. As a side note, I will say that otherwise, it is still totally usable for web browsing and emails, which is a testament to Apple. Yes, I agree with that.
31:01
Currently, in order to actually use the Mini, I have to swap around HDMI inputs on my TV and go get my keyboard and trackpad. I don't use it often and it's just inconvenient enough to be annoying. I'd like to know if there's an app I can run on the Mini that would allow me to connect using my iPad, making it my keyboard, mouse and monitor. I would like it to be persistent through restarts, as this is the primary time that I need my mini to restart various servers. Thanks for any help you can provide. Well, the good news, mike, is I actually have a suggestion for you which I personally use all the time, which is Jump Desktop. So Jump Desktop you purchase it on the iPad. It's $14.99, one-time purchase. You download the free Jump Desktop, connect on the Mac mini and set it up and make sure to sign in on the Mac mini as well, because that will mean that it will then hopefully be persistent through restarts and then you can connect using your iPad. Now, the only little tricky bit for this might be if the Mac doesn't have a screen connected to it, then it can get a little bit cranky about that and that it doesn't have a display for you to replicate. And if that is the case, then there is an alternative to this, which is Luna Display, and Luna Display is a little dongle that you plug into the Mac Mini, pop it into one of the USB-C ports and it becomes a display, basically, and then you can use the Luna Display app on your iPad to connect to the Mac as the monitor. So that would also be worth considering. There are also options on Amazon I haven't personally tried them of dummy HDMIs, where basically you can just buy something that plugs into the HDMI port which tells the Mac Mini yeah, there's a screen here, totally, and it's a fake screen, so that when you just try to connect through remote desktop, then there's a screen there for it to replicate. So, fingers crossed, those options will work for you. I would probably go with Jump Desktop and just trying one of those dummy HDMI options from Amazon, because Luna Display is great, but it's certainly on the pricier end of the choices. So, yeah, I hope that you enjoy your new M4 Mini.
33:19
Mac Mini. It's so tiny, it's adorable. I love it. I've got my big Mac studio here and I really love it.
33:27
But yeah, if you're not really using it, like logging on and doing stuff on it on a regular basis then absolutely having something tiny underneath your TV is a great option. Something else I do just want to mention that might make it a little easier if you do need to connect displays is you could also look into a HDMI switch, which is basically a little bank of HDMI ports with a button on top and sometimes even a remote control to switch the inputs for that port on your TV. So I'm assuming that you don't have enough HDMI ports on your TV, which is why you have to switch the cables. But if you grab an extra HDMI cable and then, yeah, you would have a HDMI switch, so then you can pop up the screen on the Mac mini, which would mean that you know you can at least see. Ah right, there is a security thing that I need to go through. I'll go grab the keyboard and mouse with a little less effort.
34:20 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Beautiful. All right, that is. I agree about having the headless one. I think that's a great way to do it. Tell us about the feedback from Neil.
34:32 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
Yeah. So Neil has a little question, which he's actually asked you because I think you might have helped out with this previously, on another episode of the show or a previous or a different show. But yeah, he would like to know if you can help him with the Apple Podcast app. So Neil says hi, micah, try as I might, I cannot reduce the size of the Apple Podcast app. I have the settings set to download last episode, only delete after played, sync library off, et cetera. No matter what I do, the app size remains at 10 gigabytes. So the app size itself is 27.8 megabytes, but documents and data is 10.12 gigabytes. I have plenty of storage, so it's not that I need to free up space. I'm just perplexed why it's so big and why, no matter what I do, it remains at 10 gigabytes. I've tried all the suggestions on discussions from Apple's websites and all the recommendations, and I've basically tried everything.
35:31
I've offloaded the app and then reinstalled, hoping it would clear the storage, but after it returns to 10 gigabytes. I don't know how many podcasts you're subscribed to, neil, but a video episode of one podcast is probably going to be somewhere between 500 megabytes to a gigabyte. It could even be a gigabyte and a half if it's a 4K episode. So I would start by looking at what you're subscribed to. Now, offloading the app is only going to uninstall the app part of it. It's only going to do the 27.8 megabytes.
36:04
If you want to completely clear out all the storage that's used by it, you're going to need to delete the whole app, which is going to get rid of all of the subscriptions and everything as well, probably, and then reinstall it. That will get rid of the 10.2 gigabytes that's being used approximately. It's not, it's more like 10.2 gigabytes. That's being used approximately, it's not, it's more like 10.15, but yes, but that will get rid of it. But yeah, I would ask how many podcasts you're subscribed to and also, have you downloaded any ad hoc episodes of anything at any point? Because if you have those, don't get affected by the download last played setting. They will just stick around, probably until you've played it. And so if you downloaded I don't know a bunch of episodes of hands-on mac with micah, which is a great show here on the twitter network, um, then you might have those floating around, even though it says download last, only because you manually went in and downloaded them. So those are all options. Uh, worth looking into um.
37:05 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
so yeah, I don't know if you've got any extra advice for my, for neil micah well, I just wanted to double down on what you one thing there that, just not to glance over it, a lot of people are unaware of the fact that offload app means what you have explained that it means. When people hear offload app, they think it's going to get rid of the data of the app on the device. And it's the opposite. It saves the data there. It just takes the app itself off of your device. The idea is that if you're not using the app but you may at some point in the future want to use it again, then let's go ahead and get rid of the app and everything that's built in, but keep the data so that if you decide to use it again in the future, all you have to do is download the app and then it can reconnect to that data.
37:55
So offloading an app again does not remove the data. That's part of the app. It just removes the app itself. So if it was a photos app, then the photos that you've created with it are going to stay, but the actual you know creator part of the app is what goes away. Um, so just just keep that in mind that offloading does not remove it.
38:19
Um, and I think that Rosemary has hit the nail on the head in terms of you are probably going to if it's not that you've downloaded ad hoc episodes, if for some reason it's still remaining at 10 gigs, then deleting the app itself completely, not just offloading it is probably what's going to solve that for you. But I also recommend that, after you've done so, checking your multitasking so once you've deleted it, double check that in the multitasking view the app has been killed and then force restart the device so that the cache and everything is completely wiped and that you're going in fresh. Then go in and check your settings, make sure that it's all gone from there. If it's not, then try to remove it from there, then re-download and that should kick that saved data out. If it doesn't, at that point then you probably have a corruption somewhere and plugging it into your Mac and doing a reinstall of the software not a complete reinstall of the phone, but just a reinstall of the software might solve the problem, neil.
39:24
But these are fun. I love these questions because, neil, you do point out, you're like it's not that it's causing me any issues, I've got plenty of space, but it is. It's frustrating. You're like why is this still here? It doesn't make any sense, and so in that way it's very helpful.
39:40 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
Yeah, offload app is really mostly useful if you've got an app that itself is really big but your personal data for it is really tiny. So, for example, garageband is a pretty big app and if you've only got one or two little projects and you're not going to use GarageBand for a couple of months, you could offload GarageBand, especially if you're working on managing your space and you don't have a huge amount of it. But generally, offloading an app, it's not really going to free up that much storage space versus the amount of data that is being used by a lot of these apps.
40:10 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Indeed, alrighty, I can hear the music. It's time for Shortcuts Corner. Welcome back to Shortcuts Corner, the part of the show where you write in with your shortcuts requests and Rosemary Orchard, our shortcuts expert, provides a response. Our Shortcuts Corner request this week comes in from Dustin, who has happily shared a lot of pet tacks, so we'll get to that in a moment. But Dustin writes Hi, micah and Rosemary. Living in Montana, I use a remote start in the winter to warm up my truck. The problem is it has manual climate control, so I have to remember to adjust the temperature before I leave the vehicle to what I would like. The next time I remote start it, what I would love is a shortcut to run as I disconnect my iPhone from CarPlay, reminding me to adjust the temperature. If this is possible, you guys would be saving me many cold mornings running to my truck with shoes not suitable for snow. And then Dustin follows up by saying my pet tax will be paid with Cookie, who is a cat. We'll see this photo in just a second.
41:22 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
Oh, my goodness, very cute kitty cat posing for the camera, absolutely posing.
41:28 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Cookie, the cat is sitting on a white, looks like an outdoor kind of sofa deal and is a multicolored striped kitty with an adorable white mouth. Yeah, and then Sushi who is? Also a cat, oh my goodness. Sushi has beautiful blue eyes and is mostly sort of like an off-white color, with some black patches here and there.
41:57 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
Including a little half mustache so cute.
42:00 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
A little half mustache, almost like some sesame seeds in places, like a little piece of sushi. And then Fancy, who is also a cat, and wow, fancy.
42:12 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
Fancy is posing with a toy.
42:14 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Fancy is very fancy, with a little toy lobster sitting in a bed and has an adorable black nose. And, last but not least, ellie, the dog, who must be outnumbered by these cats, and Ellie looks like a big white lab.
42:32 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
Ellie looks very good-natured.
42:34 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yes, posing next to, obviously, what must be a stick that Ellie has found. No, it's a tree that has been knocked over, but it kind of looks like Ellie.
42:42 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
But Ellie still found it and it's technically a stick. It's just a very big stick and Ellie may struggle to take it home, but that doesn't mean that it's not something very enthusiastically being appreciated.
42:53 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, ellie looks proud next to the stick. Yes, all right. Rosemary, why don't you take it away and help out Dustin?
43:04 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
All right. Well, I'm definitely going to help out Dustin, because running outside in shoes not suitable for snow sounds like there could be a couple of problems there. Hopefully you got fall detection enabled on your Apple Watch. We did mention that in our previous episode of iOS Today. That was 7.28 last week. But what we are going to need to do is create an automation in shortcuts, and this is possibly going to be the shortest shortcut we have ever created on iOS today.
43:28
Now, usually, when you create an automation, I say make a shortcut and then run a shortcut, but in this case, we're not going to do it, and there's a good reason for that. But either way, inside of shortcuts, we need to go to the automation tab and tap on the plus and then scroll down and look for CarPlay and there is a trigger for CarPlay, and so you can say when your device disconnects, don't forget to uncheck the connects one, and then make sure that this is set to run immediately, because that is going to be very important. And then we're going to create a new blank automation, and then there are two choices here, and I'm going to go with the notification, because I think the notification is probably going to be the simplest one for this. You could also add a reminder and set the reminder to now, but let's leave this with just the notification. So set the car's heat for tomorrow, exclamation mark, and that's it. That's literally all we're going to do. And so then when you get out of the car and it will just pop up a notification that says set the car's heat for tomorrow, and that'll be it.
44:40
Now, if you were driving somewhere and then you you get out the car at that end, uh, and then you aren't gonna need this, then it's still gonna pop up and we could get fancy and fix that. But if you'd like that, then write back and let me know and we can get into figuring out whether or not the shortcuts should run based on times of day, physical location, all sorts of things. But for time being, thank you so much for the overload of cuteness, dustin, because that was definitely possibly the best pet tax we have paid, just in quantity, but also excellent quality. But yes, that was absolutely fabulous. And a single action shortcut with a trigger for the automation.
45:21 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Which is chef's kiss. I love that. You've overpaid, so then it gets balanced out and so now other folks are able to do that. That is going to bring us to the end of this episode of iOS Today. I want to thank you all for writing in. You can email us iostoday at twittv is how you get in touch. Next Thursday, for this episode that's published, will be Thanksgiving, so there won't be an episode on that day, but we will see you again the following Thursday. So thank you for tuning in.
45:56
If you again want to get in touch, ios today at twittv is how you get in touch. Quick reminder about club twit right now, for a limited time, we're offering two weeks of club twit for free. Twittv slash club twit. So is how you get in touch. Quick reminder about Club Twit Right now, for a limited time, we're offering two weeks of Club Twit for free twittv slash club twit. So if you've yet to check it out, now's the time to do so. If you would like to become a member of the club after those two weeks, it's just $7 a month and we'd love to have you join the club. You gain access to the Club Twit Discord server, which is a fun place to go to chat with your fellow Club Twit members and those of us here at Twit, the Twit Plus bonus feed that has extra content you won't find anywhere else, including behind the scenes after the show.
46:29
Before the show, special Club Twit events get published there and you also gain access to the video versions of our Club Twit shows, like this one, ios Today, also my show Hands on Windows, and some others. So be sure to join the club. If you are a member of the club and you would like to have free months of Club Twit, we have a referral program now twittv slash club twit slash referral is how you check that out. So two weeks free twittv slash club twit, $7 a month after that, and then referrals available to those of you who would like to invite your friends. Thank you for being a member of Club Twit, if you are, and if not, thanks for considering it and checking out those two weeks. Rosemary Orchard, if people want to follow you online and check out all the great work you're doing, where should they go to do that?
47:12 - Rosemary Orchard (Host)
Well, the best place to go would be rosemaryorchardcom, which has got links to apps, books, podcasts. Can find me in the Club Twitter Discord hanging out with people during recording and after the show. Folks, where can Micah be found? Micah, tell us.
47:29 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I can be found at Micah Sargent on many a social media network, or you can head to chihuahuacoffee that's C-H-I-H-U-A-H-U-Acoffee, where I've got links to the places I'm most active online. Be sure to check out Tech News Weekly later this week. You can also watch on Thursdays Hands on Mac, and on Sundays you can tune in for Hands on Tech. Thank you so much for being here and we will catch you again in two weeks time. Bye-bye.
