iOS Today 781 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 iOS Today, Rosemary Orchard and I, Mikah Sargent, talk about some apps and services you can use to keep track of what you want to watch and what you have watched. Stay tuned for this episode of iOS Today.

Rosemary Orchard [00:00:16]:
Podcasts you love from people you trust.

Mikah Sargent [00:00:20]:
This is TWiT.

Mikah Sargent [00:00:24]:
This is iOS Today episode 781 with Rosemary Orchard and me, Mikah Sargent. Recorded Tuesday, November 25, 2025 for Thursday, December 11, 2025. What and where to watch? Hello and welcome to iOS Today. This is of course the show where we talk all things iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, HomePod, OS and all the OSs that Apple has available to you. Our goal here is to tell you about the wonderful apps and services, gizmos, gadgets and everything that you can use to help you make the most of your devices. I am but one of your humble hosts. My name is Mikah Sargent.

Rosemary Orchard [00:01:14]:
And my name is Rosemary Orchard. And I'm really looking forward to helping people get a frame on what they can watch this holiday season.

Mikah Sargent [00:01:24]:
Indeed. So this is often I hear people talk about this a lot. Sometimes it's a matter of knowing what you want to watch, but forgetting over time what you want to watch. Sometimes it's a matter of just kind of trying to remember. I remember watching this one film that I really enjoyed and now I'm having trouble finding it and there are just so many different ways to go about this. And you know, for me.

Mikah Sargent [00:01:55]:
I would say that in this household, both my partner and I like to use the Apple TV and its built-in kind of tracking for most of the stuff that we watch together. So there are shows that independently we watch and we'll talk about some other ways of keeping track of those. But when we're watching shows together, the great thing is if you use Apple's, the Apple TV's built-in sort of what to watch section, then when new shows are available, when new episodes are available, you can actually get notifications for those. And so what'll often happen is I'll be in the middle of a show or at my desk doing things and then later on you go upstairs to get a cup of coffee or do whatever and you sort of have this moment of are we going to watch this later? Oh, you got that notification too? Yeah, yeah, let's watch this later. And that's quite nice.

Mikah Sargent [00:02:59]:
It makes it very simple to go to the various apps and services that you have on the Apple TV, which I've always appreciated. I will say though, a couple of kind of pro tips when it comes to Apple TV and the Watch Next functionality. There are occasionally times where it's so the way that it works on the developer end of things is a developer can release an app that connects to their content library. So Netflix, for example, can have an app that has all of their content and it can, if it wants to make it possible for that stuff to appear in the What's Next area or the Up Next area. Netflix is one of the services that here in the US does not integrate and so you don't get to keep track of what you're watching on Netflix there. But many of the other services are available. And so when you go onto one of those services and you watch it, it will add it to that What's Next or Up Next queue.

Mikah Sargent [00:04:13]:
If you've ever had an issue with something, you click on it or you press the button and you go to watch the show and it doesn't load. My, my, my suggestion for you is to force quit the third-party app and then launch the third-party app and then go to it from the third-party app. Occasionally there's a mismatch between the link that's available in your Up Next queue and the actual link of the show and its content. So just a little pro tip when it comes to using that Up Next queue because we do that a lot. One other that I have seen that has been helpful is if you tap and hold on the middle button on the Siri remote or whatever remote you have while you're hovered over something in the Up Next queue, choose go to episode and it'll pop it up independently that episode and then you can hit play. And sometimes that will work even if the main one isn't working. And the cool thing about doing that is you can also see where the Apple TV is going to show you this episode because sometimes that will change depending on your subscriptions and the availability of the show. So it can end up being where it's only available in the iTunes library.

Mikah Sargent [00:05:41]:
It's only available via a third-party app. That kind of a deal. It is just a matter of kind of trying to find where it's available and being able to watch it. But yes, I know that's a lot there, but I just, I love the Up Next queue and keeping track of things that way. I'm very much a curator of that experience. So if something weird pops up there because I accidentally clicked on something, I'm very quick to say remove this. And that way I can keep track of what I actually want to watch. And the bigger thing, the more important thing, the thing that I appreciate about it is again being updated when new episodes are available right there in the app and not having to go and hunt for them in the third-party apps.

Mikah Sargent [00:06:27]:
Except again for Netflix, which refuses to play ball in that way.

Rosemary Orchard [00:06:32]:
Yeah, it is amazing being able to see these things. And one of the reasons why I do love this is because it does support other apps. Now I found, interestingly enough, the Apple TV app on iPhone does not support as many apps as the Apple TV app on Apple TV itself. And that is one of those bizarre things. I'm not gonna look into it too far, but you can see here I was watching Dory's Reef Cam. I say watching it was on as a background thing because Dory's Reef Cam is just, I don't know, it's like a five minute loop that plays continuously over about three hours of Dory and friends swimming around. It's kind of fun. But yeah, it is really nice to be able to see things here.

Rosemary Orchard [00:07:13]:
And you can also see things that you have purchased because something I think people have forgotten in the age of streaming is you can still buy digital media. Now. Some people might be a little wary of this occasionally because what if they change the terms? And so on. There was that whole thing with Amazon removing copies of 1984 from People's Kindles, which was horrendously ironic, hilariously ironic at the same time. But I've never had an issue with anything I've bought through Apple tv. And I really recommend that people, you know, have a look. If there is a film that you really love or something like that, then you should absolutely take a look at buying it.

Mikah Sargent [00:07:54]:
If you like what you heard and you want more of this week's top stories in tech, well, subscribe to Tech News Weekly. Every Thursday I talk with the journalists making and breaking the tech news.

Mikah Sargent [00:08:05]:
When it comes to Apple TV, there are, as Rosemary points out, the agreements that are in place between these different devices, between the different companies and how it impacts the devices. I've also found to be really strange. It seems like what these individuals want or what these companies want is for the, on an iPhone, for you to download the individual apps and watch things there. And when it comes to.

Mikah Sargent [00:08:38]:
The iPad, that is where the experience seems a little bit better. When I'm trying to watch something and I don't want to fool about with third party apps, I do either go to the Apple TV or I go to my iPad. Because on the iPhone and on the Mac, if you launch the TV app, those experiences are different. I have over time started when it's possible subscribing to the different third party services within Apple TV, which you can do by way of the channels feature. So you can kind of manage your subscriptions there. The nice thing about that too then is that you get kind of one place to manage your streaming media subscriptions, which is quite nice versus having to go to those individual apps. But Apple and many a third party developer does a good job of making it possible for you to kind of sync between them and watch stuff freely without having to jump between apps. Different companies all do this differently.

Mikah Sargent [00:09:49]:
You know, Roku has its own take on this, Google TV has its own take. All of them kind of play in this space a little differently. But I for the most part am pleased with what Apple has done to again make it easy to kind of just get to what I want to watch. I'm kind of curious, Rosemary, do you end up using the search feature on your Apple TV to find stuff or are you more of a hunt for swipe, swipe, swipe kind of look around person?

Rosemary Orchard [00:10:28]:
I mean it depends on the mood that I'm in. Sometimes I do just kind of like oh, I fancy watching something. I don't necessarily have a particular something in mind. So at that point it's nice to just sort of swipe around and be like ah yes, this inspires me. This is what I would like to watch. Other times if I know what I want to watch, I have you searched on the Apple TV. But there is also another service which I have to recommend for this because it also works really well because you can send your friends the link to it and it doesn't matter where they are in the world, you this works pretty much. It's called JustWatch and if I know I want to watch something and then I can just open JustWatch and I can type in what it is I want to watch.

Rosemary Orchard [00:11:10]:
Now I should note it's also, it's also a website so you don't actually have to download the app for it, but say I wanted to watch Babylon 5, which I've actually been rewatching with some friends recently. I can type in Babylon 5 and I can see there's various different Babylon 5s here, including the original series which came out in 1994. Yes folks, I am on the latest sci-fi trends here and then I can see more information and then I can actually see where I can watch it. Now in this particular case, this is not something I can stream, it's something that I would need to buy and I can see that I could buy it through Amazon, through Apple TV or through Zavi, or you could do what I did, folks, and you could buy it on DVD off of eBay, secondhand, or from a local charity store and then get it, you know, and just rip it yourself. Say, I wanted to watch The Princess Bride. Now here I can see where I can stream it. So Lionsgate. Or I can stream it through YouTube with ads.

Rosemary Orchard [00:12:07]:
Yeah, not sure about that. Or I can rent it from a bunch of different places, or I can buy it and it'll even show me the price. And so if I were looking to buy The Princess Bride, I, of course already own multiple copies of The Princess Bride, then I could buy it cheapest on Amazon for 3.99 or Rakuten TV. And I just find this is really useful for. To be able to find something, you know, and I can also input in my account which streaming services I have, so I can say, hey, I have Disney Plus. I do have Amazon Prime, and I think I've got the Amazon Prime free with ads. 1. That sounds about right.

Rosemary Orchard [00:12:45]:
I have Apple TV, I have BBC iPlayer, because I live here in the UK and I think I'm officially running out of services that I actually have because I am not paying for all that many because I found it significantly cheaper to buy DVDs and go old school. But that's okay. You're allowed to do that. And now when I, when I search for something, so say, for example, I went back to the Princess Bride, if. If I could watch it for free with one of my services, those would be promoted to help me. So, yeah, that makes it really, really nice and easy. And it's. Yeah, it's useful to be able to see where you can watch something because stuff does move around streaming services.

Rosemary Orchard [00:13:26]:
That is an unfortunate fact of licensing life. Unless that company is the company that created it, somebody else holds the rights and they're gonna go with, huh, Netflix isn't making us all that much money at the moment. Maybe we'll put it on this service instead. Maybe we'll put it on that service instead. You know, like, maybe we'll shop at Hulu or whoever and they'll just see how much money they can make out of it by moving it to another service. Which is very frustrating when you're in the middle of watching a TV series. So, yeah, it's nice to have an option to find where to watch things that works across services and around the world.

Mikah Sargent [00:14:00]:
Absolutely. Yeah. Just Watch is awesome. And I think sometimes people forget about it. It's especially great having that app available on all of the platforms and being able to find content that way. And I find that it does a much better job versus what we've seen from some of the other apps that are. Or not even apps, but online services that attempt to show you where to watch a show, but they're often hampered by the. By having sort of advertising deals essentially where certain services are highly featured and some are not.

Mikah Sargent [00:14:41]:
Oh, Ella Enchanted. So, yeah, I. I really dig Just watch for sure. One that I want to mention. This is not an app that I had ever really heard of or used and didn't realize what a cultural icon it was until I moved to Portland. And it was basically like, get your Portland driver's license, pay your Portland taxes.

Mikah Sargent [00:15:14]:
I'm trying to think of the third. Probably grow a mustache. Were three of the four requirements for being a Portlander, a male presenting Portlander? And then the fourth and final one was, what is your Letterboxd account? Oh, wait, you don't have one. Well, you better have one. Literally everyone that I talk to here is like, what's your Letterboxd? They're not asking for your Instagram. They're not. They want to know your Letterboxd. So Letterboxd is an online service that has an app as well.

Mikah Sargent [00:15:45]:
And I say it that way because the app is. It's very clear that this is very much an online service that just has sort of a portal in it in the form of an app, but it is a tool for.

Mikah Sargent [00:16:02]:
Kind of tracking films that you watch and that your friends watch and then getting reviews and sharing your own reviews of different services. I don't know think I have the.

Mikah Sargent [00:16:18]:
Attention.

Mikah Sargent [00:16:21]:
Within me to spend time writing reviews of films that I've watched. And so my letterboxd is not very populated, but it is a cool way to keep track. What I have found, though, is that it's more a fun conversation starter. Just the other day, a friend of ours had gone and seen the second Wicked film. And I won't say anything about the film itself. No spoilers is what I mean. But this person did not like the film and ended up giving a half star rating. Like a half star total.

Mikah Sargent [00:17:02]:
Not two and a half stars, just half star total. And that then sparked conversation the next time we saw them, where it was like, so tell us more about what you really hated about this film. Was someone like punching you in your face the whole time you're watching it or what's going on. So that can be kind of a fun thing, not getting punched in the face while you're watching a film, but being able to talk with your friends about their experiences. I think for me, the one thing that I did that was then fun to see from other people is you can choose like your top films. And so it's a little bit like, you know, you got your personality tests that you do and you talk about and you've also got, oh, so what are your top five favorite films or, you know, television shows? So yeah, that's Letterboxd. It's available for free in the App Store. It does have in-app purchases.

Mikah Sargent [00:17:57]:
To be able to like remove ads and all that jazz, but it's gotten a lot of awards. It's an editor's choice, I think again, most for the service rather than the app itself. I think again, the app kind of, to me, leaves something to be desired. But yeah, if you are into films and adjacent content, it appears that letterboxd is one of the places to be.

Mikah Sargent [00:18:28]:
I believe you have some more suggestions.

Rosemary Orchard [00:18:31]:
Rosemary Yes, I do. So one of the apps that I've been using for years is Trakt, and that's T R A K T. And again, this is a web service that you can use on the website as well, and it is free overall. But there is the option of paying for some of the premium features. I do have the premium, so some of the things I'm showing you may be premium. One of the premium features I do use is actually scrabbling from my Plex server. So that's DVDs that I've bought and I've ripped and I've put on my hard drive so I can watch them as my own personal version of Netflix, essentially anywhere I want. I have that hooked into Trakt so that I can then see what I've seen and it will do things based on that.

Rosemary Orchard [00:19:16]:
What I love about Trakt is you can create multiple lists of things to watch. So I have some suggestions of things that I might want to watch with somebody called Jo. There's a bunch of kids stuff there. There's Christmas Things, which includes a horrendous list of Hallmark Christmas films because they are the perfect thing to put on as background stuff where you actually need to concentrate on other things while you're doing holiday stuff like wrapping presents and so on. One of the other things that I do love is it does also have a calendar feature. So if you've put things on there. So for example, there's a series that you watch, such as The Simpsons, then you can see when the next or most recent episode aired. So a new one came out yesterday as we record this as a new episode of the Murdoch Mysteries coming out today.

Rosemary Orchard [00:20:01]:
And Zootopia 2. Yes, Zootopia, the second film is coming out tomorrow as we record this show. And so that's very exciting. I'm looking forward to that. I would like to watch that, please. So, yeah, I'm. I'm able to see who's in that and all these things. So it's a little bit like IMDb it's just a different place for the data.

Rosemary Orchard [00:20:23]:
And I really like the fact that I can hook into this. I can build lists, so I can share those lists with other people publicly if I want to. Or I can keep all these as private.

Rosemary Orchard [00:20:34]:
And I can mark things as watched. I can review things if I want to. I. I haven't watched this yet, so I'm not actually going to rate Zootopia. That would be really evil mean. But yeah, it's just a nice way to be able to see stuff. I also like the fact that you can see extras from this. So you can see like the different trailers and so on.

Rosemary Orchard [00:20:54]:
You can see collections and related films. And much like IMDb or similar, this is a great way of being like, oh, okay, so if we like Zootopia, then we're probably gonna like Madagascar, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo. Yeah, that all sounds like, you know, stuff that's down the right. Down the right street. I can search for things and put it on my to watch list. You know, I can see recommendations. So this one is on my to watch list.

Rosemary Orchard [00:21:20]:
I haven't actually seen either Wicked film yet, folks, because I decided I wanted to watch the two of them together because that just made a bit more sense to me. I didn't want to get stopped halfway through. So, yeah, it's just really nice to be able to go through, you know, you can see things that you search for recently. So I was talking to somebody the other day and they were like, oh, wait, you haven't watched Uncle Buck. But you need to watch that. That's a holiday film. And we're not convinced. Actually, after further reflection, that is a holiday film.

Rosemary Orchard [00:21:50]:
But it does contain Macaulay Culkin, who played Kevin in Home Alone. So, you know, just. It's gonna be good fun. We're gonna watch that sometime soon, I'm sure. But yeah, it's just a really nice service and it's a really polished app. They massively overhauled everything earlier this year, I believe it was. So, yeah, it's also thanks to Trakt by the way that I discovered that there is an extended cut of A Knight's Tale, which I have now purchased on eBay as a DVD. And there's an entire 10 minutes of footage that I've not seen before.

Rosemary Orchard [00:22:23]:
So I'm gonna have to rewatch this.

Mikah Sargent [00:22:26]:
That's interesting.

Mikah Sargent [00:22:30]:
The other thing I will mention is Apple has added.

Mikah Sargent [00:22:36]:
I believe it's called Insight, and now I'm forgetting for sure. But there's a new functionality for Apple TV shows where if you're watching and you go, now I feel like I know that that actor or what is that song that's playing right now? And you can pause it and we actually don't have to pause it, but you can sort of tap and have the bottom of the screen pop up and then you can choose Insight and you are able to learn a little bit about what is happening on the screen. Amazon had this feature for a long time called it X Ray, but it does give you that nice ability. I am very much of the IMDb mindset.

Mikah Sargent [00:23:20]:
If I'm watching something and I'm trying to remember where someone's from, immediately pulling it up and looking to determine where I've seen this actor before. So I will kind of cut between the two. And then IMDb of course, has some other integrations where you can use it to do just like we showed earlier with the Just Watch, it'll sometimes show you what where it's streaming, so you can also watch it there. But again, as I mentioned earlier, this is one of the places where I think it is hampered by agreements that are in place where when you use Just Watch, it feels a little bit more neutral and will show you all the different places that it'll be. So I do think I like that better. But yeah, those are some of the ways. Anything else that you want to mention on this segment before we move on with the rest of the show?

Rosemary Orchard [00:24:17]:
No, just other than that, make sure to spend some time eating wonderful snacks and watching lovely films with your friends and family over the next period of time.

Mikah Sargent [00:24:27]:
Absolutely. This is.

Mikah Sargent [00:24:32]:
The time where I remind all of you that you can of course, get in touch with us by going to your email program and typing in iOSToday@twit.tv. When you email us there, you can let us know some of the services that you use. For example, to help you be able to track the films that you want to watch to. To. To track the shows, rate the shows, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. All right, with that, I believe it is time for us to move on to our news segment. The news is next. Have you heard of Club TWiT? Well, here's what it gets you.

Mikah Sargent [00:25:25]:
Ad free versions of every show, a feed of bonus content and members only. Shows you won't hear anywhere else, like my Crafting Corner and Stacey's Book Club. It's the easiest way to support the work we do and stay even closer to the tech community around TWiT. Join today at TWiT.TV/ClubTWiT. I wanted to mention, I believe it was earlier this week as we record the show. No, late last week, as we record this show. On November 25, Apple launched a new little accessory in the App Store. In the App Store.

Mikah Sargent [00:26:04]:
In the Apple Store. And it's interesting because Apple has been kind of releasing some new accessories lately that have gotten a lot of flack. The sort of sling for the iPhone. But there's a new Hikawa MagSafe phone, grip and stand. And this is a tool that was released in celebration of Apple's, I believe, 40 years of accessibility focus. You know, the company has long been a champion for accessibility in tech and making sure that their tools are able to be used by all sorts of people. And now there is a $70.

Mikah Sargent [00:26:52]:
Device or again, accessory that is like a phone stand, but it's a bit of a grip as well. And this, this tool was created after interviews, so I'll actually read Bailey Hikawa, who is the creator of the product. The grip was through an extensive interview process to support varied ways of holding the iPhone while reducing the effort needed to keep it steady. It has two bright colors, Chartreuse, and I guess Crater is technically not bright, but it is certainly it stands out. And Crater is a recycled material, but that chartreuse version is that way so that you can see it very easily and kind of find where it happens to be. It's made with silicone, so it's soft to the touch. It lets you have your phone in portrait and landscape mode. The stand grips to the back of the phone by way of a magnet and lets you kind of move it around so.

Mikah Sargent [00:28:00]:
It has.

Mikah Sargent [00:28:03]:
The kind of ridges and bumps to make it much more easy to hold it. It does appear to be sold out in both versions at the moment, but we'll have to see if more stock flies in. This was, I think, a pretty cool little product that some people might end up really liking for their phones.

Rosemary Orchard [00:28:30]:
Yes, I could see this potentially being a little easier for some people than a MagSafe Pop socket, which is what I have on the back of my phone. You know, I really love my Magsafe pop socket. I like the way that it functions as a stand and everything as well for me. But I know some people don't get on with the Magsafe pop socket. And this, like, the fact that you slide your finger through it, I think is really nice for just making sure that it doesn't go flying quite as easily, because I'm sure we've all done that. We've picked up our iPhone and just had a moment of butterfingers where despite the fact that we thought we were holding it securely, it's just gone flying off somewhere in some way, shape or form. I remember doing that with my ipod video as well back in the day and those were significantly more delicate machines because unlike the modern iPhone, they didn't have solid state memory.

Mikah Sargent [00:29:14]:
Yeah, yeah. So there you go. That's a little something from Apple. As we're starting to round out the holiday season, moving right along, we've got some feedback. This feedback comes in from Matthias. Matthias writes in and says, dear Rosemary and Mikah, thank you for your kind shout out for my app Transloader on iOS Today, episode 775. I appreciate it more than I can say. Have an awesome week.

Mikah Sargent [00:29:43]:
Do you want to remind everyone, Rosemary, about Matthias transloader app and what you can do with that app?

Rosemary Orchard [00:29:50]:
Yeah. So Transloader, it's a great app for. Oh, I've got this thing and I want to download it, but I want it downloaded on my Mac, like maybe even specific Mac, like my work Mac versus my personal Mac. And from your iPhone or indeed another Mac, you can be like, cool, go download that over there. It can log in with your credentials and do all sorts of magic on top of that. And it's just one of those utility apps that I have been using forever and I'll go for a little period of time and not use it and then I'll suddenly have a whole bunch of things I want to do something with in like a short period of time. And there's a flurry of use of Transloader and it's just such a great app. And it was really lovely to hear from Matthias to find out that, you know, he'd heard us mention it on the show.

Rosemary Orchard [00:30:34]:
And yeah, it's Eternal Storm Software is a small company in Austria. So it's, it's, you know, it's Matthias and Matthias and that's it. So it's, it's really nice to know that it's, it's appreciated because we really appreciate all of the, the eternal storms apps. Including Yoink, the shelf app, which a lot more people use.

Mikah Sargent [00:30:55]:
Yeah, absolutely. All right, let us round out today's episode with our app caps. These are the apps or gadgets we're using now or have been using for some time that we think are great and want to share with all of you. I'm going to kick things off with mine.

Mikah Sargent [00:31:13]:
Switchbot is a company that is well known for making a. The original SwitchBot, which is a small little device that you can attach to something that has a button, like the device that you're trying to use it with, has a button that you need to be pressed and that you want to be able to kind of press remotely. So it's just a little, like robot finger, essentially, that just boop, presses a button. And I recently purchased one because I was on Instagram one morning and there was this delightful video. And.

Mikah Sargent [00:31:51]:
To be clear what I'm about to describe, I do not usually have this problem because my dogs are very snuggly and cuddly and sweet. But the video, the premise was how to convince yourself that your dog actually likes you. And it was, I think it was actually specifically how to convince yourself that your chihuahua actually likes you. And it showed this person, and they had taken a heated blanket and placed it next to them, and they said, basically, you just unplug it and plug it back in, wherever you are. And then by the end of the video, the person had made like a the floor is lava sort of situation of four heated blankets leading from the dog's bed to the sofa where they were sitting. And I thought, again, I don't usually have this problem. They love to lay next to me. But what I thought was, how have I gotten to the age that I am and the age that my dogs are? And I have not gotten them a heated blanket like, I've had heated throws, but I have never gotten them one.

Mikah Sargent [00:32:55]:
I was like, this needs to be addressed immediately. So that morning, right after watching this Instagram video, ordered a heated blanket, and I was so excited. And they love it. But the problem is, it's not a problem. It's a safety feature. It shuts off after, I think, four hours. And so I got a Switchbot to put on there. And it basically just throughout the day, as the sun goes down, and first thing in the morning, will press the button and turn it on so that it is warm and ready for them.

Mikah Sargent [00:33:28]:
Point is, then I started paying more attention to what SwitchBot had on offer, especially now that its products have gone Matter enabled. And I came across something that I thought was going to be kind of a silly billy thing, but it's actually pretty cool. This is the SwitchBot Smart Candle Warmer. And the way that it works is you place a candle at the base and it has a downlight in it that is specifically made to heat up and it heats your candle and so you don't need to have a flame going, you can just have it heat the candle that way. And it has on it a little power button, a button for being able to change the brightness, which of course changes the heat of the light. And then last but not least, a little timer. But you don't need to use any of this because it's Matter enabled and so I'm able to control it yet using my phone. Now the fun thing about it is yes, of course you can use it to warm a candle, melt the wax and have scent flowing through your room.

Mikah Sargent [00:34:37]:
But you know what else you could do with it? You could put a little cup underneath here and keep your beverage warm using the little Candle Warmer as a beverage warmer. And so I have yet to decide if I want this to be truly always a Candle Warmer, how I have been using it, or if I wouldn't mind a little better. I, I have a, a Ember Mug but I don't always use it. And so if I could just have this on my desk and then it just keeps my, my beverage warm, I thought that could be kind of a fun thing. In any case, normally $40 Black Friday stuff means that it's on sale for a little bit less. And I believe, believe if not now, by the end of the year all Matter enabled accessories will automatically be works with Apple HomeKit accessories. They'll sort of have that certification. So you will be able to be controlled within the.

Mikah Sargent [00:35:38]:
I already can control it in the home app, but there's no issue with that going forward. And so that's quite nice too because then I can set up all the automations that I want and I'm thinking about getting a couple more of these just because it does mean a safer thing than going, wait, did I blow out that candle before I left the house? I don't think I did. So yeah.

Rosemary Orchard [00:36:00]:
It also reduces the amount of dirt that releases into the air of your home because of course with candles there is a small amount of smoke and soot and all these things. And people who burn a lot of candles may find that they actually do have to wash their walls and sell them more frequently because they start going a little bit gray over time. That's not great. So thank you so much for this because the link was in the document. I already ordered mine before the start of the show. It's arriving on Monday.

Mikah Sargent [00:36:24]:
Yeah.

Rosemary Orchard [00:36:25]:
The problem with this now is I now need to go back and buy the really lovely holiday scented candles that I restrained myself from buying previously because I don't trust myself with actual candles. So.

Mikah Sargent [00:36:36]:
Oh, and I will say too, I was happy to see that it came with an extra bulb in the box. So you get two. One to put in and one extra. So it'll be a while before you need to get a new one. So pretty nice. Tell us about your pick.

Rosemary Orchard [00:36:51]:
Okay, well, my pick does actually this year for the first time have an iOS version of the app, but I actually really want to recommend the Mac app. So this is Festivitas. Festivitas is a wonderful app by Simon Stovering, who has created other apps that I frequently recommend, like JSON and dataJar and Runestone and other amazing apps. And he's an indie app developer and he has made some. Some really nice apps over time, including Festivitas. Festivitas allows you to decorate your Mac or your iPhone with Christmas lights or Halloween lights or any kind of lights that you like. And on iOS, which this app is a new app this year, you can add widgets to your home screen with little festive lights around them. It's so cute.

Rosemary Orchard [00:37:42]:
I really love it. The website does appear to be loading a little bit weirdly at the moment, but if you go to Mac Festivitas app, then it has a whole bunch of, you know, screenshots and little animations and videos showing you how you can decorate both the menu bar of your Mac but also the dock of your Mac. And I, I really love this. You can choose the effect of your lights. Do you want a twinkle? Do you want a wave? Do you want to chase? When you move your mouse near them, they're going to sort of like shift a little bit to try and get out of your way. So if there's a button behind some lights, you can get rid of them. You can actually have different light designs. Do you want oval circle, champagne cocktail, snowflake, bat, ghost, pumpkin lights, you know, leafs, leaves, even not leaves.

Rosemary Orchard [00:38:34]:
And yeah, you can just have the light show when your desktop is open, or you can have the light show all the time over the top of other applications.

Rosemary Orchard [00:38:44]:
And you can also automate them and add snow using shortcuts. This year, yes, Simon just added shortcut support.

Mikah Sargent [00:38:52]:
There's snow now. I love that.

Rosemary Orchard [00:38:54]:
Yeah. And it's one of these things. This App has been around for a few years now, but I really love the amount of work that Simon puts into this every year. It is a name, a fair price kind of app, so you could theoretically get it for free. His recommended Fair price is €4 or, or more, which is. I. I think it's about $6 or something. I prefer throwing, throwing a little bit more his way because he spends so much time working on this.

Rosemary Orchard [00:39:20]:
Like, all I have seen from him over the last couple of months has been just little like sneak peeks that he's published publicly. And then he's also sent me some messages letting me know that this was coming out and making sure that I had access to test the app. And honestly, it's so good, both the iOS version and the Mac OS version. So, yeah, you get to add some ambiance to your desktop. You get to decorate without having to worry about coiling the lights up correctly for next year. And that is just something I think we can all appreciate as it is, at least in the Northern hemisphere, pretty dark and miserable out there at the moment. The weather has not been great, it's been cold. It's.

Rosemary Orchard [00:40:02]:
You know, who doesn't want to be nice and cozy? And this way you can be cozy on your Mac and your iPhone as well.

Mikah Sargent [00:40:09]:
All right. I love it. Yeah, I have, I have the app for sure. And I did not realize that there was snow this time. That's very exciting. I love some snow. It's just, it's just cute and fun and I think it's great. Folks, that is going to bring us to the end of this episode of iOS today, if you can believe it.

Mikah Sargent [00:40:33]:
I want to thank you all for taking the time to join us today. Of course, if you're here, you probably know about Club Twit, but if you haven't heard about Club Twit, let me take a moment to tell you the good word. Club Twit is the place where you can go Twit TV Club Twit to join in on the fun. What do I mean by the fun? I mean you get ad free episodes of every single one of our shows. You also gain access to our special feeds as well. Those feeds include our feed for kind of bits and clips and special moments, behind the scenes kind of stuff. We have a feed for our live commentary of news events and we also have a feed for our club shows that includes the recent D and D adventure that we did in the club that includes my crafting quest corner. I'm currently painting D and D miniatures.

Mikah Sargent [00:41:29]:
We also have Stacy's Book Club and the AI User Group. Those are just some of the events that you get to check out after the fact there in our feeds you also gain access to the Discord, which is a fun place to go to chat with your fellow Club TWiT members and those of us here at TWiT. Currently we've got Nightscape bragging about getting 8 inches or perhaps getting 8 inches of snow today in central Minnesota. I don't know if it's actually a brag for Nightscape, but it is a brag for my head because I love snow and we don't get a whole lot of it here in Portland. It's very rare in fact for it to snow and stick. So I'm jealous of you Nightscape, or am I envious of you? I think it's envy, not jealousy for the Peden's end out there. In any case, very exciting stuff there in the Discord and I feel like I'm forgetting something but oh, I suppose also just a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that you are helping to bring these shows to life and have them exist and continue to exist. Thank you so much for your support.

Mikah Sargent [00:42:39]:
TWiT TV Club TWiT to Check it out Rosemary Orchard if people would like to follow you online, where should they go to do so?

Rosemary Orchard [00:42:48]:
Well, the best place to go is rosemaryautra.com which has got links to apps, books, podcasts and all the social media sites you can find me with the exception of the club Tour Discord because you know that is a great place to find me. Love hanging out there during the show and chatting with people and also after the show where people leave us feedback. It's always lovely to hear what people are saying and answer questions. Micah where can folks find you?

Mikah Sargent [00:43:11]:
If you're looking to find me online, I'm ikasargent on many a social media network. Or you can head to Chihuahua Coffee, that's C H I H Q A H U A Coffee where I've got links to the places I'm most active online. Thank you all so much for tuning in today. We'll be back again with another episode for you. Until then though, it is time for us to say goodbye.