iOS Today 795 Transcript

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

Mikah Sargent [00:00:00]:
Coming up on iOS Today, Rosemary Orchard and I, Micah Sargent, get a little chill with these apps to help you relax and unwind. Stay tuned for this episode of iOS Today. Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWiT. This is iOS Today, episode 795, with Rosemary Orchard. Rosemary Orchard and me, Micah Sargent, recorded Tuesday, March 17th, 2026 for Thursday, March 26th, 2026. Chill apps. Hello and welcome to iOS Today.

Mikah Sargent [00:00:45]:
I did not just tell you to chill axe. I said chill apps. I am Micah Sargent and I am one of the hosts of iOS Today.

Rosemary Orchard [00:00:55]:
And I am Rosemary Orchard and having spent a couple of weeks recently recuperating, I feel like I might have something to contribute towards this episode, Micah. I don't know, maybe just a feeling.

Mikah Sargent [00:01:06]:
Yeah. So I thought it'd be a good time to talk a little bit about some of the apps that are in the App Store that just help you kind of cool it, help you remain calm or get calm. And so I thought we could talk about some of those. Now, yes, as Rosemary pointed out, you were just out and I was kind of curious, you know, if you ended up spending the time watching shows or catching up on crafts or, or what have you. But I guess, yeah, would be a good time for some chill apps.

Rosemary Orchard [00:01:43]:
Yeah. Um, I can't believe it, Micah, there's one that I completely forgot to put in here, uh, and that is because I wasn't playing it on my iPad, I was playing it on my Nintendo Switch. I might have actually had a better experience with the Apple Arcade version than Nintendo Switch version. Disney Dreamlight Valley was actually really good fun, and that was a great little quest while I was ill because it puts the actual mission of what you're currently doing on screen. However, it's still setting you challenges, and I feel like a lot of the time when I want to chill out, I don't want to be told that there's a list of things that need to be done. Which is why my first go-to app for all of this was actually Pigment, which is the adult coloring book. Um, and I'm not going to open it up because otherwise I'm going to get distracted painting a mandala and I'll be here for 6 hours and you'll not get an actual podcast out of me. Um, but, uh, Pigment is a great coloring book.

Rosemary Orchard [00:02:31]:
It describes itself as color therapy and painting, and I personally just really enjoy it, especially on an iPad with an Apple Pencil. And you just, you know, you're painting things in. It just feels like a really lovely app. And unlike some of the coloring apps out there, you know, there are in-app purchases and subscription options for this, but you know what you're getting, uh, you know. So it, it makes it a little bit better. You know, it's not the cheapest app, it's $9.99 a month. However, it's $9.99 a month, not $29.99 a week like some of the other coloring apps out there, uh, are. Also, Pegment has been around for a very long time, so, you know, it's, it's a good app and I've really enjoyed it in the past.

Rosemary Orchard [00:03:14]:
How do you feel about coloring on your iPad, Micah? Is it more of an Apple Pencil or a finger activity for you?

Mikah Sargent [00:03:20]:
I typically, if I'm going to use the coloring book app, I do like to use the Apple Pencil. It's one of the only times that I actually make use of my Apple Pencil, so I might as well make use of it. Um, there, yeah, that I I really like the coloring books that are on the, that you can get in the App Store. And I also really like to use the Paperlike screen cover with that. I don't have a current device that has that, but when I did have one, I kept that sort of Paperlike screen protector on there and using that with the Apple Pencil just feels delightful for sure. And now you mentioned Pigment. There's a second coloring book app that is called Lake and works much the same way. You have different coloring book options.

Mikah Sargent [00:04:18]:
The cool thing is you can actually learn a little bit about the artists who make these different things. But let's pop into this one from Barbara Fonseca. And, or Fonseca probably, and I can see what I need to do with this, the color picker and changing the opacity. And what we can do, let's check, take a look at the settings here. We've got precision sliders, how much opacity we can do, left-handed mode, which is new, but we're very happy to have it. And then there is this ASMR experience where you hear the brushes as you're doing it. There's also a colorblind mode, which is awesome. And you can also change whether the lines are open or the lines are closed, which means that when you start coloring within something, it stays there.

Mikah Sargent [00:05:10]:
So since we're doing a sort of purplish, or since we're doing the thunder and lightning, I'm going to color in the clouds these dark colors. We'll do it a little bit, whoops, a little bit lighter for this one that's closer to us, and then I think we'll go even darker if we can for the— oh, there's rainy, nice. For the ones in the front, and we'll do that. Whoops, I did it in the lightning. So we can undo, but you get the idea very easily. So moving up and down is what makes it darker and lighter. And so then I can make those kind of clouds in the background a little bit more scary, a little bit more harrowing. And we could change between brushes, spray paint, a pencil, and now a new marker option.

Mikah Sargent [00:06:05]:
And obviously I need to find yellow so that we can paint the, uh, the lightning a nice yellow color like so. And that's with the marker. You, you get the idea. I could be here forever just coloring these wonderful illustrations. Uh, but over time you build up your little coloring book empire and you can print them out. You can share them with friends. I think that, uh, these, these, this is one of the most Zen, uh, experiences for me whenever it comes to the iPad for sure. Now those are two options.

Mikah Sargent [00:06:49]:
The Lake Coloring Book for Adults, $3.33 a month, uh, $39.99 annually. It does come with a one-week free trial, so you can check it out first to see if it is Right for You, and it has been an App Store Award. Well, it's, it's, it's won different App Store Awards or different, um, received like Editor's Choice and things like that. So there are quite a few different, um, different accolades that this app has received. What else is on your list, Rosemary?

Rosemary Orchard [00:07:23]:
Well, another one on my list which I found a while ago. Um, I can't remember how long ago it was, um, but the thing with Pikmin and like in other coloring books is they are really designed for the bigger screen of an iPad, even an iPad Mini. Um, and sometimes you just want something a little bit smaller because maybe you're just trying to kill some time while you're, uh, hanging around and you didn't bring your iPad with you. Um, so, uh, I found Coloring ASMR, which, uh, wants you to actually draw the shapes as well. Um, and then you can color things in. And, uh, yeah, you get to sort of have to actually wiggle your finger around on the screen, which is quite fun. Um, the calibration is a tad off for me, uh, at least sometimes I have to sort of grab the middle of the pen and then it works a lot better instead of grabbing the tip, which is kind of what you would expect. Uh, but yeah, I'm having a little bit of fun coloring this little heart in.

Rosemary Orchard [00:08:21]:
And yeah, there's, there's lots of tiny things that you can color in, and I think that Sometimes, sometimes you just need something small and simple, like nothing too crazy.

Mikah Sargent [00:08:31]:
Yeah, I, again, I think that's part of the experience for me is just a nice chill, uh, not, not too much thinking that I have to do. And that is why I really like this next one. Uh, this is an app that all the, there's something about it being almost entirely written in a different language that actually makes it even more zen because I can't go into the settings and play around with stuff because I don't know what any of it means. But the main experience for the app called Loner, it's available for $1.99 in the App Store, does not require you to really understand more than that you use your thumbs to move a plane through this space. And so. You sort of rotate your thumbs left and right to change the rotation of the plane. And then you rotate or you move your thumbs down together or up together to move the plane down or up. And that's it.

Mikah Sargent [00:09:42]:
You're moving through. And this of course is one that is partially about the sound design and that is part of the experience. So you, they recommend that you listen with headphones, but you're just moving through these different stages of beautiful color. And as you're going, a story starts to form. Ooh, look, everybody, it's green. Now this is bad. Oh yeah. And when you hit something, you have to restart.

Mikah Sargent [00:10:11]:
But there's something that's so kind of so easy and chill about this that I don't find myself feeling beaten up by the, you know, by not making it through. When sometimes there would be this frustration that I didn't get to the next stage. And I don't really have that with this because it's just kind of very low stakes. Currently there's rain. And so it actually plays rain along with the music. And again, you're just moving your plane through the space and collecting pieces of a story. So there is a little bit more to it. It does have story elements that you can collect, but the beautiful colors and just kind of like the endless ways make this, I find, to be a rather enjoyable app for just zoning out and, uh, yeah, remaining very chill.

Mikah Sargent [00:11:14]:
Frankly, I have found it to be a very chill experience. It's called Loner. In the App Store for $1.99. That's it. One-time purchase. And then you too can loan and zone. Oh boy. And that is Loner.

Mikah Sargent [00:11:39]:
All right. I will stop playing this for now.

Rosemary Orchard [00:11:44]:
That is my problem with so many of these games, Micah, and Satya's game It's one of those. Now, Satisfye isn't a game in the same sense that there's a story or anything else. Literally, you just have to do the thing. But the great thing about it is levels are really simple. So here I'm currently at a level. There's some dashed yellow lines. There's also what looks like a drain cover, a circular drain cover, and somebody's put it back in the wrong orientation. So I just need to grab it and rotate it to the right orientation And then, ta-da, it's satisfyingly correct.

Rosemary Orchard [00:12:21]:
And now I can move on to the next one, which in this case is actually a picture that is slightly off-kilter. There we go. She's now smiling because I got it right. You can open zips, things like that. Now, what I really like about this and the part of my brain that this tickles is the haptic feedback as you are doing things. So as I drag this person's finger down and I push the button, as I push the button, it goes like, that's the best way to describe it. That's the kind of vibration. It's a good vibration feeling from your phone in your hand.

Rosemary Orchard [00:12:53]:
Obviously, if you're going to try playing this on an iPad, you're not going to have the vibration, which would be really sad. Uh, but yeah, this is just one of those— it's satisfying. A level takes maybe 2 or 3 seconds, so you can easily whip this out while you're sitting around waiting. Perhaps, you know, if you're waiting to go and see a doctor or something like that, and you just want to distract yourself from the fact that you're sitting in a waiting room with a whole bunch of people, it's really nice to have this sort of thing in your back pocket, or in my case, your handbag, because my clothes' back pockets are often not big enough for my iPhone.

Mikah Sargent [00:13:24]:
Hmm. Uh, the— there are quite a few of the apps that we've talked about before that are for sleep, and I specifically was not trying to focus on sleep in particular when it came to this because this was more about being awake and experiencing zen, experiencing calm. And so that is kind of the main focus, but I wanted to mention Apple recently. Let's see, when was this? Oh, I guess actually it's been almost a year now, which is hard to believe, but announced a group of music called Sound Therapy. And in it, there are these sort of like auditory beats that get added that are based in in our understanding of how audio can actually lead to better relaxation, better sleep, better zen. And that is the case here. So if you check the Apple Music library, you can find sound therapy music for focus, sound therapy music for relax, and sound therapy music for sleep. There's also the Apple Music Chill radio station which has chill music from all sorts.

Mikah Sargent [00:14:44]:
There's Brian Eno, Steven Mochio, Zane Lowe, who talk about these different, this different music, and then will also share stories of calm as they move through as well. So I think it's well worth checking out these different playlists to see what it's like to have kind of recognizable music added with the, these special beats to sort of make it more zen. And I remote Rosemary, isn't it possible from control center to activate certain? Yeah. So, uh, there's ambient music, uh, that Apple has added. Um, and that's, that was the other thing that I was trying to remember.

Rosemary Orchard [00:15:38]:
Yes. Yeah, there's ambient music and there's also other apps as well that can do the same sort of thing through Control Center or otherwise. And also they can blend with music as well. So for example, oh my gosh, I've completely forgotten the name of the app. Dark Noise. That's it. Dark Noise by Charlie Chapman. That can play, for example, thunder sounds or it can actually play a custom blend of sounds.

Rosemary Orchard [00:16:02]:
And if you turn on one of the advanced options, then it can play it at the same time as music. So you can have thunder and a river and a cat purring and an airplane jet going and also be listening to music at the same time. I personally don't find that particular combination particularly calming, but it is quite nice to sometimes have like, you know, rain going on Canvas if you're having a little trouble sleeping or something like that. Something else that I like to do if I'm having trouble sleeping is solve puzzles. Um, and I've played a number of these games by Flow, and they, they are now in Apple Arcade. So this is Flow Free with a plus symbol at the end. So it's in Apple Arcade. So if you've got Apple Arcade, you can use that.

Rosemary Orchard [00:16:47]:
And there are— you could just do free play where you can go through and you can, you know, pick something more complicated, more advanced, whatever it is. And then there's also daily puzzles, which I have not yet done today's daily puzzle, but essentially what you need to do is somehow connect up your dots. So I can see some of these should probably go like this. If I do that one, go around the outside with the orange, and then ta-da, with the yellow. I completed the level in 6 moves, which apparently was perfect. Now I'm going to admit I've got a lot of practice at this. I've had insomnia in the past and literally stayed up and done like 100 levels of this game. So some of these puzzles are a little more challenging than others, but it is just quite satisfying to connect up the dots and see how things go.

Rosemary Orchard [00:17:35]:
And if you don't get it right, you can just start over and do the level again or undo your last couple of moves. It's very simple, um, and very easy. There's a bunch of different versions of this game, um, as well. So there's a hex version and things like that, which obviously increase the complexity. But yeah, I really enjoy Flow.

Mikah Sargent [00:17:54]:
Uh, the thing that I wanted to mention, background sounds. So Before with iOS 25, I believe, or well, not 25, but iOS before iOS 26, 17, regardless, the background sounds were at the time just kind of white noise, pink noise, brown noise. And then Apple added even more, including rain, including night, including I think stream, so you could hear a chuckling stream as well. And the way that this works with background sounds is it's actually much more deeply integrated into the rest of the system so that you are able to really kind of have it play in the background and not have to adjust too much or worry about if you start playing something else, will it stop? No, it's just meant to be there. So the ambient Music, ambient, uh, background sounds are all available to access through Control Center. And you can learn more about that. We'll have a link in the show notes to it. Now, if there are apps that you out there use to chill out, to, to cool down, uh, we'd love to hear about it.

Mikah Sargent [00:19:20]:
ios.today@twit.tv is how you get in touch. Uh, there are loads of We know apps that of course are kind of our puzzles or our music listening apps. And so I know that, you know, everybody kind of has their, their, their choices on what they like when it comes to calming down, Zenning. And so we would love to hear about what options you have. I also want to encourage you, if you have any questions about iOS or any questions about Shortcuts and particular, get in touch. iosToday@twit.tv. If you haven't had your question answered before and you, like, you've sent one in and it hasn't been answered, we always welcome you sending them again. Uh, there are times where they just go missed and we would love to, uh, make sure that we get to yours.

Mikah Sargent [00:20:16]:
And so yeah, that's, that's the way to get in touch. iosToday@twit.tv. All right, Rosemary. We are moving right along to our app caps. So tell us about your app or gadget pick of the week.

Rosemary Orchard [00:20:36]:
So this one is very on brand. It is called Marble Sort. So you have trays of 9 marbles. You have little kind of like Lego bricks with 3 holes in them that can take 3 marbles. Your marbles are different colors, so you need to put the purple marbles into the purple marble holders. You need to put the yellow marbles into the yellow marble holders. And it's just quite satisfying. You tap it, it pops, it does a little vibration as things go down.

Rosemary Orchard [00:21:04]:
Um, and then, uh, yeah, you— as you go, like, I've progressed to— I'm actually on level 13, which is potentially not going to go very well for me. So I'm gonna have to hope that I actually get this right. I got stuck on an earlier level, um, and, uh, Yeah, you just send the marbles down and then it pops out the little marble holder once the marble holder is full of marbles. Now, what does make this game a little bit easier is 9 is easily divisible by 3. Uh, it's funny that they've, they've, they've made that into a thing so that you can easily fill up one of the marble— all 3 of the marble trays using one of the, uh, marble sections from the top. But yeah, it's very satisfying. I've been really enjoying this. This and playing it, it scratches a little itch in my brain.

Rosemary Orchard [00:21:49]:
And of course the little pop pop pop, um, as the marbles jump around is quite fun as well. And I, I like seeing the marbles going around in their little oblong, uh, you know, circulatory system. So yes, it's quite fun. And yeah, it's free to play. I believe there are some in-app purchases available, but I've yet to come across a situation where I actually need them. So there we go, Marble Sort, if you're just looking for a fun little game to sort some marbles out.

Mikah Sargent [00:22:15]:
And I don't have an app cap pick this week. I'll be on the lookout for a great third-party app or gadget that I have yet to pick up. But folks, if you can believe it, we have reached the end of this episode of iOS Today. We love chatting with you every week. If there's a topic that you would love for us to talk about, you can reach out to us, iosToday@twit.tv. And we'll be back again with more very soon. But now is the time where I tell you about our awesome Club Twit offering. If you are not already a member of the club, why? Join us.

Mikah Sargent [00:22:56]:
You can, you can use the QR code in the top corner there, or you can head to twit.tv/clubtwit. $10 a month, $120 a year gets you access to some pretty awesome things. First and foremost, every single one of our shows Ad-free. Yeah, that's right. It's just the content. You also gain access to our special feeds. That includes a feed of our behind the scenes, before the show, after the show stuff. You also get a feed that has our live coverage of tech news events.

Mikah Sargent [00:23:24]:
We just yesterday, as we record this on Tuesday, uh, March 17th, covered the NVIDIA GTC conference. That would be, uh, Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, and yours truly. And so you can see that plus so much more. And you also have a third feed that has our special club shows like My Crafting Corner, which records tomorrow night. We also have Stacy's Book Club and so much more. If that's not enough for you, don't you worry, because I also have an invite for you to our Club Twit Discord, a fun place to go to chat with your fellow Club Twit members and those of us here at Twit. Joining the club is the best way to support the work we do here, and it allows us to continue to bring you shows. twit.tv/clubtwit is where you go to help support the work.

Mikah Sargent [00:24:17]:
Thank you so much for that. Rosemary Orchard, if people would like to follow you online and check out all the great work you're doing, where should they go to do so?

Rosemary Orchard [00:24:24]:
Well, the best place to go is rosemaryorchard.com, which has got links to apps, books, podcasts, and social media sites where you can find me, except Club Twit, because there's that awesome Discord where people are actually having a really interesting chat right now about AI and some of the limitations they've run into with it, which is really cool. And I'm gonna go and dive into that topic later, 'cause I've been struggling a little bit with some of the things I've been doing as well. So hopefully I can learn something from all those really cool Club Twit members. Micah, where can folks find you?

Mikah Sargent [00:24:52]:
If you're looking to follow me online, I'm @micahsargent on many a social media network. Or you can head to chihuahua.coffee. That's chihuahua.coffee, where I've got links to the places I'm most active online. Hey, do me a favor, head to the site chihuahua.coffee and let me know if you have any problems getting there. I've heard that there's, you know, a little bit of an issue, and I want to iron that out if, uh, if it's not working. So please do let me know. And so yeah, chihuahua.coffee, folks. Truly, we are at end of this episode of iOS Today.

Mikah Sargent [00:25:23]:
So it's time to say goodbye. Goodbye. 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.