iOS Today Episode 595 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 thought it was time to pull out some accessories, some gadgets, some gizmos that we've been using for our iPhones, our iPads, all of our devices. It's accessory time on iOS today. Stay tuned.

... (00:00:18):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWiT.

Mikah Sargent (00:00:25):
This episode of iOS today is brought to you by IT pro TV. It pro TV has everything you need to level up your it skills while you enjoy the journey, visit it pro.tv/twi for an additional 30% off all consumer subscriptions for the lifetime of your active. When you use the code 30 at checkout, Ha ha. Welcome to iOS today. The show where it's talk all things, iOS, iPad, OS TV OS watch OS home pod OS look, it's all the OSS that Apple has on offer. We love to talk about all of those different operating systems, as well as the devices that run those operating systems. Our iPhones, our iPads, our Apple watches, our Apple TVs, our home pods, it's everything. And yeah, that's what we do here on iOS today. I am one of your hosts. I mic a I Sergeant no, just mic a Sergeant

Rosemary Orchard (00:01:31):
And I am Rosemary orchard with no extra eyes in there today.

Mikah Sargent (00:01:35):
That's fine. That's fine. That's fine. Well, folks thank you for joining us today. Look Rosemary and I obviously get, you know, new gizmos and gadgets all the time to use with our devices. We get new devices when they come out in many cases and I figured it was about time, cuz it's been a while since we've had an episode where we talk about some of the accessories that we are using with our our different Apple devices. So we've put together some different ones that we wanna talk about. You may have heard us talk about some of them in the past. It could be the, the case that, you know, it was one of our app picks or our picks of the week at some point, or these may be brand new to you in any case, these are the ones that we're using regular and that we think are worth perhaps you picking up yourself. So let's get into things. Rosemary, what is the first thing you want to talk about today for the accessories episode?

Rosemary Orchard (00:02:35):
Well, the first thing I wanna talk about today is a necessary accessory on today's desk because it's a travel pouch that I use to stash all of my videos in when I'm traveling. Now I should note, this looks super chunky right now and it is, I mean, it's a pretty hefty beast because it is full. But this is an Intech travel pouch, which you can get on Amazon. The, the price barriers is currently on sale $2 or $30, but keep an eye out using camel, camel, camel, or something similar. It frequently goes on sale. And what I love about this pouch is first of all, it does open all the way down to the bottom of both sides. And then it's got the, the lovely little flap, so stuff doesn't just flop out, but inside, oh my gosh, all of the sections in there, Mica all of the difference sections, it divides out so that you can easily you know, like put different things in different areas.

Rosemary Orchard (00:03:26):
And of course, then that means that, you know, you can pull it open, you can pull it pretty wide. For people who are not watching video at home, you know, this pouch is, aren't know what size this is in American. Micah, I would guess what 25 centimeters by 10 by 15 or so. And so somebody could translate that into American. So but yeah, this is, this is a pouch of a reasonable size. For context, I have an iPhone 13 pro case here and it's is a little bit shorter than the case. About as wide as an iPhone 13 pro is, and then one, one, one iPhone 13 pro in length and one iPhone 13 pro with, for the, the length of the case. So there we go. That's some context for, people's go to measure things in iPhones. I don't have a tape measure on hand, how do I not have a tape measure on my desk? But this it's

Mikah Sargent (00:04:18):
Three and half inches wide. It's about just under 10 inches in length and it's about six inches tall which is 15 centimeters, nine centimeters and 25 centimeters respectively. So yeah, this is a really great size. And as you pointed out, I love the idea of that sort of origami fold out. Yeah. This could pack so much stuff in there.

Rosemary Orchard (00:04:43):
Yeah. And it do, it will fit something like an Nintendo switch as well. But I like the fact that it's got pockets of all sizes. So I'm using one of the really skinny pockets for a safe charger here and that just, you know, slides in pretty nicely there so that it doesn't get lost. And I, I like the fact that I means that when I'm traveling, I can pull one bag outta my cake so I can dump it out on a bed or a chair or a table and it's open. I can see all the things. And then when it comes to traveling, like it's got a little handle on it, but I can just pull it closed and zip it shut, which I'm gonna struggle to do now. Cause I'm trying to do this in midair. But if I was doing it on a table, then I can do it pretty darn quickly and easily, which means that this is ready to go back in my, so that I can either go home, go somewhere else or, you know just go to a friend's house and meet, maybe need some charging gear.

Mikah Sargent (00:05:30):
This is a really nice pouch and now I want it. I will definitely be picking

Rosemary Orchard (00:05:34):
This up. So one of the reasons why I got this full disclosure is because it's quite similar to the, I believe it's peak design travel pouch. And, but of course it is a, a lower price. So that is definitely we're considering if people are looking for something similar. I know Bellroy and, and Waterfield also makes some nice pouches, but what I liked about this one is that it it's relatively affordable and I could get it next day from Amazon. If, when I actually desperately needed a new tech pouch, because the last one I was using disintegrated Mica, it did just disintegrated. It was a little hole in it and it just went,

Mikah Sargent (00:06:08):
Oh, no, everywhere.

Mikah Sargent (00:06:09):
It was terrible. It's no fun. All right. Let me talk about my first gadget for today. This is a new one for me. It is called the iHealth air wireless. Let me turn it around, I guess pulse oximeter. So these it's funny kind of how I ended up wanting to get this pulse Oxi. So I way back at the beginning of the pandemic got a pulse oximeter. It is a device that can measure both your pulse rate, but also is there to measure your blood oxygen level. And back, back in the day back when the pandemic first kicked off, we had heard that keeping an eye on your blood oxygen level was a good way to know if you getting far less oxygen than normal, which could be an early indication that you had contracted COVID 19.

Mikah Sargent (00:07:07):
So I got a pulses oxometer and used it pretty regularly. It was, you know, it worked as I needed it to. But I was perusing the health app recently. And I was also, I, I guess this was this would've been last year at the very end of the year. I was perusing the health app. And at the same time I was looking for things on which to spend my remaining FSA for people who live outside of the United States or people who live in the United States who don't know what that is that is your flex spending account that comes with some different benefits as part of your, you know, the company that you work for, or if you have your own stuff, basically it is an account of money that is not taxed by the government because you are using it for medical things and only for medical things.

Mikah Sargent (00:07:58):
So you can use it to like buy prescriptions and, and medications and stuff like that. So I kind of used this, used that as an excuse to make this purchase. And the reason why is because in the heart I believe it's in the heart section now I'm trying to find where that is. It might be in body, me section of Apple health. There is a no, that's not where it is. There we go. Peripheral perfusion index, goodness gracious. It's under heart. So that's why I couldn't find it cuz I was looking for perfusion and not peripheral. So I'll read from Apple. It says perfusion index measures your relative pulse strength at various points on your body, such as your fingertip, your toe or your earlobe. It can be used to provide a rough estimate of the degree of blood flow at the measurement site.

Mikah Sargent (00:08:48):
So I came across this and there were no data points for perfusion index. And I was kind of curious what that meant, how that worked. And so I decided to I, you, if you scroll into each of these sections in the health app, and in fact, I don't mind showing you this because there's no data on here, you'll see different options for apps or different device says that can actually provide this information. And so I saw that the iHealth, my vitals app was able to drop this information. So I went and downloaded the iHealth my vitals app and saw that what it required was one of iHealth's devices. Basically it's the, the means by which it communicates with the health app. So I thought, okay, I'm gonna go online and I'm gonna find one of these devices that will actually be able to measure my peripheral perfusion index because I am a person who likes to have all of that data available to me if I can and sort of collecting all of that information together.

Mikah Sargent (00:09:52):
So long story short, I, I bought the iHealth air wireless pulse oximeter. I was able to use my FSA to make that purchase. And I have one now and it works like most pulse OXS that you've seen. I'm almost searching in that it clips on the end of your finger, you press the button and it starts to measure your at oxygen saturation and your perfusion index at the same time, as well as monitoring your pulse rate. It has the app that is included which you can use then to keep track of that information. And then overall you've got that locked and loaded inside of the health app for iOS it's 15, 9 99, 60 bucks in the Amazon store. And again, well worth it for me to be able to use that money that was available, but also because I wanted to have this extra meta data available to me, should I ever need it? So that is the iHealth air or wireless pulse oximeter. All right, Rosemary, what have you got next on the list?

Rosemary Orchard (00:11:02):
Well, next on my list is something small. It's very small impact. It's not the air tag, but it's the holder that this air tag is in because I have been looking for something that I can put on maybe the outside of a bag and not worry about it getting pulled off. And a lot of the air tag holders out there, I've got one here on my desk. As an example this one is a pigeon one, like it's a, it's a little leather thing. And I'm just struggling to get the, the holder that I put on there from Tom Benoff that, but that doesn't matter, but like, it's just basically a leather thing with a, a meth Lila in there. And I mean, it's fine. But it's, it's not the most secure of options.

Rosemary Orchard (00:11:42):
And there are other more secure alternatives out there including this one from Bekin, which I found on the Apple store. And they are a little bit backed up over here in the UK, but I, I might actually get this one, Amazon but you can get them in the Apple store from Amazon in the us or directly from Belkin. And basically what it is is it's a little plastic holder for the air tag with a metal wire where those wrapped metal wires that goes out of the, the holder and then back into it. So of course I suspect the weakest point of failure here now is actually the plastic case that this air tag is in rather than the, the wire that it's being attached to or let's face it. Probably my suitcase is gonna be the weak point, but what I really like about this is the way that you remove the air tag on the back.

Rosemary Orchard (00:12:27):
There is a little metal sort of screw, which it comes with an achy and you have to unscrew this to get the air air tag out. So it's not that somebody can easily just pop out the air tag and then bam, you know, like they have an air tag or your suitcase or whatever it is. But this is actually you know, it requires a tool which admittedly not too difficult to get a hold of. It's just a thin, a key or a a hex screw. But it's it's, it's a nice option to have and these retail for 1995 in the Apple store. But I actually get mine for, I believe it's 15 pounds on Amazon and they come in black or white. But especially anybody who's traveling with one of those Pelican cases and wants to keep a track of where it is and wants something hard wiring that they can Chuck on it, then this might fit the bill for, are you and you know, I'm, I'm liking it so far. Obviously it's not attached to my suitcase right now. I did consider looking my suitcase in here, but I thought it might make quite a large prop which would also be quite inconvenient to maneuver around so left that I left that outside. But that is its a nice little holder.

Mikah Sargent (00:13:30):
Yeah, no that's, that's super cool. I didn't realize that Bekin had been aid something that was a little bit more,

Rosemary Orchard (00:13:36):
I didn't realize ages either because I've been looking and like they have the little plastic ones with like a fabric loop or something and it's like, well that's just like a pair of scissors and you've cut that off. Or you know, it gets caught on a luggage belt or something and bam, it's gone. And that's not okay, but this I'm hoping will just be a little bit more hard wiring a and things like that though. Of course the other alternative for a lot of people is perhaps put it inside your suitcase though. Of course you're gonna struggl hear it if that's the case, but at the very least it's the slightly to get lost, but this is an alternative for people who perhaps want or need to keep the attack on the outside of something.

Mikah Sargent (00:14:11):
Indeed. All right, folks, I think we're gonna take a quick break before we come back with more accessories that you should be checking out. But I do wanna tell you about it pro TV. You may have heard of them by now and if you haven't heard about them, you've gotta check 'em out. If you're looking for an it development platform to level up your skills, we've got the answer, it's it pro TV. We know it is constantly evolving and you need the best place to get certified. So you're prepared for every new advancement. Are you thinking about getting your CCNA certification while having your CCNA shows your knowledgeable and networking fundamentals and IP services and security fundamentals and automation and programability it pro TV has the classes and skills you need in everything. Cisco, the month of March is dedicated to Cisco at it pro TV.

Mikah Sargent (00:15:02):
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Mikah Sargent (00:16:03):
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Rosemary Orchard (00:17:08):
Yeah, yeah. So one of the things I'm gonna do quickly is the air fly from and 12 south or something similar. I have the airflow pro duo which allows you to connect two devices through one he phone Jack. And this will basically just turn it into Bluetooth, which means that if you wanna watch something on a plane and you've only got your AirPods, well, that's how you can do it. Speaking of AirPods, I have the new AirPod three, which of course I've managed to just misplace on my desk in the last like 30 seconds or so. Because I was cleaning some things as well. But the new AirPods three are also really nice if you're looking for AirPods. And you've maybe tried AirPods before and you found they're very uncomfortable. Then the AirPods have more of a sort of rounded shape.

Rosemary Orchard (00:17:51):
And I find they fit pretty well in my ears. And I'm really enjoying them. And as an extra bonus my mom was really, really pleased to get my old AirPods too as her little present as well because when, when, when you are great in my family than somebody else bad as well. The, the next thing I want to mention is tiny and this is more for probably friends and family members of our listeners because I suspect our listeners are people who treat cables well. Because you know that let's face it. Our listeners are great, wonderful people but there are always those people, you know, who the cable right, where it meets the plastic Jack, like that's where it starts bending and fraying and things like that. And so I went on Amazon and I found some cute little guys that you can just slide onto the cable.

Rosemary Orchard (00:18:37):
So this one is a penguin which has got a little slit in him, but don't worry. It's okay. He's gonna get some food in a second. If I can do this on air and then you just pop the cable inside and he it up to the mouth. And basically the idea is that he just attempts to relieve some of the stress of that's put on the cable. Of course you do end up with a slightly different stress point down here, but the penguin itself is flexible. There's also sharks, hedgehogs, a little green, I think it's chameleon for you, Mica which is just there to a, your cable, but they're pretty handy, pretty cute. And there's lots of different options out there on Amazon. You can get like 10 for like 10, 15 bucks usually. Just have a look if you know that there are people in your life who abuse cables horribly, because they, they will somebody, there's always somebody who will abuse cables for, and maybe this will save them. And there, you know, that you can get different ones for different cable sizes. Of course, braided cables are another great alternative for that. But this, especially if you've got children, like who, who doesn't wanna cute little penguin eating their cable.

Mikah Sargent (00:19:44):
Yeah. Let's just say someone very close to me who I care about very much was used for the longest time until I found out he was a cable that was just broken to pieces and parts of the wires were exposed and, oh my goodness. Until one day suddenly that cable just disappeared and it was replaced or the brand new one. I just, I imagine the cable ferry came and provided that, but now the cable ferry might have to come and provide some of these strain relief these adorable strain relief. What do, what did, what was the official term or the term that you

Rosemary Orchard (00:20:17):
Used? I mean, I just, when I, when I searched them, because I noticed my grandmother has this problem, I don't think she's doing it on purpose. She just coils cables really, really tightly and destroys like the outer casing for them. So I just look for charging cable protectors on Amazon. And that's where I got my mine came in this tiny little case as well, which is quite nice, but not all of them do, but just take a look on Amazon to see if you can get something similar, if that's something you're interested in.

Mikah Sargent (00:20:42):
They're so cute. Yes. I'm seeing lots of different terms, including cord collar the cable protector, the cable saver and cute cable protector. Oh, I definitely am gonna get some of these for sure. These, these would be a great gift for, I mean, anybody who is not super tech minded and is therefore very careful about the strainer relief on their cables.

Rosemary Orchard (00:21:10):
I love them. Yeah, precisely, precisely. One other thing which I'm gonna give a relatively quick shout out to is the Mo tablet snap. So this is actually on my Cobo lye. This is not on an iPad. But what I like about this is it pops off and there's a little sticker that you just put on your device. And I'm very aware that I did not put this on, on very straight, but that's okay. And you can get multiple stickers, which I quite like because this sticker is on my Cobo. But here I have a 12.9 inch iPad pro, and again, I'm guessing those stickers also not on straight, and somebody's gonna write in and tell me about that, but it just magnetizes on. And then I have a handy dandy little stand, which means that I can, you know, take this places, but it folds up incredibly flat to the point where, you know, it usually just lives actually in the case with my Cobo Lya.

Rosemary Orchard (00:21:57):
And it's really nice, but what I like about it as well is it's got a couple of different angles, but you can also use it multiple ways. So if you want it to use your iPad or something horizontally, then you'd be able to do that. Put it at all the different angles to do whatever it is that you need. And yeah, I like that, that, that one is I think 34 99 comes in a couple of different colors. And I believe one of their colors is actually on sale on the Mo website in the us at the moment. But yeah, this is quite a nice standard by, for travel or if you want something slim and you don't really want to have a stand on all the time, you end up with just a little sticker and I have my magic keyboard and this usually lives in my magic keyboard, but when I want to use my iPad in portrait mode, which I do occasionally for document reference, then I could use this which I do when I'm in the kitchen, looking at recipe.

Mikah Sargent (00:22:50):
Nice. All right. I'm going to cover some anchor things we've talked about and now I've placed it somewhere that I cannot find.

Rosemary Orchard (00:22:58):
I, I happen to have one right here, Micah oh, good. Believe it or not. We're twinsies. And we, yes, we, we have some of the same items.

Mikah Sargent (00:23:06):
There we go. This is the anchor 6 2, 2, 2 magnetic battery. It's also, it's part of anchor's mag go line. What's super cool about this is that you've got MagSafe charging on the front magnetic charging on the front with all of it involved here so that when you stick it on the back of an iPhone, it'll work that way. But on the back, is this really cool magnetic stand? So this actually lifts off and there's a nice microfiber interior. And what you can do is take the end. This will be reminiscent of iPad covers. There's an area where you magnet it to the, to the case itself or to the battery pack itself. And then when you stick an iPhone on the front of it, then you can actually use it as a stand for the iPhone. Like, so, but inside of this is a battery, so it is actually mag safe, charging your iPhone, what aisle it's on that stand.

Mikah Sargent (00:24:05):
And what's nice. And what I plan to use this for is this is a great device to take with you when you travel, because you can plug it in down here at the bottom and then very easily set it on a nightstand, set your phone on top of it, and suddenly you're charging. But then when you're out and about, if you need to quickly top up the juice on your ice phone, then you can plug it in and be able to do so it's got a little charge indicator, so I can press the button to see the LEDs light up. And then they tell me how charged this device is. And it's just a very clever little device from anchor given that it also serves as a nice little stand for your iPhone. So you can set it on a desk and be able to see what's going on on your phone. I love that about it. And it's just, I, I, I just, it's just so clever, so clever and neat in the, in the way that it works. Yeah.

Rosemary Orchard (00:24:57):
I'd just like to mention that the us C port on the bottom is two directional, so it both takes charge in, but it can also provide charge out. So if you've got something that doesn't wirelessly charge might need to charge up with you, then you could use a USBC to whatever cable and also for size comparison. This is not much bigger than the max battery pack, but it is considerably more powerful. Like this is 5,000 million powers than I've forgotten. How tiny this one is 1,460. So anchor is a lot more powerful and cheaper to boot, which is quite nice.

Mikah Sargent (00:25:28):
The next thing I wanna talk about is the anchor USBC to 90 degree lightning cable, but honestly, any kind of 90 degree cable is a nice one to have. So I use this every time I do iOS today, it is a CA I, I can unplug it or else it'll mess everything up, but this is a cable that plugs a bottom of the iPhone. That's the 90 degree part. And it lets me better manage the cable as I am doing the show because it sticks out to the side. So I can kind of keep it out of the way these are great for cars as well. If you've got a car where you need to plug in to be able to use CarPlay, you might find that it's easier. If you've got a 90 degree cable, it's just, there are many situations where a 90 degree cable would be far more.

Mikah Sargent (00:26:15):
What's the word I'm looking for. It would be much more convenient to use a 90 degree cable. And so just a reminder that those exist out there and yes, they also exist in USBC form. So this is plugged directly into my, my, by with USBC runs to the iPhone that then I can pull up to show you on my screen as I need to. And then lastly, the thing I wanna mention, and we'll have to just show the photos for this, cause it's actually in my car right now. And I did not want to detach it is the anchor power wave car Mount charger. This is such a fantastic device. So this is for your car, obviously it can sit on your dash or you can connect it to event, or you can connect. It comes with all three options, one for your CD player for folks who don't really use the CD player.

Mikah Sargent (00:27:09):
And it's got plenty of support on the back of it to sort of hold your phone as you need to. And then all I have to do is th my iPhone onto this, it charges my iPhone, but it also lets me have my phone in a place that when using Apple maps, which is literally all the time, because I don't know where anything is ever at any time, then I can see that very easily, very clearly. It's got this nice ball joint so that you can take the whole device and move it to the side if you wants to. So that it's in landscape mode versus portrait mode. This thing is great. It also I've found does not get super hot which I've had in the I've had that issue in the past with the wireless chargers in my car.

Mikah Sargent (00:27:52):
It still will get warm. And so you like the best place for it is definitely in front of event, if you can do that. But if you're not able to do that, as I said, it doesn't get as warm as I've found in the past with some, but just having a handy car charger that all I have to do is stick it on there that I don't have to do all this extra work of making that happen has been fantastic. So those are $70 for the anchor 6 22 mag go magnetic battery $18 for the USBC, 90 degree lightning cable and $40 for the power wave car charger of all three, I would say like price wise, I think $18 is reasonable for that kind of cable. So I'm not going to sort of have justify that. I understand that the $70 is kind of a lot for a magnetic battery pack. And so I get why people wouldn't want that, but like the value I've gotten out of that $40 power wave car mounts charger is beyond ridiculous. I love that thing. It's so good. And it keeps my phone charged and makes it much simpler than having those kind where you like, stick it on. And then it like snaps to the side and all that kind of stuff, all that messy stuff. It doesn't need any of that. It's a very neat solution for it. So that's why I like that.

Rosemary Orchard (00:29:18):
All right. Yeah. And also, especially with anchor products, keep an eye on Amazon for the sales, cuz they do frequently go on sale on Amazon and you can get some great yields with that.

Mikah Sargent (00:29:27):
Absolutely. All right. Let's move on to your next one's Rosemary.

Rosemary Orchard (00:29:31):
All right. Well, my next one, we're sticking with charging. We're, we're going a little bit bigger though. This is a Sati battery pack. And what I love about this Sati is it's got this little white puck in the top. And so, you know, if, for example, you are going away for a weekend, but you're, you're not sure what the charging situation's gonna be like, well, you don't have to take an Apple watch charger with you because Satchi offer a battery with an Apple watch charger built into it. So I can just charge my Apple watch on this battery, which is also a pretty good, bad. It's a 10,000 I believe Milliam para battery. So it's, it's fairly hefty. It'll recharge my iPhone a couple of times it can charge an iPad. And it's, it's a pretty great solution when you don't know that necessarily you're guaranteed to have somewhere where you can flex stuff in.

Rosemary Orchard (00:30:16):
It also has UMT charging on the front of it so that you can E charge your AirPods for example. And of course it's got USB C to recharge it and a S B a plug on it as well to plug something else into it, if you needed to. So you can't plug a fair few items into this. And honestly I got my parents, one of these as well, because they hate traveling with Apple watch chargers. And so this was a good solution for them. Sitchi also make one of this little bons that you can plug into like an iPad or a USBC port directly to charge things. But for people going, eh, I don't wanna charge everything through a battery. I kind of want like a nice charging solution on the go Micah, you were the one that put me on this because you mentioned something from mofi a while ago.

Rosemary Orchard (00:31:05):
And I was looking for an alternative to the max safe duo because the max safe duo with the iPhone 13 pro it doesn't quite fit perfectly. So it, the, the camera bump on the iPhone 13 pro basically means that it doesn't sit quite so nicely on the max safe duo for which is, you know, it's not a huge problem, but it's not great. And I was looking around going, is there like a new Mac safe duo or something? And I found the mag safe trio. It's not AAF trio. This is a mofi three in one travel charger. So it's got an Apple watch charger on it. It's got a Mac safe charger, and it's got a Q air for your AirPods or something. But what I like about this is that it is just a little, you know, portable charger that you can take with you.

Rosemary Orchard (00:31:51):
It folds up, it wraps up. It's quite nice. And it comes, you know, in a little pouch with a charging cable a charging brick and a charging cable. And this is not the same as the Apple folding charging cable, but for people who don't know UK plugs, don't fold. Like, that's, that's not a thing over here, but this one, they managed to fold the earth pin. So that the earth thing can collapse down, making a take up just a little bit less space. So I'm pretty pleased with this. I've used it a couple of times at home and I'm gonna be using it on a trip actually, literally this week. It it is unfortunately $149 95. So it is quite pricey. But that said, if you want to be able to charge all the things and just have, you know, one, one thing that you plug into the wall and then everything gets charged overnight, then that's pretty, pretty nice to have as an option. And honestly between that and my Satsu battery, I don't think I'll really need to take any other charges with me unless I decide to take a MacBook, which I probably won't because I'm, you know, it's a, it's an overnight trip. I'll be fine especially because I've got a great iPad, which I can use.

Mikah Sargent (00:32:59):
Nice. All right. Let me just cover a few more and then I think I will be good to go. I wanna talk, so this is funny because Matthew and I used to cover a lot of accessories made by the company that you just mentioned, and we would go back and forth. He and I on which pronunciation was correct. So finally I reached out to the company itself and got a video with a pronouncer so that I just, I promise I'm not combating you for no reason. But the Saachi illumining stand hub for iPad pro is what I want to talk about today. This is a really cool device, so on it's, it's made of aluminum and it's got this, this little sort of piece that folds out and when it folds out, then you can set an iPad inside of it.

Mikah Sargent (00:33:53):
Right. But what's awesome is then there's a USBC cable that's built into it that you take and you plug into the side of the iPad and this gives you access now. So I, I, I didn't fully pull it out. It, it comes up and then sits in front. The iPad sits on here. And then in the back of it, you now have access to H DM I out you have access to a USB, a port, a us B C style port. You've got audio right there, and you have two SD cards, a micro SD card slot, and an SD card slot, all of that to turn your iPad into like a full on computer with this little doc from Saachi. This is again, Theo stand hub for iPad pro USBC it's the, the S B a cable is SBA a 3.0, it's 4k H GMI.

Mikah Sargent (00:34:50):
Again, the audio Jack port so that you can plug in some headphones if you want, and the SD and microSD card slots. And then it's done up in that nice aluminum so that it really matches kind of Apple's overall design. And I love how this just folds up into nothing, just this nice little wafer that you can slide into the, in a tech travel pouch, if you want to which can be very handy. Next I will mention two nomad devices. First is the case that's actually on my iPhone right now, and this is the Noma sport case with MagSafe. This has a MagSafe support built into it. So I can th walk this onto my MagSafe chargers and all the different places, and they all work fully and completely. So it's all compatible with Apples, mag safe charging, but what makes this unique aside from being really pretty color and also having the machined buttons on the side, which is really nice is that at the very base of it, there is an NFC chip built into the case that works with a company called I think it's called, let me see.

Mikah Sargent (00:35:56):
O P T no P O P L pop and pop is this service that lets you set up a card, a sort of online business card for a specific NFC tag. So nomad paired with pop or partnered with Papa to make this possible. So if someone was asking me for my information, I could say, oh, just swipe your phone here and up would pop this link. And what's cool. And I'll show you is that I can add or remove different data from my Papa at any time. So right now I've got my number. I've got my Twitter account, my Instagram and my email. I can and add more contact information to that, or remove contact information if I want to, I can turn on and off contact information at any time. And there are other options too, including what's called direct and lead capture.

Mikah Sargent (00:36:51):
Direct means that when they swipe on it, you choose one of these links that it'll just automatically do that thing. Lead capture is kind of a cool feature where if say Rosemary and I were next to each other, and she swiped the built in business card on mine, I would then have a popup come up on my phone where she could answer, answer her own information and be able to give that information to me as well. So it's an opportunity to exchange versus just being the one way, so a really cool built in business card right there in your phone, I think is a really neat trick. And I haven't tried it, but I would imagine that since it's an FC chip, it's probably able to be used how I wants to, but again, I have not tried that. So it, it might be right protected just to work with Papa, but I like the at papels there and able to do that for me.

Mikah Sargent (00:37:41):
So, yeah, the iPhone 13 I forget a sport case with mag safe. They also make a leather version that has that beautiful leather H leather that, that nomad is known for using that age is super well. And I went with the support case just because I wanted to have that nice color on the back. But the leather case also does have the built in digital business card, if you want that. And then the other device that I wanted to mention nomad did send me this whenever it was first it was about to log lunch and that is the new base one with MagSafe. This is obviously it, it offers the full 15 Watts of MagSafe fast charging. So it is completely compatible, but what makes this so cool is just, again, what Nome is known for. What it's good for is how well designed the product is, this is a hefty, hefty charger.

Mikah Sargent (00:38:45):
And that is because they want it to be a hefty, hefty charger so that when it's sitting on a table or a desk, or what have you, you can lift your phone off of it without it coming with the phone. The it's kind of hard to see, but the actual MagSafe charging part of it is raised up off of the top of the glass surface. So it's glass and aluminum. And then of course whatever kind of plastic material is on for the MagSafe charger itself, but it's lightly raised above. So the phone can th walk onto there and it's easy to kind of, you know, tilt the phone and lift it off again, without the base itself coming up. As long as you use a 30 Watts charger, then you're able to get that full 15 Watts of mag safe charging.

Mikah Sargent (00:39:30):
It doesn't slide on the desk cuz it's got nice grippy feet and of course Noma includes a, a cable with it that is that braided cable so that you can make sure that it lasts a really long time. But I think there were some, there were some sites that whenever they reviewed this, they said, this is the charger that Apples should have made because yes it does have that premium feel. That premium look, yeah, it was seen at the mag safe charger. Apple should, should have released because of the way that it just stays there fastened to the desk. And you don't have to worry about that, that whenever you lift it off, it comes away. And as I said, that full featured charging is really nice. All right. Rosemary, why don't you round us out with your other accessory picks?

Rosemary Orchard (00:40:16):
Yeah, so I have one accessory pick left and I will note that this is perhaps an unusual option, but I think it's something that some people will be pleased know exists. And this is not an I a, this is my 12.9 inch. I iPad pro on a mag slot charger or a mag flat stand, sorry, it's not a charger. It does come with charging cables and so on, including it's not just a 90, we one, it actually bends back around the iPad and around the stand. But what I love about this, and this is a little difficult demo, cuz usually this lives on my desk and especially with universal control, it's nice having my iPad on the desk is an extra sort of screen, but it just rotates. So I can have this at 90 degrees vertically or ORs monthly and it's got all the tilting and everything built in.

Rosemary Orchard (00:41:01):
If I flip it around you can see maybe if I'll flip it 180 degrees to make it a bit easier. There's a slot in the back just like there is on an IMAX stand so that you can bring cables through there. And so on for tidying things up a little bit. So this is the, the Mac flood by charging and pro and that's from their names Charles and Jennifer, I believe. And it was a Kickstarter. I got mine it's delivered. I actually have one in my house waiting for a friend to pick it up as well. And it comes in 12.9 or 11 inches for the iPads pro I believe it may also work with the iPad error though. I would double check that if you are interested in this, but I like the fact that this means that I've got an easy way to put my iPad on my desk.

Rosemary Orchard (00:41:44):
It's nice and secure. And it pops off very easily. But what I should note is, and this is very difficult to to show without it looking weird, but this interior here, that's a lovely microfiber. And so it's not going to scratch your iPad in any way. So the back of the, this part here is absolutely plastic. And then the, the rest of the stand is a nice solid metal. And it comes and you just, you know, screw the base onto the bridge part, and then you're, you're done basically. And that's it. And then you've got a lovely stand for your iPad pro that sort of, kind of looks like a little iMac. But especially if you find you can get everything done on an iMac and you just want an, a nice way to put it on your desk, let's say a nice Bluetooth keyboard.

Rosemary Orchard (00:42:28):
This, this could be a good option for you. And it's a little bit taller than some of the other things like the 12 self compass. And so on that I know have previously been featured on the show and I know a lot of people, like I would like that as well, but I just find it a bit low and this I, I like the magnet option and it pops in and out easily and goes back into my, my magic keyboard or onto the the Mo tablet snap when I need it to, so I'm pretty pleased with this. It is a solution to a problem that some people don't have, but it's solution to a problem that I had. So I was very pleased when I found out that they were making this and then when I got mine,

Mikah Sargent (00:43:05):
Yeah, it's really pretty. I that's definitely now on my list because of the magnetic ability that, that, especially, yeah. There's no claim anything to worry about it easily can go on and come off. Yeah. All right. Folks with that, we've reached the end of the accessories section as usual. I invite you all to send your own accessories. If there's one that you're just super jazzed about that you think we should know about, that you love to use, let us know. Up next, we've got the news.

Speaker 7 (00:43:33):
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Mikah Sargent (00:44:06):
It is time for the news segment and we are creeping ever closer to the summer, which means we are creeping ever closer to WW U D C. That is the worldwide developer conference from Apple where Apple shows off its next rendition of its operating systems. The things we talk about here on iOS. So this is where developers get to know what Apple is working on next and what they are, what they should do with their apps to be able to take advantage of the new things that Apple is working on. There are already rumors, there have been rumors even before this about when Apple could send out invite two WWDC and Mac rumors has some information on kind of what we know now leading up to the event. Do you wanna talk about that Rosemary?

Rosemary Orchard (00:45:01):
Well, right now, all we know is that Apple are being forecast to have WWDC again in June this year. Yay. So the same information we have before, but this time, last year, the invitations were going out to people, inviting everybody to it was an online only event and we have yet to find out what this year's event is going to be like with regards to in person versus purely digital attendance. And what's going to be released, we'll find out what's being released when we're at WWDC. I guess because Apple usually keep a pretty tight lid on it until then. So yeah, right now we are just waiting for invitations. I have just refreshed net news wire to double check and no invitations appear to have gone out yet. As far as my, my news information is available, the, the Apple newsfeed is yet to update and say that it's there, which would be typical that they would do it right after we finished talking about the news on the show, but how to happen.

Mikah Sargent (00:45:58):
Yes, we shall see. And then Apple is at work in some other ways too first with the coaching program. And secondly, with the first launch of its driver's license and state ID and Apple wallet to us about this coaching program, this is interesting.

Rosemary Orchard (00:46:15):
Yeah. So the idea behind the, the coaching program is that it's, what's called Apple learning coach and it's for as a learning program for educators who are coaching teachers to get the most out of Apple technology. So I'm sure Mo many people are aware that the Apple store has sort of classes and things, which you can sign, go to, to learn about how to do stuff on your iPhone or your iPad or your Mac. And if you didn't know that, then you should know that because that's a great free resource to learn all sorts of tips and tricks. But the idea behind the learning coach program is specifically it's to teach teachers so that they can do things like use iPads in classrooms more effectively by knowing that can lock students into one specific application and things like that, as well as you know, managing and so making it easy for schools to reset passwords and stuff like that when students inevitably forget them because it always happens.

Rosemary Orchard (00:47:08):
And basically they're just gonna try and, you know, enable teachers to make the most out of their, to devices in those device programs that are available. I know one to one device programs with the iPad are quite popular. The Chromebook is also very popular, so it was not a huge surprise, at least to me that Apple announced as part of this, that managed Apple IDs are integrating into Google workspace. So that Apple classroom and schoolwork, which are the, the two apps that are specifically available for managed iPads in education will also be able to integrate to some extent though. I don't yet know how far with Google workspace, which is an interesting turn of events. They're not usually so excited to integrate with Google things, but equally I can see that being a sensible approach for them.

Mikah Sargent (00:47:59):
Nice, nice. Then Apple had announced quite a while ago now that its wallet would support digital version of folks drivers licenses and state IDs. And they said that there were gonna be some states that would be coming out with that. And then over time more states would jump on the first states to support this is Arizona, Arizona. Now lets you import your state ID or driver's license into Apple wallet and use that as needed. And then also the TSA is accepting the digital version of your ID as a way to access airports in Arizona specifically. There are now more cars than just the Mustang Mai and I think a certain and BMW that support Apple's car key feature which is essentially like the digital ID for wallets, the ability to access and control your car using your iPhone now some 2022 Kia and Genesis vehicles also support Apple's car key feature. So you'll be able to again, access and control your vehicle using car key on your iPhone, which is just a handy way to not have to remember your keys, use your keys yeah. As, as you need to.

Rosemary Orchard (00:49:26):
Yes. Yeah. It's a similar feature to keyless century, except I presume that people charge their iPhones and perhaps more frequently than they remembered to change the battery in their car key. And also pro tip, if you have one of those keyless card entry things and you have not changed the battery in it in as much time as you can ever remember, maybe maybe considered changing it because my dad got locked out of his car a couple months

Mikah Sargent (00:49:46):
Ago. Oh

Rosemary Orchard (00:49:47):
No. With that exact feature, he put the car key in the car and like went to do something the door closed and then he was looked out of the car because back,

Mikah Sargent (00:49:55):
Oh no, that's awful.

Rosemary Orchard (00:49:56):
So actually Carkey could have saved him here.

Mikah Sargent (00:49:59):
It could have, yeah, hang

Rosemary Orchard (00:50:00):
It.

Mikah Sargent (00:50:01):
Oh, well, all right. Then let's, let's talk there, there are two things that I'd love to, to hear about first about finally you folks might be getting, oh I, yeah, yeah. UK. I was thinking EU for a second. I thought, no, not UK. The UK might be getting the Apple card and then also a little bit about iPhone battery drain.

Rosemary Orchard (00:50:24):
Yeah. So it looks like the UK may finally be getting the Apple card because Apple have done what they seem to be doing an awful lot here recently, which is they bought another company. But they app, this is apparently a credit checking company here in the UK. I have not heard of them before this. I have to, to say. And yeah, but it does mean perhaps that we are a step closer to Apple card and perhaps Apple pay cash being available here in the UK, neither of which are now we do have a more advanced banking system. I'll call it or a more instantaneous banking system where if I wanted to transfer a, a friend some money, then I can just input some information online and it'll be with them in like two minutes from my bank account.

Rosemary Orchard (00:51:13):
And that's pretty easy to do, but it would still be nice to have Apple pay cash just so that, you know, I can send it via iMessage instead of having to, you know, log into my banking app, which if I'm running an iOS data, always locks me out, always lock me out. It's always good fun. But hopefully primarily we'll be getting the Apple card over here, which would be a nice bonus, especially if we actually do get similar benefits you know we don't really do the same kind of benefits on credit cards over here in the UK as you folks do in the us or credit card companies in the us do. But we will see and hopefully if it does come, it'll be great. And wonderful. And if not, I guess we'll just continue with Apple pay like we already

Mikah Sargent (00:51:57):
Do. All right. Anything else you wanna cover there before we move on to shortcuts corner? I,

Rosemary Orchard (00:52:02):
I think that is that the battery drain is something to watch out for is some, if you've noticed friends, some family or yourself complaining, Hey, my iPad is running outta battery a lot after this latest update or my iPhone's running outta battery. What's up with that. It might be that you've just installed the update and it does take a little while just like after installing a big iOS update, it can take a little while for your phone to reindex everything. So that it's fully by back up to date. So it may be draining a little bit faster because of that. Of course, don't forget if your phone is draining battery or your iPad is draining battery. Your watch is draining battery or doing any unexpected behavior, try turning off and turning it back on again.

Mikah Sargent (00:52:44):
And with that, we have reached the end of the news segment, which means it's time for shortcuts corn.

Mikah Sargent (00:53:00):
This is the part of the show where you write in with your shortcuts requests and Rosemary orchard. The shortcuts expert provides a response. First shortcuts corner request comes from Jeremy. Jeremy says, I have a question for a shortcut or automation that you might be able to help with. I would like to set an alarm that would turn on the lights in my bedroom and play news throughout my house. On my home pods. I've got one OG home pod and four mini home pods or home pod minis. I can get the lights on through automations and even see where I can get the home pods to play. What I can't find is something that tells them what to play. I hate to say it, but this is relatively easy in the Google ecosystem. I want to get away from those devices, if possible, any ideas or pointers to what I'm missing. Thanks. And keep up the great show. Jeremy. All right. Rosemary orchard. I think you've got the answer here for 

Rosemary Orchard (00:53:56):
Jeremy, what I do indeed. Do we do? Well, the, the thing that you need to do is first of all, I need to I'll show you my iPad, which has just decided to connect fortunate. So what you're doing I'm presuming in the, the home app, Jeremy is you're creating a scene. And inside of that scene, you're probably doing things like the lights and so on and so forth. So I'm gonna start by creating a scene which are cold test for iOS so that I can find it and delete it easily later. And the, then when you add your accessories, you've got different things that you can do. So I'm just gonna add a couple of different options here. I'll even add my thermostat. Why not? So with things like a thermostat you'll be able to tap and hold on it and do things like chase your temperature.

Rosemary Orchard (00:54:41):
So I could set that one to say, 16 and a half degrees, tap on a lamp up and hold it. And then you can control, for example, what colors it will turn. And you know, if you do the same thing with say a blind, you can change that as well. Now, home pods have an option as well where they just play pauses. And if you tap and hold, you might see it sort of bouncing a little bit underneath my finger if you're watching the video, but it doesn't do anything there that there's a section here called media. And if you tap on this where it says play audio, then it should give you the option. And it just popped up on my screen to choose audio. Okay. So if you, if you select pause audio, then that's not an option resume audio.

Rosemary Orchard (00:55:22):
Obviously doesn't give you an option to choose audio because you're just resuming. And there's also a, an option here for a just volume only, which can be really helpful. I have a scene which I have activate automatically at five o'clock in the morning, every day to lower the volume on my home pod. So if I was listening to something loudly, then when I hit play in the morning, I don't get accidentally deafened and don't make my neighbors upset with me. But when you tap choose audio, then you've got all of the options, including you can go through play and so on. So I could pick say the pop throwback one. And then if you tap on the plus in the top left or the top right next to the cancel button, you can add to that entire playlist and you can do the same thing with albums, or you can select specific songs, whatever it is you do with podcast.

Mikah Sargent (00:56:02):
Are you able to play podcasts this

Rosemary Orchard (00:56:04):
Way? Let me just double check. I don't think you can. Let me just try searching for Iowas today though. Cuz it is searching Apple music specifically. So it, it does not have podcasts. Unfortunately it's only got music available to us. But once you've done that, then you get options for a and shuffle showing up. Which means that you can talk along repeating and shuffling as is appropriate. So that should do the trick for you there. Jeremy fingers crossed that solves your problem. And I know that sometimes the Google devices are a little bit easier to use than home kit. But it is all at the very least running locally, which means it's it's theater. And if your Internet's being a bit flaky, it should still work.

Mikah Sargent (00:56:49):
There you go. The next one comes from Scott, Scott Wrights. And this is a great question. Is there a way to unschedule focus modes for holidays and vacation? So if you can imagine having a mode that works that's for your work, you know, most days you go into work and you want to make it so that you don't get notifications that are from Twitter or something like that, but maybe I'm on vacation and I don't wanna have to manually go in and turn off my focus modes. Is there a way for one to basically keep that mode off or turn that focus mode off for that holiday?

Rosemary Orchard (00:57:28):
There is, and I just need one second because it looks like one of my hubs has come unplugged. So I'm gonna have to just quickly shuffle around the devices that are being plugged in here so that I can show everybody my iPhone, which is what I actually have this run on all the time. So there we go. I do indeed have an iPhone. So what I've got to start with, I'll just pop into the settings app and show everyone the focus modes, which are here under the notifications sounds and haptics focus is the third option there. So work, I have scheduled turn on automatically from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Monday to Friday weekdays. And that's, that's one of the automations I have. You can do location based things and so on and so forth. But if, for example, you don't actually want it to come on when you're on holidays, what do you do?

Rosemary Orchard (00:58:18):
Well, I leave this here. Okay. I don't change this automation because if I go in and I start, you know, trying to delete these things or uncheck a day, then I'm going to forget and I'm not gonna go back and I'm not gonna fix it later. So instead what I do is I open the shortcuts app and I create an automation. And so I have lots of automations here, of course, but the one I'm looking for is my work automation, because I have said something up where I read in information out of the UK holiday calendars. And I filter it specifically for anything that doesn't include Scotland or Northern Ireland because those holidays do not apply to me. And then I just check if there's anything from those calendar events, then I turn off my work focus mode. I have a little text option, which says turning off work, focus, and it puts the information from the calendar events in there.

Rosemary Orchard (00:59:07):
And then it shows me a notification and stops my shortcut. So I could keep running other things after this. If I wanted to, for example, I could have other automations in here that would then run if I am doing my Workday, but this just means that what happens is the work focus mode comes on and then it goes off and I get a little notification on my phone to say that it's turned off and why it's turned off just in case I need to deep back something. Oh, that's nice. And you could use this. You could look for, for example, all day events in a holiday calendar that you, you have or a personal calendar where you put your vacation is whatever it is you need, but that is how I solve that problem. So fingers cross that helps you, Scott.

Mikah Sargent (00:59:47):
Yeah, that's very handy. Especially the getting the notification to let me know, oh, this is why this is happening. All right, up next, we've got a few feedback que and questions before we hit the app cap segment. All right. For feedback and questions Vaal writes in, I am relatively new to the show and love all the info and advice you put out there. I have been a longtime Apple user, and my question is about the camera roll and the iPhone. I have recently scanned in all my old pictures from yesterday years and don't know how to add them into my albums. I was wondering if there's any way to upload all my scanned pictures back into the camera. I have a 256 gigabyte iPhone 13 Promax with two terabytes of Apple, one iCloud storage. So space is not the issue. I have searched high and low for a solution, but to no avail, maybe I'm searching incorrectly.

Mikah Sargent (01:00:31):
Please, please, please help. Thanks in advance Al. So Al there are two options here. I'm gonna start by assuming one, and then we'll go to the second one for, we assume that you, you said you scanned in all your old pictures. That sounds like you quite literally used a scanner or some other tool to actually get those photos into a, from, from a physical manifestation to a digital version of those photos. So let's assume that you all are, that you are all in on Apple when it comes to your mobile devices, but for the device that you use, your PC, you're using a windows machine as opposed to an Apple machine. So if we are assuming that you use a windows machine, then here is how you do it. Not we'll of course include a link to the support article, but there is a an Apple location for windows called iCloud.

Mikah Sargent (01:01:26):
It's just called iCloud. You can download it for your windows machine afterwards. You can turn on iCloud photos in iCloud for windows, and then you can import all of your iCloud all of those photos that you've scanned into iCloud photos, which will then show up on your iPhone. It'll show up in your storage, it'll be everywhere you want. Again, I'm not gonna go through the whole thing because the, the link that will include in the chat or in the, the show notes walks you through the process. But essentially once you've installed iCloud for windows, all you do is click and drag those photos and drop them into the iCloud photos window in a file Explorer. But if you don't use windows, let's assume because you say you're all in on Apple that you use a Mac. And when you say that you've scanned in all of your photos, you've got them saved there on your Mac, or maybe it's on an external drive or something like that.

Mikah Sargent (01:02:21):
It's even easier on your Mac. You launch the photos app, and then you drag that whole folder of the scanned images and drop them onto the photos app into the library. It will automatically then import them. You'll have them there you'll have them a available the support document that will include has information too, about iCloud photo library and how you can keep local versions or not. I don't want to add any confusion to that, but vial, it's a very simple thing. And of course, right back, if you do run into some sort of issue if you have sort of maybe somehow you scan them just using your iPhone. And for some reason they're being stored in a third party library, as opposed to iClouds library, let us know about that. But if you're using a windows PC or you're using a Mac and those photos are there somewhere super simple, to be able to get those photos into your camera role on your iPhone just by uploading them to iCloud.

Mikah Sargent (01:03:20):
All right, this next one comes from Jeff. Jeff writes in hi, Mike and Rosemary. Hello, Jeff. I enjoy listening to each week's iOS today, installment and hope you can shed some light on an issue that I am having. I have an Apple watch series six and use the workout app to record my daily walks. While on these walks, I use my iPhone 11 and AirPods pro to play a variety of podcasts via cast, but I never receive audio notifications through my AirPods pro from the workout app, distance, travel pace, et cetera. The workout app will announce statistics only via the watches tiny speaker. My routine is grab my phone, put in my AirPods pro, which automatically connects to my iPhone, open the cast app on my iPhone and start listening to a podcast via my AirPods pro start the workout app on my Apple watch if a message or phone call occurs during my walk, they work seamlessly with my AirPods pro, but the workout app never plays any of its notifications on my AirPods. Pro am I doing something wrong? Isn't the workout app, able to route its notifications through the iPhone. Thanks for your time, Jeff. All right. I know you've got the answer to this because I can see it in the show notes. Rosemary orchard. How does Jeff fix this?

Rosemary Orchard (01:04:31):
Well, the answer is, first of all, if you haven't tried it, Jeff, please try turning it off and turning it back on again. I mean, turn off your iPhone, turn off your Apple watch and turn them all back on again. Just because sometimes things, these things get stuck. And I did that as part of troubleshooting this because I turned out, had exactly the same problem. I don't usually bother with the, the voice feedback, which is something that you need to enable in the watch app. But that is one of the things that I ended up having to do because it just trade out. Wasn't working for me. So first of all, there's like three steps to this process or four steps depending on everything else that you're doing. First of all, in your iPhone, in the settings app in notifications, announce notifications, scroll down, and we're looking for the fitness app, which I've just scrolled straight past, and you need to make sure the announce notifications for the fitness app was, is on not off.

Rosemary Orchard (01:05:23):
And I know you're using the workout app on your watch, but that links to the fitness app on your iPhone. And so that's part of the puzzle. And then the next one is inside of notifications. If we look for it should be the watch app. Sorry, if you go into the watch app on your iPhone, you can also control this through the settings on your watch. But I'm gonna show everybody on the iPhone because trying to film my watch to, to do this would be kind of tricky. So again, here we need to scroll down and check, oops, sorry. I tapped on completely the wrong thing up on the notifications option and then activity and make sure that you've got act notifications for activity turned on. They're not being sent to the notifications center and that you've got all of the, the other options that you want.

Rosemary Orchard (01:06:09):
Grouping shouldn't make a difference here to those notifications. And then finally, inside of the watch app on your iPhone, you need to scroll down to the bottom of your installed applications looking for, or the, the Apple applications started looking for the workout app and make sure that you have the voice feedback there turned on so that you get that voice feedback. And then fingers crossed with all three of those. It should be fine. Now I know that you have, you said that you can get phone calls and so on, and that all works just fine. But the only other thing I'm going to mention is if you don't have that option of when music is playing on your phone, that you can control it through your watch. I have a feeling that that is part of this as well, because I was messing around my dad's iPhone is I and Apple watch this weekend trying to make sure that I could replicate it and it wasn't working for him.

Rosemary Orchard (01:07:03):
He had the ability, the remote control for the music settings on his watch actually turned off. And that is something that appears that you may need to have on for this feature to work. So I, I've now managed to forget precisely where that feature is because I that's the one bit of this I didn't write down. But if you make sure for the music playback controls inside of the settings on your Apple watch that you can control what your, your iPhone is doing. Then that is another piece of the puzzle. So fingers cross that's, everything that you need to get that working. And please write back in and let us know if it doesn't work. And if you are in the audience and you go, I know exactly how this thing got turned off and it stopped. It was only talking at me through my speaker, and now it talks back through my AirPods again, please, can you write in and let us know so we can pass it along to Jeff.

Mikah Sargent (01:07:58):
Agreed, please. Jill. All right, folks, I can hear the music it's time for our app caps. This is the part of the show where we wear caps a top hour head to honor our picks of the week. These may be apps or gadgets that we're using now that we think are great, that we want to share with all of you. And in order to show our commitments to these apps or gadgets, we decide to wear fun things, a top our heads to prove our passion up first is Rosemary orchard to tell us about the cap, a top, her head and her app pick of the week.

Rosemary Orchard (01:08:45):
Well, the cap at top, my head is one. I have worn it before I do have it in my regular rotation. It is a lovely knit Pinkberry with little gold studs on it because it's cute and it's warm, but it's not too warm, which is good because we are finally Micah in summertime. It is summer. And there's these buzzing and all sorts of great things, including an update to one of my favorite apps, which I know a lot of our audience members also love overcast. Overcast has had a pretty big UI update which means, but it looks a whole bunch different. Now when you open the app. So you've got some lovely, colorful playlist options as well as other things. So what happens now when you create a playlist is as well as having the option to, you know, give it a name and specify, you know, what, what kind of thing should be in there and how they should be sorted and all of that mumbo jumbo that we don't care about, you can give it colors and icons that that's the bit that we all love.

Rosemary Orchard (01:09:42):
Right. and what I really love here is when you look at the icons, there's over 3000 options because Marco has given us the option, Marco Armen, being the developer of overcast, given us the option of every single icon that Apple offers two developers for use on the operating system. So he's giving you those options as well. So you can do anything you like. So for example, if you have a specific playlist that you always listen to in your car, then you could look for vehicle you could start by transportation and look for whatever the most appropriate car is on, I think I'm actually gonna go with the little monorail there because that's, that's kind of fun. You can select all the different colors that you, you might like. So I could have a, a blue car and that's now my all podcast list, which has updated appropriately.

Rosemary Orchard (01:10:31):
And then from, if I were playing something from that list, then I could, you know, tap, play. And, and when I go back, it's got a little border around it to indicate that that's the playlist that I'm currently playing a podcast from which is a nice touch. Now, there are a few other little things as well. And for example, if you wanted to change the theme of overcast. So overcast by default is an orange color. Now inside of the settings theme area, you can choose different theme colors, including ones for light mode and dark mode. So in light mode, I have the, the darker shade of purple. But then when I switch over to dark mode, I'm using the lighter, more vibrant shade of purple, just because it's got a slightly better contrast for me. And it still gives me that wonderful purple feeling.

Rosemary Orchard (01:11:22):
The other thing that I know, some people really like, especially those wireless notes who flip back and forth between audio and video and overcast is of course, an audio only podcast application is the ability to mark a podcast as listened to. So maybe you started listening to it in audio, and then you said, Hey, I wanna finish this off on video, but you didn't wanna mark as you know, like not finished here and you you're a completionist, but you did complete it. Well, now you can swipe and check it off to mark something as done. So that it is indeed my as finished in your podcast playlist which is lovely. Now there's a, a bunch of other tweaks and, and fixes inside of here. There's some improvements to CarPlay and things like that. But in general, overcast just feels a little bit bigger and friendlier and easier to use as well as perhaps being a little pretier for those people with very long podcast playlists. It's even better with very large playlists now, which is of course a great feature.

Mikah Sargent (01:12:21):
Nice. All right, folks the cap top of my head is actually a headband wrapped around my head. It was from a pirate costume. I bought like five, six years ago. And I still have the headband and wear it sometimes when I need my hair outta my face. The app that I wanna talk about, it's interesting, this app was suggested by way of discord of all things. Discord sometimes will offer free trials or little discounts on products, and they had offered a discount on, or actually instead of a discount, it was a three month free trial of an application called Pixart. And I was like, you know what, I'm curious, I'm gonna go ahead and get it. I'll grab it and see what it's like. And I did. And it actually ended up being really good and worth talking about.

Mikah Sargent (01:13:13):
So it is what I will be talking about today. For iOS today, Pixart is an image editing application. It does have that sort of influencer vibe to it, but try not to be scared off by that, because if you're not scared off by that, then you'll get to see all the power that this application has. So this photo is one that I created using Pixar with some of the built in tools that are there. I took a photo of myself imported it and did a lot of different things to it. But what I wanna show you instead of that are these replays here, replays are a way to kind of see how these different images are made. So it can give you some kind of inspiration on how to create different things. So I'm gonna tap on this one that has these numbers and choose that. And then you can see that it started with this photo of someone holding up their hand. And the first step that they did was they cropped the photo.

Mikah Sargent (01:14:21):
Then they added a sticker that is the iPhone number screen for, for dialing. Then they added the film to filter and last but not least, they did a little bit of masking with some dust to sort of round out the photo all together. And so what I like about this is that you can get some good inspiration for how to create your, a own photos with this. And I'll exit this replay. I will close out of this and then hop back into this just so I can show you what different options are available. So the first thing is being able to crop, you can do a free crop so that if you wanna do kind of a, a custom weird look for a photo, a shape crop. So I could take this and make it into say some clouds there we'll zoom out and crop that like, so, whoops, that changed it back.

Mikah Sargent (01:15:27):
I didn't wanna do that. And now this has this very interesting rock that we can change the stroke on the outside of that. Lots of effects are available, including simple effects for changing the Dodge for some, some different like bronze colors, some blue colors all sorts of filled here that are interchangeable. But then there are effects add noise to make it HDR, to make it look like old film. You can turn it into, this is how I ended up doing this kind of interesting set of, of sketches on top of the photo with the sketch feature and all of these options have lots of different set things that you're able to do with those. The, the app has a built in remove background feature. So they make it super simple to be able to take the background out of a photo that can be kind of difficult retouch options, if you're into that kind of thing creating cutouts so that you can sort of layer photos on top of each other.

Mikah Sargent (01:16:34):
There are lots of different brushes. I mean, this has everything. And one of my favorite tools, which is called fit, and that is, if you are trying to say upload this to Instagram, you can make it so that it fits on a square. So there's an Instagram square, there's a portrait option because they know the proper measurements that you need to be able to do the portrait version on Instagram, or if you're gonna post it to your story, there's a Facebook post, a Facebook cover, a Pinterest post, a Twitter photo, a Twitter header, and last but not least a YouTube screen grab that, that sort of freeze frame that's there. And then on top of being able to get the proper, let's say I was gonna publish this to my Instagram story. You can make adjustments to the background, however you want.

Mikah Sargent (01:17:22):
So I could do, let's go with some sort of, that's a horrible green of pollen green. Let's go. There we go. A nice screen. The background could be these different patterns, but check this out there, all of these other options that are available too, like, of course, hippie essentials. I mean, who wouldn't want that spatial anomaly, let's go with I'm trying to find in something that really speaks to me obviously flashy and fun pets speaks to me so we could choose that dog background there. But you could also do an image and this links with I believe it's probably Unsplash in the background, which is a, a tool I've talked about before, and then you can also add a shadow or a blur to the back of your photo itself to be able to add that if you want, and then I would tap apply to make this photo.

Mikah Sargent (01:18:19):
The export is also great. There are lots of different options for exporting, so you can just save it directly. You, it has all those deep links so that you can publish it directly to Instagram or Facebook, or what have you. It is a full featured tool for doing all sorts of fun stuff with photos and stuff that I hadn't even considered. I really like the photo that I ended up making. I I've published it posted it on, on Twitter and I believe on Instagram now because of how cool it ended up looking at the end. And so, yeah, I had to give Pixar a shout out and give discord a shoutout for offering that trial. And yes, Eric Tuckman, it does have the stink of influencer on it, but if you can get past that, you'll, I think be very impressed with what it is able to do for sure.

Mikah Sargent (01:19:06):
So checkout Pixar, it's free to download. There's an in-app purchase. That's where the free trial from discord came in, that gives you access to Pixar gold, which has a lot more filters and the, the background removal tool and all sorts of fun stuff that you're not able to do with the standard Pixar. But yeah, I'll be playing around with this for the next few months, just to see if it's something that I want to keep around afterward. Just because it's, it's just got a lot in there. A lot of fun lot of, lot of interesting features to play around with it kind of reminds me of Photoshop camera in that way. With that we have reached the end of this episode of iOS today. If you have questions, feedback, shortcuts, corner requests, you can send those to iOS today@twi.tv or you can post those in the discord.

Mikah Sargent (01:19:56):
I'll mention that more about that in a moment. We record this show live every Tuesday at 12:00 PM, Eastern 9:00 AM Pacific. So you can tune in at twi.tv/live, but the best way to be, to, to get the show and to be able to get the show when it's ready is by going to twi.tv/ios. When you do that, you get access to the options to subscribe via audio or video on any of the social media or the, the podcast platforms where we are that's at Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, YouTube. We try to be in all the places. This is an RSS feed at its very base. And so you can get us in those different places in audio or video with that TV slash iOS, of course, the, the there's another way to get the show and support us, and also get an free listening experience.

Mikah Sargent (01:20:48):
You can do all of that by joining club TWI for seven bucks a month. You head to twi.tv/club tweet to sign up, you'll get access to every single one of our shows, a free yes, the full kit and caboodle ad free. You also get access to the members only discord server where you can chat with us fellow club, TWI member, or with your fellow club, twit members, as well as all of us here at twit and access to the TWI plus bonus feed that has extra content. You won't find anywhere else. Recently an AMA, a fireside chat, an interview, whatever you wanna call it with the web engineer here at twit Patrick Delehanty, I yours truly was the one holding that interview a really good time chatting with Patrick. And we've got some great feedback about that, where folks are really interested to hear what Patrick does and did leading up to this. So lots of fun there, twi.tv/club TWI. Also, if you'd like to support a show individually, and you'd not really interested in all the X your stuff, you can get an ad free version of the audio feed of iOS today in Apple podcasts, you launch Apple podcasts, you look up iOS today, find the audio feed and subscribe 2 99 a month gets you the ad free version Rosemary orchard of folks. Wanna follow you online and check out all of your great work, where should they go to do so?

Rosemary Orchard (01:22:08):
I have the best places ever@roseromero.com, which has links to all the things on all of the internets. And you can also find me in the club to discord. And of course, on Twitter at Rose Romero. What about E Mica?

Mikah Sargent (01:22:19):
Oh, I can be found at Mica Sergeant on many, a social media network, or you can head to chihuahua.com. That's C H I H U a H U a.coffee. I've got links to many of the places I'm most active online folks. Thank you for tuning in to yet another episode of iOS today. I hope that we gave you some inspiration for accessories. You want to check out if not, let us know again, the accessories that you love that you think we should know about in any case. We appreciate your time. We appreciate you us every week here for Iowa today, and Rosemary and I will see you next week for another episode. Goodbye.

Rosemary Orchard (01:22:57):
Bye Everyone!

Ant Pruitt (01:22:58):
Did you spend a lot of money on your brand new smartphone? And then you look at the pictures on Facebook and Instagram, and you're like, what in the world happened to that photo? Yes, you have. I know it happens to all of us. Well, you need to check out my show hands on photography, where I'm going to walk you through simple tips and tricks that are gonna help make you get the most out of your smartphone camera or your DSLR or mirror, whatever you have. And those shots are gonna look so much better. I promise you, so make sure you tune into twit.tv/hop for hands-on photography to find out more.