Hands-On Tech 184 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.

0:00:00 - Mikah Sargent
Coming up on Hands-On Tech. I've got quite a few questions to answer. We talk about whether it's a good idea to keep using old hardware or if it's worth getting an upgrade. We talk about organizing apps on our smartphones. We talk about streaming an event to a person that is stuck in a hospital bed, and we also answer quite a few questions about iPhones, iOS and Apple intelligence. Stay tuned for this episode of Hands on Tech.

Welcome back to Hands on Tech. I am Micah Sargent and we are taking a look at some of the latest questions that I have had flying in today. Thank you for tuning in live. If you're watching this show on Sunday, September 29th, as we record this, I'm seeing lots of people in the chat. As we record this, I'm seeing lots of people in the chat. Thank you for being here, joining us and sharing your thoughts on the different questions that we answer. That's part of the fun with Hands-On Tech. As I'm answering questions, occasionally we'll get a great response from someone in our Discord or watching on YouTube or perhaps on X, and I always appreciate that as well.

So, without further ado, let's get into things. Actually, no, before we get into things, I want to remind everybody out there. You can send in questions to me HOT at twittv, and I wanted to again remind you that I just recently got my hands on the latest iPhone from Apple and would love if you had specific questions about that. If you're thinking about making an upgrade, or if you've got one and you're not sure exactly how something works, let me know. I'm doing a series of reviews on the different new features that are there and I would love it to be able to answer some of those kind of specific questions that people have. But let's get into things. So the first question today comes in from Eric. Eric has written in and Eric has shared something that is near and dear and so stinking true to my heart.

Eric says I have been using iOS since iOS 1. My phone has become a mess. I want to organize my apps into folders, but moving over them is so time-consuming and cumbersome. A long time ago you could access your phone in iTunes and use the mouse to move around the apps. Is there anything I can do to make it easier to get my phone organized? I love this question because, eric, I used to do the same thing. I would plug my phone in, I would open up iTunes. I would organize my apps that way, and it was a delightful experience in comparison to trying to use jiggle mode. Right, like, jiggle mode gets complicated on the phone. You're trying to drag and drop an app on top of another app and then it scoots over, and then the whole pile is scooting over and it's very frustrating.

So what can we do about this? Well, first and foremost, I want to mention an app that a lot of people don't realize Apple makes. That is helpful to you, even if you don't exist in the world of multi-device management, of trying to take care of, you know, like a university set of Apple devices. It's an app called Apple Configurator. Apple Configurator is an app. Apple Configurator is an app, again created by Apple, that will let you change, adjust, update, reconfigure settings on your Apple devices, and it is created as a means for someone to quickly set up, say, a bunch of iPads, right, again, it's really meant for multi-device management. However, I have used this plenty as a person who owns five or six total devices, because Apple Configurator is a tool that has it feels like, at least more access to the device, more access to anything that's going on, and so what you can do with Apple Configurator is exactly what you used to be able to do with iTunes. You can do drag and drop organizing of your apps with Apple Configurator. You can also install apps or uninstall apps using Apple Configurator. You can install all of your apps on a new device using Apple Configurator. It does all of that stuff because that's what it's meant to be used for.

But I also want to mention that there is a third-party device, or third-party app rather, that can do a lot of this as well. It is called iMazing and I have recommended iMazing in the past and, because it is a multi-tool, that's why I'm recommending it now. I know I bring it up a lot and so sometimes people are like why do you always? Well, in this instance, iMazing can also serve as the other things that I've talked about it being able to do doing backups that you can choose where the location is, doing regular backups of your devices, even over the network, being able to pull things from your device. But it also has that added feature of being able to let you adjust the apps and the way that they're placed on your phone. iMazing is essentially like the third-party version of Apple Configurator and, I think, a little bit more consumer-friendly where Apple Configurator and, I think, a little bit more consumer-friendly where Apple Configurator is a tool that's made to be used by IT managers and things like that.

Again, I've used Apple Configurator myself. I'm not an IT manager. I have used it for my solo devices to do installs, to make adjustments, and it works just fine to do installs, to make adjustments, and it works just fine. The problem is, as Wizardling has pointed out in the chat, as with any file management, it quickly gets out of hands by not doing it as you go. And then also there's the added issue of Apple Configurator can do a lot and you may end up doing something that you didn't intend to do and that is obviously not good. So just be aware of that.

But those two things are two options that you have. Things just got a lot easier with the third option. The third option is a little feature called iPhone mirroring on macOS, because with the introduction of iPhone mirroring on macOS, in macOS Sequoia, you can activate jiggle mode via your Mac using your mouse and organize your apps into folders. So I like to use a mouse as well. I completely understand that and respect that, eric, and now you are able to do that you can make all of the adjustments that you want. You know it is still piece by piece, and so that's something to keep in mind, but it is handy. And I want to remind Eric and others of a little pro tip, which is that Apple did make it a little bit simpler for you to make adjustments to multiple apps at once.

So here I am on an iPhone, and oh, I forget that that is at the top. That's a Siri suggestion, so we'll do this screen. If I tap and hold on the journal app and choose edit home screen, now I'm in jiggle mode. If I tap and hold on journal and then I start tapping on other apps, you can see that I'm adding those to this stack. Now, to be clear, my finger is on that app and I'm using my thumb as another finger to tap on the other icons that are displayed there, and that picks them up and lets me move all of them. Now I've got eight of them at once that I can then drag and drop wherever I want to. Of course, I'm going to put them back where they were, but you can move multiple apps at once. You just need to tap and hold on one of the apps and then tap with another finger while you're still holding on the other apps around it and you're able to pick them up and carry them all at once. Essentially, one little tip with that if you just tap and hold on the app and you don't move it at all, sometimes I've seen it not really realize that you're trying to arrange things, so tap and hold on the app and move it just ever so slightly and then start to tap on the other apps to pick them up and carry them along with you. But again, if you're doing it from a Mac with Mac OS, sequoia's iPhone mirroring option, you're good to go. And of course, on an iPad where you can plug in a keyboard and mouse, things get also a little bit easier as well. So thank you for that question, eric, and I'm with you. I wish that iTunes or in this case, finder, because now that's what you use to manage an iPhone had that feature built in, because it was nice and it was helpful, especially for those of us with lots of apps, because we post a show called iOS Today.

Moving on, dave has written in and chat. I would love to have your thoughts on this as well. So if you have thoughts on the question I'm about to ask. Feel free to share those in the chat because I am going to kind of cover the suggestions that I have here. So Dave writes in and says over the years Leo has helped me spend. Well, dave, I have to tell you same here.

One of the things I bought on his recommendation was Drobo. I've owned a 5N2 NAS network attached storage for six years. I'm generally satisfied with it, except for one issue that I'm sure you can guess. I use it for one of my local backup strategies. I use Chronosync another Leo recommendation to perform the nightly backup. I don't use Time Machine because I trust the file system more than Time Machine. Fair enough, time Machine is a blob. Any defect in the blob renders the blob unusable, something that happened to me twice. Okay, yeah, you have it mess up twice. That's fair. I think I would be done with it too.

Anyway, my question is what risks am I incurring by continuing to use the Drobo other than the risk of using six-year-old spinning disks? I have the last generation Intel 27-inch iMac. I realize that any Mac upgrade I do will force the issue, but until then can I keep using it? So here's the thing. I think that if this network-attached storage is truly just a device that you have on your network at home or at the office or wherever you're using this, and it doesn't talk to the internet, then the by that I mean it doesn't talk to the wide area, it doesn't reach outside of your home or can be reached outside of your home, then the issue that you mentioned is the only issue I can think of as being an issue, which is, of course, that you are using six-year-old spinning drives and that they may at some point die. Outside of that, you just have kind of a clunky old device serving its singular purpose.

If you had told me that you were using WD my Cloud, for example, and you had an older version of that and it wasn't able to update to the latest version, yeah, that would be something that I would suggest. You go ahead and get an upgrade or, you know, just bite the bullet, as I say, and update it, because it is one that has base functionality where it's attached to the internet. Now, you can change that, but it can be kind of difficult to get in and make sure that that's, you know, not turned on those features. So, all of that's to say, I think that your choice to go with a, to continue to use a Drobo. You're just risking data loss ultimately. And as recently Steve Gibson said on Security Now when I was there, he replaces drives every six months. He's regularly replacing drives. So you know, I worry about six years of the same spinning drives for sure. But if you haven't had any issues, knock on wood, we'll hope it continues that way and that you are, you know, in a raid or something. You've got something else going on there. That's keeping those backups backed up, as it were. All right, keeping things, keeping those backups backed up, as it were.

All right, we are gonna take a quick little break before we come back with even more great questions from all of you, and I wanna tell you about Club TWiT this week. twit.tv/clubtwit is the URL that you can go to, and when you go there, you're going to find that you can join an awesome club for just $7 a month. When you join Club TWiT at twit.tv/clubtwit for $7 a month, you gain access to some pretty awesome things. First and foremost, every single one of our Twitch shows ad free. It's just the content, none of the ads. You gain access to the Twit+ bonus feed that has extra content you won't find anywhere else behind the scenes. Before the show. After the show, special Club TWiT events get published there. Access to the members-only Discord server, which is a fun place to go to chat with your fellow Club Twit members and also those of us here at Twit. And access to the video versions of our Club TWiT exclusive shows, including iOS Today, as well as Hands-on Mac and so many more.

And I also am super excited, super pumped, to say that we have just launched if you haven't heard a referral program. Yes, that is right. If you get your friend to join Club Twit, you will get a month free. So tell your friends about Club Twit. Get a month free. I think you can get. Oh, actually, I know you can get multiple months free. We have a little blog post about it that tells you what you need to know. But you can end up kind of racking up multiple months of Club TWiT. So tell your friends, tell your family, get them to join the club, because that'll get you free months via our referral program. We'd love to have you join us in the club twit.tv/clubtwit Just seven bucks a month. All righty, moving right along here.

I got an email I think it was even just this morning that came in and I thought oh, we've got to talk about this for sure. Richard writes my son is getting married this December but due to a recent accident, my mother-in-law may still be in the hospital and might not be able to attend. I was wondering if you can suggest a method where I could have someone use their iPhone or digital camera to stream the ceremony and reception live to my mother-in-law's hospital bed where she could view it on her iPhone or a laptop. Of course, I don't want this to be widely available. This is only for an audience of one. An added complication is that the ceremony and the hospital are both in Japan.

So I think that we, when we think of, when we think of events, it immediately makes us think of live streaming. Right, we, we, we think of it as okay because this is an event, it has to be streamed, and putting yourself in that mindset ends up limiting you in the sense that you don't think of the simpler solutions. You're kind of going okay, what technical program do I need to use to make this stream to my mother-in-law people and it's a large group of people and they're all over the place. We would have a different answer here, but this is essentially a one-to-one situation One person at the event with a phone and one person in the hospital with a phone or a laptop. I suggest, if we are doing iPhone to iPhone, as you mentioned in one instance, use FaceTime. You don't need anything more special than FaceTime. Facetime is going to give the, of course, deep integration with the devices. You know when you're turning the phone to the side, it's going to properly adjust right away. There's not going to be a bunch of confusion there about how it's popping up. If you make FaceTime calls to your mother-in-law already, or anyone in the family does, then that UI is going to be familiar to her, which is great, and it is right there again at the base level.

I think perhaps you kind of went to live streaming again because you're thinking, oh, this is some sort of event. The other thing that you can do if you're thinking about streaming to a laptop that's not a Mac and you want to give your mother-in-law a way to view, is just do a Zoom call and can start the call and can change the camera so that it faces out and can hold it up, or you can put it on a tripod and have it standing there watching the event and your mother-in-law, on the laptop can have Zoom open and watch the event there. These are so much simpler than trying to do something like YouTube streaming or Twitch streaming or any of those. They all have kind of unlisted or private options that would work, but it's just not necessary. It's as simple as making a video call to be able to stream this event to your mother-in-law, to stream this event to your mother-in-law and I hesitate to even use the word stream because, again, what we have here is just, you know, sending video. I guess that is called streaming, but streaming carries this heavy thing that you know kind of plays into it.

Now, keith's 512 is saying something about various services. What do you mean by that? When you say various services, are you talking about the ceremonies, that there are multiple ceremonies for a wedding that takes place in Japan, or are you talking about something else? And while I wait for that answer, I'll continue to kind of talk about this. So yeah, again, I think that this is the easiest method of going about getting this video to your mother-in-law. It's as simple as a FaceTime call if you're going iPhone to iPhone or iPhone to Mac or iPhone to iPad or anything like that and or Zoom as another option, and the good thing about Zoom that you may not get with FaceTime is Zoom is very good about continuing a video call even if the conditions for the network are not superb. That can be very helpful for doing that. So, richard, that is my suggestion for you in regard to getting that video to your mother-in-law and, as you mentioned you said, due to a recent accident, my mother-in-law may still be in the hospital and might not be able to attend. So my fingers are crossed that you don't even end up needing to use this solution and that you are able to have your mother-in-law there in person. But if so, zoom or FaceTime. And if, richard, you have a reason that that absolutely couldn't work, let me know and we will figure out a new solution for you. And, again, your mother-in-law, all righty.

Next question comes from Andrew. Andrew has written in and has asked this question. I have Time Machine. Oh, actually, before we get there, I do want to. Kitharel over on Twitch has noted something very, very, very, very important for you, richard, which is that you should definitely teach your mother-in-law how to mute her microphone, because the last thing you want are hospital notifications and doctors and all those other things making sound whenever the ceremony is going on. But you also want to make sure that if the mother-in-law is hoping to have conversations with anyone as the thing is going on, that she's able to. So having her be able to mute and unmute is the right way of doing it rather than just turning down the volume on her.

All right, andrew writes in and says this I have Time Machine on my Mac Mini backing up to an external drive. Recently I turned on the option to sync my documents folder with iCloud, because there are some spreadsheets I also edit on my iPhone. Will the documents folder still be included in Time Machine backups? I recently used Time Machine to revert to a previous version of a document, so I'd like to keep that ability. Great question, andrew.

First and foremost, I want to say that when you turn on the option to sync your documents folder and it also syncs your desktop folder by default you may have not enabled that or you may have disabled that, rather with iCloud then that has its own host of backup. That is taking place because that sync is also serving as part of your iCloud backup and so being able to access those files later gets a little bit easier and, in fact, if you go to iCloudcom and you log in there, you will see the option to restore files and so they become part of the cloud that way and you can restore certain files. Now it's going to look different depending on whether you have enabled it for your desktop versus your documents and that kind of thing. So that's something to bear in mind. But there are a couple of things that you need to know here. First and foremost, you are able to and I'm having trouble signing in now to iCloud online for some reason but first and foremost, whenever you are doing this, you know via Time Machine, of course, that's happening locally. Your Time Machine is looking around at the files that are stored locally and it has taken those files and it is putting them into. As an earlier caller asked, a blob, or I had mentioned, it's a blob, but something to bear in mind is that pages if you're doing spreadsheets via pages, rather if you're doing spreadsheets via numbers, documents via pages, presentations via keynote those are all iCloud apps and they will store versions of your documents in iCloud if you have iCloud backup turned on. So even if you didn't have Time Machine working for pages, numbers and keynotes, you would still have access to versions of those because of the fact that they are iCloud documentation and iCloud enabled.

Now that we've got that out of the way, here's something that you need to understand about Time Machine. Time Machine only backs up the files that are stored on your local drive If you turn on iCloud Sync for your documents folder and your desktop folder. For your documents folder and your desktop folder, there's a little feature called Optimize Mac Storage that, by default, is turned on. What this does is iCloud and Mac OS. Both will look at your usage of files and will try to determine what files you are using most frequently, what files you're not, and then look at your storage space on your Mac and then we'll make adjustments by pulling files off of your local Mac and storing them in the cloud, because you don't need access to them at the moment. So if you've got really old stuff and it's just sitting there, you probably don't have a local copy of it anymore if you have optimized Mac storage turned on, but if you don't have a local copy of it, then Time Machine is not going to put that in the Time Machine backup, because there's nothing there other than a reference to a file that exists in the cloud.

So if you want to make sure because you mentioned working with a spreadsheet if you're using a third-party spreadsheet program, something other than numbers and you want to you said I recently used Time Machine to revert a previous version of a document. If that was a spreadsheet document or if that was a pages document, then those are going to have previous versions. You'd be able to revert to those previous versions. But if it's a third party and that third party doesn't have its own version of cloud storage because Office often does I know that it's a feature that you can turn on or turn off, but it also has its own kind of cloud backup Then what you need to do to make sure that you can regain access to older versions of these files is launch your settings app on your Mac, click on the Apple account banner at the top.

That's your name with your photo next to it. In Mac OS Sequoia it's been renamed to Apple account instead of iCloud account. You need to then click on iCloud and then you need to click on Drive. Once you've clicked on Drive, the third option says Optimize Mac Storage. You would want to toggle that off. By toggling it off, you are telling the system download everything that you have sort of pulled off my system to make space, download it all. I only want those to be stored locally. I don't want them in the cloud and pulled off of my desktop or my documents. I want them to be there and then Time Machine will put those all into the Time Machine backup.

But I think, andrew, my guess Andrew, is that you said you recently used Time Machine to revert to a previous version of a document. Here's something that's a little confusing If you're using numbers excuse me or pages or Keynote, then the document versioning system looks a lot like Time Machine. Document versioning system looks a lot like Time Machine, and I mean the UI is nearly identical. But that document versioning system is not part of Time Machine. It exists independently of Time Machine because it's doing cloud backups and so it's able to help you restore older versions, but it's not because you've done a Time Machine backup. However, andrew, when you say revert to a previous version of a document, if you're talking about something else a text file or a PDF then in that case, yes, it is likely that you used Time Machine to pull back that previous version of a document, in which case, if you had Optimize Max Storage turned on whenever you decided to start syncing your iCloud and it had pulled that file, time Machine would not have had that there in the most recent version of Time Machine. Of course, time Machine updates, or rather does backups, at different scales over the last X amount of months, over the last X amount of weeks, over the last X amount of days. Head to twittv, slash H-O-M, where I do a whole explanation of Time Machine in one of the episodes of Hands on Mac. So again, ultimately, if you want to make sure that Time Machine is backing up all of those documents that you're now storing in iCloud via syncing, you'll have to turn off Optimize Mac Storage.

All right, I think we've got time for just two more questions here. The next question comes in from George. George writes in and says will there be any of the Apple Intelligence features on the M series Max when 15.0 launches, or do we have to wait for 15.1 and beyond? It's a great question, george, because Apple sure is advertising a whole heck of a lot about Apple intelligence and yet many people don't have access to these features. Yeah, it's not. It's not there yet.

So, basically, apple is rolling out the first round of Apple intelligence features when it ships the point one updates. Those are scheduled to arrive we're hearing in October and we'll see the first round of those Now. Many people have already gained access to those features by being part of either the public beta or the developer beta of iOS, macos, ipados, etc. But those features are limited to notification summaries, the ability to surface only specific notifications based on your usage and what the system thinks will be important messages for you, some text rewriting features and some ability to work with your photos library to create memories with beautifully made videos, et cetera, et cetera. The media generation features, the image playground, the Genmoji, that kind of thing that's going to roll out later as well, as, I think, what's arguably going to be the most important feature that Apple releases as part of Apple intelligence hence why they already have ads out featuring Bella Ramsey about it, which is a more intelligent, so to speak, a more capable Siri that has access to more of your information and can use that to better answer responses and take care of different things on your phone, like scheduling events, et cetera. Those will not be part of point one. Those are going to be beyond, as George has asked. So no, if you upgrade to Sequoia and you don't use the public beta, you just have macOS Sequoia, none of the Apple intelligence, despite heavy, heavy advertising from Apple about Apple intelligence.

And then, lastly, john has written in and John asks I have a question about notes for macOS Sequoia. My notes are organized into several folders, but I would like to know if it is possible to lock an entire folder so I don't have to go in and lock each individual note. I seem to only find instructions on how to lock and unlock individual notes, but not an entire folder. This is a great question. Yeah, when Apple introduced the ability to lock notes, I know that a lot of people were very happy about that. People use notes for a lot of things, including private information. I would argue there are better places to store information that needs to be locked away, but to each their own Understand wanting to use notes for that, and now that Apple has provided this ability, it does make it a little more secure.

Here's the problem. Not only can you not lock a folder like going into the folder and tapping on the folder if you're on a phone or on the Mac, right Clicking to lock the folder, going into the menu and choosing file lock folder. None of that is possible. Not only can you not do that, you also cannot select multiple notes and choose to lock them all at once. So if you have a folder that is filled with 10, 15 notes and you command A to select all of them, you cannot then right click and choose lock note. The option to lock gets grayed out and you're not able to do that, which is wild to me. You literally have to go through and note by note by note, lock each individual note.

So I argue that this is something where it's worth submitting feedback to Apple. There are, again, other means of doing so and there are apps that are specific to this. Many a password manager is also a great secured note keeper with encryption built in, but I understand the convenience of notes and, especially if you use notes for other things, this is the place where you want to put it. I totally get that, and so I think that this is a time where going to feedbackapplecom would be of use. Let Apple know that you feel that notes, because if you go to feedbackapplecom, you scroll down you'll see iOS and iPadOS apps. You can literally choose notes and you can give your feedback about that app in particular, and so you can say give me the ability to lock a folder.

I don't want to just lock an individual note, and not only that, I don't want to have to lock note by note by note by note. That's frustrating, totally understand. Being able to lock more at once would be great. So, john, thank you for writing in with that and making me aware of it. I don't store anything that I would need to have locked in notes. So I was not aware I did. I just, of course, I assumed if I couldn't lock a whole folder, I assumed at least I could command A and lock multiple notes at once. Alas, not possible, which is wild. So, john, you're not alone in feeling like that should be something that you should be able to do.

We are at time here on this episode of Hands on Tech, and that means it's time for me to say goodbye to all of you. Thank you to the chat for tuning in today. Loved having you here with us. Across YouTube and Twitch and X and other places where we're streaming. We're streaming all over the place. It's been a pleasure having you here with us today.

If you have questions H-O-T@twit.tv, that's where you send them. If you have questions about the iPhone 16 in particular, love to see those as well. But again, always open to all questions. I can answer non-Apple questions just as well as I can answer Apple questions, so don't be afraid to send in those questions. And I'm seeing a lot of Georges Johns, marks and very few Sallies, Lizzes, Claires. So if you had a burning question that you've yet to ask, do write in. Love, love, love to hear from you and thank you so much for tuning in today. I'll mention one last time Club TWiT, twit.tv/clubtwit. We would love to have you join us in the club. Thank you for tuning in and we'll see you again next week for another episode of Hands On Tech. Bye-bye.