iOS Today 672, 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 have our new iPhones and we're going to talk about them on iOS today. That's a show stay tuned.

(00:00:21):
This is iOS today, episode 672 with Rosemary Orchard and Micah sart. Recorded Tuesday, September 26th, 2023, [00:00:30] iPhone 15 review. This episode of iOS Today is brought to you by Duo Protect Against Breaches with a leading access management suite, providing strong multilayered defenses to only allow legitimate users in. For any organization concerned about being breached and in need of a solution, fast Duo quickly enables strong security and improves user productivity. Visit css.co/twit today for a free trial and by my Leo. [00:01:00] My LEO Photos is a smart and powerful system that lets you easily organize, edit, and manage years of important documents, photos, and videos in an offline library hosted on any device and it's free. Don't wait. Visit my leo.com/twit and by discourse, the online home for your community discourse makes it easy to have meaningful conversations and collaborate anytime anywhere. Visit discourse.org/twit to get one month free on all self-serve [00:01:30] plans.

(00:01:31):
Welcome back to iOS Today, the show where we talk all things iOS and iPad, oss and watchOS and HomePod, oss and all the OSS that Apple has on offer. We love to talk about them on iOS today because we want to make sure that you are getting the most out of those great devices that you have. And so how do we do that? By discussing the apps, the services, the features, the settings that you should be using [00:02:00] or checking out to make sure that, yeah, you're rocking it on your iPhone's, iPads, et cetera. Today is a very special show because we are talking about the brand new newly launched, newly released iPhones. I am one of your hosts, Micah Sergeant

Rosemary Orchard (00:02:18):
And I am Rosemary Orchard and I'm really excited Micah, because I have to ask what slightly colorful shade of a gray steel did you go for this year? Because I [00:02:30] mean there was a whole thing, right where everyone was saying the pro iPhones this year, they're just shades of gray, four shades of gray, right? It turns out folks not quite true. It's really difficult to show up on camera, but it's blue. I believe Micah, we weren matching iPhones,

Mikah Sargent (00:02:42):
We have matching iPhones. We both got blue titanium. It is the most colorful of the titaniums for sure. And if there was any color option, I was going to go for that color option because it stands out. It's nice. It's [00:03:00] different. These new phones, you and I both I think tend to go for the max models. I mean I

Rosemary Orchard (00:03:08):
Haven't until recently Micah, so we're going to have to talk about that. That's right because there was a big change this year that allowed me to go Max. I would not have done that last year. In fact, I would say they share my phone is lighter than last year's phone.

Mikah Sargent (00:03:20):
Yes, that is the first thing, right? So the moment you get the phone you will unbox it and if you [00:03:30] went with the pro model as we did, you'll have this titanium frame around the outside and I noticed as it seems you did as well that your iPhone feels lighter than last year's model. That's because first of all it is lighter but literally it is a few grams lighter. But also we talked about on ask the tech guys a very nerdy [00:04:00] bit of calculation

Rosemary Orchard (00:04:02):
Regarding do you see that Dr. Drank post maker? Is that what you're talking about?

Mikah Sargent (00:04:05):
Absolutely. The moment of inertia, it has to do with kind of how the maneuverability of the devices in hand and yeah, there's something to it because this feels a lot lighter than the other iPhone that I have here with the steel around the outside. So tell me your initial impressions of your new iPhone.

Rosemary Orchard (00:04:26):
Well, so last year to just [00:04:30] say to folks, I had the 256 gigabyte iPhone 14 pro in purple. Of course I was going to get purple, it's my favorite color and this year I was thinking I'll probably stick with the same size. I quite like it. I don't want anything that's huge and heavy. If it smacks into you or something, it really, really fricking hurts and I'm not saying that this isn't going to hurt, but if it were really, really heavy, it would hurt even more if you drop it on your toe. And then they said five times optical zoom on the max [00:05:00] and I was like, oh, okay, I think you've got me folks. And so I was reading the reviews. There were some really lovely folks who went there in Apple Park in the Steve Shops theater who were at the keynote and they looked at the phones, they got to pick them up and hold them and they said it feels noticeably lighter.

(00:05:20):
And that was the point where I was like, okay, I guess I'm going back to the max this year because basically what it is is if you think about any solid object and the frame [00:05:30] around it, if the frame around it is really, really heavy, it's going to feel really difficult to move because the center of gravity is going to be quite distributed. But by making the outside of the phone titanium, then the center of gravity is more in the middle. It's is just more maneuverable. It's really cool. I read the whole dot drawing post. I did not understand everything. I'm not a physics expert, but I got a really shiny blue iPhone 15 pro max in blue and I have to say Micah, I'm loving it. It's got smaller bezels so it doesn't feel as [00:06:00] big as it might've done in previous years. And oh my gosh, this thing is quite light. I checked my pocket the other day to see if my phone was in there and I had to physically tap my pocket to make sure because I was like, I know I put my phone in there just now, but I'm not sure I can feel it now. Some of that's conditioning from blogging around really heavy devices. If you shove an iPad in your pocket, you'll know about it. But this one I did have to double check to make sure my phone was in my pocket and that was something I was excited by.

Mikah Sargent (00:06:27):
Overall, the lightness of it has been [00:06:30] kind of my favorite feature, so to speak, of this new phone. It does feel noticeably better in the hand. Outside of that, I would say that overall it doesn't feel, I don't necessarily do things that would require a high level of processing or anything like that. And so I haven't noticed changes in it being zippier or even changes in the screen [00:07:00] brightness. There are both changes in hippiness and also the screen brightness, but for me those, and I think for many a user when you're kind of interacting with a device, when you are experimenting with it, there are things that are going to stand out more and things that do not stand out more. And I would say coming from a 14 pro max, again, the one kind of initial change for me [00:07:30] is the heft and is the kind of slimmer bezels.

(00:07:35):
It is the first phone in a while that I felt I could use without a case or with some other thing on it. It feels better in the hand with the curved edges. It feels better in the hand again because it's lighter and there's just something about it that feels nice. But outside of that, I would say that nothing about it was necessarily shocking to me. [00:08:00] Everything else you kind of have to dig for. You kind of have to say, okay, I'm specifically going to look at this new feature. I'm specifically going to look at that new feature. But there is one feature that some have argued is the most substantial new feature on an iPhone in ages basically since the loss of the home button. And that is the introduction of a new button. And I know we'll talk about this more during Shortcuts Corner, but tell [00:08:30] me about your experience with the action button.

Rosemary Orchard (00:08:33):
Well, Nike, I mean I've got two experiences or two rounds of experiences with the action button, right? Because I have or had an Apple Watch Ultra last year. Now I've not thrown it away obviously I've still kept last year's Apple Watch Ultra, but I have to say that that series nine processor and the tapping your finger and thumb together to do actions, it's not currently available for the new watch owners. If folks are looking for that, that did prompt me to go and upgrade my watch as well. [00:09:00] But the action button is a really cool piece of hardware and this is only available on the promo iPhones, but it has replaced that mute switch toggle that was previously above the volume buttons and with the Apple Watch Ultra, it seemed like a really great idea. And the problem that I found with it in practice is it was quite slow to actually do the thing when you pressed it.

(00:09:26):
So some of this was probably down to the fact that they didn't want to accidentally [00:09:30] trigger it if you just caught your watch on something and the button got pressed. But some of it was also just, oh, you've decided you want to run a shortcut. We're going to add what feels like an hour of slowness onto this because there's only a few things that you could do natively with that. Now obviously with this being the action button on the iPhone, they've added a few more options for us and I'll just see if I can pop open the settings so that I can show folks that, because I have to say [00:10:00] I'm really enjoying this. So in settings on the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max models, there is a new section beneath general and control center called Action Button. And when you tap on this, it'll give you all of the options and I have to say I found it really responsive so it doesn't just run immediately.

(00:10:19):
As soon as you press the button, you have to press and hold it for just a tiny little bit and then let go. So if you're just sort of clicking it as like a fidgety tool, then it's not going to do [00:10:30] the thing. But there's options for the magnifier and the torch. And Micah, I'm loving this. I've been playing with them and for folks who are watching the video, you might spot that I've got it selected as shortcut and I've got a shortcut called iPhone action button and we're going to talk about that a bit in the shortcuts corner. But I mean obviously the default option, silent mode is probably what most people want and will just live with, but you can toggle a focus mode or open your camera, use the torch or flashlight if you're using the US one, I suspect create [00:11:00] a voice memo, magnifier, and then of course, yeah, the shortcut option. I'm really loving this Micah. I'm finding it really useful and it's really exciting what I can do with this. And it's just a button that's always there on the side of my iPhone.

Mikah Sargent (00:11:13):
Yeah, it's a nice little feature. I currently have Mindset for voice memo. I originally, I knew that I didn't want to keep it on ring silent because even in my iPhone 14, I mean going back, [00:11:30] I never have that switch turned to anything other than silent. I don't want sounds playing, so I always have it vibrate. So it was very easy for me to hop in and change that away. I'm going to change it to the shortcut button eventually because I've had some ideas that they've been inspired by some other folks, including I'm sure what you will show us what you've done with yours. But as it stands, the idea that I can [00:12:00] almost make a little sort of pocket recorder is quite nice and it reminds me of using just press record on my Apple Watch, which is something that I do. It is I think a really smart idea to make a button that can just do whatever it is that we want to do with it and that we don't have to have that waste almost of a button that has existed thus far.

(00:12:26):
Now with that feature, you will notice [00:12:30] that the sleep wake, or not sleep wake, but the ring silent alert icon appears in the top left corner of the screen and some people were a little perturbed at having that appear there because they hadn't had it before. So a quick tip, if you launch settings and then you choose sounds and haptics, you will see a new toggle in this section that says Show in status [00:13:00] bar. If you toggle that off, then you don't have to see the ring silent option up in the top left corner. And then you can also toggle between silent mode and ring mode by toggling on or off silent mode there in the Sounds and haptics section as well. So all of that's still accessible. It's also accessible to toggle on and off from control center, but in terms of getting the little icon to disappear, that is in the Sounds and haptics screen. So [00:13:30] yes, now you out there if you've got one of these and you were like, why is that bell showing up? I don't want it there Now you know how to make it go away. Alrighty, I think we should talk next about what we did with our phones right after we opened them. What I'm asking is, and we'll talk more about accessories towards the end of our review, but what case [00:14:00] did you put your iPhone into if you did choose to put it into a case?

Rosemary Orchard (00:14:06):
Well, this is a tricky one, Micah, because I'm really actually loving the Caseless device. Those rounded edges are much nicer to use than the sort of squared off edges that were on the previous models of iPhone from, I think the 12 on onboards because the 10 and the 10 Ss had those really rounded edges. So I picked up actually a MagSafe [00:14:30] halo lock case, which is the one here. And so this is from their armor series and it comes in a couple of different shades and I'm just pulling something out. That's something I'll talk about later. But this is, so it's a clear case. It's got a somewhat rubberized edge, which I got in the blue version. It's available in couple of different colors and it's got some extra bumpers. It's kind of difficult to shop, but it's got extra bumpers on the corner. And something that this one has, which I've noticed [00:15:00] some people have had difficulties with online, this one does have a button over the action button.

(00:15:05):
And I've noticed folks saying those companies that kind of hedged their betts and did a cutout for the action button, they're finding the action button is really difficult to press in those cases. But E S R nailed it. I don't know if they have a link at Apple who told them what was going to go on or whatever, they got it, but there's a secret feature in this case that I love. So there's a really nice sort of a bumper around the camera, which is raised to make sure that your camera doesn't get damaged, but [00:15:30] that folds out so that I can actually use it as a stand at 85 degrees and even better, I can still stick a max Savee charger on the back. That is because it's not on the max safe section. So this is intended very much for use in landscape mode, not in a kind of portrait mode.

(00:15:46):
Your iPhone's going to be too wobbly in that. But yeah, this is a really nice case. Now I think the recommended retail price for these is like $35 or so, but I got this one pretty [00:16:00] cheaply on Amazon, actually. I think it was like 20 pounds or something. So yeah, definitely worth checking out the cases. And also Micah, the MagSafe in this, they call it halo lock, that thing is an angel's halo. It's not coming off. It's like if you stick something on there, then stuff is not going to just pop off at the slightest glance or a leaf flowing over it. I was trying to get a pop socket off and it was like a two-handed affair to do it, and that is honestly great. That's what I want [00:16:30] from this sort of thing.

Mikah Sargent (00:16:31):
Absolutely, yeah, you definitely want to have that stronger option. As Scooter X has pointed out in the chat, the first thing that you do, although I would argue this comes after I put it into the case because I put it into the case and then I start doing all of the stuff, is to update your iOS. Yes, there is kind of a day one update that's very important to install. And so the moment that you get everything, in fact, mine happened during the setup process [00:17:00] to update iOS, so I took that option immediately. There are some zero day exploits that Apple has addressed, and so it's very important that you update. Now the case that I put my phone into is the fine woven case made by Apple. Now this is the forest green fine woven case, and [00:17:30] there have been a number of stories and complaints and conversations about this new fine woven case.

(00:17:39):
I will say this, first and foremost, I have not run any sort of abrasive material, heavy metals, light metals, I dunno, chalk. I've not done anything to this case to test [00:18:00] its durability. And so mine still looks quite lovely. However, a number of online folks have sort of put this case to the test and have determined that it is a case that will leave marks that you may not want to have on your device. So there was a great I Fixit blog [00:18:30] where they talked about apple's fine woven case. They actually did a tear down, a full tear down of it. They showed the materials, and if you take your fingernail and you run it across the fine woven threads on this case from the visibility from the sort of view of your eye, it looks as if you're leaving a scratch on the case.

(00:18:55):
What is happening at a much more magnified level is that each [00:19:00] of the threads that make up the fine weave of this case is actually multiple threads of material. And so when you run your fingernail across it, what's happening is those bundled fibers are being rearranged. And so what happens whenever you rearrange them is that the light is going to reflect differently off of them, which is going to result in what looks like a scratch. [00:19:30] So you can see if you're watching otherwise, click on the blog. I fixit ran a key across it. They ran their fingernail across it and in both cases it was not damaging the fine woven material, but instead was simply pushing each of those threads into a different spot and that was causing a change in the way that the light reflected, which left a mard surface. They also took a knife to it to actually cut the threads.

(00:20:00):
[00:20:00] They put not barbecue sauce but hot sauce on their fingers and grabbed the case. They poured coffee on it, they poured oils, they did a bunch of different tests and it leaves messes in some cases. But if I were to pick up a leather case from Apple right now and run my fingernail across it or pick up a leather case from Apple and run a key [00:20:30] across it or pick up a leather case from Apple and rub it down with hot sauce, I think first and foremost the hot sauce would be worse in that case because it would soak into the fabric or into the leather and would probably stay with it for a long time and stain it. The key is going to leave a scratch on it, the fingernail's going to leave a scratch on it. So there's a certain aspect of this case complaint that bugs me and it is [00:21:00] the idea that it is any worse than what we've had already.

(00:21:09):
Or maybe it's the idea that it's almost as if they've put forth this impression that Apple has said this is a superior case option and it's invulnerable, so you should definitely get it because it's going to withhold and withstand even Superman's laser eyes. [00:21:30] And they've never said that. So this idea that if you scratch it, it leaves a mark and that is something that means that you shouldn't get this case bothering me. I guess I understand the idea that you may not want a case that leaves marks fine, so now you know that the case does that, but the idea that it's like the worst thing that apple's ever made or something that I don't agree with because leather also [00:22:00] has scratches and marks. Am I being unreasonable here? And silicone after a while gets dirty and bubbly? In some cases they all have issues. Yeah, I dunno. What do you think?

Rosemary Orchard (00:22:15):
I mean, the thing that has struck me is there have been quite a few people who have touched a fine woven case and just when you touch something and it just immediately gives you the heebie-jeebies, that's what I've got several friends who have [00:22:30] had that unfortunately. So they've touched it and immediately gone, Nope, nope, don't like that. That's example

Mikah Sargent (00:22:35):
How I, with cotton balls, I cannot touch cotton balls. It gives them the Exactly. Oh wow, I never thought about that. That's a reasonable, that's absolutely reasonable.

Rosemary Orchard (00:22:45):
Yeah, and it's one of those things, right? If you pet a cat or a dog and you try to stroke their fur in the wrong direction, it looks all weird and this is basically what is happening when you scratch the fine woven case with a [00:23:00] fingernail or something, you can groom it back into place to an extent. But yeah, any case like this, the whole point of the case is if there's a scratch on the case, that scratch isn't on your phone and even if you wouldn't see the scratch on your phone and you do see it on the case, then it's still preventing damage to the phone. Even if it's not visible to the naked eye, it could be visible under a microscope or just be providing just actually damaging your device even if you can't see it. All these things, the more you stretch a spring [00:23:30] over time, the less likely it will be able to return to its normal compressed form because eventually these things will stretch out.

(00:23:38):
So yeah, I think, yeah, it seems fine. I was not at all intrigued by this fine woven case. I've never had an apple leather case before. To my memory, I have had a few of their maxi wallets and stuff, but I have swapped a whole bunch of things to vegan leather and stuff a while ago, and I prefer [00:24:00] that effect. It's more similar to real leather, but it's designed to be hardwear and so on. Though I understand why Apple didn't go with that because it's a plastic, which probably other people would argue would be less eco-friendly than something that's not leather. I'd argue that anything that's not leather is probably more the most eco-friendly option. But yeah, as it is, I feel like a lot of people are just annoyed that it's at the same price point that the leather cases were and they feel like it maybe [00:24:30] shouldn't be, it's

Mikah Sargent (00:24:31):
Not as premium. See, and that's a reasonable argument as well. It doesn't feel or look or act as premium as the leather cases and so to charge that much for it. I mean, of course we don't know the whole process of creating this. When iFixit did the tear down, what they ended up doing was looking at some of the jackets of their colleagues in the office zoomed super far in as well to [00:25:00] find any material that was similar to what Apple was using in fine woven. And the two jackets that were most similar were a Patagonia jacket, which if anyone's ever shopped a Patagonia, knows that those jackets gus a lot of money. And then something called Arc TerraX, which I have never heard of, but apparently they make outdoor clothing as well. And they are, let's see, [00:25:30] I'm just going to look at an Arc TerraX,

Rosemary Orchard (00:25:32):
I believe they have a store in San Francisco because I remember finding that out at the airport on my way back from visiting you earlier this year, Michael, and going, darn it, I missed out

Mikah Sargent (00:25:40):
Anywhere from 250 to a thousand dollars for an rcx jacket. So this is a relatively expensive material and that could be part of that. Of course, apple is always making a whole heck of a lot of money on its accessories. [00:26:00] I think the most reasonable complaint that I did see came from Chance Miller of nine to five Mac, who in his kind of take down of the Apple find woven where most of it was just stuff that I thought, no, I'm sorry, but I don't agree. What was a reasonable complaint was the fact that the cutout on the bottom did not support charging of some of the U S B C cables that he used [00:26:30] because the cutout wasn't big enough for some of those U Ss B C cables. And these are common brands like Nomad, which makes incredible Kevlar cables. In comparison, I did buy the new $29 240 watt U S B C charging cable from Apple, and it is quite literally a perfect fit.

(00:26:57):
So Apple, of course, is going to model [00:27:00] its charging port space off of its own cables, but I think they could have sort of averaged, they could have looked a little bit more at what was out there and maybe what their telemetry shows that people use and made that spot a little bit bigger to work with more. So I think for Chance Miller not going to end up rocking this case because it doesn't look great. And then [00:27:30] unfortunately at an Apple store, apple had some fine woven cases on the display that were marked and marred and looked terrible because people had been using them, but also checking if it would scratch. And so the display was showing just what could happen to the case. Now, I don't know, I may not end up with this, this case in the end, but for now I'm keeping it [00:28:00] because it, well, I mean I bought it and I've been using it and it is protecting my phone.

(00:28:06):
But I will say the one thing I miss is that on my iPhone 14 Pro Max I had, and what I love about Apple's clear case is that the bottom is just completely cut out. There is no protection at the bottom except around the outside edges. And what's great about that is not [00:28:30] only is the U S B or well in this case, the lightning port completely open and available, but it also means that swiping from the bottom, which is the interaction that you do every single time is completely unhindered. So I may be going for that case in the end because I like to have that open spot at the bottom. Either that or I might get my Dremel and an Exacto knife and go to town on this case I have [00:29:00] already,

Rosemary Orchard (00:29:01):
Yeah, Steven Hackett at five 12 pixels all just so notice that at least on his case, the U S P C port cutout in the fine woven case, it's actually slightly off center so you can actually see part of the screw on one of the sides. And so yeah, that is probably not helping with folks who might be having difficulties at plugging their phone cables into their iPhones. I have to say, I have absolutely no problems plugging a cable in. I've got, this [00:29:30] is an anchor soft cable here, which I like, and it's in a nice shade of green, which I'm sure micro appreciates. Oh yes, that just plugs in, but it also plugs in through this E S R case that I've been using. I've taken this off because I've got some other accessories that I'm going to be talking about in a little bit.

(00:29:47):
But yeah, I have to say, Micah, I'm enjoying my 15 Pro Max. It has been a fun experience and I was pleasantly surprised with how easy the setup was. It prompted me to install the update before let me do the transfer, [00:30:00] and then I transferred everything over and it went pretty quickly. And then because I had to redownload and reinstall all of my apps, I got a little bit nerdy and I have a MacBook Doc here, which I use one U S B C cable to plug everything into my Mac. So it's a monitor. There's ethernet and there's power and a couple of other things. I unplugged that from my laptop and I plugged it into my phone, so it had power and ethernet. Ethernet and everything downloaded so quickly.

Mikah Sargent (00:30:28):
Why didn't I think of that? I should [00:30:30] have done that.

Rosemary Orchard (00:30:31):
That's That's such a great

Mikah Sargent (00:30:32):
Idea. Oh,

Rosemary Orchard (00:30:33):
Oh my god, you're missing out. I mean, if you got really false wifi, then maybe you wouldn't need, or if you don't have a huge amount of stuff on your phone, but honestly, one of the things I do when I'm trying to download chunks of data before I go somewhere if I want to download some TV shows that I ripped off of a D V D to my iPad or something is I'll plug it into ethernet and power through my laptop doc so that I can just download all the stuff to take it with me. And I can do that with my iPhone now because it's U S B C and it's got [00:31:00] U S B three speeds as well on the pro models, not on the non-pro models unfortunately. But to be fair, most folks probably don't want to plug their phones into ethernet very often. I just found it useful that I could on the first day,

Mikah Sargent (00:31:12):
Rosemary has courage, the courage port. That was very handy. Let's take a quick break before we come back to talk even more about the new iPhone 15. I want to tell you about Duo who are bringing you this episode of iOS Today. Duo protects [00:31:30] against breaches with a leading access management suite. Strong multilayered defenses and innovative capabilities only allow legitimate users in and keep those bad actors out. For any organization that's concerned about being breached, that needs protection fast Duo quickly enables strong security while also improving user productivity. DUO prevents unauthorized access with multi-layered defenses and modern capabilities that thwart sophisticated malicious access attempts. [00:32:00] You can increase authentication requirements in real time when risk rises and DUO enables high productivity by only requiring authentication when needed. Enabling Swift, easy and secure Access DUO provides an all-in-one solution for Strong M F A passwordless single sign-on and Trusted endpoint Verification DUO helps you implement zero trust principles by verifying users and their devices.

(00:32:26):
So start your free trial and sign up today at css.co/twit. [00:32:30] That's CSS co slash tw. An hour thanks to DUO for this week's episode of iOS Today. Alright, we are back from the break and we are talking about the iPhone 15. That's right, Apple's iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15. Lemme do that again because technically the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 plus. Then we go iPhone 15 Pro, [00:33:00] iPhone 15 Pro Max Apple's. Four new models of iPhone are here and we have been talking about first our unboxing experience, the lightness of the device, but then going from there to talk about what we did right after we got them. Now Rosemary had a very easy time setting up her iPhone where the process simply was a transfer from one device to the other. I did not. [00:33:30] I was running into a bug that some people have experienced where my circle just kept spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning.

(00:33:40):
Finally, I did after a bunch of other troubleshooting that I did at first, I did a device firmware update, sort of restart, and that ended up kicking it into the gear that it needed. If folks who watch Ask, the tech guys will have heard me go during the show. And then I mentioned [00:34:00] that I got a notification saying that a new phone had signed into my Apple id, and that's when I knew that finally, finally, finally it had worked. So I actually haven't had as much time as some others have had to play with this because of how long it took for me to get the install working and to get everything transferred over. But even in that time, I have enjoyed something that kind of stuck out to me about it [00:34:30] was how well everything is kind of working on the new phone and having the non-beta version of the operating system where some of the features that I knew existed but hadn't used before were finally working as expected.

(00:34:50):
And that ended up being kind of a delightful experience in trying out everything that's new in iOS. Now we've talked a lot about that, so you can go back and watch those episodes [00:35:00] to learn about the new features of iOS, but overall I've been pretty pleased with that as well. Now, Rosemary, there is some new conversations about folks experiencing some overheating of their devices, which to be fair, one should expect that a new phone is going to spend the first one or two days [00:35:30] running at a higher processing power than it should in other cases, due to the fact that it is, as we talked about downloading stuff, but also doing on-device processing when it needs to for photos or messages or whatever it happens to be. And it's kind of getting settled in into its new situation and all of that leads to a warmth. Now, I saw [00:36:00] a device on Twitter or formerly known as Twitter that someone was sharing. It was TechCrunch's and now I'm going to forget. Oh, it's TechCrunch's Panzer, Matthew Panzarino, and he had posted a photo of how he was keeping his iPhone cool during the update. And it was familiar because Rosemary, it's a little device that you have shown before on the show [00:36:30] from Razor. What is it? Yeah,

Rosemary Orchard (00:36:32):
So the one I have, and unfortunately I don't have it here on my desk, but it's the razor chroma cooler, and they do two versions of this. They do an Android version, which kind of clips onto the back of an Android phone, and then they do a MagSafe version which walks onto the back of your iPhone, kind of like a MagSafe charger would, and you plug a U S B C cable into it and you turn it on and it lights up beautifully rainbow and glowy and you can connect to it via Bluetooth and change the lighting settings and stuff. But what it's doing, it's not charging your phone to be very [00:37:00] clear, this is not a charger, but it is cooling your phone. Now these are usually targeted at folks who do a lot of gaming on their phones, which is quite processor intensive.

(00:37:10):
And so that's going to make your phone run at max capacity on everything. And of course that could cause it to be a bit warmer, but doing things like, for example, indexing your photo library, because if you have people in your photo library who are recognized, every picture of Micah that I've got in my photo library, it knows that that's Micah and it shows that to me, a little album [00:37:30] called mica. That information is done on my device and that's not in the cloud, that's on my device is purely local to me, which means that when I get a new phone, it's re-index a bunch of stuff and figure some of that out again. And so that is going to cause it to run hotter and do more things for about a week or so, depending on how much data you've got on your device, especially if you've got, for example, lots of podcasts that you usually have downloaded and things like that.

(00:37:58):
And you have to redownload [00:38:00] all of that on your device. This is why I plugged my phone into ethernet because I wanted it to just get it all over with as soon as possible for the downloading of things. But a lot of these things tend to run sort of overnight while your phone's plugged in, and so you're going to find that your phone will be a bit warmer for the first week or so. But that said, I don't seem to have had any issues thus far. I'm touching lots of wood right here, Micah on my desk with my phone overheating. It seems to have been fine. Now, during the setup process, [00:38:30] I did, as I told folks a couple of weeks ago, stick the razor chroma cooler on the back of it. And when I did that, it went from estimating just over two hours remaining on the restore time to 42 minutes.

(00:38:43):
It literally went from two hours to 42 minutes after a minute with the razor chroma cooler on the back. So I swapped it between the two phones as I was just doing the transfer of the data so that both the phones would keep nice and cool and not overheat and slow everything down. And [00:39:00] I don't know, maybe because I did that, maybe the transfer process I used allowed me to just get it over with. So far my phone seems to be nice and cool to touch also, I'm not keeping it in a case. If you think of it, a case is kind of wrapping your phone in a nice puffa jacket or something, it's going to keep it nice and warm, which sounds like a great idea because phones don't like being super cold to be fair. But they also, when they get warm, they really don't like being warm. They really do get warm and then that's insulating it and keeping that warmth in. So if your phone is overheating, [00:39:30] try taking it out of the case, charge it via cable, not via max Safe, things like that. But so far I've not had an issue with the overheating.

Mikah Sargent (00:39:38):
That's fantastic. I'm happy to hear that for you. That hasn't been the case. Yeah, we were seeing as high as, let's see, let's see what that is, 116 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 47 degrees Celsius. People were doing measurements [00:40:00] of their phone's temperature with everything and seeing that level heat, yeah, that's nice to be able to put the cooler on the back and have it actually work. I went ahead and popped into the camera app. That was one of the first things that I ended up trying after this because of course we've got the new phone that has multiple focal lengths and then has that better optical zoom [00:40:30] than we've seen on previous devices. The camera component inside the thing that uses a prism to be able to provide more optical zoom while not making the lens have to stick out super far from the phone is the most supply constrained component.

(00:40:46):
And so that's part of the reason in theory why it's limited to Apple's Max phone only. Now one of the interesting things, I set [00:41:00] the camera to video and there's a new ability to record video in ProRes Raw, but you can do the processing and log, you can do the processing in several different ways. And what I had not experienced before was this new thing where if you turn on ProRes for video, it will show you the max time of recording, which for my phone is 14 [00:41:30] minutes, but there's a little button beneath it that says free resources. And so what you do is you tap on free resources and it kind of tells all of the other stuff on your phone to chill out and stop doing stuff so that you can just use the camera and the video to record. And so it's kind of like one of those Mac applications that will free up your RAM or win those applications. It'll free up your Ram

Rosemary Orchard (00:42:00):
[00:42:00] Folks shouldn't be using that necessarily as a way to free up space on their phone because I think Micah, this would be storage space because I open the camera on mine and so I've opened the camera up, folks are watching the video, put it in the video mode, and then up in the top left hand corner next to the flash icon, that's where it says ProRes hdr. I turn that on and for me it says max time 107 minutes, and there is no option to free up space or anything like that.

Mikah Sargent (00:42:23):
Oh, interesting.

Rosemary Orchard (00:42:23):
So I think it might be down to how much space you're actually using on your device. I wonder with what happens there, [00:42:30] because apparently I've got plenty of free space, which is why I did upgrade to 512 gigabytes on my iPhone max this year because I needed more storage space. It was getting a little bit tight there at the end on my last phone, so I'm glad I upgraded.

Mikah Sargent (00:42:46):
That's interesting. I've got 256 gigabytes free, so I would think that there would be, yeah, ultimately I would have to talk to someone. In fact, there's someone I could talk to who'll have to ask about what that feature actually [00:43:00] means and what it's doing. So I might be able to report back on that because I

Rosemary Orchard (00:43:04):
Have 261.5 gigabytes available. So it might be a combination of what your phone is currently doing, if it's in low power mode and things like that, how much battery it's got, as well as of course, how much storage space you have.

Mikah Sargent (00:43:17):
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if battery plays a role and then also thermals what it can do in terms of not heating up. I would imagine that if I plugged it into power or if I plugged [00:43:30] it into something that could record the video directly to it, that could also play a role. So anyway, I thought that was fascinating, the kind of level of they're really trying to make it so that you could use this to record footage that you would then use for any number of video projects, and I think that is admirable. Alright, so we've talked about the feel of it. We've talked about at least we talked a little bit about fine woven cases. [00:44:00] I think that was an important topic and we've talked a little bit about the camera, but I'm curious how much camera stuff you've been able to do with the new phone and how you feel it compares.

(00:44:10):
My favorite new feature, I'll say quickly, is the automatic portrait feature for folks who don't know or hadn't had a chance to learn about this, essentially what happens is if your phone detects that you were taking a photo [00:44:30] of an animal actually specifically dog or cat or you are taking a photograph of a person, then it will automatically acknowledge the fact and create a will, capture the depth map of the photo and let you turn it into a portrait photograph afterward. And what I love about this feature is that I am a person who very rarely turns my camera into portrait mode because I, nine times out of 10 have been unhappy [00:45:00] with the way that portrait mode photos look when I take them there ends up being something that is not blurred properly or something's weird about it. And so I just don't take portrait photos. And so I have my phone in the normal camera mode, but now after the fact, I can at least see if it's a photo that I'd like to make a portrait and if it's been captured in a way that'll make it look good. And I find that incredibly delightful. So yeah, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that.

Rosemary Orchard (00:45:28):
Yeah, I haven't had a huge amount of chance [00:45:30] to take pictures yet, Micah, but I am going to be doing some traveling over the next week or so. So I'm going to be using the phone to take as many pictures as possible to see. But I did just want to show folks how they can use this feature because I'm sure our folks are very excited to learn about, Hey, you can turn a picture into a portrait picture. Now it does have to have something that was within a certain range of the camera. If you've just taken a picture of say, a landscape, it's not going to offer you the option to turn it into a portrait. But I [00:46:00] took a very quick selfie here to just demonstrate this for folks. And what happens is once you've taken the picture and you look at the picture up in the top left underneath the back button, there's usually a little lozenge with the word live in it and an arrow.

(00:46:16):
And if you tap on that, there's a number of things that you can do. And there's some very cool things that you can do in there with turning it into long exposure and looping things and stuff. So if you've got, for example, if one of Micah's dogs was doing something really silly and sliding [00:46:30] down the stairs, then you could have it bounce so the dog slides down the stairs and then goes back up the stairs or something like that. But here right at the bottom is also where you can then change it from portrait to portrait off or vice versa. And so if I do that, then just tap, it'll process for a few seconds and then it turns it into a portrait picture for you. Now obviously this isn't a great picture. I took a very quick selfie for iOS today so that I could demo that.

(00:46:54):
But I have to say that five times optical zoom, it's going to be very, very useful for things [00:47:00] because it's not just the fact that it is five times optical zoom, it's the fact that within that range I can go all the way from 0.5 policing, ignore the mess of cables on my beds on my desk to one times and two times. But then also you can swipe on that zoom area to go in between. And then yeah, it can go up to 25 times digital zoom. Not sure I'd recommend that. I tend to stick of whatever my optical zoom max is out at, but yeah, you [00:47:30] can really see the keys on my keyboard and they look kind of dirty. They're not, they're brand new. But yeah, I have to say it's very exciting to know that I've got up to five times optical zoom on a device that I literally always carry with me. Yeah, something I heard some folks talking about is they thought the five times zoom might be too much, and then they thought about it a little bit more and went, but how often do I not take a picture because something is just too far away and I'm not going to be able to take a picture of it. And now [00:48:00] with the five times optical zoom, maybe you will be able to, and that's the exciting thing.

Mikah Sargent (00:48:05):
There been a number of times where I've been out on a hike or something and there's a bird or an animal that's just far enough away that using the zoom on the 14 was not enough. And then digital zooming it past that did not look good. And by the way, yes, the device inside is called a tetra prism that does this [00:48:30] multiple optical zoom. I'm looking forward to being able to be out and take photos of things that up to this point were just too far away. And so by the time you zoomed in on them, they just looked blurry and not good. That is what this camera's going to be capable of doing. And then I know some folks who are just very excited about potentially using this device as a video capture device in a way that they had not been able to do [00:49:00] before simply because it did not capture the video in the format or in the full as high res as they could get, et cetera, et cetera.

(00:49:13):
So the camera aspect of this is just first and foremost, one of the most exciting things. I plan on doing more of a kind of in-depth photo thing. There may even be a photo walk at some point in San Francisco. We did [00:49:30] that for the iPhone 14, and I've been talking to Matthew Cass Elli about doing that again for the iPhone 15. So stay posted to see some photographs out of that when we go forward with that. So we've talked about the big features of the iPhone itself, the new iPhone in terms of what's new about it, battery life and all that. That's going to be something that we'll learn more over time. We've talked about [00:50:00] the fine woven case. Ultimately, I think it seems that it's not the case for most people, not the case. You probably want to spend 60 some dollars on. Let's talk about what other accessories we might want to use with our new iPhones and how they can improve upon the experience.

Rosemary Orchard (00:50:25):
So there's quite a few things that I'm trying out, and I'm going to be going on a [00:50:30] trip and doing some traveling so I can do some real testing of things. But one thing that I am trying out that I have been seeing around a lot is this E S R Halo lock MagSafe ring. Now, I promise I'm not a shelf for E SS R, I've just been trying some of their products recently and really like them and I'm buying them all myself. But this MagSafe ring, so it's a metal ring that mags saves onto the back of your phone and it's got a little sort of protection bit there and it comes in a couple of colors. I've got the light pink one here. It also comes in a light [00:51:00] blue, a black and a silver. But then instead of it being like a pop socket where there's just one thing that pops out, there's a ring.

(00:51:06):
And so you can just pop out the ring to a little bit or you can unfold the ring. And so you've got places to put two fingers or you can, I tend to standing up the middle ring so that it's perpendicular to the phone and then closing the other ring to the outside of it so that when I'm holding my phone, it's quite comfortable on my fingers. But the other thing that you can do with this [00:51:30] is if you put it on the back of your phone, it actually works as a stand so that you can stand your phone up at adjustable angles. And of course, because it's max safe, it rotates around so you can use it in landscape mode as well and you can adjust it to all sorts of angles. So I'm really enjoying this one. And these are about $20 on Amazon. And I have to say they're really nice little devices for just sticking something on the back of your phone that can work as a tripod option for photos or [00:52:00] just make it easier to hold your phone at certain times and it doesn't weigh much either.

Mikah Sargent (00:52:04):
Nice. Yeah, that's delightful. And I don't know, I have over time really appreciated the use of the mag safe as something other than just being the charging. That is a great place to walk on, a little ring that you can use to provide some stabilization even on these devices that are a little easier to hold in hand. It is nice to have that and be able to use [00:52:30] some level again of stabilization with our devices. One thing that I wanted to mention is that you can, of course now that the iPhone has a U SS B C port that the lightning port has been replaced, you can use stuff that has U S B C. And so I wanted to give a mention to the Samsung [00:53:00] flash drive. This is a type C flash drive, 256 gigabytes, and I've used this before on my iPad and I also use it with my Mac.

(00:53:12):
Now, I can also use it with my iPhone. I plug it into my iPhone and I can go into the files app and up pops the storage option to put stuff onto this flash drive. But you can also use it if you are recording video in ProRes format simply by plugging this [00:53:30] into the phone. If you bring up the ProRes format in the camera, if you switch to it, then it will show on the side a little U S B C. It just actually just says U S B C. It's a label, and then that means that it's recording from your phone directly to that in this case U S B C flash drive. So yes, even something as small as a little flash drive you can use for different aspects as long as you're rocking that U S B C. And this one's been really [00:54:00] steadfast and incredibly fast as well.

(00:54:03):
It's U S B 3.1 speeds. So being able to when airdrop is failing me or when I am in a place where I need to not wait for iCloud to finish sinking something, I will make use of this flash drive right quick to bring something from one spot to the other very easily. But yeah, U S B C has just opened up so much in terms of [00:54:30] connectivity and interoperability, and I've even seen, because we talked about U S B C allows for you to use your iPhone as a charging mechanism for other devices, which is very exciting.

Rosemary Orchard (00:54:47):
It is very exciting. One recommendation that I do have on the accessory front for folks, because I know some folks do like having a screen protector on their devices. So I tried, I previously was using the Belkin [00:55:00] screen protectors that you go to the Apple store and they install it on your device for you. But last year I didn't have the opportunity to visit an Apple store anytime soon after getting my phone and thought, okay, well I'm going to branch out and try something. So last year I tried it, I liked it, I liked it so much, I bought it again this year for my iPhone 15 Pro Max. And that is the spin easy. And that's e z letters fit tempered, glass screen protector. Now these come with a little frame around the screen protector [00:55:30] already so you can't accidentally bend or break the screen protector that helps you install it and it comes with the wipe to clean off your phone, and then it comes with a sticker to remove any leftover bits of limp that are on your phone screen.

(00:55:41):
Definitely recommend that. And then you peel off the backing on the thing and you'd stick it onto your iPhone, the frame onto your iPhone, and then you just do exactly what it says. It's got 10 steps maybe in total, but it really does break it down to do exactly this. And then it even comes with a little so [00:56:00] squeegee to get out any air bubbles at the end that you might have. I didn't have any air bubbles last year or this year, and I have to say I'm really pleased with it. And you get two screen protectors in the box as well. So if you do miss one up there is a spare, or if you put it on and then it breaks at some point, then you can replace it or maybe you can share one with a friend if you and your friend got the same device sizes. So yeah, I'm really enjoying this as an option and it's $20 for two screen [00:56:30] protectors and a small box with the frame and everything to put it on. So I definitely recommend that.

Mikah Sargent (00:56:36):
That is very nice. We got a question in the Discord that says, is the portrait feature available on the non-pro iPhones? The portrait feature they're talking about is the feature that will automatically recognize that an iPhone, [00:57:00] that a photo is able to be a portrait mode photo. And it appears that if you have an older device that can run iOS 17, you are able to take and affect the portrait mode on the photos regardless of whether you have an iPhone 15 or not. So [00:57:30] what it does is, so let me read through this because there's a Tom's Guide article. Thank you, scooter X. It says, A feature we thought was an iPhone 15 exclusive that turned out to be available on other recent iPhones running iOS 17. You can adjust portrait focus in depth when editing a photo taken with either the phone's rear or front cameras, even without upgrading your phone.

(00:57:51):
You can disable portrait mode entirely if you want to or adjust the strength of the bouquet effect. But more importantly, you can now change the focus level of the shot to completely change the character of the photo. [00:58:00] And then it also works on shots taken in portrait mode prior to the update. So on top of what you're able to do now, you could, I guess, adjust portrait mode more. However, it doesn't seem that you are able to do the automatic detection of portrait mode photos. That is a feature. So I'm sorry, but the Toms guide piece is not clear to me.

Rosemary Orchard (00:58:30):
[00:58:30] I think the Toms guide piece is just aimed at telling you how you can adjust portrait mode photos rather than the auto detection of portrait mode, which is a little bit hit and miss because it's kind of trying to look for a particular sort of subject, which is like a person or an animal like a pet or something, or something like that, versus just a thing that's right in the middle. And yeah, I'm not a hundred percent certain. I will have to try later. I don't have my iPhone 14 pro to hand here. If you can take a picture [00:59:00] and then change it to portrait mode after you've taken it. I believe that was supposed to be a 15 exclusive feature, but I may be misremembering that because

Mikah Sargent (00:59:08):
I think it's the combination of the A 17 PRO with the new 48 megapixel main camera that together make it so that if the subject is a person, a dog, or a cat, the iPhone will capture the depth information. I'll have to get back to you on that as well to be a hundred percent certain, [00:59:30] but I don't think that that's something that you can do with an older phone where it automatically captures the depth information. So that Toms guide piece feels a little bit misleading. The other accessory that I want to mention based on the headline, I mean the headline makes it a little misleading, which how often is that the case? Always the 240 watt U S B C charge cable [01:00:00] from Apple, this is a $29 charging cable. It's got the woven material, and this is two meters long. This is a very long cable and it's just a nice cable to add to your U SS B C cable collection.

(01:00:16):
So if you're looking for U SS B C cables and you're trying to decide which ones are right for you, I would suggest looking at what Apple has on offer, because this [01:00:30] is a very thick cable, it feels incredibly resilient in comparison to some of the cables we've had in the past from them. And with that 240 watt charging capability that if you plug it in for a MacBook Pro or for something as lower powered as an iPhone, you're going to get a really robust charge option. So yeah, that's on Apple's site available for $29 as well. Any other accessories that you want [01:01:00] to share, Rosemary?

Rosemary Orchard (01:01:01):
Yeah, I have one more that I'm going to share, and that is, so I got the ucon U K O N phone lanyard, and I of course got it in purple because why wouldn't I? But this is more than a phone lanyard, so there's a wristlet as well as a cross body lanyard included with these. And what it comes with, and it actually comes with two of these. It comes with a little piece of plastic called a lanyard patch, and this might seem a bit confusing. It's not a sticker. What happens is you [01:01:30] take the lanyard patch and you knock your microphone away from yourself. This is a very important part of the process, and you take your lanyard patch and you put it into your phone case and you feed that little metal loop down out through the bottom so it's clear. And I do have a clear phone case so I can then see it when it is in the case, but once it's inside the case, there is no sticking involved.

(01:01:52):
To be clear, this is not a sticker. This is just a patch. And so you put it in there and you pull it out a little bit and you pop your phone in, and then the weight [01:02:00] of your phone gripping to the phone case will hold this in place, and then you can just clip on this wristlet or the crossbody lanyard. I'll just do the wristlet for now, and then they adjust. So you can have whatever length you want up to, of course, the length of the rope and it's got some little sort of cable guides in there, and so you can put it on your wrist. It's a nice chunky cord. And of course, this is compatible with literally any phone, in any case that has a port that [01:02:30] is at least as wide as the u s BBC port is on this case.

(01:02:34):
So yeah, it works and that's lovely. It's going to allow me to keep my phone handy at times where the outfit that I'm wearing does not have pockets because it turns out, even though I do my best to have pockets in all of my clothes, I'm failing in my mission. So yeah, I don't always have pockets. And even when you do have pockets, if your clothing is made of a lighter material, then it may not be [01:03:00] up to holding the weight of your phone or it might just not have a big enough pocket or whatever, especially if you're a promax person like I am now. But yeah, it's quite nice having a little wristlet and I'm certainly going to be using the cross body lanyard option when traveling because that way if I'm taking a picture of my phone and I drop it, no, I didn't drop it. It's still around my neck, so it's not going anywhere. So yeah, that

Mikah Sargent (01:03:23):
Little tab is such a clever idea that you don't have to permanently install anything on your phone, and it's very secure. [01:03:30] That's smart. That's very

Rosemary Orchard (01:03:31):
Smart. And it works with any case as well, assuming that the case has a back. I have also ordered a Rhino Shield bumper, but it hasn't arrived yet. But of course that's not going to work with this. It's just a bumper that goes around the outside of my phone. It doesn't have a back, so I am going to have to use a case with a back for this. But yeah, as it is, I'm pretty excited by this and I'm going to be giving it a try over the next couple of weeks and seeing how I do. But so far it's a nice soft rope with a little bit of give to it, not a huge amount, and comes in a bunch [01:04:00] of different colors. And this was, I believe, about $20 on Amazon. So certainly worth looking into if you've got friends or family members who constantly lose their devices and say, oh, I wish I could just have it attached to me, like string between mittens for children. Well, this is the string between mittens for you and your phone.

Mikah Sargent (01:04:20):
That is lovely. What a great idea. Alright, I think, do you have anything else that you want to mention before we head into another break?

Rosemary Orchard (01:04:29):
I [01:04:30] think I am good there. There's plenty of more accessories that I'm sure folks have got questions about. So they should send us feedback about those questions if they want us to weigh in on any of the particular accessory options or any devices that they would like us to take a look at to use with the 15 Pro or at the Apple Watch, which we haven't really talked about yet, but we'll have to talk about that on a future show.

Mikah Sargent (01:04:51):
Absolutely. And yes, in fact, I can smell another accessories episode in our future as more companies [01:05:00] start to come out with great accessories for the new iPhone. That is a look at our first thoughts on the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, also the iPhone 15 in general and iOS 17. I mean, all of this stuff comes together to make this experience possible and to be able to discuss what stood out for us in particular and what we think you need to know about [01:05:30] in terms of making the purchase on your own. This is always our opportunity to get to chat about that. We'll, of course have more coverage on the iPhone with Mac Break weekly later today. But let us head into a quick break so I can tell you about my Leo and my LEO photos, which is bringing you this episode of iOS today.

(01:05:51):
My LEO photos, it's a digital management system that's done right. It's as simple as that from photos and videos to important documents. My LEO handles it all [01:06:00] and works with your filing systems to create a faster and smarter way to organize, edit, and even recall important documents and files from over the years. You've heard us talk about it plenty on the show, so if you haven't checked it already, you got to go check it out because it's free. It's free to check out. I have talked about my experience with my LEO and how impressed I was with the fact that it is able [01:06:30] to provide an experience that is unique from some of the other kind of photo management and photo storage solutions out there. My LEO photos is going to pull in everything, all of your different photo libraries into one place and give you control over them.

(01:06:46):
That's what makes it amazing. That's what I've enjoyed about it. It is the one source of truth for all of my photos and documents too. If you want to store those in there with the power of ai, you can [01:07:00] use smart tags, which instantly make all of your photos searchable. There's no more endless scrolling through images, whether you're looking for specific objects, activities, animals, plants, colors. More smart tags in my LEO photos has you covered. It's a great way to find photos that you want to get rid of, find photos you want to keep because you can do things like show me all the photos where the person isn't smiling. Show me all the photos where their eyes are closed, that kind of thing, and be able to drill down and find the photo you're looking for, or in this case, the photos you're not looking for.

(01:07:30):
[01:07:30] With my Leo, I don't have to fumble through several libraries just to find what I want. My LEO photos has everything consolidated so I can remove any duplicate files and keep everything updated. You can find older documents that you thought were lost, keep them updated right within the My Leo Photos app, and then keep the original intact, so it's kind of backups of the original document. And with the My LEO Photos plus subscription, all of my devices connect in one library without cloud storage required. So I have my single [01:08:00] Mac that serves as the source of all of my photos, and then everything else connects to that and keeps everything in sync. It's a brilliant solution with offline storage. I don't need to rely on the cloud to keep files accessible through devices, but I can also create new backup systems and know that my photos and other files are secure.

(01:08:23):
So don't wait. The solution to digital management exists and it's myo. You can get myo [01:08:30] photos for free today on your computer or your mobile device by going to our special url myo.com/twit. I know all of you are incredibly capable individuals and you could just go to the App store or the Google Play Store or the web and search for Myo photos, but I'm asking you, please use the url myo.com/twit M Y L io.com/twi. So download my LEO photos for free right now at myo.com/twit because when you go there and you download [01:09:00] it from that link, then they know that you heard about it on this show, and that's incredibly important. So yes, myo.com/twit. Thank you, my Leo, for sponsoring this week's episode of iOS Today. All righty. We are going to move on to do a couple of news stories. We'll head into Shortcuts Corner and we'll round things out with our app caps because we are running out of time. So first and foremost, let's talk about the online [01:09:30] safety bill, which has passed in the uk. What is the current state of things as far as the online safety bill goes, Rosemary, because I think there've been some kind of concessions made. Yes.

Rosemary Orchard (01:09:41):
Yeah, so originally the online safety bill wanted Apple to basically not have end-to-end protection on messages. So at the moment, if I send micro a message or Micah sends me a message, the people that can read that are the devices that are logged into Micah's iCloud account and my iCloud account because iCloud messaging [01:10:00] or messages with iCloud uses end-to-end encryption. So there's no way that a server can just sit there and read the messages. And the UK government, for reasons known only to themselves, decided that it would be perfectly secure to have a server that sits in the middle that can read all of your messages because it's only for the government. Clearly, they have never dealt with hackers before, or maybe they did and they just lost all of their data and paid huge amounts of money to get it back. I don't know. But they have decided [01:10:30] that messages and iMessage specifically does not need to support this backdoor system right now, which is good. But they've also said they're not going to give up on this. I'm not quite sure that they understand technology enough to actually implement something that is secure as well as meeting their needs because it literally can't exist. But there we go. That's what's happening there for now.

Mikah Sargent (01:10:57):
Alright, well we'll keep an eye on that [01:11:00] as well. The next story we'll quickly hit is a really exciting story I think for some who are wanting to do more with their iPads. And if you would like to do more with your iPad, you might check out a new app called Orion, which is a way to turn your app or your app, your iPad into an H D M I display for another device. This is made by the folks [01:11:30] who make Allied the camera application as well as Specter and Skylight, which are two other photo applications. And essentially what you do is you get a little camera capture dongle, which is kind of a little U S B C dongle that takes H D M I and turns it into something that can be read by U S B C, and then you plug that into your iPad, you open this app [01:12:00] and the app serves as a screen for whatever H D M I device you have plugged in. On the other side, they talk about using it as a means of connecting, for example, a Nintendo Switch. You could also use it as a display for your mac.

(01:12:18):
You could use your iPhone as a view finder for your H D M I capable D S L R camera. I mean, there are any number of things. I've seen folks using [01:12:30] external monitors just to have another device that they can keep with them, another screen they can keep with them to go along with their Mac. So I think this was a very clever idea. The app is available for free. It does have an in-app purchase to give you, I think it does upscaling for four K to make it look better on an iPad and that might be it. I can't remember what all, there's some fun modes that you can do. So if you want to emulate playing [01:13:00] a Nintendo game as if it was on an old school c R T screen, then you can do that. But yeah, congratulations to the folks who make Allied and Specter and Skylight.

(01:13:15):
That's the Luxe corporation for this new app. Have you downloaded it? What's wild is they single handedly broke the U S B C capture card market. [01:13:30] I went to go buy one of their suggestions that they had and they were all sold out, so people really hopped on this quite quick. So I have not had the opportunity to try this yet. They don't work with, the app, doesn't work with super expensive capture cards like El Gado. What El Gado offers. You kind of need ones that are, well, they have a site that has links to the kinds that they've tried. Yeah,

Rosemary Orchard (01:13:55):
Yeah. So I have ordered one of the ones they recommended. Unfortunately, [01:14:00] it has not yet arrived. It was supposed to be here yesterday and now Amazon says it's coming tomorrow. I have a horrible feeling that it has got lost somewhere in the Amazon logistics system and may not actually arrive. If it does arrive tomorrow, I'm taking it with me on my trip and I'm going to try using it as I go. But yeah, I'm looking forward to giving this a try and hopefully, fingers crossed, I'm going to be able to do some cool stuff with that. I want to try plugging into my steam deck. I might intent day switch, but also [01:14:30] U S B C to H D M I cable with the H D M I to U S B C capture card, iPhone connected to your iPad screen. Like use your iPad as an external display for your iPhone.

Mikah Sargent (01:14:41):
Whoa, why not? Mind boggling. All right, man, there are so many good stories this week. There

Rosemary Orchard (01:14:48):
Are, we'll have to save some of them for next week because yeah.

Mikah Sargent (01:14:51):
Yes, definitely important that you update. Now we have even gone as far as iOS, 17.0 0.2 [01:15:00] is the current version of iOS I have on my iPhone. If you have not updated, you don't need to have a new phone to be doing these updates. If you go into settings, general software update and there's an update available, update your phone, there are some critical bug fixes that are taking place that will protect you and your security on your device. So get those updates installed on your phones. Then of course, it also has some bug fixes [01:15:30] as well. If you're having trouble with restores or transfers like I was, this may be what you need to fix that. But in any case, settings, general software update, head there now or before now and make sure that you have updated to the latest version. And then lastly, Rosemary, a warning it would appear about using your new iPhone without a case if you've got titanium, what's this about? Should [01:16:00] I be worried with my blue iPhone?

Rosemary Orchard (01:16:02):
I mean, I don't think folks should be super worried, but essentially what happens as you touch devices, there are oils and things in your skin and that transfers. Now, some materials are more resistant to this than others, and titanium in particular will pick up those oils and it will shine a slightly different color. And so there's some good examples of pictures online of people doing closeup [01:16:30] shots of the action button and stuff on phones in the Apple store where you can see, and it looks really grimy and disgusting. Now, I have looked at my phone pretty closely with some pretty bright lights that I can't really show it on camera here. I don't have the lighting set up to be able to do that. And yet you can see that when you're using your phone Caseless, the really good news is wiping it off literally turns it back to how it was.

(01:16:52):
So just a very slightly damp microfiber cloth. We're not talking about ringing wet, we're not talking about dripping wet. We're talking about you waved a microfiber [01:17:00] cloth near the tap and it picked up a little bit of water and then you rang it out just to make sure. Don't, well be soaking your iPhone. I know they're waterproof, folks know they are. But seriously, you don't need to get your iPhone wet, no soap or anything needed, just a little bit of a microfiber cloth and a tiny bit of water or I'm always recommending you could try using a 70% isopropyl alcohol wipe or something like that. But I mean, honestly, just try good old water [01:17:30] and microfiber to start with and that will probably do the trick, especially if you keep on top of it. And keeping your devices physically clean is always a good idea, especially for us in Northern Hemisphere. We're coming into that time of year where people do tend to get more colds and bugs and stuff going around. So cleaning your devices always a good idea to do every once in a while, maybe a little bit more often than once in a while.

Mikah Sargent (01:17:54):
Yeah, I agree. Alright, so we've got the news [01:18:00] out of the way. Let's move on to Shortcuts Corner.

(01:18:15):
Welcome to Shortcuts Corner. The part of the show where you write in with your shortcuts corner requests and Rose Mary Orchard Hours shortcuts expert provides a response if you are here because you heard Leo LaPorte mention [01:18:30] on Ask the Tech Guys or maybe even Mac Break weekly last week that you should tune into iOS today to hear Rosemary talk about what she's doing with the action button. Welcome to the show and welcome to the part of the show where we talk about the action button. Rosemary, tell us about the action button and what you were doing with it that makes it even more magical.

Rosemary Orchard (01:18:53):
Cool. So the action button, as we mentioned at the top of the show for folks is the button on the side of the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max [01:19:00] that replaces the Mute Switch toggle that was previously there. So it's right there above the volume up button. And when you press this, not just like a quick press, but when you press it and hold it for like a second or so, maybe not even that, then it will do whatever action it is that you've got it set up to do. And so there's obviously a whole bunch of native actions that you can choose like toggling the flashlight, toggling silent mode, going into a focus mode and things like that. But this is shortcuts corner where we get [01:19:30] nerdy. And so we actually had a listener write in Michael who said that his Apple Watch Ultra Series two arrived and he's been enjoying a series seven and it's a wonderful changeup and he spent a couple of hours setting everything up on the Ultra just the way he likes it.

(01:19:49):
But I feel the much anticipated action button is beyond my grasp to become a really powerful feature, which gives you very few default options for this feature. And he chose flashlight and it's kind of a waste of the [01:20:00] action button. But shortcuts seems to make this button magical. And this has prompted me to write to, well me here, IO today to ask if we could possibly do a segment on the show about some of the shortcuts that I think will be most magical with the action button. So one of the things I've been doing on my Apple Watch or the Apple Watch Ultra, which also has an action button, and so this applies the same way to the iPhone as well, is using my focus mode to figure out what it is that I want to do because I have [01:20:30] my focus modes automatically activate at certain times at certain locations and things like that.

(01:20:36):
And so my focus mode works really well as what is going on in the world and therefore what is Rose going to want to do? And so one of the things that I did with this on the Apple Watch, which is a really nice idea to do, is to get my focus mode. And if I was in the fitness mode, I figured out what town I was in because in different towns I take different kinds of classes. And so I actually do an [01:21:00] acrobatics class, which is not in my hometown, but in my hometown I do a ballet BA class. And so I would start a BA workout if I was in my hometown and otherwise I'd start a gymnastics workout. I don't think there is an acrobatics option, certainly not available through shortcuts. So I would use an if statement after getting my focus mode to say, if the name of the focus mode is fitness, do this action.

(01:21:25):
And then very important inside of that, if action, I put a stop this shortcut [01:21:30] and then that will mean that nothing else happens. And then I also had an, if I'm in my driving focus mode, play my driving playlist and there are some extra options there for shuffling but not repeating. And again, stop the shortcut. And then at the bottom you can have something else like a default action if you wanted to. So if I press this and I'm not in any of the things that I've set up now, what you can also do is do things like checking the weather, things like that. Check your calendar, check the time [01:22:00] of day, check if you're on your home wifi network and then do things, or of course you can just do any of the actions that are available in shortcuts. So for example, if you wanted a super silent mode, okay, not just silent mode, but super silent mode, you could have a shortcut run, two silent mode actions, set silent mode on your phone and set silent mode on your watch for example, so that you can have it do both of those.

(01:22:29):
And what I've been [01:22:30] playing with, and I've only just started playing with this morning as we record this show today, but I started with just a simple shortcut that will toggle silent mode. So when I press, and then just hold for a second, if you're watching the video, you'll have spotted it popped up around the lozenge at the top, the dynamic island as sort of activity, and then it will just do whatever the action is. But what I am working on doing is figuring out what [01:23:00] is going on in my life. So for example, if I were going to be walking to the train station, I'd want to pull the information out of my calendar to show me train times and things like that so that I can figure out what information is most important to me and what do I want to do. Now, what I've seen a lot of folks doing is a menu of, Hey, do you want to tole silent mode, open the camera, things like that.

(01:23:24):
That's a really cool option to do. But for me, what I'm going to be doing is using a combination of the day [01:23:30] of the week, the time of day, and my focus modes to be pulling up information that is very important to me in that moment and then displaying it to me so that I can talk about, so I can, well maybe talk about it or maybe just use it so that if I'm running to get to the train station, I can figure out, no, my train actually leaves in 10 minutes, not in five minutes. So I've got a little bit of time and I can walk a little bit slower instead of running, but we'll do a deep dive on what I've done with it when I'm back from my travels, Micah, and I've had time to refine [01:24:00] and play with this because I'm really excited, but Matthew Castelli has put together a really great guide over on his site that we can put a link to in the show notes so that yeah, folks have got a chance to download some predetermined options and play with those. And if you've got an Apple Watch Ultra or an iPhone 15 Pro or both, then you can go ahead and have a play with those and see what it is that works the best for you.

Mikah Sargent (01:24:25):
Awesome. Yes, the action button is so cool and there's so much [01:24:30] power available with it. Alright, before we head into our app caps, I do want to take a quick break to tell you about our third sponsor of today It's discourse. We're bringing you this episode of iOS Today, the online home for your community for more than a decade, discourse has made it their mission to make the internet a better place for online communities by harnessing the power of discussion. Real-time chat and AI discourse makes it easy to have meaningful conversations and collaborate with your community anytime [01:25:00] and anywhere Would you like to create a community? Well visit discourse.org/twit to get one month free on all self-serve plans. It's trusted by some of the largest companies in the world and some small ones, including twit, where we have a discourse community at twit Community and Discourse is open source and powers more than 20,000 online communities.

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Whether you're just starting out or want to take your community to the next level, there is a plan for you. There's a basic plan for a private invite only community, [01:25:30] a standard plan. If you want unlimited members and a public presence, a business plan for active customer support communities is available as well. Jonathan Oliva, the developer advocacy lead at Twitch says, discourse is the most amazing thing we have ever used. We have never experienced software so reliable ever. One of the biggest advantages to creating your own community with discourse is that you own your own data. You'll always have access to all of your conversation, history and discourse will [01:26:00] never sell your data to advertisers. Discourse gives you everything you need in one place. So make discourse the online home for your community. Visit discourse.org/twit to get one month free on all self-serve plans. That's discourse.org/twit and thank you discourse for sponsoring this week's episode of iOS today. Alrighty, folks, it is time for App Caps. [01:26:30] This of course is the part of the show where we place caps or other items, objects, decorations atop our heads around our heads on our heads to honor our app and or gadget picks of the week. So Rosemary Orchard, without further ado, tell us about the [01:27:00] item, the top of your head and then tell us about your app for Gadget Pick of the Week.

Rosemary Orchard (01:27:05):
I like how Micah, we were very in sync. We didn't talk about this. Neither of us are wearing hat hats or Cap Kats or both wearing head decorations. I've gone with a lovely floral crown, I'll take it off in Show Fox. It's got cream and pink roses on. I think it's adorable and it's certainly appropriate for Iowas today in the sense that I'm also wearing flowers and my name is Rose. I am a flower. And that is something that [01:27:30] I try to keep in mind when I am looking for things because I like flowers and slightly sensitive to temperatures. And I know that some folks may have been experiencing overheating issues with their iPhone Pro Maxes or pros or any devices at any point. And so I've been looking, and I know I've already mentioned E S R on the show today, but this is an E S R three and one charger.

(01:27:51):
Now they do a couple of versions of this, but this is their charger with cryo boosts. So I put my phone on here and I'll just see if I can turn it around and show you folks. [01:28:00] There's a little blue light that's just shining between the charger and my phone, and this means it's in cryo boosts mode. Now if I try and bring it close to my microphone, you may be able to just about pick up the sound of the fan. Now when it's not right next to a microphone that's trying to pick up all the sounds, it's actually very quiet and it's cooling my phone as it charges it. So it's attempting to combat some of the problems that happen when you are using MagSafe to charge your phone. Now, of course, it's a proper MagSafe [01:28:30] phone stand, so look at that when I turn it around and put it on its side and give it a moment because my iPhone just needs to think about life and the universe and everything.

(01:28:38):
It will then go into standby mode, which is one of those new iOS 17 features. It should be in standby mode already. Maybe my phone is up the wrong way or something and is not liking it that way, but it wasn't standby mode earlier. Now if the fan at any point is bothering me, there is a button on here where I can turn it off, which is really nice. And this version is a three in one version and it's got a spot to put your own Apple [01:29:00] phone charging on it. And then it's also got an area down here at the bottom, which is a cheat charger, which works for something like say AirPods or your AirPod Pros. Now they do another version of this, which doesn't have any space on it for charging an Apple Watch. And that one is $60, this one is $80.

(01:29:18):
And then for $130 they do another one, which has got a built-in watch charter. So you don't need to bring your own. But what is quite nice about this is there is a proper case, a place to run the cable down here, and [01:29:30] it runs into the base all the way around inside. And then it's got spots for U S B A and U S B C chargers. So if you've got an older Apple Watch charger, that's U S B A that you want to use, you can just plug that into there. And they've measured it exactly to work with the one meter apple cable. It's very impressive. I really like it. So yeah, this is the E S R cryo boosts MagSafe charger. I should note, I did also grab their car charger as well, which also has cryo boosto on it. I've been using it in my car. And especially [01:30:00] if you're putting your phone on a vent in your car and you're pumping out heat that's going to warm your phone up and your wireless charging more heat, not great cryo boosts, help combat some of that and cool your phone back down. So yeah, and my phone has finally gone in standby mode. Woo.

Mikah Sargent (01:30:16):
Yay. That is. What about you, Michael? I like that the cryo booth thing is so smart. That's such a cool

Rosemary Orchard (01:30:22):
Idea. It's cool. E esr, been knocking it out of the park with MagSafe accessories recently, so yeah, definitely check those out. I have their wallet, [01:30:30] which has got fine mind integration built in and it's rechargeable. I love it. It's a MagSafe wallet stand and it's, yeah, I had that as my app cap a while ago, but E S R have been knocking it out of the park with MagSafe.

Mikah Sargent (01:30:40):
Very cool. The cap I'm wearing at top of my head is actually a bandana. I bought it SSF Pride. It's like a Rainbow Paisley bandana in that standard Bandana Paisley style. The app that I want to talk about just came out for the Mac. It's existed on iPhone and iPad [01:31:00] for some time, but with the iPhone and iPad version, you kind of had to have the app running in order to use it to its full ability. Now that it's on the Mac. Where I would most often want to use something like this, it can kind of run in the background. It's called Posture Pal, and it's available for free with internet purchase that gives you pro features. And what Posture Pal does is it uses your AirPods third generation, your AirPods Pro, your AirPods Max, and your Beats Fit [01:31:30] Pro to it can use the motion sensors in these headphones to determine how you are positioned in your chair.

(01:31:41):
And when you move out of proper alignment, it will alert you that you've moved out of proper alignment and can help you move back into a good posture. So on the phone, the way that it works is you launch the app session and then it will kind of track your posture with your AirPods. [01:32:00] It can give you a visual alert, a sound alert. It can vibrate your phone. You can receive notifications like on your Apple Watch. It can also lower the volume of your music if your posture is bad, and then put it back to the normal volume whenever you correct yourself. But now that it's on the Mac, and if you want to, Kevin, there's a link to a tweet that has a video in it. And if you scroll along to eight seconds into that video, you will see the Little Posture [01:32:30] Pal.

(01:32:31):
Maybe it's a little bit long, it's like 14 seconds in. You'll see the Little Posture Pal can appear in the corner of your Mac and kind of pop up into the screen and let you know, oh, your posture is not great right now. And then whenever you correct yourself, it puts a smile back into the space and then the person, the little character goes away. You've got some different controls for it. So you can choose sensitivity and you can unlock all of the characters and the pro features [01:33:00] on the iOS version, which include custom colors and theming, custom sensitivity, 12 different app icons, and then three different Posture pals for 4 99. So that's what the in-app purchase gets you, but again, available for free. And yeah, if you have concerns about your posture and you're looking for a way to be reminded of it without having to buy a third party accessory that's directly related to Posture Apple's own headphones.

(01:33:26):
If you've got, again, the third generation AirPods or the AirPods Pro, [01:33:30] AirPods Max and the Beats Pro, then you can use those to be able to keep an eye on your posture or have one of your posture pals keep an eye on your posture for you. I think it's a delightful little app. It's adorable, and I think that it's a clever idea, and we've heard rumors that Apple has plans to do this internally on its own with AirPods at some point in the future. So knowing that it's capable of doing so now is pretty exciting [01:34:00] that the APIs are there for people to sort of track your posture using AirPods. So feel free to check that out. We'll of course, link it in the show notes. And with that, we've come to the end of this episode of iOS today. You can email us iOS today at twit tv if you have questions, concerns.

(01:34:17):
If there's stuff that you want us to check out to talk about on the show, we record the show live every Tuesday at 12:00 PM Eastern, which is 9:00 AM Pacific or 1600 utc. You can add to twit tv slash live to check out [01:34:30] the show while we're recording it or we think the best way to get the show is by going to twit tv slash iOS. When you go there, you can subscribe to the show in audio or video versions. You just click subscribe to audio or subscribe to video and then choose your podcast provider, apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, YouTube. Although Google Podcasts is going away, so I'll have to stop saying that there basically any way that you want to get your podcasts, we try to be available for you there [01:35:00] in that place. Now's a great time to talk about Club Twit at twit tv slash club twit.

(01:35:05):
When you join the club starting at $7 a month or $84 a year, you get a lot of great stuff. First, you get access to every single twit show with no ads. It's just the content without the ads because you in effect are supporting the show. You also get access to the Twit plus 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. So when you join the club, you're going to get access to a huge back catalog, which is very exciting. You'll also get to join [01:35:30] the best social media network on the planet. It's Club Twit in our Discord. A fun place to go to chat with your fellow club TWIT members and also those of us here at twit. Again, all available at twit tv slash club twit starting at $7 a month or $84 a year.

(01:35:43):
That's starting out that I'm saying is not because it's a tiered subscription where you get more the more you pay. It's just that some folks said they wanted to give us more money. We keep adding more to the club. So we said you can do that. So if you pay $7 or if you pay more, you'll get the same great stuff. You'll also get access to some great club twit exclusive shows, including the Untitled Linux Show, [01:36:00] hands on Windows, which is a show from Paul Thout that covers Windows tips and tricks, hands on Mac, which is my show that covers Apple tips and tricks, home theater geeks from Scott Wilkinson, which is all about the home theater, product reviews, interviews, tips and tricks, and Jason Howell's AI Inside Show, which is a show all about artificial intelligence and the way that it is shaping the tech industry going forward. Again, all available at twit tv slash club twit Rosemary Orchard. [01:36:30] If folks want to follow you online and check out all the great work you're doing, where should they go to do so?

Rosemary Orchard (01:36:33):
The best place to go is rosemary orchard.com, which has links to apps, books, podcasts, et cetera, and right at the bottom, all of the social media sites that you can find me on. But of course, I'm also available in the Club Twit Discord. I'm hanging out in the iOS today mini forum in there. And of course, the live chat whenever we are doing well of our episodes. What about you, Micah?

Mikah Sargent (01:36:52):
You can find me at Micah Sargent on many a social media network, or you can add to Chi Wawa coffee, that's C H I H U A H U a.coffee where I've [01:37:00] got links to many of the places I'm most active online. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode. I will be back next week with Christopher Lolly, and then afterwards we'll have Rosemary back and of course, looking forward to that. So folks, thank you for tuning in and we will catch you again next week for another episode of iOS Today. Bye-bye. Bye,

Rosemary Orchard (01:37:23):
Folks.

Rod Pyle (01:37:25):
Hey, I'm Rod Pyle, editor in chief of VAD Astor Magazine, and each week I joined with my co-host to bring you [01:37:30] this week in space, the latest and greatest news from the Final Frontier. We talk to NASA chiefs, space scientists, engineers, educators and artists, and sometimes we just shoot the breeze over what's hot and what's not in space books and tv, and we do it all for you, our fellow true believers. So whether you're an armchair adventurer or waiting for your turn to grab a slot in Elon's Mars Rocket, join us on this weekend space and be part of the greatest adventure of all time.