iOS Today 674 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 is back and it's time for us to get driving as we are checking out. CarPlay stay tuned podcasts you love from people you trust. This is tweet. This is iOS today with Rosemary Orchard and Micah Sargent. Episode 674, recorded Tuesday, October 10th, 2023 using CarPlay with iOS 17.

Leo Laporte (00:00:33):
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Mikah Sargent (00:01:00):
Welcome back to iOS today, the show where we talk all things iOS and TV V oss and watch OSS and HomePod, OSS and iPad oss and you get the picture. We love to talk about the operating systems that run on those wonderful Apple devices you own and sometimes they run on non-Apple devices you own. As is the case with today's episode, I am one of your hosts, Micah, Sergeant

Rosemary Orchard (00:01:29):
And I am Rosemary Orchard. I'm very excited to be back and yeah, I've learned a whole bunch of things that we'll have to put into future shows, Micah, but I was driving back from my holiday and went, you know what I'm using right now that we should really talk about on iOS today, CarPlay. So here we are.

Mikah Sargent (00:01:47):
Here we are. And I think the good thing about this, I was just having a conversation, it might've been on my show clockwise where someone was talking about CarPlay and they didn't realize all of the little settings and adjustments that you can make with CarPlay and what apps you want to have on it, how it all works outside of just I either plug in my phone or I wirelessly connect and CarPlay pops up. That was kind of the extent. They didn't know you could change the wallpaper. They didn't know a lot of the extra stuff that you can do with it. So I'm glad we're talking about this today because I think that that's probably going to be the case for others as well that they're not aware of just what's possible when it comes to CarPlay. So let's I guess first start by talking about CarPlay in general.

(00:02:38):
It's a very important thing to understand that your vehicle does not have some sort of software package that comes from Apple wrapped in aluminum and it's a beautiful little flash drive that they plug into the machine and load it onto your system. What is happening is not that your iPhone upon plugging it in or connecting wirelessly is saying, okay, I'm an iPhone, so turn on CarPlay within your vehicle. No, what is happening in fact is your device is sending all of the CarPlay experience to the display that's built into your car. So it is a projection from your phone. Some folks think that it's just built into the car and you just have to have a phone to be able to control it, but no, it is coming from the phone and is on the other side. And so that's kind of an important understanding when it comes to how this works. Now Rosemary, you bring up a good point in that CarPlay is one type of sort of in-car infotainment system, but there are ways where iPhone integration can take place, but it's still something that is actually installed in the car. So tell us a little bit about that.

Rosemary Orchard (00:04:05):
Yeah, so a lot of cars will have the ability to connect your phone via Bluetooth to the car not using CarPlay, and this can work for things like answering phone calls and playing music and things like that, and sometimes it can even sync your address book to the car. But the difference between this and CarPlay is with CarPlay, your data is on your phone and that's pretty much it. Whereas if you start syncing addresses to an infotainment system or it just automatically imports them when you plug your phone in, isn't that a lovely idea? Then all of that data is in the car and especially if that car is internet connected. There was a couple of news articles a while ago, I'll have to see if I can dig them out for the show notes where it turns out that a bunch of car manufacturers weren't necessarily being the best at security and so your data potentially could have gone all of the places, which if you do things like put your home address in there, which a lot of people do for logical reasons, you want to be able to get home with just one tap or two taps, then that could end up not being great.

(00:05:06):
The other advantage of CarPlay over other things is CarPlay goes with you and your devices rather than it being on an integration. So for example, if you are in a two car household, if both of those cars support CarPlay, then you can have your CarPlay set up for you rather than having to mess with the car settings. And especially if you then end up renting a car, this can be really great so you're not worrying about syncing your data into a system that you don't know how to delete the data from and you spend 45 minutes trying to Google it before returning the vehicle or something like that. It's really nice to just have your address book and everything updated so you update information in one place. If my friend moves and they have a new address, I can still navigate to them using CarPlay without having to change anything as long as I've updated their address in their contact and that's it.

Mikah Sargent (00:05:52):
Yeah, I think especially for the rental aspect, this is a great thing that I feel has been part of car play's whole experience from the get go because you see people connecting their phones over Bluetooth to rental vehicles. You get in that rental vehicle and there are six to eight other Bluetooth connection profiles. Some of them have chosen to sync over their contacts, it's a nightmare. Let's talk about the process of getting set up with CarPlay. In most cases, in most cases you can take your phone and plug it in to the port on the car if the car supports CarPlay and you will get a CarPlay connection. You may see a prompt pop up to allow the connection to take place and some pairing that's involved, but in most cases that alone will work. However, there are times where it needs a little bit more help to get things rolling and the way that Apple suggests that you go about doing this and the way that kind of triggers a pairing process is by holding down a button that is typically found on the steering wheel but could be somewhere else in the vehicle that looks like a little person talking.

(00:07:11):
That button is the means of talking in some cases to the internal car's own voice assistant or in the case of many vehicles, a way to trigger the voice assistant of either Android Auto or Apple's own CarPlay. And when you press and hold that button, it signals to the vehicle to sort of go into a pairing process. Now if we look at my phone, I have launched the settings app and we will tap on general and then we will see that in the second sort of grouping of settings. There's the CarPlay button and you'll see that my vehicle with my CarPlay experience is listed there under my car. That's because I've already connected, but up above that is the little person talking and they're showing that on a steering wheel saying, Hey, press and hold that to start the CarPlay setup. It will from this screen be looking for other vehicles that have started this pairing process either wirelessly or if you have it plugged in, plugged in.

(00:08:11):
Now if I tap on my car, I can see that I can toggle off CarPlay. So in that case, if I wanted to plug in my phone to charge it for example, but didn't want to use CarPlay, toggling that off is what gives you the ability to do that without it interrupting automatically the system. You can of course still have CarPlay launch and then you just hit the home button or the back button or the menu button on your own infotainment system and leave the CarPlay experience, but this is just a way to make sure that it doesn't automatically pop up. I can also forget this car, which means that this pairing is undone and I can start over fresh, but the customized button is very helpful. We talked before about being able to choose what apps do and don't show up in your CarPlay experience.

(00:09:02):
Tapping on customize gives me the ability to choose the apps that are showing up, what are included as it's put and what order these apps are in. So different apps that have built-in CarPlay experiences will show up here. So you will see loads of different options here. I've got Pocket Casts, RingCentral, which is a VoIP app, Skype and other VoIP app obviously Spot Hero, which is a parking app, and this is a new phone that I set up of course, and I need to go in and kind of remove some of the options that are here, but you'll also notice that there's an option here that says N E X, that is the settings and interface for the dash system that I have. And so yours might be the model of your vehicle or rather the make of your vehicle. It could also be that if the vehicle manufacturer has a specific name for their infotainment system that will show up.

(00:10:08):
So you can choose to kind launch that as an app. And that's the other way of saying back out phone music maps messages now playing and the infotainment system that's built into your vehicle, those will all be there no matter what. You cannot remove those apps, but the rest of them, both first party apps, like podcasts, news, audio books or third party apps like Amazon Music Dominoes and Gaia G P S, those can be removed. And I forgot to say that also the settings app is one that is included. So I would go through and start taking out apps that I don't use. I don't use the Built-in Podcasts app. I don't need to hear news headlines in my car. My audiobooks come through Audible, previous sponsor on the network, Amazon Music I don't use, so that can go away. Aaa I do use, so I'll keep that, I'll keep my calendar.

(00:11:02):
I don't really eat Domino's Pizza, so that could go away. And then you'll see that you can start to choose what makes sense for you and get rid of the apps that are just kind of taking up space on your device because they're just not apps that you use. And so once I've completed that process, now I've got just the ones that I want to have on there and I can arrange how I like them based on my own usage. So really easy to do while you're out of the vehicle because again, CarPlay is a projection. It's almost like I want to have everybody repeat it with me, but it's a really long phrase, so we won't, CarPlay is a projection from your phone to your in dash system. That is why you're able to do a lot of the editing of the settings from your phone. Of course the rest of it takes place there on the device. So there's a first few tips, Rosemary.

Rosemary Orchard (00:12:01):
Yeah. Yeah, so on my phone under my CarPlay option, folks might be able to see that I have a Reno icon and that can't be removed, and that's the Reno integration for CarPlay, which would allow me to exit back out to the Reno system despite the fact there's also a home button right under the screen that also takes me back to that, but I have to have the Reno option. That's how CarPlay works. And I have to say it's worth at some point in your car, having your front screen on and taking a screenshot of the app screen so that you know how many apps will fit on an app screen in your car for CarPlay. Because obviously if you've got a really tiny screen, you might not get many apps showing up versus if you've got a really big screen, you might have say five by three in my car, I can do four apps across and two apps down.

(00:12:48):
So that means I can fit eight apps onto a screen and obviously I don't want to be paging through to get to the apps that I use the most frequently. So I'm definitely making a point of as I rearrange things, putting the apps that I want to use the most or want to have access to the most frequently near the beginning and then the other one's right at the end. So for example, I don't use Waze or the phone app all that much. I might answer a call if somebody calls me, but I'm not going to usually call somebody while I'm driving. That's not something that ends up being particularly helpful for me. So I'll leave the phone app there. It can't be removed, but I put it right at the end so that I can leave it somewhere where I'm not really going to see it unless I need to go looking for it. But also right at the end is really easy. You just swipe through a couple of pages and then you're there. So yeah, that's some of the settings to control what appears in CarPlay.

Mikah Sargent (00:13:40):
Yeah, so let's then kind of branch out from there. We've talked about the setup process, we've talked about what CarPlay is. Do we want to talk about troubleshooting CarPlay or should we move into some of the tips and tricks involved with the system?

Rosemary Orchard (00:13:58):
Well, I mean I don't know how much troubleshooting you can do with CarPlay, Micah, maybe you've got more experience with this than I do, but the only troubleshooting I've ever had to do with CarPlay has essentially been based around the one end of the cable wasn't properly plugged in or something needed rebooting once. It was my car that needed rebooting, so that was fun. I had to turn my car off, leave it for 10 minutes and then come back and turn it back on and then everything was fine. But usually if something's not working in CarPlay, have you tried turning your phone off and turning it back on again? Because that usually does the trick.

Mikah Sargent (00:14:33):
Yep, that's what I, yes, that's kind of the one beauty of this is that the simplicity of the connection where it's essentially sending over video and audio and that's almost the entire experience means that troubleshooting almost certainly can be handled by just rebooting something. I've had it, yes, where it's been in the vehicle, so I had to turn off the vehicle to cut power to the system itself. Although because mine is an aftermarket installation, I can also take the frame off of the CarPlay unit, the sort of interface that's on the front off of the CarPlay unit and put it back on and that also reboots the system. So I've done that when I've needed to and that saves me from having to turn off the vehicle and then yes, on the reverse doing it from the phone if all else fails, remember that, forget this car option.

(00:15:36):
I dunno why. It's funny that forget this car is the setting that you can press to basically undo the pair and then start over fresh. I have a wireless CarPlay system and so my pairing happens in the background automatically with a wired system. You of course get charging at the same time, which is handy and it typically is going to be a more robust connection simply because you've got a wire running from one to the other. But I have not had too many issues with my wireless system outside of initial pairing when that needed to happen. Let's talk though about some tips and tricks for what you can do with your CarPlay experience, including a relatively new feature that has come in iOS 17 where there are integrations between your E v that's electronic vehicle and your car play and maps experience. Now you can find some routing to EVs or to EV charging along the way. Is that true?

Rosemary Orchard (00:16:57):
Yeah, yeah. So Apple has a great support document on this where you can basically get driving directions and then using the vehicle manufacturers app, you can then integrate that with CarPlay. There's an excellent guide that explains how to do this, and then you can connect your electric vehicle with maps and so it will know what distance you've got to go and things like that or your range story and then it can help you plan your journey, which is a really cool idea. I really love this. I wish my car was a plug-in hybrid rather than a mile hybrid so that I could really test this out because unfortunately mine doesn't plug in for recharging, so I don't have an option to test that out. But you can also in maps specify which vehicle you would like to drive with and then you can specify that you are going to be using one of your electric vehicles if you have more than one vehicle.

(00:17:53):
But essentially what it will do is track your charge and then analyze elevation changes and things like that along the route and identify appropriate charging stations when you can set your preferred charging network as well, which is very handy for those folks who need that. So there we go. It's kind of built in. If you've got an electric vehicle, I'm guessing you probably have the app installed already. If you don't go ahead and download that and then theoretically it should just sort of pop everything up and walk you through setting it up as you go. So there we go.

Mikah Sargent (00:18:26):
Yeah, we'll have the link of course in the show notes to understand how that process works. Now, one of the benefits of CarPlay and one of the table stakes functionality I guess of CarPlay is that it can be a hands-free experience and Apple does its best to limit the amount of interaction you have to do with any sort of physical control. Some vehicles have some great tactile control options, and so you can keep your eyes on the road while you move your hand on some sort of control knob, but if you have an aftermarket experience or if you have a car or a vehicle that just does not support those more tactile controls, you may need to do tapping on the screen and that of course should be limited because you need to take your eyes off the road to figure out where you're supposed to tap and then move your eyes back to the road.

(00:19:28):
So with that in mind, the Siri experience, the voice assistant experience with CarPlay is kind of integral to how it works. And this comes in handy whether you're taking a phone call, you're sending or receiving text messages, you are playing podcasts, you're listening to audio books. Again, news stories that we talked about before. Those apps all are deeply integrated in a way that you can say by pressing the button on your steering wheel that triggers the voice assistant or through voice recognition and have the car's, microphone or microphones pick up your voice and understand what you're saying and transfer that information over. So then Siri will start an audio book that you want to listen to or play a podcast that you want to listen to or music, but with that you can also have it read out messages to you from the messages app. So can you talk about announcing incoming text messages?

Rosemary Orchard (00:20:34):
Yeah, so announcing notifications is a feature that is built into iOS sort of generally, and you can usually use it through things like AirPods and so on, and there is a setting in the control center that you can add for announcing notifications where you can turn it on and off. I would turn it on, but I don't have reports connected to my phone right now. But what you can do with CarPlay is you can specify if you want it to announce notifications and just announce notifications for this trip or announce notifications should be turned on every time you connect to that car for CarPlay, and this is a setting that you can only do in the settings app on CarPlay to be clear. That's why I'm not showing anything for those folks watching the video. And then you can also turn it off and what this will do is when you get a message instead of it just popping up on the screen and showing messages, icon Micah Sergeant like it often does, it will actually say new message from Micah, Sergeant Micah says blah, blah, blah, or something along those lines, word for word, it's not exactly accurate and Micah never, never, ever says blah, blah, blah so that it's not right, but it will then read out the message and then it will ask you if you would like to reply or if you would like to just continue.

(00:21:52):
And if you don't say anything, then it will assume that you don't want to reply and that will disappear off screen at that point. And what I really like in iOS 17 Micah and therefore the new CarPlay, is that this doesn't block my whole screen. When I get a message from messages, it just pops up in the middle so I can still kind of see the map behind and around it, which means that I still know where I'm going. This was something I struggled with a little bit in iOS 16 that when I got a message, if I listened to it, it would then block it and this would inevitably when there was a junction coming up and there were three different exits and it's like, where am I going? What am I doing? So yes, this is definitely a nice feature and so read out the message for you. You can choose to respond or not respond, and then yeah, if there's more than one message, it will usually be pretty good at just reading them in sequence, but if there is a gap between the messages, you may find that you've started replying and then you send your reply and then it tells you that there's another new message. So yeah, that's just how that works.

Mikah Sargent (00:22:55):
So outside of that experience, of course we have, one of my favorite features is the ability to control the smart home. What's great about this system is that it does some of this stuff automatically. It tries to be smart. There's a multi-view home screen that is not just apps but will have navigation in a larger square and then a few little rectangles on the side that can all be populated with different information. So one might have your latest calendar events, one might have the music that's playing at the given time, and then one might be a notification that is updated and that last area is what I find very handy in that last area. You can have that kind of auto-populate with something that you might want to do. So as I approach my home because my garage is connected to rather connected to my smart home and is in the home app for Apple, then it will automatically start to show me that the current state of my garage door will say garage door and then it will say closed and I can as soon as that pops up, although I wait a little bit because still relatively far from the home, but as soon as I turn the corner and I'm driving down the path to where my garage is, I'll go ahead and tap that as opposed to waiting until I get close enough to hit the button that's the actual car remote or the garage remote and that way the garage door is fully open by the time I am at the door ready to drive in and I just find that feature very handy depending on your interactions with the home app, depending on the automations that you have set up, depending on different scenes you may have, those also pop up in that area.

(00:24:58):
So it could be that you run a scene instead of it just that would be suggested to you to run a scene instead of just the garage door popping up. And I think it's a pretty cool additional feature that comes with the CarPlay experience.

Rosemary Orchard (00:25:15):
It is worth noting with that feature in settings in CarPlay, you need to turn on Siri suggestions for this to work because this is something that I couldn't figure out to start with when I first got CarPlay and was like, why can't I open my garage door? It's not a garage door. I have a fake garage door that I set up for a testing home kit because I don't actually have a garage, but why can't I open my garage door? It's supposed to appear on the screen and it was because Siri suggestions was not enabled. And if you enable Siri suggestions, then not only do you get that, but it will also suggest things like calendar appointments with the addresses and so on for driving directions in that space. So depending on if you are left-hand drive or right-hand drive, then you'll usually have maps on the side of the screen that's closest to the steering wheel in this view and then you'll have two or possibly that third icon on the other side of that. For me, those three are on the left-hand side, but I'm guessing from Micah they'll be on the right-hand side because that's further away from the steering wheel and maps should be closest to the steering wheel in CarPlay land.

Mikah Sargent (00:26:17):
Any other tips and tricks? I think we may have hit most of them there.

Rosemary Orchard (00:26:25):
I think we've hit most of them, but one of the things I love about CarPlay, which I feel that I should just preach to everybody about because it's such a useful feature, is sharing your E T A with maps

Mikah Sargent (00:26:37):
Because

Rosemary Orchard (00:26:37):
This is such a great feature, even if you know you're going to be the first person there or whatever, what you can do is in maps start by getting directions somewhere. So this could be from one of your favorites that you've set up from maps itself on the iOS app or it could be through something from your calendar or similar, it doesn't matter. Once you've got directions going at the bottom where it shows you the little time, like how long it's going to take you to get there and your estimated time of arrival and the distance, there will be an up hour on the side of that and if you tap on that, then it gives you the option to share your E T A. And this is such a great feature that you can use because it will share your E T A with people, and this works with maps for iPhone, but it will share with people on Android and iOS, so if you do it by Android, it'll just send some periodic text messages telling folks what's happening, I'm on my way, I'm almost there type thing.

(00:27:32):
If you do it with maps though, they can actually track your location and see where you are and especially with some certain holidays coming up in the US where everybody likes to drive to visit each other and I believe Canada's Thanksgiving is this week as well. Definitely share your location with folks so they don't have to be constantly going, wait, where are they? Are they supposed to be here right now? Do I need to call them to make sure they're okay? They can just see your E T A as it updates and if you've had to pull over for a quick restroom stop or to pick something up at the store, then they will be updated with the new estimated time of arrival.

Mikah Sargent (00:28:05):
That is the most magnificent aspect of it. I am a person who is a warrior, and so anytime someone I care deeply about is traveling from one location to another that's outside of the normal bounds of what they do, where they go, I always ask, can you please share your E T A? That way I just know that you're not in a ditch on the side of the road. That's all I need to know. And so that's a very handy feature that, again, that updating option where it says, oh, actually an accident occurred on the road and so there's traffic, so the person is not going to be here for another 10 minutes or they deviated off of their route and now it's going to be 15 minutes. Then you can check in and see if the deviation was like, oh, they yeah, stopped to get gas or whatever that is. It's such a comforting experience and I'm glad that it exists and I make liberal use of that feature for sure.

Rosemary Orchard (00:29:01):
Yes. The other thing that I love that I feel I should mention about this is in maps on iPhone, and I'm not going to show this because I don't want to show off a bunch of addresses for folks, but if you set up favorite locations, you can actually choose to automatically share your E T A with one or more people whenever you navigate to those destinations. So these are the destinations that appear automatically when you're in CarPlay, it's not home and work. Those ones are different, but the other ones that your favorite pins that you can set up in maps, you can add people to those so that they automatically get your E T A shared whenever you navigate there. And this is just such a great feature because then whenever I navigate to my parents, I have my parents pinned as a favorite and I just have it set up to automatically share my e t A with my mom so she knows that I'm on my way and I'll be there in however long it will take me to get there.

Mikah Sargent (00:29:51):
Nice. Alright, we are going to take a quick break and then we'll be back with more for CarPlay before we hit the rest of the show. We've got news and Shortcuts Corner and so much coming up.

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Mikah Sargent (00:30:33):
As promised though, this is the time where I put on my clip on tie and get serious. No, truly do get serious. As I mentioned last week, and as I said, I will continue to mention throughout the rest of this year, there is something that we, Rosemary, me and the folks who work on this show here at twit need from you listening out there, it is a simple request and one that can make all the difference. The simple request is that you reach out to a friend, a family member, a colleague, an enemy you're trying to make amends with as I've said, and simply share the link to subscribe to iOS today. There are many ways to do this. You can go to twit tv slash iOS and send them that link, or maybe you want to share it from the podcast player that you use or maybe you want to share the YouTube link because that counts as well.

(00:31:51):
Whatever it happens to be, however you choose to do it, maybe you take their phone from them with their permission and go in and subscribe for them. Please ask someone, one other person to subscribe to iOS today. Those I know that we have incredibly passionate and incredibly diverse group of people who listen to this show, who watch the show every week, and I have heard from many of you since last week and I am so happy to hear from you. What's important is that I know your love of the show and your commitment to the show is this big beautiful ball of light and as much that big beautiful ball of light helps to energize me, helps to energize Rosemary. When it comes to making the show, there's still a more tactile and more, I guess it's less tactile, but a more impactful thing. And that is simply the number of subscribers that the show has, the audience has to grow.

(00:33:03):
And so if you've gotten anything out of this show, if you have been helped by this show, if you want this show to continue to be a place where you can tune in and learn about how best to use what is arguably one of the most important operating systems that exists in the modern world, then it's important that you simply get one other person to subscribe. If even a third of you out there listening right now did that, it would have an incredible impact. I've heard from several of you who have talked to significant others who have talked to friends and who have gotten them to subscribe, and I will continue to say, let me know. I'd love to hear from you. If you were one of the people who actually took up this call to action and got someone to subscribe to the show, email me, m i k a h, Micah at twit tv just to let me know because I'd like to send a simple reply to thank you for that.

(00:34:14):
And thank you to the many folks who've reached out already to let me know that they've gotten others to subscribe. And I've certainly heard some impassioned responses about the love of this show as well. And so understand that we know and we feel that and that we know that you care about this show and that's why we're simply asking that you ask someone else to subscribe. My absolute immense thanks for taking up that gauntlet and making it happen or taking up the torch, the torch, the gauntlet, whatever it happens to be, thank you for picking it up off the ground and making it happen. And yeah, please again, let me know that you've done so it's very helpful and I can sort of brag and show that around and say, they said they got these people to subscribe and look at this and look at this.

(00:35:08):
It's very helpful. So thank you so much and let us head back into the show with some new features including share play, which has now come to iOS seventeens CarPlay experience. Finally, you don't have to fight with another person for, as the kids call it the ox chord, the auxiliary chord to try and determine what music you're going to be playing in for those who are listening and not watching. I was sort of having a tug of war with myself and that is why I was making those strange sounds. So Rosemary, tell us about the new share play experience with CarPlay.

Rosemary Orchard (00:35:52):
Yeah, so first things first, what is worth noting? Share play is optional. So if you drive by the rules of I'm driving, it's my car, I choose the music, you can continue with that and you do not have to give that up at all. But what you can now do is choose to share the control of music in your car. So some folks might remember way back in the day, iTunes had a really cool party feature where people could request songs and put it into a playlist at parties. Is this kind of like the CarPlay version of that for 2023 and beyond? So to start with, your device that is connected to CarPlay must be running iOS 17 and later and you must be an Apple Music subscriber. Now you can have this through Apple One, you can have this through the Apple Music Student program.

(00:36:39):
It doesn't matter. Your passengers will also need an iPhone with iOS 17 or later, but they do not need to be Apple Music subscribers. So only the driver or the person whose phone is connected to CarPlay needs to be the Apple Music subscriber. So to start with, it's very simple. You start by playing some music through CarPlay, preferably something that everybody likes to keep everyone in a good mood so that you don't get the Y M C A requested on repeat for the rest of the journey or something similar. There's only so much singing along you can do folks, but you start by playing some music from your phone and then a notification will appear on the lock screen of passengers. iPhones asking if they'd like to join the share play session because it does this kind of in a similar way to how Airdrop will figure out, oh right, so if I'm airdropping something, I can send it to this phone here and this phone here and this phone here.

(00:37:28):
But I can't airdrop something to Micah because I'm in the uk. Micah is in California. That's not quite close enough. So if I start a share police session, it's not going to invite Micah to join it. It'll invite people in the car with me. And then yeah, you can tap on the name and you can approve your passengers to join your code play session as well. And then off you go. Now there is also an option to join a session via Scani QR code, and we'll put the links to this, the documentation for this in the show notes. But what can happen once you've joined CarPlay or share play with CarPlay is then you can request music and you can just add it to the up next queue and it'll just play whatever it is that you've requested when it gets to your request. Of course, if the driver has something like I do in my car where there's a skip feature hidden behind the steering wheel, it's like a little dial that I can just click down, then of course they can still live for ride choices, which could be good if you get the Shark song requested again and again and again and again.

(00:38:35):
But if you're just getting great requests, then you don't need to worry about that.

Mikah Sargent (00:38:41):
And then we should probably talk about talk a couple of accessories that exist for the CarPlay experience. So for me, I have, I would say a somewhat unique way of using CarPlay, although I may find out that that is not the case. I have a great bag that I take with me. I've actually shown it on the show before from home to work every time I come into the office and it has a little pouch on the side, a little zippered sort of protected pouch that I take my iPhone and I slide it into that pouch. And when I get to my car, I open the driver's side rear door and put my bag with my phone in it behind the driver's seat on the floor of the rear part of the vehicle and close the door. And then I get into the driver's seat, turn on the car and it connects to my phone, which is in my bag.

(00:39:47):
And I use CarPlay that way, meaning that I don't interact with my phone at all when it's in the car. I have a wireless CarPlay in the vehicle, and so it connects wirelessly and everything just works as I need it to. I like it for multiple reasons. One, it's just one more encouragement for me to not interact with the phone while I'm in the vehicle. I'm pretty good with the self-control there, but this is just another way from it not to be anywhere near me, which is good. And I also just like that I don't run the risk of forgetting it because it's already in my bag ready to come inside. And so that's the way that I do it. But I know a lot of people do like to interact with their phone in some way or another as they are getting started in the vehicle. And so they will have their phone with them. And then of course others have a wired CarPlay experience and therefore need to plug in their phone in order to interface with CarPlay. So in those cases, there may be some accessories that you might want to use to augment or improve upon your CarPlay experience, including a charger, Rosemary, that you recommend, particularly if you are going through the cold winter months and blasting heat in your vehicle.

Rosemary Orchard (00:41:10):
Yeah, I mean, hopefully folks aren't blasting too much heat in their vehicles because being too warm can make you a bit sleepy. That's not great for your reactions. But if you are somebody who needs to put your phone on a charger in your car and like my car perhaps there's a wireless charging area, but first of all, it doesn't work with anything that has Mac safe because it says there's metal in the charging area. Please remove the metal to enable charging. Thanks. Secondly, it's tucked down in the console where you will never ever see your phone if you just do a quick glance of have I got everything? So I have grabbed this. Now this for folks who are not watching the video is the E S R Halo Lock Max Safe Wireless car charger with cryo boosts. Now, E S R, I've mentioned some of their products on the show before, have a feature called cryo boosts.

(00:41:57):
And cryo boosts yet cryo, you're thinking cryogenics, you're on the right lines. Bingo. It is a cooling wireless charger. So for folks watching the video, you might be able to see there's a little blue light around the MagSafe ring here, which if I just grab my phone and then pop it on there, it does MagSafe on. Now this is a vent mount, but because it's cooling my phone and now that my phone's on there, you might be able to hear if I put it near the microphone, it is going to blast that fan pretty hard. But it's going to try and cool the fan, try and cool the phone because wireless charging does generate a bit of heat, which is to be expected. But then if you put your phone on a vent mount and it's winter and you've got the heat on in your car, your phone's going to get very toasty.

(00:42:37):
And if your phone goes into the realm of I am too toasty to function, I'm going to shut down until I can function properly, you're going to lose all of those cool CarPlay things that we've been talking about. So if you can keep your phone a bit cooler with something like this, then you will be doing really well and also extends the battery life of your device. The wireless charger from E S R is 45 99, but don't forget it is prime day this week, today and tomorrow as we record, you may be able to grab something like this or this one cheaper. I haven't checked to see if this is available on a prime day sale, but E S R do tend to enjoy participating in those. So definitely worth checking out.

Mikah Sargent (00:43:15):
All right. And then anything else to augment upon the car play experience, perhaps if someone wants to step into the world of my way of using CarPlay without needing to plug in?

Rosemary Orchard (00:43:33):
Yeah, so there is an advantage to needing to plug your phone in to use CarPlay, which means that your phone won't be using battery to connect to CarPlay when you don't need it. But if you're like me, I just want to use CarPlay all the time. I have Wired CarPlay, but I was like, can I get wireless CarPlay please so that I don't have to put my phone in an awkward place? So I picked up this and this is a C play two, and that's the number two air adapter, and this retails for about $110, but it's on sale or it often goes on sale. I didn't pay quite that much for it. Now I've put a little bit of sticky Velcro on the back of this, and I have another bit of sticky Velcro in my car, so I can just plug this into the wired CarPlay port in my car and stick it up out of the way so I don't have to see it, or if I interact with it and it just turns my CarPlay into a wireless CarPlay experience, very simple.

(00:44:25):
It does also have a U S B port on the end so that if I need to plug my phone into CarPlay, then I don't have to unplug this first. I can plug in through that if I wanted to. Now, this is one option, and I personally have not had any issues with this. I'm really liking it. Nine to five Mac also have a recommendation, and that one is on a prime day sale. So if you're listening to this, it usually retails for $115, but it's down to 63 25 on a prime day sale right now. So worth checking out if you're listening to this in time because yeah, it's very nice to have wireless CarPlay as an option so you can leave your phone in a pocket or like Micah does in a bag instead of having to get your phone out and plug it in, just especially handy for those short distances when you don't necessarily want or need to charge your phone.

Mikah Sargent (00:45:13):
All righty, folks, there's actually, normally, this is the part where I say there's a lot when it comes to this, that or the other, and there's so many more apps out there and there's so many more settings that we're just not going to be able to get to. But I think one of the beauties of CarPlay is that it's a relatively simple system, and so we really did cover what you need to know about CarPlay. We've got links of course to support documents that can walk you through many of those steps and show you how to head into the settings and customize things. But for the most part, once you've customized the apps that you're using, once you get that connection set up, once you go through the troubleshooting that you might have, you've got CarPlay figured out. And from there it's just using the CarPlay experience, which I think is quite nice.

(00:46:00):
So if you feel like we missed anything or there's a specific question you have about CarPlay that you want us to answer in our feedback and questions segment, you can always email us iOS today at twit tv. We'd be happy to help out. Let's move along to the news now as we talk about hayli, the photo app, really doing a deep integration with that new button on the side of the Pro iPhones, that action button that has come to the iPhone now, you can use it with hali to have even more control over the app with a button that is specifically tailored for those interactions.

Rosemary Orchard (00:46:47):
And what I really love about this, Micah, it's using shortcuts because of course there is no official A P I for developers be able to say, Hey, my app works with the action button, please. But because anything with shortcut support can be triggered by the action button, they have created a custom shortcut that you can download and install, and it will do magic basically. I won't spoil it for folks who want to try it out, but it is very cool. And the best part of this is because it's using shortcuts, you don't have to have an action button to take advantage of this. You could put this custom shortcut on the home screen of your iPhone and still have an action button for, you call it hali. I thought it was hali. I'm not sure what it is, but it's H J L I D E, but you can still have your own sort of magic action button through the shortcut, which is really great.

Mikah Sargent (00:47:38):
And then I got to tell you, I just the other day had this issue where I was in my vehicle and I again, typically have my phone in a bag behind me, but I looked on the screen of my CarPlay interface and I could see that the battery was low on my phone. And so I thought, oh, I'll plug it into charge it because it could use a little charge. And so when I got to the gas station to gas up before I was going to where I was going, I grabbed it and went to plug it in, and the lightning cord just sort of went into the space of my iPhone, which now has U SS B C charging. And I

Rosemary Orchard (00:48:30):
Realized Mike and Mike and Mike that

Mikah Sargent (00:48:31):
I had not updated the cord in my car to support U S B C charging. And that folks is the downside of having wireless CarPlay because you don't interact

(00:48:41):
With the cords very often, so you don't remember to put a

(00:48:44):
New cord in the car. So let's talk about U

Rosemary Orchard (00:48:48):
S C. I definitely recommend that folks keep one U S B C and one lightning cable in their car. Even if you've upgraded, you will probably at some point end up with a friend or family member who needs to charge their device who has not upgraded to U S B C iPhone. So keep both in your car, not just one. And then also Android users can probably charge two with U S B C cable if necessary.

Mikah Sargent (00:49:10):
That's very good advice. Yeah. So nine to five Mac has an article kind of talking about, now that you've got U S B C, what do we do with old Lightning accessories? I know for me, it's time to spread these out to all my friends and family who are still using older devices while keeping a few of them, because I still have MAC peripherals that charge using lightning cable.

Rosemary Orchard (00:49:36):
Yeah, before you go and get rid of and recycle and donate all of your lightning cables. Do have a look through your devices, AirPods, AirPods, max Mag Safe battery packs. You might have a lightning keyboard or a magic mouse, sorry, it's a magic keyboard that charges via lightning. Same with the Magic Mouse. These devices may still need lightning cables. And also, let's face it, if you're listening to the show, you are probably with the tech guru in your family. Keep one or two just in case you need to solve somebody else's problem. Visa Sparks has just reminded me in the Discord Club Discord that the Apple TV remote is another one that might be charging by Lightning. So that's another good one to keep in mind. So yeah, definitely don't get rid of all of them, but this could be a great opportunity. My grandmother, she tends to try and wind cables really tightly when she's not using them. I've encouraged to be more gentle with them, but as a consequence, she will be getting some upgraded lining cables in the not too distant future. I think I'm going to give her the extra sturdy braided ones to try and avoid anything breaking or just going a little bit, so I can't message from her, Hey, my iPhone's not charging. Why is that? Oh, I unplugged the cable and plugged it in the other way around. I forgot that it only charges one way. It's like, oh no, that's time for a new lining cable there.

Mikah Sargent (00:50:54):
Alrighty, A couple of other stories here, including mfi having a new MagSafe stand that arguably a little extra, but perhaps it's cool, right? Tell us about MO'S new stand.

Rosemary Orchard (00:51:15):
Yeah, so most Max SAFE stands for iPhones are probably not that dissimilar to this one. This is my E S R one that I sort of mentioned before where it's got a fixed MagSafe charging stand for your phone. My phone's not on there because it's currently plugged in the MFI one telescopes. Yep, that's right, folks. It goes up and down. It only goes down to a certain point where the watch charger is, but it goes up. Now this seems a bit extra, but if you use FaceTime on your phone at all, then this could be very useful. And if you like to use your phone as the camera on your Mac, this could be useful as well, so that if you could telescope it up and stick it right behind your Mac and use it at the camera feature using continuity camera on Mac oss.

(00:51:58):
So I think this is pretty nice. And I have heard from some folks that they like to have a charging stand where it kind of tucks down out the way, but then as they're doing things in a room, they like to be able to pop their phone up, especially with the new standby mode so that they can see the time to be aware of what's going on. So yeah, it seems pretty cool. And it's proper MagSafe 15 watts of charging. It's got another little puck on there for charging your watch, and then one for your AirPods or another wireless charging device as well.

Mikah Sargent (00:52:27):
And then the EU as part of its ongoing Digital Markets Act kind of crack down, or I should say it's crackdown is the harsher word, it's implementation of the Digital Markets Act. They announced when they named the gatekeepers that there was going to be an ongoing investigation for some of the other services that these big tech gatekeepers provide to determine if they needed to be regulated as well. So as part of this process, the European Commission has sent out questionnaires to different rivals and also users to determine the importance of several Microsoft services, including Binging Edge and Microsoft Advertising and Apple's iMessage. And in sending out these questionnaires, it helps give an understanding of whether these experiences, these services should be regulated as part of the D M A or not. According to Reuters, the questions include asking the rivals and users to rate the importance based on the specificity of the services that business users rely on, how they fit into the company's ecosystems.

(00:53:51):
Also asked for the number of users using that service, and they were only given a few days as less than a week to provide feedback because they are trying to finish this next step of the investigation in five months. So apparently, as was promised, the company, the European Commission from the EU is moving forward with the next step of that D M A process. So we'll see how that shakes out. I would be shocked to hear that iMessage did not meet the requirement from the D M A to be regulated by the eu, given that you either have a third party experience with WhatsApp or something like that, or you have iMessage. And so that's going to be a fascinating end result there that I'll be keeping my eye on for sure.

Rosemary Orchard (00:54:55):
Yeah, definitely. It'll be interesting to see what comes out of this, but at the same time, iMessage, it's popular, sure, but it's nowhere near as popular as WhatsApp over here, which is available on all the platforms as a third party service that can be installed. And it integrates fully with things like Carly too, so it's not like it's not getting a good experience. So yeah, we'll have to see what shakes out of all this.

Mikah Sargent (00:55:20):
All righty, folks. We are going to take a quick break before we come back with Shortcuts Corner, your questions, and of course our app caps. I want to remind you, those of you listening out there, that we have a great experience and a way to help support the network and get some awesome stuff. It's called Club Twit at twit tv slash club twit. When you head there, you'll be presented with the option to subscribe to Club Twit starting at $7 a month or $84 a year. When you join the club, you get access to every single twit show with no ads. It's just the content. You also get access to the TWIT plus bonus feed that has extra stuff you won't find anywhere else behind the scenes before the show, after the show. Special Club TWIT events get posted there as well. So that means a huge back catalog of great stuff that is only available exclusively to club members.

(00:56:12):
On top of that, you can also join the Club twit Discord, a fun place to go to chat with your fellow club TWIT members. And many of us here at twit, I say starting at $7 a month, not because it's a tiered system where you pay more to get more. No, we just heard from some folks who said, look, I'd like to give you more than $7 a month. Can I do that? So we made that option available and we thank you to those of you who have taken that up. But whether you pay $7 or more, you're going to get all of that stuff plus access to some great shows that are clubbed to exclusive shows. The Untitled Linux Show, hands on Windows, which is from Paul Ott covering Windows Tips and Tricks, hands on Mac, which is a show from yours truly that covers apple tips and tricks and home theater Geeks from Scott Wilkinson is also in the club covering all sorts of interviews, questions and great reviews of different home theater products. And Jason Howell's AI inside, that's what it's called, AI Inside, which is a show all about AI artificial intelligence. If that sounds good to you, head to twit tv slash club twit to check all of that great stuff out. And we thank you to you club members who helped make all of this possible. We appreciate you. Alright, we are back from the break and that means it's time for Shortcuts Corner.

(00:57:39):
This of course is the part of the show where you write in with your shortcuts corner requests and Rosemary Orchard Hour shortcuts expert provides a response with Rosemary out last week, I'm sure many of you were itching to get in your shortcuts and now you have the opportunity. The first request comes from Mark. Mark writes in, I recently finished viewing episode 672 of iOS today. I love the idea of using a shortcut with my action button on the Apple Watch Ultra. Two, when I try to get a simple focus mode if statement to complete, I am unsuccessful When I run the same shortcut from my phone, it works flawlessly. Is there an issue with watch OSS 10.0 0.2 or am I missing something simple? Keep up the fantastic work you over there at TWIT headquarters and Micah, I am three for three on people I've told about the show subscribing to iOS today. Mark three people. Woo. Thank you Mark, we appreciate you. Alright, we definitely have to help Mark. Absolutely. There we are. Tell us about that. We do.

Rosemary Orchard (00:58:45):
So Mark sent in a lovely little screenshot of the shortcut that he created, which was very handy. So I was able to recreate it more or less the same. I will note that Mark had toggle flashlight on the watch because I'm in the UK and I use British English. I have Toggled Torch as a feature and I've also had to choose some different music to play because yeah, I don't have the same music that Mark had, but this was very useful. So Mark has set up a shortcut, which starts with get current focus and then there's an if statement and the get current focus is in that if statement, but very important thing that Mark did after adding the if statement is then tap on the focus mode and then tap on names. So we're getting the name of the focus mode. We're not just getting the focus mode because the focus mode, it's kind of like if you think of a house, but really what you need is you need the number or the name of the house to figure out which one it is that we're talking about.

(00:59:39):
Because otherwise you've just given shortcuts a house, a focus mode. It's not a house but you get the idea. So we're checking if the name of the focus mode is sleep and if we are toggling the torch on the watch or flashlight using that action and in the then we're checking if the name of the focus mode is driving and if it is, I'm playing my driving playlist. Now Marcus set this up to Trigger and I've still got my Apple Watch Ultra. This is the first gen Apple Watch Ultra. I did not go for the second gen folks. It's so big on my wrist, I love it. But yeah, I've got the new one. I've got Pink Micah, I love the pink but it doesn't have an ultra button. So I got this watch out to use with my ultra button and here in the watch app, because this is an ultra, I've got the option to set action button.

(01:00:26):
Now I can tap on the shortcut, but then the thing for me is right now, and I'm not a hundred percent certain why this is, this shortcuts not showing up. Something is a little bit hinky here and it could be that Mark has set the shortcut up and then added more actions after the get focus mode. Or it could be that my shortcuts are just not syncing to my ultra because this ultra does need an update. But Mark said that problem that they were ran into is that it doesn't seem to run when it's on the watch and I have a feeling I know why. So if we tap on the little arrow next to the toggle flashlight or torch action, there's an option for show when run. We need to make sure that that is set to off because if it shows when I'm running, then it'll kind of try and pop up a notification it won't work because you're using it through the action button and then everything will kind of just crash out.

(01:01:19):
Then you'll also need to make sure that this music for the driving playlist is available on your Apple Watch. So I have a feeling that it's possibly either of those things, but what I thought would be a really useful thing to do is to show Fox how I debug shortcuts on my watch because this can be quite tricky trying to figure out where is this going wrong, what is going wrong? And unfortunately the best way to do this, believe it or not, Fox, you're not going to love this because it feels very intrusive. But the best way to do this on your watch is to send yourself a notification. And so there should be an option for a notification. There we go. And I've got lots of things, but we want the show notification action. And so what I would do is inside, if name of my focus mode is sleep, I would show a notification that says sleep focus.

(01:02:14):
If I could spell the word sleep, this would be even better. There we go. And then you can of course use, if you tap on the top left-hand icon in that shortcuts action, so where it's got a little rebell next show notification, if you tap on that, you can duplicate it and then pick up that action and drag it down. And then I can say Toggle and I'll use the word torch because it's a shortage right here, but then I know what has happened or what the shortcut thinks has happened. And what I can essentially do is figure out based on the notifications I did get or didn't get what worked or didn't work as the case may be. Because if it shows me a notification that says Sleep focus, obviously that won't work right now because in my podcasting focus mode and then I don't get a notification for Toggle Torch, then I'll know that something went wrong with this toggle flashlight action.

(01:03:07):
Now it could just be that it's having, having a moment on your watch. Definitely try rebooting your watch, make sure your phone and your watch are updated and that they're in sync and things like that. But I suspect what has happened here, mark, is that somehow the shortcut has not fully synced onto your watch and that is possibly causing the problem. So a reboot should help sort that out. And if not, you might want to try adding some notifications to debug a little bit and see what's up. It does very much depend on what kind of device you're running. Obviously an Apple Watch ultra, it's going to be pretty new, but if folks are having a weird issue with shortcuts on an older device, then it might be that it doesn't have the memory to run everything if you've got lots of data in there. But for most folks, I suspect unless you're getting everything in all of your music and photo libraries, you should be okay.

Mikah Sargent (01:03:59):
All righty. Then the next one comes from maybe Whale Whale who writes in, hi, I'm a longtime listener. I have a question on how to make an automation for my situation. I would like to make it so on workdays at 1415 if what? That's 2:15 PM For those of you who use other 12 hour clocks, if I'm connected to my car's Bluetooth, it will send a WhatsApp message with my live location and that I'm on my way. Thank you whale.

Rosemary Orchard (01:04:31):
So this is interesting and we can do most of this with shortcuts. The part that we can't do for some reason yet is live location with WhatsApp, but the rest of it we can do. So what you'll need to do to start with is start by going to the automation tab in the shortcuts app, tap on the plus and create a time of day note automation. So I'll change this to be 1415 and then we will run immediately. We don't want run after confirmation. And the other thing that was mentioned, and I'm just going to double check this work days. Now I'm going to assume that your workdays are Monday to Friday, but if your workdays are for example Sunday to Thursday, then you'll need to select those. But to do this, change the repeat from daily to weekly and then select the days of the week that you would like this to run on.

(01:05:21):
Then we tap next. And here you can either create an automation or choose a shortcut. Now I'm going to choose to create a blank automation here because that's my personal queue that this is been created for iOS today. So I should probably delete it off to the show, but I'd recommend usually create a shortcut and I can create a shortcut and share that with folks so that we have that information. So what we need to do is check if you're connected to your car's Bluetooth. So we need to check for the audio output, and this is going to be a little bit of self-promotion because I wish that there was another way to do this, but get audio output device, which is in a great app called Toolbox Pro, which was written by a friend of mine, Alex Hay. Unfortunately he's since passed away and I have a small development company and we've taken over at the development of his apps to maintain them.

(01:06:12):
So this is part of one of those apps from Toolbox Pro get details about the current audio output device. So what you should be able to do is when we've got this audio output, then we will know if the name of the speaker is whatever the name of your cart is. So what you'll probably need to do is get that to test it, but then when you can say, okay, if name is, now here's a pro tip box. If you're using CarPlay, it's going to be CarPlay very simple. Now you can either do if name is CarPlay or I'm going to cheat a little bit, I'm going to say if name is not CarPlay, and then stop the shortcut and then I should be able to, if I find the stop shortcut action, that'll be a lot faster, stop this shortcut. Perfect. So if it's not connected to the car Bluetooth or in this case CarPlay, it's just going to stop.

(01:07:04):
We're not going to do anything else. And then we need to send a WhatsApp message to say on our way, WhatsApp has a few actions and there's options to send messages or photos and also call people. Or for some reason FaceTime not quite sure why that shows up. I believe that's video call. If I send a message via WhatsApp, then I can send it to a specific recipient, but that's not going to be the action that you want. I believe the action that you're going to need is the send message action, which this is not very helpful, but it's send message, not send message via WhatsApp. Don't ask me why they've got two very similarly named actions which work very differently. Make sure to turn off show and run, tap into the message field and say something like I'm on my way and then you'll need to select the recipient.

(01:07:57):
I'm not going to do that because it'll pop up in my contacts and potentially share a whole bunch of contact information that I don't want shared. But that's all we can do here. Sharing live location unfortunately is not something that WhatsApp exposes via shortcuts, but at least you can get there to send a message that says, I'm on my way. Now depending on your work schedule, maybe you can set this up earlier in the day to share your location for say eight hours or so and then it'll still be working at the end of the day. But other than that, you may want to investigate using say the check-in feature which is built into messages in iOS 17 to let people know where you are and when you should be arriving.

Mikah Sargent (01:08:36):
All right, that is wonderful. We got our shortcuts answered. Of course you can write in to have your shortcuts answered by heading to iOS today or not by heading to, but by emailing iOS today at twits T v. All right, one bit of feedback I think we'll do. I think I should not read this because it would feel odd. So if you wanted to

Rosemary Orchard (01:09:07):
Read this, I feel like it would be a bit odd. Micah, it's a very kind thing, a lovely message. So I'll read it for you. So Doug has written in and said, I just wanted to drop you a quick note to let you know how much I appreciate Micah Ka in all things. I'm getting so tired of the clickbait and sensational headlines on the internet. Hearing mic's take on the Apple fine woven case in episode 672 was so refreshing. This is not the first time that I have felt like Mike has taken a topic, was the voice of reason in a sea of sensationalism editorial note, I love the illiteracy.

Mikah Sargent (01:09:38):
Yeah, that is good.

Rosemary Orchard (01:09:41):
Anyway, continuing, it's like having a friend who is well versed in something that can cut through the static to show you the real way. You don't find that kind of reporting much anymore, and I'm so happy I can get it from Micah in all the Twitch shows I subscribe to. Micah, I appreciate you and please keep up the good work and fighting the good fight. Thanks, Doug.

Mikah Sargent (01:09:57):
Thanks

Rosemary Orchard (01:09:58):
From me because I really appreciate you, Micah.

Mikah Sargent (01:10:00):
Oh, I appreciate you and appreciate Doug and I appreciate all of our listeners and I appreciate that we have a platform here at twit and a editorial guideline to try and do our best to cut through sensationalism and when we do mess up that we correct our mistake as I did when I saw reporting through reporting, through reporting, through reporting talk of the iPhone, the new iPhone pros being more prone to breaks or cracks when they were dropped, when consumer reports came along and did an actual test with controls and all sorts of stuff, it was revealed that it's not any more breakable or shatter able than any previous iPhones and may in fact be more resistant to cracks. And you do your best to make sure that you're vetting those stories and when again, I think that part of integrity is when you come across something and you report something that is inaccurate and needs to be changed, that you own up to that and say, look, this was something that needed to be changed as we did on Ask the Tech guys.

(01:11:13):
So Doug, thank you for the encouragement. We'll keep fighting the good fight and doing what we do here at twit and here on iOS today. One more question, this comes in from John w writes, hi. I just wanted to know where to buy the Apple Retro iPhone case that Micah has for his iPhone, but John wants it for the iPhone 15 Pro Max. Also, if this case allows me to hook magnetic devices to it like the Apple case, I have the Apple case and the port does not fit my Thunderbolt U S B C cables. Plus I like the Apple retro look. I found one case that said it would charge through the case if I lay my iPhone flat on the charger. That made me think it does not support magnetic devices, which will not work for me. Thank you John. So John, first and foremost, it's important to understand that it is a two-part case.

(01:11:59):
It is a clear case from Apple paired with a skin from the company recommended by Rosemary Slick wraps. Slick wraps makes the nice covering I have on this MacBook Air here and they happen to have this vintage look for multiple devices, one of which is the iPhone. Now last I checked, slick Wraps did not yet have the iPhone 15 version of that vintage case ready yet. It was available for pre-order but was not yet available for purchase. I'm looking at my wishlist now though, and it appears that you can now purchase it outright. So we will include a link in the show notes that gets you to that slick wraps page for the skin. And then what I did was I just took Apple's clear case that is MagSafe compatible so you don't have to worry about it. It will charge through the case and put that over the top of it so the skin went on the back, the case went over the top of it, and then you get the look of the case or the look of the vintage wrap with an actual iPhone case over the top from Apple.

(01:13:19):
And because of the way the clear case is made, I know it can be kind of hard to see from far away, but the clear case does not have a lip that goes all the way around the bottom of the phone. It just covers the left and right edges of the phone. So that port is completely open. And more importantly for me, the bottom of the screen is completely open, which I like because it's easier for me to swipe up and down and left and right from the bottom of the screen, which I do regularly to actually get into my phone. So I was using the fine woven case on my iPhone at first. I switched back to the clear case because I knew that I wanted to once again get that slick wraps covering for my iPhone to stick on the back of it. So you'll be able to do that as well. It's a little under $20 for that. And Slick Wraps has a great built-in kind of protection so that if you make a mistake then they will send you a replacement to help you get it right. Alright, with that I think we'll take a quick break to hear

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Mikah Sargent (01:14:28):
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Mikah Sargent (01:15:31):
And we're back. And that means it's time for caps. This of course is the part of the show where we place caps atop around above over near our heads to honor our app and Gadget picks of the week. These are the apps and gadgets we have been using for some time or maybe they're new to us as much as they are

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To you that we think are great

Mikah Sargent (01:15:55):
And we think you should know about. And in doing so, because it is the end of the show, it caps the show and also because it's fun, we wear things and are goofy. That's the explanation you need now, Rosemary, tell us about the APR Gadget Pick you've chosen and tell us of course about the cap at top of your head.

Rosemary Orchard (01:16:18):
Oh, the off the top of my head, it's one of one before. It's very dramatic. It's a very large black hat. I believe it came from AOL or similar. It's got on the back a little bow, which is rather adorable. It's a sort of wool hat. It's very dramatic and fun and I just love wearing it at this time of year because it's starting to get chilly here in the uk plus it's October, so kind of halloweenish, so why not? And my gadget slash accessory pick of the week is an upgrade for a previous app cap. So previously as an app cap a long time ago, I'll forgive you Fox, if you don't remember, I recommended the Maxa Pop Socket. Now the Maxa Pop Socket, the original one is a sort of lozenge style shape and it just max saves onto the back of your iPhone. If you heard a click as that happened, that was the MagSafe pop socket mag saving into place. Now these are great, I love them, but if you've got a firm case, it's very difficult to get off. And also with it being a loss in shape, it seems to at least for me, end up attracting a lot of small metallic objects like earrings in my handbag. It's not attached to my foam, which I have a max safe wallet as well. And I was looking and discovered pop socket have made a new

Mikah Sargent (01:17:30):
Max eight

Rosemary Orchard (01:17:32):
Pop socket that is round and this one has stronger magnets in, but they're circular. So I should be clear, this one that I'm holding here, it is a iridescent sort of translucent purple. It's called lavender, and it has a metal rainbow and cloud pop socket on there because it's an interchangeable grip. So I purchased the metal rainbow option separately and swapped it on there, but this also pops on with a very satisfying cork sound. But then I never have the problem of it being slightly misaligned at the bottom of my phone and it's still very comfortable to hold. It's still very strong on my phone and it works great. I honestly love it. I for some reason really like the round versus the capsule shape and I'm really enjoying using this. It's been particularly handy over the last week as I've been taking a lot of photos because it's ideal for propping your phone up on a few fingers and then being able to use your other hand to take pictures without worrying about obscuring the camera in any way.

(01:18:30):
So I have to say, yeah, love the round MagSafe pop socket. It's called the Pop Grip round for MagSafe officially, but you'll find it if you type in Round Pop Socket MagSafe into Amazon and it's also available from Pop Socket direct. It is available in more than just purple, I promise you folks. It's available in quite a few different colors, but I'm really loving it and I really love that you can swap out the pop socket to be something else. And in particular, this metal Rainbow one, I really love it. It's nice and shiny, but it's nice and sturdy to get a grip on as well.

Mikah Sargent (01:19:03):
Awesome. On my end, I am wearing, I believe it's like a woven luau hat. It's actually quite delightful and I kind of want to steal it and wear it to parties or something. It has a bunch of faux flowers in multiple colors and a nice woven motif. I dunno, you kind of got to see it. It's great. The app that I want to talk about today is an app called Stretch It Stretching Mobility. If you would like to improve your flexibility and you want to become a little more bendy, be able to, if you can't touch your toes or if you feel like sitting in a chair for many hours in a day is causing some different pains, we know that stretching can be one thing that is very helpful and there is a great app that in the way that it's pitched, suggests that by the time you complete the courses, you'll be able to do the splits.

(01:20:11):
I'm not necessarily interested in needing to do the splits, although cool if that's a side effect of it, but just the stretching in general I think is very helpful and so stretch. It is a way for you to complete classes that help you with your stretching. And so they have different video classes that work through full body stretches. If you're doing leg stretches specifically, maybe you have shoulder pain or back pain being able to help with that kind of stretch. And then they very clearly, I kid you not, as I was going through the process of setting up the app, they asked me at least twice about what kind of splits I would like to do, like middle splits, front splits. I was like, I don't really care about splits, but thank you for asking. But more importantly, it's kind a neat process where whenever you first set up the app, it's as if you're having a text message conversation with the person and it will ask you what your goals are, where you rate yourself in terms of your own flexibility.

(01:21:18):
And then now that I'm in the app, you can see, or if you're listening, I'll describe it to you, my own course here called the Platinum Flexibility Course and I already have the first seven days, or actually it goes even further than that. Basically you choose when you want to, but day one, day two of what's involved and there are these little lightning bolts that kind of show how intense the exercise the stretches are. So if I tap on this first one, it's a full body class and it is 25 minutes and doesn't require any props or what they're talking about there like blocks or other accessories that you might use to help with training. And if I were to tap and I am going to tap start training, you'll find a video that is playing through the process of doing stretches and the person in front is doing, they're the trainer, so they are providing a more in depth stretching experience.

(01:22:21):
The person in the background is perhaps providing an easier bit of stretching if you are having trouble with that. And what's great about this is it integrates with Apple Music directly so you can play music while you're listening and it kind of ducks the audio properly and it will then walk you through stretches. Now I think that the reason why it's not playing right now is because it might be able to recognize that I'm doing screen mirroring as opposed to airplay, which is resulting in it going, okay, this person might be trying to record our videos. And so it's just a copyright feature protection rather, but it is a full flow set of workouts. And then day two involves recovery. So after you kind of went through and did maybe some more intense stretching, then you can go through and kind of recover after that.

(01:23:15):
They have a daily stretch, which is awesome. So today I can take my little nine minute stretch break where I use a chair and do some stretches and it just helps you to kind of work through stretching and doing workouts, weightlifting and stuff like that. I know that it is helpful to that process to elongate the muscles, to work the muscles in different ways that are more in that stretching field. So that's what's been important to me in doing this. But yeah, if you out there want to do the splits or just more importantly want to become a little more flexible and kind of take care of your muscles and your bend ability, then this is, I found so far a pretty cool app for doing that. It is available to download for free with some free courses. It does have an app purchases, it's $20 a month or $160 a year.

(01:24:16):
That may sound like a lot, but if you were to go get stretched at a facility that teaches you how to stretch a lot more than a hundred fifty nine ninety nine a year, you can also buy individual plans, which are 4 99. So they have one for the middle split stretch, the bendy back, the I guess side stretch and then the full body stretch. So some courses that are offered as purchases as well. So that is stretch it stretching mobility in the App Store folks. With that, we have reached the end of this episode of iOS today. Of course, you can email us, send feedback, et cetera at iOS today at Twitch tv. We love, love, love, love, love to hear from you. It matters. It is wonderful for us to get to hear from you and to get to help you out with what you're doing. We record this show live every Tuesday round about 9:00 AM Pacific, 12:00 PM Eastern.

(01:25:13):
You can head to twit tv slash live to watch us live as we record the show. But of course, the best way to get the show and remember, the best way to make sure that we can continue to bring this program to you is to subscribe to the show and tell your friends about this show, twit TV slash iOS that has all of the links to all of the platforms, audio, video, straight up R s Ss if you want that, or Google Podcast, apple Podcast, Spotify, YouTube. Although of course Google Podcasts is going the way of the Dodo, so I guess it's YouTube music now. Anyway, wherever you're getting your podcasts, we try to be there. And so twit TV slash iOS has the links that she yet need. Just a brief mention here at the end, twit TV slash club twit, $7 a month, $84 a year, warm fuzzy feeling in your heart, knowing that you're supporting the network, but also access to great stuff, the bonus feed ad-free content, the Club Twit Discord, and the wonderful shows that are Club Twit exclusive Rosemary Orchard. If folks want to follow you online and check out all your great work, where should they go to do so?

Rosemary Orchard (01:26:18):
Well, the best place to go is rosemary orchard.com, which has links to podcasts, apps, books, et cetera that I am involved in around the internet. And of course, there's also social media right at the bottom. And the other place you can find me is in the club tweet discord where I've been chatting with some folks in the live chat channel. And of course, there's an iOS Today forum there where folks can feel free to post their requests. Prof, pan Appar is having a tricky time figuring out a HomeKit problem right now, so I'm about to suggest that they create a thread so we can follow up on this and figure out a solution and hopefully maybe even share that on a future episode of iOS today.

Mikah Sargent (01:26:52):
Nice. What

Rosemary Orchard (01:26:52):
About you, Micah? Where can folks find you?

Mikah Sargent (01:26:54):
You could find me at Micah Sargent on many a social media network where you can enter Chihuahua Coffee, c h i h o a h oa.coffee, where I've got links to the places I'm most active online. Folks, thank you so much for tuning in for this episode of iOS Today. Go forth and use CarPlay and we will see you again next week. Bye-bye. Hey, we should talk Linux. See you operating system that runs the internet. Watch your game consoles, cell phones, and maybe even the machine on your desk, and you already knew all that. What you may not know is that TWIT now is a show dedicated to it, the Untitled Linux Show. Whether you're a Linux Pro, a burgeoning cisman, or just curious what the big deal is, you should join us on the Club Twit Discord every Saturday afternoon for news analysis and tips to sharpen your Linux skills. And then make sure you subscribe to the Club TWIT exclusive Untitled Linux Show. Wait, you're not a Club Twit member yet? We'll go to twit tv slash club twit and sign up. Hope to see you there.

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