iOS Today Episode 602 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 out this week, but don't worry. I am joined by my pal. My good buddy, Dan Moren, who is here to help me talk about apps for tabletop gaming, stay tuned

... (00:00:16):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWiT.

Mikah Sargent (00:00:23):
This episode of iOS today is brought to you by Wealthfront to start building your wealth and get your first $5,000 managed for free for life. Go to wealthfront.com/ios today. And by eight sleep, go to eight. Sleep.Com/Ios for exclusive Memorial day savings through June 6th. Cool. Down this summer with eight sleep now, shipping within the USA, Canada, and the UK. And if you're listening after June 6th, use the same URL to check out the pod pro cover and save $150 at checkout and by trade coffee. Right now, trade is offering new subscribers, a total of $30 off your first order. Plus free shipping. When you go to drink trade.com/ios today, that's more than 40 cups of coffee for free. Get started by taking their quiz and let trade finds you a coffee. You'll love.

Mikah Sargent (00:01:27):
Hello, and welcome to iOS today. This is the show where we talk all things. Ios TVs, home pod OS, watch OS, iPad OS. I, I know I'm getting to the repeating of those look. There are lots of OSS that Apple has on offer, and we love to talk about them here on iOS today. We love to talk about how great they are. We love to talk about apps and services. You can check out that make all of these operating systems better. Dunno where I was going with that. And that's what this show is all about. Thank you for joining us today. I am one of your hosts, Micah Sergeant, and I am joined today by a very special co-host. It is Dan Moren. Welcome back to the show, Dan. Thanks for having me, Micah. It's great to be back. Great to have you here.

Mikah Sargent (00:02:10):
We of course every, every time, you know, you've got a guest on the show, you reach out and you say, Hey, you know, what do we, what do we wanna talk about this time? And it's funny because for some reason, when I think of you, my brain always goes to like, we should talk about apps and services that let you watch shows and, and look at cool stuff. Or it goes to writing. I always wanted to go to one of those two places. And so I finally had an idea that did not, that was not one of those two things. And I felt like you would be the perfect person to talk to about this because for folks out there who don't know Dan and I play let's, we'll say a couple of times a month, a Dungeons and dragons, actual play podcast that streams online it's called the, the whole show is called total party kill. But our campaign is called the dog and pony show. And we're currently playing through curse of Straud and have been playing for what, like three years.

Dan Moren (00:03:10):
So I don't want to do the math on that. It predated the pandemic. I'm pretty sure. So

Mikah Sargent (00:03:15):
I definitely predated the pandemic. Yeah,

Dan Moren (00:03:16):
It's been a long

Mikah Sargent (00:03:17):
Time. It's been a long time. Ah, jinx, see Dan and I we're in sync. We, we

Dan Moren (00:03:21):
Same, same wave link

Mikah Sargent (00:03:22):
Boy band right here. Anyway, so let's get into the show to talk about some different apps and services that can help improve your own tabletop gaming. And I wanna note that we will be sometimes specific with D and D dungeon and dragons, the, the game that we play, but a lot of these tools can be used for any of your favorite TT R PPG games. That's, there's a little hint. If you wanna sound like, you know what you're talking about?

Dan Moren (00:03:51):
Like now we've got RPG, like lingo down. Exactly.

Mikah Sargent (00:03:54):
<Laugh> all right, Dan. So let's kick it off with your first pick.

Dan Moren (00:03:59):
Sure. Well, I mean, as you mentioned, we play D and D I play a lot of D and D outside of podcasts as well. What

Mikah Sargent (00:04:06):
Just, it's

Dan Moren (00:04:07):
Just the life I live. I'm sorry. That's who I am. I make no apologies. So I'm gonna pick as my first pick the official D and D beyond app, which is available for iOS on your iPad or your iPhone. And it basically is a collection of tools that tie into this online tool set framework that is basically now owned very recently. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> was purchased by wizards of the coast, which runs tons of dragons. It lets you manage your characters, but it also has access to a lot of the information that you might want when you're playing such as rules or information about creatures or information about spells. So you can download like these sort of content that you might have access to look up, anything that you need to look up, get the stats and everything it's really well put together. And because it's the official app that's tied in there, it has access to basically anything that you have access to with your own D and D beyond account. So a content that you have purchased is available in, in there as well. Yeah, it's sort of your one stop shop for all of your D and D needs. And for me, that's a lot of needs. There's a lot of things. So I've got

Mikah Sargent (00:05:16):
A lot of needs.

Dan Moren (00:05:17):
I got a lot of needs and this one covers most of them.

Mikah Sargent (00:05:20):
Yeah. And they've improved it more and more over time. Yeah. When the first, when the app first launched, it was just kind of a place for you to download and store your, your files right. Your access to the different books. But they have added the ability to even do roles that, that show up in the, the sort of group tracker so that everybody is able to see kind of what's going on. Yep. And have continued to build out the sort of player view, which I, I like right for when I am playing the game that we play, I can pull up most of that information on the, the screens that I have and right. So I am able to do that with, you know, my two displays, but when I am DMing for a every other week campaign that I'm, I'm DMing, I've got, you know, three other characters and then I'm also playing a semi player character with them so that they have you know, some backup at times.

Mikah Sargent (00:06:20):
And that is where I want the extra street, extra screens to come into play. And so it's really nice to have that AC that information up very easily on the, the iPad or the iPhone. I also would suggest that this is a, a great way to have, because folks will have you know, the physical copies of these things from kind of a long time ago, the new way of course is doing it digitally <laugh>, but you may not be in a place where you've got really good internet connection or where, you know, that's an issue. So I do love that they let you download these locally and you're able to then, you know, get access to them quickly, find what you're looking for.

Dan Moren (00:07:02):
It's easier than bringing a stack of books with you everywhere. Trust me, having lived through that time period where it was like, I got my players handbook, I've got my extra supplements, I've got my character sheets and you'd have like this big chunk, it'd be like going to school right. When you had all your textbooks. So yeah, the fact that it fits in this little phone app is, is a Marvel.

Mikah Sargent (00:07:20):
I agree. All right. So that is the first one down. I am very excited for you to talk about the next app you've got on your list.

Dan Moren (00:07:30):
<Laugh> well, I know you're excited because you and I, we do have a personal connection here. We should disclaim this app is, is developed by somebody who's a friend of Mike and ours, but it is also, I would say in and of itself, a extremely valuable resource. This is dice by peak calc. And essentially it is a dice rolling app that provides your one stop shop for basically anything you could ever need to roll in any sort of dice. James Thompson is the developer and he has been just incredibly devoted to adding every single possible thing he can in here. If you're familiar with his calculator app P calc, where he's like built in all these like little secrety Easter eggs over the years you know, dice by peak calc basically lets you roll any various, you know, sides of dice, all the, the poly dice you might need for D D or other stuff, but it has other types of dice that you might need for other types of games.

Dan Moren (00:08:21):
For example, there is you'll see, there are some sort of, there are dice with plus and minus symbols on them which are often called I think fudge dice and are used in a game system called fate. You can also, you know, create little macros and things like that. If you've got specific things that you find yourself rolling very frequently, and of course there is a huge variety of styles, including the ability to really customize. Do you want your dice to look a specific way, a specific color? You can spend your time setting that all up. There's some frankly really impressive physics stuff, right? Cause this is actually a simulation. You see your dice roll and you know, you can like see the, like the light Glint off them, right? Like this is it's, it's the best looking dice app out there. Yeah. All sorts of

Mikah Sargent (00:09:07):
Crazy music, strengths,

Dan Moren (00:09:09):
Moon, gravity. That's a fan, that's a fun one where you, everything

Mikah Sargent (00:09:13):
Flicked. It's like,

Dan Moren (00:09:13):
It's like slower because it's, you know, the gravity is cut down.

Mikah Sargent (00:09:18):
It's a for that. Absolutely.

Dan Moren (00:09:19):
Right. It's absolutely gorgeous looking application, frankly. And he builds see, they, oh, it takes so long for the gravity. You can put in the advantage and disadvantaged roles, which are things that you often need in D and D where it rolls two dice and tells you what the higher one or lower one is. There's all sorts of ways you can move the camera around. And yeah, it's just, it's what an impressive piece of work I will just as a full disclaimer. I do have a cameo in this app. Micah. I think you might know. I'm not sure if you're aware of that. If you roll a a 20 or a one Uhhuh on a D 20, which is in D and D part, that's a critical hit or a critical fail I actually recorded the voiceover for

Mikah Sargent (00:10:05):
It. Oh, did you really? I didn't know that. So

Dan Moren (00:10:07):
If you have your sound on, there's a voiceover and it's me doing a critical hit

Mikah Sargent (00:10:12):
<Laugh>, that's amazing. I have heard that before, but I didn't realize that was you. Oh, that's fantastic. So it's yeah, so I

Dan Moren (00:10:20):
It's cool app. Yeah.

Mikah Sargent (00:10:21):
I, I think that the, the app itself is amazing. James has really come up with not just, you know, your, your typical dice roller with your dice tray, but the fact that you can play around with it and that it has so many options, you know, this is where, where maybe he had created it originally to be a dice roller for playing total party, kill the podcast on the incomparable. But took it to something so much more than that. I was, yeah, as I was going through, these are some of the options that are available. So there's vertex, which is a really cool sort of metal thing. You can change the type face. There are some references in here. If you are a total party kill listener, then these things will be might be familiar to you.

Mikah Sargent (00:11:10):
But you've got all of these different options to make your own personal dice, which I think is just so much fun. You can change the tint of these different things and again, you know, your text, your, the, the type of 3d background you have outside. And let me see, I wanna change the 10 back to defaults there, and we can go back in graphics. So there are different modes, so I can change it all the way up to ultra 4k. If I want to frame rate is second 60, because I don't have a, I'm using an iPad mini with this, so it's gonna start screaming anyway. I don't know what those different versions of anti aliasing are, so I'm just gonna leave those alone. But I do like too, that for nerds, you can see the information for how there's there, like what the current frame per second is. Let's turn on reflections and let's hop back into the game, the, the game seats, practically a game. All right. I'll roll a D 20 with moon gravity right now. Oh. And look at that beautiful Glen. You're getting, oh my goodness. It's fire.

Dan Moren (00:12:18):
It's your firelight, right? It, it's sort of as if you're playing by a cozy Tavern fire,

Mikah Sargent (00:12:24):
And there's this beautiful bouquet that you're getting with this cinematic dice tray, cuz I, I chose that mode for the dice tray. It's, it's really very awesome. Here are the sets that you were talking about where there there's probably your character might have a, an attack role that they typically do. And so you want to get that role out there and then it comes up with, you know, if you're doing a multi handed attack, how that might change things it depends on what you roll. So lots of different fun options in this one. And it's, if you've got an extra device that can just kind of sit to the side, that can be your little dice roller, but it's so funny because James made this and then shortly after got into actually creating physical dice <laugh> right. And so now he's gotta do it, both of them, which is pretty funny.

Dan Moren (00:13:20):
Okay. It's a gateway habit.

Mikah Sargent (00:13:22):
Yes, exactly. So that is dice by P calc. We're gonna go for, we're gonna hear Dan's next pick and then we'll take a quick break before we come back with my picks for apps for table top gaming. So tell us Dan, what's next on your list.

Dan Moren (00:13:41):
So my next pick is something that's a little more generically handy. If you're playing an RPG you can use it obviously for something like D and D, but you can use it for other RPGs as well. And that's good notes which is on the iOS platform. It is a really great drawing and writing and note taking app that you can use specifically, it works great with the Apple pencil. And so what I really like about this in cases where I might be doing something that's a little more free form. For example, we play a game over at the incomparable sometimes where I do podcast called action castle, which is sort of a table toppy game. And one of the key things in that game is being able to draw maps of where you've been, because it's like playing that game's like playing a text adventure.

Dan Moren (00:14:29):
If you remember the old text adventures, like Zork where you'd be wandering around and you have to just get like descriptions of things and you would, you know, type little commands and so much put in that. Yes, exactly. And in that game, it's run by our, our friend, Tony Sindar, who is also often our dungeon master. He also plays sort of the computer in that. And it's like, people take turns, issuing commands, and you need to keep track of where you've been because there is no map provided in the game. You just kind of have to either keep it in your head, which is extremely tricky. Sometimes cuz sometimes there are Maes or there are things that where you run in circles. So you wanna be able to draw stuff out. And good notes is great for that kind of thing. I love opening up a journal and you can just sort of start jotting down things.

Dan Moren (00:15:06):
It's got all sorts of options for colors and you know, highlighters and I mean, it works with such a variety of things. You can scan documents into it, you can take pictures. It syncs stuff between your devices really. It's just this great all-purpose app for any sort of note taking you wanna do. And that's that maybe something that's really handy for you when it comes to tabletop PGS, because like I said, you gotta make your maps, you gotta take notes sometimes about what's going on. Some people like doing sketches, you know, and like little doodles of things that they encounter. And yeah, it's just, it it's the closest I've found to really having like a pad of paper in front of you. It's just, it's extremely friendly in that regard.

Mikah Sargent (00:15:44):
Nice. Yeah. I'm I, I remember having good notes at one time, probably from Leo suggesting it when we used to do the show together and then I ended up not using it, but that sort of sketch ability is really nice. Particularly if you're in the middle of, of the game and you're just trying to keep track of things kind of very quickly, if you don't have any paper and pencil around or you know, a a I've when I'm DMing, I've got all this stuff on my desk, as well as all this stuff on the screen. So just having that extra little kind of scratch pad there is really nice. And then you don't have to worry about running outta space. Well, you know, within reason you don't have to

Dan Moren (00:16:24):
I'm typing your notes into the wrong window. No, I accidentally wrote this thing down and I just told everybody.

Mikah Sargent (00:16:29):
Yeah, <laugh> exactly. All right, folks, we're gonna take a quick break before we come back with my picks for apps and services for table top gaming. But first I wanna tell you about Wealthfront, who are bringing you this episode of iOS today stock trading. It can be a wild ride, but the thrill of risking it all is best enjoyed in moderation. You know, like casino, gambling and eating questionable street food. If you're playing the market, I hope for your sake that you're stashing some safer money in a place like wealth front, you might think that day trading stocks is the secrets to investing success. But wealth front has a ton of data to show that time in the market, almost always beats timing. The market they're globally diversified portfolios, automatically optimized to hit the goals you set and the risk level you choose. And also to get you automatic tax breaks that can boost your returns.

Mikah Sargent (00:17:23):
Even when the market dips, this is called tax loss harvesting, and they actually invented the software. You can also personalize your portfolio with a selection of funds, hand picked by Wealthfronts financial experts. Categories include social responsibility, clean energy, and even cryptocurrency. If you wanna play around with that wealth front is trusted with more than 27 billion in assets, helping nearly half a million people build their wealth and Investipedia just named them their best robo advisor for 2022. And if I look at the calendar, that's kind of amazing considering the year isn't even halfway over to start building your wealth and get your first $5,000 managed for free for life. Go to wealthfront.com/io S today that's w E a L T H F R O N t.com/ios today to start building your wealth again, head to wealthfront.com/ios today and get started today. Thank you to Wealthfront for sponsoring this week's episode of iOS today.

Mikah Sargent (00:18:28):
All right. The first app that I wanna mention is one that you have pro if you follow the network at all, chances are, you've heard of this app. It's called notion. Notion is a note taking sort of a note taking slash database building application. That is an incredible app for sort of building and managing your ideas and your information on a topic. There's this really cool concept that I think it was a German researcher who came up with this concept. I believe it's called Zal Caston and yes. And so Zal Caston is a system of notes taking and what's called personal knowledge management that was often used by folks in research and sort of study fields, but settle Caston can be applied to much more than just sort of research and study. You can use settle cast in this idea for all of your life.

Mikah Sargent (00:19:43):
And that is how I use notion. It is a place that holds and hoards my personal knowledge, because what we have come to understand about the human brain is that it is very good at processing. It is very good at problem solving and is very good at these sorts of, in the moment kind of thoughts and, and, and ideas. And of course conceptual understanding. But what it's not very good at is storage. And we often try to use our brains as storage devices in a way that is contrary to how our brains are meant to work. And so that is where, you know, this idea of, of settle Castin came in play where every day you have kind of an index file that has information that you've gained, and that it becomes very easy to find what you're looking for. As you're reading through books and taking quotes from things and finding new information, I'm a person I love trivia about all sorts of things.

Mikah Sargent (00:20:46):
I I'm the person that's like, you know, what's kind of wild, this, that, and the other, and love to tell people about new things that I've discovered sometimes against their desire to learn these new things. But I just can't help it. I get very excited. And so notion is a great place to kind of hoard your personal knowledge, but that also makes it a great place to keep information about your TT R P G, especially if you're playing a role playing game that involves a lot of role playing where you are kind of building your character over time, and you need to remember things about your character. What's your character's carrying what different tidbits you may have sprinkled about your character, that you then need to remember yourself. And so I have a dog and pony show notion page that has different information and links, which is very handy as well.

Mikah Sargent (00:21:43):
So there's my D and D beyond link to EOR, which is the character that I play as well as the role 20 link where we actually play the campaign role 20 is this online tabletop RPG sort of system where you can join with people wherever they happen to be, and be able to all see the game board or the, the maps or whatever. However it is that you're playing and be able to communicate with one another and do your roles, all that kind of stuff. It's, it's a very powerful service. And then the five E quick reference, which is this really cool guide that just has some basic basic layout of how the game works. But any of these that you tap on, it gives you more information. So sometimes whenever you're playing the game, something may come up where, oh, I'm crawling.

Mikah Sargent (00:22:38):
How does that change? My movement speed, or I'm doing a bonus action. That's a spell cast. Is there, are there any special rules about how I can, or can't cast a bonus spell, excuse me, bonus action spell. So that, that's a cool thing, and this is always stored here so that I can find it adventure notes. And then at one point my character had been granted a spell scroll called heroes feast. And so I wanted to make sure that I knew that that information was there. But you know, TPK dog and pony show is just one example of how I use the, the notion documents. And it's, it is a very powerful tool that it kind of is one of those where you get out, what you put into it. If you take the time to build things out, you will be kind of surprised, I think, and impressed at how much it can do storing texts and bookmarks having to-do lists in there as it's showing, if you are, you know, coding regularly, then it can be a great place to store code super flexible for moving things around.

Mikah Sargent (00:23:47):
And then there's also this sort of third party market that exists now where people have created notion documents for different things. And so I wouldn't be surprised if there is a notion template that is specific to D and D for sort of popping in all of your character's information. So you can be on the lookout for that, if you wanna sort of build your own or if you don't wanna build your own, rather, you just wanna kind of go and find it, but notion is available for free. It's free to download. There are in-app purchases that give you more features than the basics, but this is one of those systems where they they make their money off of the folks who are paying for corporate plans and things like that. And so there's a lot that's available just for free to be able to use.

Mikah Sargent (00:24:33):
And it's just a really good organization method methodology, and a really I found it to be, you know, sturdy <laugh> and steadfast. I've got a lot of stuff in there for for knitting and crocheting and you know, lots of different videos and PDFs and notes and everything, and it holds up just fine. And then recently, if you don't watch windows weekly, those of you who are watching iOS today recently they said that they had switched to notion and yeah, they used notion for the notes the show notes for windows weekly. We used to use it here on iOS today when Leo and I did the show together we used notion the problem is that the rest of the company uses Google sheets. And so I would end up having to transfer from notion to Google sheets after the show was over.

Mikah Sargent (00:25:28):
And that's just a lot of extra work that didn't need to happen. So we moved back to just stick into Google's stuff. But anyway, I had to give a shout out to notion because it does help me keep those things collected right there. Now this next one I, I wouldn't be surprised if you, when you saw this on the list, you were perhaps a little confused at first, or maybe you were like, oh, I know where he's going with this. It's Etsy. And the reason I wanna mention Etsy is because Etsy has lots of great stuff to improve upon your TT R PPG, whether it is in, in providing the accessories that you need to be able to play in person, for example, or if there are certain documents for the kind of role playing game that you play that, you know, you're looking for a really good version of a character sheet that works for you, or you just want to buy a little a little character mini that resembles the one that you make Etsy can be all of those things.

Mikah Sargent (00:26:40):
It has all of those things. I recently wanted to find a document cause I, for the, the game that I'm, that I'm DMing every other week a lot of the players are fairly new. And so what I was hoping to do was find a kind of one sheet guideline, or if it had to be, you know, a front and back kind of sheet guidelines that just give you the basics of, Hey, here's what you can do on any turn when you're in initiative order. And I found on Etsy, this really cool what they call new player cheat sheet that has information for the character or for the, for the players to be able to know, you know, what happens when you roll the dice what advantage and disadvantage means, the actions you can take, what all you can do on your turn.

Mikah Sargent (00:27:33):
And from there I was able to then look around and find some other documents that I wanted for myself to keep track of things for the character that I play regularly, EOR. But it's also a fun place to find things like dice. So if you do play if you do play in person or you play online, but you like to roll physical dice, you'll find lots of beautiful dice that you can buy and be able to use with with whatever it happens to be that you're playing. I am currently looking for a set that really encompasses my Dred character. And so I've got a bunch saved here that I'm kind of looking into to see what what feels most like Evo. I think you need to warn people that starting down, this is a dark path.

Mikah Sargent (00:28:27):
Once you start buying dice, you don't stop buying dice. That is a really good point because in fact that is, yes, that is exactly the case. I remember buying some chess X dice, and then suddenly it's like, oh, these are so fun and cool. And I just, oh no. Why are there three three boxes of dice coming to my house? But you can see on here too, that I've got some different sheets that are just downloadable sheets, so you buy them and then they give you a digital download like a DM screen insert that has kind of the basics so that you can quickly review and see, you know, what the different rules are this really funny shirt that says, guess I'll die. And it's got a person with a unfortunately a critical fail role on there.

Mikah Sargent (00:29:14):
And they're kind of shrugging like, well, I'm gonna fall boring. As well as something that I bought recently this is called the farmer's blessing. And this is a little package that you don't know what all is inside. It's just got a bunch of different goodies inside, including a full yes D set but also a couple of magic cards, stickers and a little bookmark charm as well, which I have here. So that was kind of a fun purchase where I didn't know what was gonna be inside when it came. And I got some Garnet too. And if you are a, Ooh, if you are a dungeon master and you're looking for some inspiration things like this can be helpful because the little cards that came in there that are actual, you know, magic items from the game you kind of can go, oh, you know, how can I work that in for my players to maybe come across something like that. So I think Etsy is a great place for inspiration, but also again, to help you out with what you are using someone in the chat, ask if I've ever used a dice tower. I have not personally, no. Have you, do, do you use dice tower at all?

Dan Moren (00:30:25):
I have a very nice one that was actually given to my wife and I as a wedding present that like that. Oh, I think it's from the wormwood

Mikah Sargent (00:30:33):
People. W

Dan Moren (00:30:34):
Y R M. Yeah. And it's really gorgeous, like this made of this really gorgeous wood it's magnetized. So like, it, it breaks down and then you can put it in like a little box to travel with it, and then when you wanna assemble it, it just like, it's got like little magnets in it, so it sticks together and you like rebuild it. But it's yeah, super cool. I, I haven't unfortunately had a lot of call for it during the pandemic, cuz I have not played in person D and D in several years now, but it was something I enjoyed back when I did use my physical dice more than I do now. Also I have physical dice going back at least 30 years probably <laugh> wow. You never, you never get rid of dice. Those dice are probably older than you Micah

Mikah Sargent (00:31:14):
<Laugh> they, they probably are. I, I will not confirm or deny. <Laugh> and then the last one that I will mention today is a pretty interesting app that I haven't been able to make a lot of use of because again the, the game that I'm DMing in the game that I play and both happen online. And so we use a service called role 20 and role 20 is just an online tabletop. But if I ever do play in person, I will definitely be using an app called and counter plus and counter plus is a really cool app that lets you be a DM in person. And it has a built in battle map that you use with airplay. So one of the things that folks might not know, and it's something that I hadn't realized way back when I first downloaded this game is that there are two types of, well, okay.

Mikah Sargent (00:32:14):
Pens will, will sort of argue here, but there are two basic types of airplay functionality that Apple provides to developers. One is simple airplay mirroring where if I have an iPhone and I swipe down to access control center and I tap on the little airplane mirroring icon, which is showing up there currently connected to E cam. That's why it's, it's highlighted. And I tap that it will show on whatever device that I have Apple TV or what have you, the exact mirror of my screen, but a developer can say, I don't want you to do direct airplay mirroring. Instead, I've got this view that when a person is airplane to this device, I want you to show, and that is what and counter plus will do. It will let you continue to do all of the stuff that you do in the app, but then have a battle map on screen.

Mikah Sargent (00:33:13):
And you can also have the characters on screen. On top of all of that, this will also have effects. So like rain, if you wanna show rain, if you wanna show fire and now we're showing it on screen. So you can kind of see this has encounters with turn order. It's lighting. Wow. It's got dynamic lighting. Yeah. This is a really neat app. So for folks who don't know dynamic lighting is think about if you were standing inside of a, a crypt and you walk in and you look around, obviously your eyes can only see a, what is lit up and B what is around you, if there's a wall between you and the next area of the crypt, you can't see through that wall, but a battle map doesn't sort of plan for that. When you have a battle map laid out, it shows the whole battle map in all of the different areas.

Mikah Sargent (00:34:04):
So dynamic lighting tries to fix that by keeping in mind the tokens line of sight, meaning what the character can and can't see, and will block out parts of the screen parts of the map that aren't visible to the character because of a wall that, or, you know, whatever other obstacle might be in the way there is also some cool animation built in. If you you know, cast a spell like this spell that has a ring of fire and everybody starts playing that song in their head. And then you can see that it's kind of rolling. And so it just adds some sort of dynamics to the game as you're playing, but you can use it to create different characters. So I've got a character here named thorn stone, heart, who is a dwarf fighter. It's very easy to then add those characters to the game.

Mikah Sargent (00:34:52):
You can create, I I'll go into the settings just so you can kind of see what's available here and we'll tap on help center because this has all sorts of stuff. Quick start. And so adding creatures to your combat, inserting your player characters that you have inserting a party from your campaign. So you can actually set up a campaign based on the different packs that you might have installed managing your campaign with the maps, with the encounters that you have. And so we can go back here and I'll tap done. And then this, the basic screen, like the first screen that you see is the the encounter screen, where you have your initiative order as you were going into a battle, but there's lots of different stuff in here. Here. You can see this campaign, the modules that are built into it.

Mikah Sargent (00:35:46):
These are ones that are available online. But what's cool. Is that on top of the ones that are built in and the ones that you can get from the encounter plus website encounter plus shows you how to create your own in the proper formatting so that you can import custom ones that can go along with your encounter plus campaign. So it is a very, very, very powerful app for, in person playing. And I will mention it is not just for, in person playing, because if you have a Mac you can download encounter plus for the Mac. And right now in beta, they do have a web server. So you could invite your friends to play over the internet using the web server. Of course, that's not for the faint of heart, cuz it ENVA involves port forwarding and all that kind of magic, but it is pretty cool that there's more to this than just that. If you do wanna play with friends who are not in person, but I just like the idea Dan of, of, you know, when you can play in person, you sit down, yeah, you've got an Apple TV with the television. You're able to pop that up so everybody can kind of visualize there. And you can tell your stories and how play your game.

Dan Moren (00:36:54):
I've seen some super clever hacks in previous years too, where people, if you've really got a great setup Mount like a projector, but facing a tape down facing on the table and it projects the map on the table. So you can use actual physical minis, but

Mikah Sargent (00:37:09):
Have math particular

Dan Moren (00:37:10):
That's cool table. That's so cool. I have never been able to do that. I don't have a good setup for that, but

Mikah Sargent (00:37:14):
I love Anthony write that down. <Laugh> <laugh> yeah, that's a, that's a cool idea. Hmm. Okay, cool. So that is encounter plus, and that brings us to the end of this part of iOS today. I think we'll take a quick break before we head into the news. I am super pumped to tell you about our next sponsor, who I tend to ramble on a lot about only because it's just so amazing. It's eight sleep good sleep is the ultimate game changer. I've said this a hundred times, I'll say it a hundred more. It is the ultimate game changer and it's nature's best medicine consistent, good sleep can help reduce the likelihood of serious health issues. It can decrease the risk of heart disease. It can lower blood pressure and yes, studies suggest that it could even reduce the risk of Alzheimer's yet still more than 30% of Americans alone struggle with sleep.

Mikah Sargent (00:38:14):
And it turns out that temperature is one of the main causes of poor sleep. And boy, howdy. Can I confirm that anecdotally? One of the things that has always been a struggle for me is I sleep so warm. I don't know why, but I sleep so warm. I, I mean, it's gross, but like I will wake up and be in a swamp practically because of how warm I sleep. I've hated it. I don't like it. And the it's it's compounded by the fact that I can't sleep unless there's a cover over my body. So some people will be like, oh, just take off the cover or just stick your legs out from underneath. No, I have to have covers on me, but I also just get so warm and Ugh, it, it in the past was a huge issue and that is why I'm so happy with my eight sleep pod pro cover because I can fall asleep in record time, faster than I ever have before.

Mikah Sargent (00:39:08):
And I can stay asleep and not have to worry about waking up in a swamp. All thanks to the eight sleep pod pro cover the pod pro cover by eight sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for what's called Thermo regulation, which the context clues would suggest that that means regulating the temperature of your body. It pairs dynamic, cooling and heating with biometric tracking. You can add the cover to any mattress and start sleeping as cool as 55 degrees Fahrenheit, or as hot as 110 degrees Fahrenheit. I like to sleep cool. Some people like to fall asleep in a warmer bed, and then once they go to sleep the temperature cools down, the temperature of the cover will adjust each side of the bed. So it's not just one whole mattress. It's each side of the bed based on your sleep stages, your biometrics, the bedroom temperature, and it reacts intelligently to create the optimal sleeping environment.

Mikah Sargent (00:39:59):
That's one of the coolest things is this feature called autopilot that will sort of understand not only the rooms environ, the rooms temperature and your sleep stages and how they change based on that temperature. But it will also look at your habits. If you get in bed and you keep changing the temperature to make it warmer or cooler, then autopilot will be like, okay, this person really wants it to be warmer or cooler starting off. We'll make some changes that make it easier for you. So it's constantly kind of trying to make sure that you're getting your best sleep possible. That you're as comfortable as possible with that. Here is the result that happens. Eight sleep users fall asleep up to 32% faster. They reduce sleep interruptions by 40%. That's, you know, waking up in the middle of the night in my case, cuz I'm in, in a swamp and they get overall more restful sleep with 30% more deep sleep.

Mikah Sargent (00:40:53):
This is huge. Deep sleep is one of the most important things that can happen for your body. And as we age, the amount of deep sleep we get actually decreases and deep sleep is like hopping into one of those, those I don't know, star Trek pods, and having your body kind of be rejuvenated, deep sleep is that rejuvenating stage of sleep. It is, it is the time when your body repairs itself, your brain does the recycling that it needs to do and your whole body is working to kind of fix your body and, and make it, make it ready for the next day. So as we age in that area of, of sleep decreases, then that's where that impact comes in and it starts to affect us. And so you, you, you have to get deep sleep and this can help you get more deep sleep.

Mikah Sargent (00:41:44):
I can be confident that my mind and body are moving through the restorative sleep stages that are vital for physical recovery, for hormone regulation, for mental clarity, when you're powered by your aid sleep like I am, then that means you can show up as your best partner, the best partner, the best parent and or the best version of yourself. Again, just going from doing everything else, right? Making sure that the room was cool, making sure that I, you know, didn't have caffeine right before bedtime, all of these things. I I'm a huge sleep nerd. I had a a subscription to the journal sleep <laugh> because I love sleep science. And I, you know, did all of this research for a podcast that I did on sleep science and dreams and, you know, carried that research on understanding all that. And yet I still was having this issue with, with being so hot at night.

Mikah Sargent (00:42:37):
And so now with this, it's just made such an improvement. I wouldn't trade my eight sleep pod broke ever for anything. So don't ask you can go to eight sleep.com/ios for exclusive. We've got right now Memorial day savings through June 6th. Cool. Down this summer with eight sleep now, shipping within the USA, Canada and the UK. If you're listening after June 6th, use the same URL, eight sleep.com/ios to check out the pod pro cover and save $150 at checkout, seriously life changing technology magnificent. And I, I dunno, I, I don't like seriously, one of the best things that I've, I've ever gotten eight sleeps pod pro cover. Thank you, eight sleep for sponsoring this week's episode of iOS today. Let's head back into the show to talk about some news up first Dan, the new versions of iOS and tvOS watch OS home podcast, they're all out and available, which is kind of interesting because the release candidates were just released not too long ago. Yep. Yeah. It's kinda surprising.

Dan Moren (00:43:48):
Yeah, but I mean, we knew this was coming and we knew that it would come before WWC came around, obviously. So this means it's probably the last sort of major release that we'll see for iOS 15, you know, I'm sure there will continue to be some minor updates for security stuff, but probably the last big one that's got like new features in it.

Mikah Sargent (00:44:09):
Yes. this one has a, a few new features there aren't a whole lot of fun changes, wallets now enables Apple cash customers to send in request money from their Apple cash card. You, Apple podcasts has a new setting to limit episode store in your iPhone. So after an episode gets old based on, you know, when you've downloaded it, then it'll, you could have it kind of go away. And it will also only keep so many episodes at a time on your phone. And then there were some issues with home automations, not working based on location awareness, and those have been changed as well. Ios 15.5 also supports apps that have external purchase mechanisms. So this was a big one for the antitrust concerns. Apple has kind of been going through the process of, of making all of this technology work as different regulating bodies wanted to, so apps can offer apps can sort of have two versions of the app.

Mikah Sargent (00:45:14):
There's one that has internal purchasing mechanisms and one that has external purchasing mechanisms. And you'll get a little notification that pops up and we're showing it here on screen. So if you're listening, it says external purchases from this app may still exist. You cannot manage or cancel any external purchases through the app store for more information, contact the developer. And so then you're able to pop out and use that. And oh, iTunes pass <laugh> was at one point the name for the the, the, the, the balance that you had on your quote iTunes account. And so people could keep an account for buying apps and, and different music and movies and things like that from what was once called iTunes. They've now changed that to call it just Apple account. And so it's got the Apple icon and then it says account afterward. So you'll be able to do that. And I think that is, there's not a whole lot of external changes. One of the big, yeah. One of the big things that happened here is that they fixed a lot of different bugs and security concerns that were part of Macko S in particular and iOS as well.

Dan Moren (00:46:33):
Yeah. So we expect to see those. I mean, as we usually see in these minor updates, that lots of little, little things to make everything safer, and a lot of times these will come to older versions of operating systems as well. I think there's also a note that they have expanded their communication safety feature, which is something that was kind of a big deal when they started talking about it last year, and now it's available outside the us as well in some other countries. So I think that's in 15.5 as well. But yeah, otherwise it's a fairly, fairly minor update as they sort of clear the decks before. I think they get ready to move on to iOS 16.

Mikah Sargent (00:47:09):
Yes. definitely. And there, I, I saw a, a story fly by this morning that suggested that I S 16 may sometimes when Apple announces a new operating system at WWDC it can be fun and, and also a little frightening to download the beta to your phone and check it out after they've announced it. There's some stuff suggesting that iOS 16 might be one that you'll wanna wait a little bit for it to cook before you decide to be a beta tester for, for this version. So that'll be interesting to see what's, what's going on there. I'm looking forward to WWDC. The next one I wanted to mention is it, it goes along with kind of what we were talking about. There's a new update to developers for subscriptions in the app store. And you may be familiar with the fact that you, there are apps, a lot of apps these days where you pay a monthly or yearly subscription are kind of the most common ones where every month they deduct 2 99 from your account.

Mikah Sargent (00:48:17):
And in return, you get a calendar that does a whole lot more than just sort of the basic features that you get when you download it. Those are automatically renewable subscriptions, meaning that the subscriptions every month continue to charge you and you get to keep those subscriptions. And then I, as a subscriber can go in at any time and cancel the subscription. And that will let me use it for as much as I've paid for. And then stop at that point. Apple has made a change that allows for subscription management canceling and more. And I'm gonna read a little bit of this just because I think that it will more clearly explain what's going on. Currently when an auto renewable subscription prices increase. So when that calendar app starts Chu choosing no charging 4 99, instead of 2 99, subscribers must opt in before the price increases applied.

Mikah Sargent (00:49:15):
So I have to go in and say, I'm okay with paying 4 99 instead of 2 99, the subscription doesn't renew at the next billing period for subscribers who didn't opt into the new price. This has led to some services being unintentionally interrupted for users, and they must take steps to resubscribe within the app from settings on iPhone and iPad or in the app store on Mac. So say, I am okay with doing that right now. If I opted out or didn't see that notification pop up, then I would have to go through the whole process again, of resubscribing, which can be hard and confusing because that prompt isn't coming up as it was that first time that it came through with this new update under certain specific conditions. And with advanced user notice, developers may also offer an auto, renewable subscription price increase without the user needing to take action and without interrupting the service.

Mikah Sargent (00:50:08):
So that means that you can increase the price and they can continue to pay and not have their service interrupted. Here are the specific conditions for this feature. The price increase doesn't occur more than once per year. So that calendar app needs to if it wants to go from 2 99 to 4 99, it can do that in 2022, but it can't do that again until May 18th, 2023. It doesn't exceed $5. So 4 99 is okay. And 50% of the subscription price. Okay. So 2 99 to 4 99 is too much a or us $50 and 50% for an annual subscription price. So if the calendar app charged say 50 bucks a year, and it wanted to go to 99 bucks a year then you know that, yes, I think that math makes sense 50. No, it would have to be 25, cuz it can't be more than 50%.

Mikah Sargent (00:51:04):
So to $75 a year, then it would be able to do that. And is of course permissible by local law. In these situations, Apple always notifies users of an increase in advance, including via email push notification and a message within the app. Apple will also notify users of how to view manage and cancel subscriptions. If preferred for all subscription price increases that are above the thresholds, they exceed the annual limit or they occur within territories. Or the law requires that subscribers must opt in before the price increases applied. So some developers in certain cases will be able to allow your subscription to continue on, but in any case, don't worry, you will be notified by Apple potentially in three different places in the app itself via iOS and also via email to make sure that, you know, what's going on there. So I think those are it, it with all of those sort of things in mind, it feels very edge Casey. But at the same time, I imagine there are a lot of developers who wanna add 50 cents, you know, to their monthly sales,

Dan Moren (00:52:03):
Right? I mean, this is a big benefit for developers. I can see why they're excited about it. I mean, certainly as consumers, we've all seen lots of price increases everywhere in life recently. So I mean, it's, it's something that we've kind of gotten used to even as much as we might dislike it, but developers, you know, oftentimes people making a living from their apps, they need to raise their costs, cuz costs are going up for them. So being able to do that more easily without just like, Hey, a slew of my customers, didn't see that notification and didn't opt in, which means I just lost like a huge percentage of my business. And, and as you, you know, as Apple lays out here, this is often unintentional. Like people would keep paying or would keep subscribing to the service. They just missed a notification. And so this makes it more of an opt out than an opt in.

Dan Moren (00:52:49):
I can see why some people find that, you know, annoying, but as you delineated, there's all these caveats and, and specific cases in which it happens and things that are restrictions. So it's not like somebody can suddenly Jack the price from, you know, oh, I got this app for a dollar and all of a sudden it's charging me $20 a month. Right. You know, that, that just won't fly. So I think it's smart. They seem to have handled it well, I'll be interested to see how it actually happens in purchase. But I think you're right, that this will tend to be something that's much more of an edge case than people were. It's like, oh, I'm constantly getting apps and then having my prices go up.

Mikah Sargent (00:53:22):
Yep. Yes, exactly. Alright. One more bit of news here that I wanna tell you about. And this is a really cool set of, of features that are coming to iOS soon. Apple is gonna ahead and previewed some accessibility features that are coming for later this year, they say that will help users with disabilities navigate access their health information, communicate and more so one of the things that Apple is introducing is called door detection. And this is for people with lower, no vision. It is a navigation feature for users who of course have lower, no vision. It can help someone locate a door upon arriving at a new destination. It can help them understand how far, they are from it. And then describe the door attributes. So it will help them know if the door is open or closed when it's closed, whether it can be opened by pushing, turning a knob or pulling a handle.

Mikah Sargent (00:54:19):
It can also read signs and symbols around the door, like the room number at an office or the presence of an accessible entrance symbol. And it uses the way that they do this is using LIDAR, the built in camera and of course on device machine learning. So that way you know, you're not having to wait for the online system to be able to actually use this feature. It'll happen right there on device. And Apple says it's gonna be available for iPhone and iPad models that have the LIDAR scanner. So if you look at your phone and you have a little black dot, or if you look at your iPad and you have a little black dot, then you've got the built in LIDAR scanner that will be able to be used with this. It says door detection will be available in a new detection mode within magnifier magnifi is of course Apple's tool that helps magnify things in real life and on the screen.

Mikah Sargent (00:55:12):
And it will join people, detection and image descriptions that all can be used alone or simultaneously in detection mode. So that way you've got all of those tools working together to help you figure things out. And it says, in addition to navigation tools within magnifi Apple maps will offer sound and haptics feedback for voiceover users to identify the starting point for walking directions. So just a little bit more input on the, the directions that you have. They're also advancing physical and motor accessibility for the Apple watch. It says Apple watch becomes more accessible than ever for people with physical and motor disabilities with what's called Apple, watch mirroring this, lets people use their iPhone. That's paired to the Apple watch and actually be able to control the Apple watch with that. It says with Apple watch mirroring users can control Apple watch using the iPhones, assistive features like voice control and switch control and use inputs, including voice commands, sound actions, head tracking, or external made for iPhone switches as alternatives to just tapping the Apple watch display.

Mikah Sargent (00:56:17):
So here you've got a system or a situation where the iPhone has a lot more external accessibility tools that develop or that folks can use, whereas the Apple watch does not. And so being able to use the iPhone and the tools that you have available there with your Apple watch means being able to access this information even better. It uses hardware and software integration to be able to mirror here like airplay. So that, that way you're able to not only see or read or intake the information that's on the Apple watch, but be able to control it as well. And now they're also adding some different hand gestures to control Apple watch, quick actions on Apple. Watch include a double pinch gesture that can answer end a phone call, dismiss a notification, take a photo, play, pause media, and then now playing app and start, pause or resume a workout.

Mikah Sargent (00:57:09):
And that of course is more with the assistive touch controls that lets you use the Apple watch with gestures like a pinch or a clench that don't even require you to tap the display. Instead it basically looks at the tendons inside of your wrist and uses that information to determine what your hands are doing, what your fingers are doing, then a feature I'm very excited about Dan. Yeah, because I don't know about you, but I'm a person who has captions turned on for everything my screen always has captions on. And so I'm excited to have this join the iPhone. This is something that Google has been doing for a long time that needs to come to iOS. And I'm so glad it is live. Captions are coming to the iPhone, the iPad and the Mac. It says users can follow along more easily with any audio content.

Mikah Sargent (00:57:57):
Even if they're on a phone or FaceTime call using video conferencing or social media apps, streaming media content, or having a conversation with someone next to them, they can adjust the font size for ease of reading and live captions and FaceTime attribute auto transcribed dialogue to call participants. So that way group video calls become even more convenient for users with hearing disabilities. What does that mean? It means that if you're on a group FaceTime call with three or four people, it will go ahead and say, you know, I'm transcribing this person and this is what they're saying. And then when it switches to another person, it'll say what they're saying, as opposed to just sort of showing you a wall of text and these live captions are generated on device, Dan, ah, that's fantastic.

Dan Moren (00:58:39):
This, this is excellent. I mean, as somebody who has two parents who are a little bit on the older side and both have some hearing impairment issues, being able to do that and have a FaceTime call with them is huge or being able for them to like talk to anybody else and basically be able to understand more easily what they're saying. We used to have, you know, big zoom conversations during the early pandemic with our whole family. And we have well over 20 people in our sort of close family group. And they all like to talk a lot <laugh> so it gets very muddled and they're talking over each other and it's hard to suss out what's going on and they would smile and nod and you know, that's tough. So being able to have that available for everybody with hearing impairments is huge. I mean, this is technology that Apple's had for a long time in various other places.

Dan Moren (00:59:20):
I actually felt the weirdest place they had that you remember the, the app clips. I say, you remember, mm-hmm, <affirmative>, it's still around, but it's just not maybe one of the most popular things, but it had a live captioning feature. You could, you could like film yourself and it could generate captions on the fly Siri obviously, right. And dictation, it knows how to parse people talking. So being able to sort of get that working in such a way that it can work for not only video chats, but basically anything on the system is I think potentially huge. I'm really interested to see how well it works. I think that could be just a real big game changer.

Mikah Sargent (00:59:52):
I agree. I agree. And then there was one more that I wanted to mention, cause I think this is very cool. There's a feature called buddy controller. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> this is so that you can ask a care provider or a friend or a family member, whomever for help playing a game. So if you are playing a game with a game controller, this will combine any two game controllers into one so that multiple players can drive the input of a single player. I love this feature because it, of course is fantastic in situations where someone might need assistance due to a disability. It's also, I, I think of you know, my, my niece, who's very young right now and can't really play at all, but at a point where she would be able to play, but maybe she would find it incredibly frustrating to play a racing game or something like that for one of us to also be connected and help her play along play along with it would be very cool. And then there are a few other

Dan Moren (01:00:47):
Mentioned that there's a really good one in there. There's an improvement to the sound recognition feature, which came out a couple years ago where it can tell if you like it can hear doorbells and dogs barking and babies crying and that kind of thing. And, and give you a popup alert to tell you it's heard it and it's detected this noise. I, if you're in a case where you may not have heard it, but it can now in iOS, presumably 16, it will be able, you can like train it to a specific noise. So if you wanna train it to just hear your doorbell, you'll be able to tell it like, this is what my doorbell sounds like, which is good, cuz it means reducing false positives. And in other cases where it hears something and thinks, oh, that might have been a doorbell and it's sort taken a guess at it.

Dan Moren (01:01:26):
Cause I had turned this feature on for a while thinking, oh, this could be really useful if like my laundry, you know, goes off and I can't hear it. Or my doorbell rings and I'm upstairs on a podcast and I don't know. And I would just got and ran into too many cases with false positives where it would hear something and think, oh, that's a doorbell or an appliance buzzing. And it just would, it would mistaken me alert me when it wasn't anything at all. So I thought that's a cool, cool upgrade.

Mikah Sargent (01:01:53):
Yeah, absolutely. Well worth checking out. All right. We are going to head into the feedback segment of the show momentarily, but we'll take a quick break so I can tell you about our sponsor trade coffee, trade coffee. I gotta tell you I'm a big coffee nerd, a big coffee drinker and a bit of a SNO <laugh> when it comes to coffee. And I definitely love being able to make my own coffee. And that is where trade comes in because trade helps you try out all sorts of new coffee without having to you know, go to all of these different places all around the us and be able to grab this coffee. Trade has this great process where you go in and you take a quiz and it kind of figures out your taste profile, figures out what you like.

Mikah Sargent (01:02:49):
And don't like, and then suggests coffee to you and sends it your way to be able to try it out. So if you at all like coffee and you want an opportunity to try a bunch of different kinds, this is a great way to do it. Trade also has what's called a first match guarantee. They're so confident that they're gonna match you right the first time that if they don't, they'll take your feedback and get this an actual coffee expert will work with you to send a brand new bag for free. There's no one perfect coffee, but there is a perfect coffee for you. And trade's human powered algorithm will find it. You know, I had to say, I almost wish the trade wasn't so good at what they did because then I would've gotten to talk to a coffee expert, but they, they had me figured out just from the quiz.

Mikah Sargent (01:03:33):
I am shaking a bag right now of coffee from cafe Vita. This is I'm obsessed with this one right now. This is an organic French roast. So it's a really nice deep dark roast. And it is organic, which is awesome. With tasting notes of cocoa, maple syrup and nutmeg, this is from Seattle Washington and it has this kind of cool imp thing on it. I'm not sure exactly what it is but my God, it smells amazing. It has this beautiful, beautiful CMA that for that forms on top, whenever you are brewing the coffee and it is now one of my favorites absolutely one of my favorites I have to say too. I got a coffee recently from a company called drink, coffee, do stuff. And in my trade bag, there was a sticker. They actually included a sticker.

Mikah Sargent (01:04:26):
I really like the branding for drink coffee, do stuff. I liked the coffee that they sent me as well. I, you know, I brought up this bag, but I've got drink coffee, do stuff's coffee as well. And it is it's a lighter roast than this French roast, but still so much, so much flavor packed into that. I tend to like darker roasts a, because it has less caffeine B because it's less of a, an issue with, with Stu with your stomach. But C because it also is there are lots of, of deeper flavors that I like more so than those kind of light notes that you get from some lighter roasts in any case, whether you know, all the different terminology and, and, you know, you're, you're sort of trying to sort out the difference between all of those or not trade is gonna help you find coffee that you will like trade customers are truly impactful for these independent roasters.

Mikah Sargent (01:05:22):
So I get to feel good about helping out these independent roasters that are out there often being the largest source of new growth for them. Trade coffee sends you freshly roasted beans from 60 of the country's best craft roasters. Those are small businesses who pay farmers fair prices to sustainably source the greatest beans from around the world. Whether your friends call you a coffee snob like they do me, or you just know it when coffee tastes really perfect trades, real coffee experts, personally, taste tests more than 450 roasts. So they know exactly what to recommend for you, cuz the truth is what I like and what you like could be totally different. I understand that you will like a selection of specific coffees that are different from anyone else's taste. Just answer a couple of questions. It's not a super long quiz or anything like that.

Mikah Sargent (01:06:06):
And you'll get your own personalized variety of coffees delivered fresh to you as often as you like, and you don't have to worry about gimmicks or anything like that, they make it very easy to change your subscription. Cancel your subscription if you want to. I think you'll probably keep it. Cuz you'll get to have these new coffees all the time. You go to the mailbox and there's just this rush of delicious coffee. Trade delivers a bag of freshly roasted coffee as whole beans. Or you can get it ground. I recommend against that, but if you don't have a grinder at home, I understand you can get it ground and you can get it ground based on how you brew your coffee at home. Cuz yes, there are different ways to grind coffee based on how you're brewing it. Trade has delivered more than 5 million bags of fresh coffee.

Mikah Sargent (01:06:48):
Most of those to me with more than 750,000 positive reviews right now trade is offering new subscribers you out there, a total of $30 off your first order plus free shipping. When you go to drink trade.com/ios today that's more than 40 cups of coffee for free. Get started by taking their quiz at drink, trade.com/ios today and let trade find you a coffee. You'll love. That's drink trade.com/ios today for $30 off. Thank you. Trade for sponsoring this week's episode of iOS today. All right, we are back from the break and it's time to head into feedback and questions. The first question comes from Burke. Burke writes in and it's not Burke that works at TWiT. This is a different Burke. Since Roku has has support for the home pod. Does that mean I get, if I get a home pod, I can control my hue lights with my Roku.

Mikah Sargent (01:07:42):
I would use the Apple TV, but I can't use the remote because I have had issues with that remote. I can't use it. I have cerebral palsy and I'm not always in my wheelchair with my iPad. So what Burke is actually talking about here is that Roku added support for airplay and home kit. What that does is it lets the Roku television or in this case, the, the, the little box or streaming stick serve as a media device within home kit and then also serve as an audio or video streaming device with airplay airplay two in particular. And so what Berk is wondering is if on the Roku be, would be able to control hu lights by talking to the Roku. As far as I know, I did some digging and looked into this. And as far as I know, this is not a, a bit of functionality that's built into Roku.

Mikah Sargent (01:08:43):
If you were using Roku, what it does with airplay two and home kit is it is, it is not talking so much to those devices as it is giving the ability for those devices to talk to it, if that makes sense. So it joins the other home kit lights or, or devices that you have in your home, in your Apple home kit set up. But it is not as if that then becomes a device that you can use to control everything else with however, Burke, if you have a home pod in the room, then you will be able to talk to it using Siri. So you can control your few lights using Siri on the home pod. And so I think that that is kind of the big thing. There is you, aren't going to have an app suddenly on your Roku that will let you, you know, toggle on and off the lights in the house.

Mikah Sargent (01:09:38):
But one thing that you might look into is if there is a developer who has created an app for the Roku that has hu light control on it, because hu has a pretty open API we, we don't need to go into super details, but basically hu has a very open method by which other devices can control your hu lights. So you may look into that to see if there's a Roku app out there that lets you control your, he lights. If you're wanting to do it with, you know, physical controlling versus using your voice. So Burke, I hope that answers your question. Of course, feel free to write in if you have some other questions or some follow up on those this next one comes from mark. Mark writes in, hi, I have an annoying issue right now.

Mikah Sargent (01:10:27):
When I clear a message from the notifications, I then have to go to the app and delete the same message again. How can I delete a notification and the actual message at the same time, this would save me hours. So I, I was reading this one, Dan and I made me think that maybe what mark is talking about here is mark will get a notification from their email app. Okay. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and it pops up and says this is bed bath and more, and I've got a 50% off coupon for you to buy three beds and one bath. And so you get that notification and you swipe it away. Then you have to go into your email application and also delete the email there. Yeah. My advice I think would be to when the notification pops up, tap and hold on the notification, and then there should be depending on what app you're using, some different options that pop up that give you the ability to then archive reply and delete the message upon tapping on that. It will then make the notification go away and it should also make the email that's connected to that notification go away as well, whether you choose to use archive for delete. But I think mark, we need some more detail on what app you're using in particular. That would give me the ability to be able to give you some advice on it might

Dan Moren (01:11:54):
Depend on what kind of message is too, right. I mean, another option would be in cases where the app might allow a more fine green control of what things you get notifications for. So for example, if you were using, say mail on iOS, you can set it to give you, you know, turn off notifications or only get notifications for certain people or contacts, which might help reduce the number of notifications you get so that you're not feeling as inundated.

Mikah Sargent (01:12:20):
Nice. yeah, I think be between those bits of advice, hopefully that'll help you mark, but again like Burke write in with more details, if you are still struggling with that and we should be able to help you. This last bit of feedback is indeed feedback. This comes from George and George is writing it in response to a question that we had been asked earlier. All right. It says you had a question about transferring photos into a file maker pro database on a windows computer first transferring photos to a windows system, whether by USB or iCloud, this should arrive in a compatible format. As long as the settings for photos is set to automatic. Another option is file is in file maker, go onto the iOS device. Now, most people don't have the ability to easily share their file maker pro database.

Mikah Sargent (01:13:14):
It is not too difficult, but it's a little technical. The alternative is to share the database via a cloud drive accessible by iOS and windows. So that could be iCloud drive, which of course has a a windows version. It could be Dropbox, it could be Google drive. It could be one drive. You can open the database on the iOS device and add photos from the library or use the camera. The only hurdle here is that file maker go can only access files via network or directly on the device. This means copying in the file maker onto the iOS device, and then sending them back to the cloud drive after entering them. It's a mild pain in the butt, but it's workable be sure to close files before switching from the computer to iOS or else the file can become corrupted file maker has not accommodated this option because they don't feel it is safe due to that corruption issue, but they could find a solution if they were inclined.

Mikah Sargent (01:14:10):
That's just my soapbox love file maker. And don't like, self-imposed limitations. Totally understandable, George. But this is good advice for the listener who had called in asking for help with their believe it was their mother's file maker database, because the listener was having to do the image translation for them before the mom was able to then update it into the, the file maker database. So hopefully that will give some advice to the person who was listening to that. And with that, we have reached the end of the feedback in question segments, which means it's time for up caps. This is the part of the show where we wear caps a top hour head to honor our app or gadget picks of the week. These are apps or gadgets we are using that we want to share with all of you. They may be ones we've had for a long time and ones we've just come across, but we're excited to talk about. And so with that, let us begin our app caps. Dan, tell us about the cap at top of your head and then tell us about your pick.

Dan Moren (01:15:25):
Well, this cap is vintage Micah. I wanna say it's from 1990 or so this is from a trip. I took with my parents to Disney world in Florida as a 10 year old <laugh> and I don't know why I still have it or why it still fits. I think maybe my mom actually bought it for herself and then passed down to me. But it's been, been gathering some dust in there. So it's not your traditional mouse app, but it's got some mouse, nice speaky mouse ears there. That's pretty good. Yeah, very styles, very, very fashionable. As for my app, I picked an app that is a big favorite of mine. I was just using recently while I was on vacation. This app is called Merlin. And what Merlin is, is if you've ever been out and about, say on a walk in the woods and you think to yourself, it's a

Mikah Sargent (01:16:10):
Bird.

Dan Moren (01:16:11):
Hey, what kind of bird is that? Well, Merlin is the app for you because Merlin can figure out what kind of bird you're looking at. And it offers several different ways to do this. One of which is you can sort of put in answer a little quick questionnaire, like how big was it? What colors was it? Where did you see it? What was it doing? And it'll try to put together an idea of what, like here's a list of birds that meet sort of those criteria, which is pretty cool. However, what's even cooler than that is it can also identify birds by their bird songs and bird calls. So you basically hit a little button and it starts recording and it like listens and they can identify what birds you may be hearing. Wow. And they can identify multiple birds. So if there's multiple birds sort of like cheapen or tweeting at a time, it will actually say, oh, this one.

Dan Moren (01:16:51):
And it'll even highlight them as they, as they make noise. So like, if you've got like a blue Jay and say a Crow as the Crow like does its little Crow noises, it'll like light up or as the blue Jay makes noises it'll light up. So it's really cool. And then there's also a photo ID mode where you can actually snap a picture of it and it will try to figure out what bird that is. So I love this. You can save birds to your list. So that way, you know, like all the birds you've ever seen, you can track like, whoa, this is where I saw it on what date at what time all this is backed. I, I have to put in a plug, all this is backed by this extensive library of bird information from Cornell university, which is my Alma mater which has just this really great library full of all this fantastic orthological stuff.

Dan Moren (01:17:36):
So I'm, I'm a big fan of this app. It works great. It's just, and it, for me during the pandemic, we started like taking more walks and stuff like that. And we got kind of into this and I think it's just, it was so rewarding rather than just sort of staring and being like, ah, maybe I'll look that bird up when I get home and see if I can figure out what it was <laugh> instead being able to look it up on the spot was great. Cuz you actually knew what you're saying. You could read a little about it. Hear are the bird songs. It's great. It's a fantastic app and it's free.

Mikah Sargent (01:18:02):
Okay. That's awesome. Yeah. Everybody should download that. There, there was actually just yesterday, this, this horrible, horrible sound coming from outside of my window and I thought, is, are those cats, is that cats fighting? Or doing other things that cats do? Because that's what it sounded like. And I, you know, walked out to the to the balcony and looked over and there were no cats down there. And then I realized it was coming from the tree and then suddenly this bird flew away and I thought I've never heard a bird make that sound before <laugh> so I wish I had Merlin bird at the time. Figure out what the was going on. Could you could have could have known a last, but now I will know. Now I will have Merlin bird. I will definitely get that. And like you said, it's available for free.

Mikah Sargent (01:18:47):
That's so cool. Yeah, that's great. Today. I am wearing yet again, I have worn this once before, but it was so appropriate. It's my D and D hat, obviously for talking about tabletop gaming. I gotta wear this top of my head to honor my app cap and my app cap this week is a game called clicker cats. Clicker cats is an idle RPG. That means that as you might imagine, idle, it can sort of run and do its thing in the background. The whole sort of concept of this game is that you play a bunch of different battling cats, these cats that go out and, and you know fight evil and work to adventure and explore they are, they come back to their Tavern and they want to kind of relax. So your job is to build up their Tavern and make it look nice.

Mikah Sargent (01:19:42):
And boy, I've gotta tell you when I first got this game, this Tavern was ton up. It was the floor had holes in it. The, the wall had more than just that bit of brick. I can't wait to fix that, that door. Oh, I hate that door. It's gonna be replaced. I promise. There were no tables. The stools were all broken and battered battered. But over time as my adventures have gone out and it is provided coin for me to be able to fix up their Tavern. So right now you can see that I just sent my five adventures out on the second campaigns and I can open up the rewards that they got from those campaigns. Now this is a game that's free to download. It has in app purchases. So it does have some free to play mechanics. But what I like about clicker cats is that it lets you pay 4 99 1 time to basically turn those free, to play mechanics into something that is just available for, to use.

Mikah Sargent (01:20:40):
So you can see down here, it says, watch, add to double prizes because I paid the 4 99. Then I can just tap on that and not have to watch any ads, not have to do any of that. So it's like paying 4 99 for a game, as opposed to having to see ads and watch those stupid videos that pop up there. And then it also will work for the furniture. So see, watch ad to get extra furniture. I just tap on that and it happens automatically. And then here, I've got another nice stool. Some of my characters have leveled up and I will rate later. And then I I'm gonna grab these just so that I can show you what it looks like when you actually send your clicker cats out onto campaign, because you can you can interact if you want to, to make things go faster.

Mikah Sargent (01:21:25):
But again, this is an idle, Ooh, I've got stairs now. That's exciting. <Laugh> but this is an idle game that lets you be able to just go out and battle. So I will choose a place to go. I think I'm gonna go into the caves and I'm gonna choose an 18 minute battle that requires two heroes. So I choose the two heroes that I want and each of these heroes has different different perks. So by using kit, I get plus 10% coins for Isabella, I get five extra taps, which I will talk about in a second. For Robin plus 5% coins in chest Benjamin is each tap removes an extra 0.1 seconds and Olivia gets plus 10% experience from the chest. So I'm gonna add Olivia and I'm going to add Benjamin, and then I tap done and now they're on their quest.

Mikah Sargent (01:22:17):
You can see that right now they are firing and or casting spells at this blue creature. And up at the top is how long this campaign has to go before they're done with this adventure below is a little bolt icon and that is equivalent to taps. At any time I can speed up the time that they are on this adventure by tapping on the screen on that bad guy. I can also do double tap. So here I've got two fingers that I'm sort of rocking back and forth on the screen to tap these two characters at the same time. And you'll notice that that bottom blue bar is going down, but at the same time, it's also subtracting 1.2 seconds from the adventure overall. Now I could continue to tap on this to, again, speed this up or let this run in the background for 14 minutes and go ahead and choose a new quest also in the caves.

Mikah Sargent (01:23:12):
And we'll do one for 21 minutes with my other three heroes. So I will add Robin, I will add Isabella and I will add kits to this and then tap done. And now they are on their own quest defeating these battles. And if I go back to the Tavern you'll also see that I've got some pets here by getting pets. They also give you special things. So this is 2% less time on quests. And this one adds 0.1 second, or rather remove 0.1 seconds for the tap. So between that pet and the one, a adventurer that does that as well, that's subtracting an extra 0.2 seconds from each of those. The whole point then is to use what you've gained. So 7,196 coins and 22 emeralds in the inventory, or excuse me, no, not in the inventory in the shop to get different items for your room or by going out on adventures.

Mikah Sargent (01:24:14):
It also will let you do that. Now. There are still some things that off are offered for purchase. So for $10, which again, don't, you don't need to do that. You can buy the kitchen pack that will let you create this room as a kitchen. You can also add extra space to your Tavern so that there's more room to create. But of course it starts just in this basic area. And this is just a fun game. That, again, it's, it's nice that it just can kind of run in the background, but if you're real bored or you're, maybe you're, you know, you're streaming some shows and you just sort of wanna have your fingers doing something, which for me is a very nice feature of this then clicker cats is great for that. Again, available in the app store for free the 4 99 in-app purchase will let you kind of circumvent most of the free to play mechanics, and then you get to just play it and have fun gathering some cool stuff for your little Tavern for your cats when they are back home after going out for a long adventure and it felt appropriate for today's mm-hmm <affirmative> today's show.

Mikah Sargent (01:25:21):
So folks thank you for tuning in. If you have questions feedback, concerns, games of your own that you think we should check out or absolutely should check out questions for Dan that I can forward to him, send those to iOS today. Twit TV iOS today records live every Tuesday at 12:00 PM Eastern, which is 9:00 AM Pacific. So you can tune in live to watch us record the show at TWiT.tv/live. But we think the best way to get the show is by subscribing to the show which you can do by going to TWiT.tv/ios. When you go there then you are able to subscribe to the show on audio or video format by clicking subscribe to audio or subscribe to video. And then there will be an option for you to subscribe across all the different places that we are, Apple podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, all those places.

Mikah Sargent (01:26:09):
This is the time where I mentioned club TWI for seven bucks a month. You head to TWI TV slash club TWI, and you can sign up to be a supporter of TWI by joining the club, you get ad free versions of all of our shows. You get access to the TWiT plus bonus feed that has extra content. You won't find anywhere else, including an unboxing of the steam deck from valve. And we soon be doing a review of that, but you get kinda get an early look at that unboxing as well as access to the members only discord server, where you can chat with your fellow club, TWiT members and talk about how awesome you are for helping support these shows. But also you can chat with us there too. Rosemary is one of the most active people in the club, TWiT discord. So it's a great place to chat with her. If you've got questions and thoughts TWI do TV slash club TWI for all of that. So head there to check it out. Dan Moren, if folks wanna follow you online and check out all of your work, where should they go to do so?

Dan Moren (01:27:06):
Well, the single best place is go to die. Moron.Com, which is my website has links to all my podcasts, my science fiction novels, which you can see behind me if I can remember, well, they're on the other side, they're back there somewhere as well as links to my TWiTter account, my Instagram all the places that I write. And you can also find me on TWiTter at D Morin.

Mikah Sargent (01:27:27):
Excellent. you can also catch Dan and I on Wednesdays for clockwise. That's the podcast that he and I do. It's 30 minutes, four tech topics. And it's a lot of fun. That's at relay.fm/clockwise, or you can watch us play dungeon and dragons online with a bunch of our friends. That is the incomparable.com/t PK. I believe we will lead you there. Yep. Find it. We, yeah, we record the show a few times a month. You can always follow us on TWiTter to, to stay up to date whenever we're recording live. So you can tune in there or, you know, go back and, and watch the, the dog and pony show from the get go, or listen to the dog and pony show from the get go. If you'd like. Until next time we thank you for tuning in to this episode of iOS today, Rosemary, or will be back next week and will be talking about travel. So very exciting, Dan, thank you for joining me and thank you all out there for listening. We appreciate you. Goodbye.

Jason Howell (01:28:25):
The world is changing rapidly so rapidly. In fact, it's hard to keep up. That's why Mikah Sargent and I, Jason Howell, talk with the people making and breaking the tech news on tech news weekly. Every Thursday. They know these stories better than anyone. So why not get them to talk about it in their own words, subscribe to tech news weekly, and you won't miss a beat every Thursday at TWiT TV.