iOS Today Episode 606 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show. 

Mikah Sargent (00:00:00):
Coming up on iOS today, Rosemary Orchard and I have looked through the Apple design award-winning apps. These are the apps that Apple says, Hey, you gotta check these out. These are the best design, the best looking the best, playing the best-using apps that exist on the app store. So stay tuned cause we have got a jam-packed show for you.

Speaker 2 (00:00:27):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWI.

Mikah Sargent (00:00:33):
This episode of iOS today is brought to you by wealth front to start building your wealth and get your first $5,000 managed for free for life. Go to wealthfront.com/ios today. And by nomad, go to nomad goods.com/ios today and use promo code iOS today for 10% off your first purchase of any nomad accessory. They have Apple watch straps, wireless chargers, ultra durable cables, and more limited time offer.

Mikah Sargent (00:01:14):
Whoa ha. So the first thing I wanna mention is depending on if you are listening or watching, you may notice some new stuff going on. We have, oh, there, it popped up. Oh, always the wrong arm there in the bottom left hand corner, if you're looking directly ahead, the new iOS today artwork is here and if you were watching, then you saw the thing. Intro was still our intro from, from yes or year. At some point we will update that as well, but we do have new artwork. We'd love to hear what you think. You know, it went through multiple design cycles. We, you know, had to, to figure out what worked and I was very happy to hear that Rosemary enjoyed it as well. It's got some clever very sort of iOS reminiscent looks and feels to it and a nice little toggle bar for the eye, which I thought was a very clever oh yeah. Design that the, that the, the graphic designer came out with. So very excited about this and this of course is the artwork for our show where we talk all things, iOS, TV OS, home pod OS, watch OS, it's all the OS's at Apple has on offer. And I am one of your hosts in talking about all this stuff, Mikah Sargent,

Rosemary Orchard (00:02:29):
And I am Rosemary loving the purple on the new artwork orchard. <Laugh> because Mike clearly, clearly you've been you know, working hard with the folks at TWI to get us that awesome. Purple. I really love it. I know Greenwood be great too, you know, your favorite color, but you've got a great jumper it's so, you know

Mikah Sargent (00:02:47):
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I'm very ha I love this is a brand new sweater and wearing it here today on iOS today. But yes, I knew that the purple was was, was a, a good color to choose because it represented in this case, Rosemary and I like the design here where we've got this kind of layered effect and a little bit of the blurring. And now we didn't know this at the time, but iPad OS has come out with new features that allow for tiled windowing and layered windowing. And so it all just feels like it's, it, it, it speaks to the years to come for iOS today. So very happy with how it turned out. You can gaze upon it just as you would like, but we have got to get into the show because we've got a lot to cover because every year at the WWDC that is Apple's worldwide developers conference, Apple announces the first nominees for, and then the recipients of the Apple design awards.

Mikah Sargent (00:03:54):
These are awards for app and game design that honor excellence in innovation and Genuity and technical achievement. And Apple has a bunch of different categories for these awards to honor apps and games that fall into these, these particular areas. And there's a, an app and a game for each area. So I'm gonna read through the list of the categories first, and then we're going to get into the show itself or rather the, the apps themselves. There's a category for inclusivity. It says winners in this category provide a great experience for all by supporting people from a diversity of backgrounds, abilities, and languages, there's delight and fun in this category. It's memorable, engaging in satisfying experiences that are enhanced by Apple technologies. That's important because Apple, you know, these may not be the most popular apps in the app store. It's not the ones that get the most downloads in many cases.

Mikah Sargent (00:04:51):
It is, these are the apps that are taking advantage of the tools that Apple provides to make apps that Apple finds delightful interaction is intuitive interfaces and effortless controls that are perfectly tailored for the platform. So be that iOS or iPad OS social impact winners, these ones improve lives in a meaningful way and shine a light on crucial issues, visuals and graphics, winners. These are ones that feature stunning imagery, skillfully drawn interfaces, and high quality animations that lend to a distinctive and cohesive theme of theme. And then last but not least is innovation winners. And these ones are apps that provide a state-of-the-art experience through novel use of Apple technologies that set them apart in their genre. So lots of categories to cover, and we kick things off with the inclusivity winners. And the first app we're gonna talk about today is procreate.

Mikah Sargent (00:05:50):
So with procreate the reason that it got an inclusivity award is because and I'll read this. This is with new accessibility features such as tremor and motion filtering an in-app assistive touch menu, audio feedback, and color blindness settings to augment its support of voiceover dynamic type and more the app empowers more artists to create, interact and express themselves. Procreate is a very powerful app for artists who want to use their iPad as a drawing tablet. This app actually has lots of stuff involved. And one of the new features in the latest version of procreate is actually 3d support. So let's pop into these roller blades here and you can see there's a little option that says tap to select mesh, and then use the icon on the left side of the screen. It's a little rounded rectangle plus tap to select a set.

Mikah Sargent (00:06:46):
So I will select, and you can see it's choosing a mesh. And if I I'm taking now my finger and moving it, wow. My sweater and the circle match almost perfectly. Anyway, if, if I take my, take my finger and move it around, I can see the 3d model of this this skate, this roller skate and, you know, I can get super close in and see the wooden wooden texture. I'll pop into the layers here. We'll see the eyelets that are on the front. Oops, I'm going inside the shoe. <Laugh>, we're getting very close. Let me zoom out a little bit more. There we go. Now I can hide those eyelets if I want to, or re-show them take off the wheels or add them back and then make adjustments to these layers. And you'll see that each of these has support for 3D modeling terms like color, roughness and metallic.

Mikah Sargent (00:07:42):
So I will pop out of that just to, to kind of kick back to the main screen, but this isn't just a 3d modeling tool. That's a very new feature. First and foremost, as I said, it is a sketch tool. So lots of different brushes. I, you know, all of these look at this, we've got sketching, inking drawing, calligraphy painting. So I could choose a wet acrylic and I will change the color to something that will show up quite well on this. In fact, just a plain white would be good for this, and then I can start to sort of paint. And of course it has pressure sensitivity. So as I'm drawing with my Apple pencil lightly, the, the brush is light, but as I press harder and harder, you can see that the brush gets bigger because it's also considering the physics of the brush.

Mikah Sargent (00:08:32):
If you took a brush and you lightly paint with it, not only is it going to be a light stroke, but as you press it, more of the brushes surface is going to touch the paper, of course, thereby making that bigger. So really cool features that are built in for doing some true work of, of painting and layering and color inside of this app. But the big features, the reason why this received an Apple design award is because procreate has always been known or has for a long time been known as an app that is accessible. And they've taken things even further now with these new tremor and motion filtering features as well as an assistive touch menu that's built in and even going as far as adding some color blindness settings to, to bring this forward and make sure that it is it is able to be used by folks who need to have access to that. So I think I can pop into advanced settings and see some of the different features that are here and there we go, single touch gestures, companion, color, description, notifications, feedback sounds, and tap assistance. All of those can help to make sure that they are working as you need it to. So that is procreate. And Rosemary, I don't know if you have, you had a chance to check out wild flowers, if not, I can talk about that one.

Rosemary Orchard (00:10:00):
I played with wildflowers a little bit, but it's, it's one of those things where as much as I love Apple arcade and, and all of the games available, I've just not really found a lot of time to sit down and go through with these things. I end up playing with procreate and drawing instead or something <laugh> not that the game isn't great. It, it is, I've very much enjoyed it. But I, I ended up getting a bit distracted. So if you wanna show that one off,

Mikah Sargent (00:10:24):
Oh, that's totally understandable. So wildflowers is an Apple arcade game, which means you will need to subscribe to Apple arcade believe it's 4 99 a month to subscribe. And it is a game that is a an RPG sort of game where it's actually designed quite well. The artistry is fantastic. All of the different things that you can do, it's kind of a resource management and gathering game. You have a little garden. So it's a bit of a growing SIM and crafting SIM and frankly, folks, this is literally my favorite kind of game. I love this style of game. Being able to there's a fishing SIM built in, can you really have one of these sorts of games and not have a fishing SIM built in? I won't talk too much about it because it has been my app cap in the past, but I do want to read a little bit of the text about why it received award an award powered by a refreshingly diverse storyline and cast of Q I, a plus representative characters.

Mikah Sargent (00:11:25):
Wildflowers is all about identity, accepting others and supporting your community. You start off having a fresh breakup in the city. And so you relocate to your grandmas to reset, recalibrate and meet some new folks. And then as the story goes on, you learn about all these different people. And it just has representation of different of people, of different ages, cultures, sexualities, and of course in doing so the game tells a larger story. You can play it on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TV. And I think it's well worth checking out. It's, it's cute, it's fun. And that that representation that exists is really awesome and makes it no surprise that it did receive an inclusivity award this year honorable mentions go to letter rooms, nav noted and tint T I N T plus, or T I N T period, which has received an award in the past.

Mikah Sargent (00:12:27):
Nav is interesting that it made the list because this is an app that Apple basically brought to brought to iOS in iOS 16. This app is for doing subtitles and translations during FaceTime calls. And of course, as we know, in iOS 16, iPad, OS 16, et cetera you can do live captioning of, of any audio on iOS. So I'm not surprised that it didn't end up winning the final award given the fact that it was kind of sherlocked by Apple. All right, let's move on to the next one. I'm so excited Rosemary for you to tell us about the first delight and fun winner. Remember, these are the apps that are engaging they're they have satisfying experiences and they play on Apples, built in tools to improve upon the the experience.

Rosemary Orchard (00:13:26):
Yeah, they do. So the first winner in this category is not boring habits, which as you can tell is intended to be a habit tracker that's not boring. And Apple have gone so far as to call the name grammatically invented. It actually uses brackets in the, in the title, if you're searching for on the app store and they specifically call out for the sensational designs, playful, haptics, and elegant gamification your life hack adventure plays out as an inspiring journey through forest and mountains. And so I've installed it here and I've set it up. I've already got it on another device, but because I made a mistake last week and installed iOS 16 on my devices I installed it on my iOS 15 iPhone mini here. So I will just need to restore that purchase. And it begins by giving you this a little sort of introduction which I'm not gonna read out.

Rosemary Orchard (00:14:15):
I'm gonna suggest that everyone download this and try it themselves because the app is free for seven days to try out. And so it gives you a nice little intro and basically tells you that building habits doesn't have to suck. You can do it nicely, and we can have a lot of fun. And then as it did this, if you're watching then there there was sort of confetti on my screen and that flew into a circle, which is now got a check mark in it. Very nice audible audio effect, but it actually vibrated as well in my hands. So as my, as I was holding this, you, I could feel it actually doing something, giving me, you know, an extra sense of accomplishment, perhaps. So the idea is that as you build habits, things get better and you get more and more fun out of the game and you know, the app.

Rosemary Orchard (00:15:00):
And so you, there's some suggestions when you started up to name your habit. For example, meditation stretching, no alcohol eating veggies, calling mom, I'm gonna go with eat fruit because or eat fruit, apparently <laugh>, it's not quite what I was aiming for. I am not a minion. So I'll go with eat fruit and I should do this probably every day. And I'm gonna put this in for around 10 o'clock in the morning, cuz I found about 10 o'clock in the morning is when, you know, my attention starts to wander and I start going, I wonder what chocolate I have <laugh> and so instead I can solve that maybe with some fruit instead and a helpful prompt. So obviously it's going to need semi notifications for that. So I'll allow those. And now it's walking me through my first habit, setting it up.

Rosemary Orchard (00:15:44):
And so as I tap to continue, it's asking me, did I do this today? So if I did it, which I did I had an Apple and two plums earlier so you can tap and hold and then bam, it's, it's done the sort of confetti and the, and the vibration. And I just really enjoy the, the haptic feedback. It sounds very silly and like you wouldn't expect it to be so much fun, but it is. And every day that you complete this, you build your world. And it's, it's just really enjoyable and really nice. I I've had some fun with this in the past. And I, I reset it to demo it for today. But it is a great habit checking app. And you know, why not give it a, try the app, developers got some other apps as well, which if you like the idea of this, but maybe you don't need habit tracking then he's got a, a calendar application and a few others as well, which might be worth.

Mikah Sargent (00:16:36):
Yeah. Calculator. yeah, definitely the, the not boring suite is a really interesting suite of, of apps. The next one on the list for delight and fun is called overboard. It's, it's a who done it game and it is it, they, they say it's got an engaging narrative design, funny, hard boiled dialogue and multiple endings. So you can open it again and again. So I'll show this is overboard and it is, let's see, let me switch to this. All right. So now you should be able to hear in the background, some audio of the game, I've turned it down. And so I'll tap again and we'll kick off this game. Midnight, July 3rd, 1935 board. The SS hook bound for New York villain says depart for America. Former Starlight, Veronica villain villain say, I guess, sets sail today for New York, accompanied by husband, Malcolm, the pair once dubbed a charmed cup or now rumored to be in die of financial straits. After a string of poor investments, years to more lock in America, love birds together at the rail now die. Oh, there's some voiceover

Game Voiceover (00:17:49):
Dolphin. I could see dolphins playing in the wake of the boat. He lent over to see them

Mikah Sargent (00:18:01):
Just a little further dear.

Game Voiceover (00:18:03):
So I grabbed him by the belt

Mikah Sargent (00:18:07):
Now and

Game Voiceover (00:18:08):
I threw him overboard.

Mikah Sargent (00:18:18):
Holy moly. So we are already off to a start. They were heading to America and I pushed my husband overboard into the water. And now we're watching the intro track here as we learn about who created the game, what all is involved with a really nice rendition of is this fly of the bumblebees? I believe it is. I think so. Yeah. Or no. Is it valry? I think it's bubble. No, I think flight of the beach think it's yeah. Malcolm darling. I had the strangest dream Malcolm. Oh, he's God, really? God

Mikah Sargent (00:19:01):
Flying. Hallelujah in the background. Marvelous. Good morning. Oh, this is a different character. Good morning, Mr. And Mrs. Villain. And so now it's the, the person knocking on the door saying is everything. All right. And then I'm gonna ask who's there. So you get to choose the dialogue Stewart ma'am, is that a name or is that who the person is that what the person is? I'm gonna ask. 'em What they want. Captain says, we put into Liberty island at 4:00 PM and breakfast is still being served ma'am but only until nine o'clock and it's eight, 10:00 AM right now. Dang it. Veronica you've overslept. I'm just going to say thank you

Mikah Sargent (00:19:47):
Very good, ma and then now Veronica has to figure out what she needs to do to get everything done. So I'm gonna skip on out of that game and head back, essentially what you've got here is a text adventure with lots of fun graphics and music that go along with it. It's really cleverly designed and yeah, it's a lot of fun. So that is overboard a delight and fun winner for the Apple design awards. All right. We've got two more to cover. Before we take our first break, the first one is one that doesn't really apply to me. But folks who are into skiing, I've heard time and time again, that they love the app called slopes. Slopes is an app that will help you to kind of keep track of the different skiing that you're doing both in terms of your activity and then using the GPS on your iPhone and your Apple watch to help you keep track of kind of which ones you've tried, which ones you haven't.

Mikah Sargent (00:20:52):
So I'll just read slopes proves how seamlessly an app integrate with an activity. This remarkably intuitive skiing and snowboarding diary employs the GPS on your iPhone or Apple watch to track how far you've gone and how fast you went and its best in class. Social features gamify the experience by connecting with friends and family all by tapping a single button, packed with a mountain of data, ha but as easy to navigate as a nice green run it's proves, oh wow. There's a typo in the Apple design awards winner page. It proves how a thoughtfully designed app can elevate and experience. So you can check out slopes if you're doing the skiing stuff. I would send this to my pal and colleague Jason Howell, but he's an Android user. But I know he really loves to ski the other winner in the interaction.

Mikah Sargent (00:21:43):
Section, remember these are apps and games that have intuitive interfaces and effortless controls. And again are tailored to their platform, meaning that for whatever platform they're on iOS, iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple watch, they are perfectly designed for those apps or for those platforms. The other one is a, a game called a musical story and I won't be able to play the audio for you here. There's music involved with this one but it is a, it's a, they they've basically taken music and song and combined all of those things together to create this really fascinating visual storytelling piece. And so we're playing a little bit of the video in the background and you can see the kind of art style that's involved here and you get to play along, trying to figure out kind of how things work. It says the game's narrative unfolds with a richly animated minimalism.

Mikah Sargent (00:22:42):
The gameplay puts a novel spin on the rhythm game and the end results illustrate how seemingly disparate design elements can work in perfect concert. And then they say, oh, and the music is pretty great too. So really fun novel idea for a game, really fascinating stuff. And we'll give brief mentions in the last two sections for delight and fun. Shout out to the finalist Chinesey, which is an app that helps you learn Chinese characters and in an, in attempt to learn Chinese in general montage, I believe is how it's pronounced. Which if I remember correctly, I started playing this and then I ended up having to put it away. It's a puzzle game. Yeah. and essentially it's different optical illusions. Please touch the artwork, which is a really fascinating, I thought this one was the one that was going to win, to be honest with you.

Mikah Sargent (00:23:41):
It's just a casual puzzle game and it's got a bunch of levels that make it just very easy to play around. And again, it's all about touching the artwork and then water Lama, which is a utility for helping you track your water consumption in a very cute and fun way which I find delightful. The finalists in interaction, winners include Gibbon beyond the trees. That's an Apple arcade game where you play a given and they used the physics of actual Gibbons who those are the primates who swing through trees and are able to kind of, it seems like they're doing physics, defying, gravity, defying stunts but there is a way to the method by which they swing from trees and continue to keep their pace transit, which is an app for tracking transit vector, which is a really incredible vector design program.

Mikah Sargent (00:24:37):
Like super powerful. Everyone should check it out. And then what remains of Edith Finch, which is a another game on the app store. I can't remember if that's Apple arcade, I'm waiting for that to load. No, it is not, but it is a 4 99 adventure game made by on a Perna interactive, which is a very popular a very, very popular game maker. So very cool stuff there, even for those who didn't win. But who were finalists in this category? All right, we're gonna take a quick break before we come back with the rest of the Apple design award winners, but I do wanna stop to tell you about wealth front, who are bringing you this episode of iOS today. Stock trading can be a pretty wild ride like that, given, swinging from the trees or like, you know, casino gambling, it's it, it's the thrill of risking it all, but let's be Frank.

Mikah Sargent (00:25:36):
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Mikah Sargent (00:26:26):
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Rosemary Orchard (00:27:37):
So I did have a little bit of a play with it. I played with it, I think a couple of months ago. So I don't remember everything about the app, but I loved the idea of sort of short 10, 20 minute audio books, which are all about you know, female characters who are, you know, actually powerful and able to go out there and do all the things that everybody should be able to do. And the fact that this is then just available to inspire people around the world. How great is that? And then you combine it with some great artwork, awesome music. And yeah, it, it, it's just a really lovely little app to play with. Unfortunately I don't have it downloaded on my I 15 devices. I was trying to get downloaded there just now, and it's unfortunately not loading on my network for some reason at the moment.

Rosemary Orchard (00:28:20):
I need to take a look at that, but this is just such a great app. And I love the fact that not only is it, you know, about empowering women, it's empowering women from around the world. So it's not just, you know, people from America, there's people from Egypt, Australia, Japan Nigeria, Brazil, China India, you know especially places where, you know, women may not have as much power legally in, in some of those cases, you know, it's, it's great that they've got such good examples for everybody to look up to as a role model.

Mikah Sargent (00:28:51):
Absolutely. And even though given beyond the trees did not win an award for interaction, they did win an award for social impact. Given is an ecological adventure in which you swing fling and slide your way through gorgeous hand, drawn landscapes in search of your family. The game's unique mechanic provides plenty of free flying fun, but it's environmentally conscious storyline and the subtle empathy involved with playing as another living being teaches a crucial lesson. And I have to say, I would show you a live game play, but I am terrible at this game. And so you're gonna get more of an idea of how the game works by watching the video that we're playing of gameplay. I tried playing this for a while and it's, I am just not good at it. I imagine if I, you know, kept playing at it for, for a long time, then I would get good at it, but give it a try if you're, if you like endless runners in, in particular, then chances are you would be able to play this game and, you know, have a great time with it.

Mikah Sargent (00:29:55):
Just for me, it was one of those that was not easy for me to do because I just couldn't get the timing right. Most of the time. So my little monkey kept ending up very low to the ground, which is where a given does not want to be a given, wants to be swinging from the trees, not down on the ground. Other finalists in this category were active, arcade, empathy, head Headspace, and wildflowers active arcade is a game, or is a, a system for working out that uses your iPhone's camera. I think it's incredibly clever. Basically you put your device down on the ground and then you end up using your body as a, a kind of interaction within the game to, you know, bop away, enemies and jump over hurdles and all sorts of stuff. And it gets you moving gets you pumping, gets you grooving.

Mikah Sargent (00:30:46):
Everyone should check out this app. I sincerely think that you should check this out. Empathy will actually be talking about later because it is my app cap Headspace, I'm sure many of you have heard of it's an app to help you with mindfulness. And then we've already talked about wild flowers, which was a finalist in social impact. All right, moving on to visuals and graphics, winners. These are the apps that are all about beautiful imagery or gorgeous interfaces and animations, things like that, all sorts of beautifully designed apps. And the first one up Rosemary is Halli mark two. Tell us about this app.

Rosemary Orchard (00:31:28):
Well, I know a lot of the people who are listening to and watching the show love, taking photos with their phone, even when you've got something like the iPhone mini, the cameras on this are just so great. And as we all know, the absolute best camera is the camera that you have with you. So it shouldn't be a surprise that there are lots of good camera apps out there on the app store, but hee has won because not only is it a great camera app, but it's an app say it's remarkably easy to navigate. It's or the interface is remarkably easy to navigate. It's uncluttered smartly organized UI mimics a film camera, and it's, every gesture will feel familiar to long time photographers. We're remaining clear to those finding their aware around focus and exposure settings. And it, I have to say it really is a nice app.

Rosemary Orchard (00:32:12):
So, you know, I don't have the most photogenic desk here. I've, I've just got my keyboard in front of me. And if I, if I pan up, then there's even a can of CocaCola. But as I tap around, you know, I do, you know, get the, I, I can immediately see what's happening and what's changing when I, when I tap on where the icons, for example, the grid one, it shows me the grid. And, you know, if I swipe up to see the options, which I can tell there's an option there by I have the grab handle that's right there. Then, you know, I see that I've got the option of switching between raw plus and hikes so that I can get those really, really high quality images but still in quite a small for file format. And of course there are things like the timer delay, but again, this is just very easy to use.

Rosemary Orchard (00:32:53):
And I find as well, compared to the native iOS camera, which isn't bad, this is a bit easier in some ways, for example, if I wanted to do the timer on the iOS app or change the aspect ratio, then when I tap on one, it, it makes the options disappear. Cuz it's assuming that you've got it right. And I don't know about you Mikah, but I missed tap and I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who you know, therere, they're not even thinking that they Mista, they're just trying to tap the screen and maybe due to mobility issues they, they struggle to do. So. So, you know, it's, it's great that this is just a little bit easier for things like that. And you know, I, I really like the fact that I've got all these settings and everything here and when I tap on something for the first time and I, I reinstalled the app to make sure it was gonna do this.

Rosemary Orchard (00:33:37):
You get like a little how to, so I tapped on the depth mode option, which is like a side view of a cube, like looking towards where the corner so that you see two sides and, and the top and it's showing me, you know, what is depth mode, portrait mode with zero waiting depth map and depth, depth export so that I can see that. And, and it's put me into the portrait mode and I can get rid of the histogram. I can hide the the little extra info there and, you know, I can also switch to some of the other options. And I just find this app to be very useful, like being able to directly switch and just tap which lens that you're on and things like that. It's, it's very useful. So I encourage people to download this and, and give, give it a play.

Rosemary Orchard (00:34:20):
There's a free trial. And after that, I believe it's 10 99 a year on the us app store, I believe it's 10 49 a year here in the UK. So it's 1199, the app store. So it's worth giving a go and yeah, why not? Why not give it a try if you think you might like it. And if you think you might like it, but you don't wanna try it for a year, a month is only 2 99 to try out. And if you really love the app and you hate in app subscriptions, then they have a one-time purchase option for $60, which I think a lot of our, our listeners appreciate that sort of thing. Having an option to do a onetime purchase on something like that.

Mikah Sargent (00:34:57):
Yes, absolutely. I, I certainly do. And look, halide is has always been, if you want to kind of do more with your photography than just snap the photo. It's so great for that. So I, yeah, I think it's, it's fantastic and well worth checking out, even if you just get the, the free version. The other one that won in this category Lego star wars castaways. It is a game that has some beautiful design. It is there, there are all sorts of customizations that you can make with your characters. I'll switch over to my customization screen here. So you can kind of see, and you have all sorts of options for creating your perfect character, but then once you get into the game itself, the graphics within the game are pretty cool. I'm just gonna choose this character so that we can move through hairstyle is fine and name.

Mikah Sargent (00:35:57):
We will go well, will you let me choose my name? I would like to change it. Oh, apparently you can, you can just tap on the shuffle to choose a random name. So my name is GGA airless 8 71, and we'll say, yes, we're finished creating our character. So there's GRA, and now I can move around with Garga. There's a person that's coming over Fay Dello there I'm Fay DTA, your ship made quite the impact on the beach share you. Okay. You're probably a bit confused. Totally understandable. Everyone who comes through the Mastro is at first oh, two tour is going to be so excited to meet you. Follow me. So now we're going to follow and you can see these controls are on screen controls, and now I can talk to Faye again. So before you meet her two tour has been here a long time.

Mikah Sargent (00:36:48):
I bet she's a droid and her name is tu tour because she's a tutor who trains you, how to do things. And then she will teach you how to play the game et cetera, et cetera. So you could see these, these are actually really impressive graphics and the gameplay interaction is nice as well as I'm playing. Because we're streaming the screen at the same time. The graphics are gonna be a little bit stuttery, but they, they should kind of, it should pick up if it's just you playing the game. And particularly if you've got it plugged in, but I mean, even like the lighting on some of the, the different Lego bits here are really impressive. And the, the length of the, like, it's, it's a very big game. It took me a long time to get this downloaded.

Mikah Sargent (00:37:36):
Here you can see like reflections on the water. So really, really cool Lego star wars, castaways well worth checking out finalists include alien isolation behind the frame MD clock, and then not boring habits, which won the award in the other category. Also was a finalist in the visuals and graphics winners. All right. The lasts or no, yes, yes, yes. The last segment here there are two apps as well. And the first one is one that is for audio and it's called audio O D I O I believe is how they wanted to be pronounced. I had was pronouncing it O at first and I thought, oh, I bet they're just doing a clever spelling of audio. Audio is an app that they call AR or spacial soundscapes, where you can kind of create your own soundscapes.

Mikah Sargent (00:38:35):
It says the audio app audio delivers incredibly lifelike. Ambient sounds, waterfalls, rushing rivers, lush, electronic washes made even more realistic with S spatial audio and head tracking. Soundscapes can be customized by manipulating their mixes through a captivating circular interface. And each one is accompanied by futuristic fluid animations that unfold in perfect synchronicity with the sound it's a truly amplified take on the audio visual experience. So, as I mentioned before, Apple really likes these apps to make use of the tools that Apple provides for the features and all of those things inside of iOS and TVs watch OS home autos. And so that this is a S spatial app, an app that takes makes use of the S spatial audio features and head tracking as well means that it's no surprise that this app was noticed and then ended up being something that folks ended up checking out.

Mikah Sargent (00:39:33):
So this is one of those where the best experience you're gonna get is by listening yourself. And of course we'll have links to these different apps in the show notes, so you can check it out including audio here. And the last one, we'll mention just an honorable mention. The other winner is Marvel future revolution. I didn't download this one because it is it's a big app and it's kind of a classic classic, beautifully designed app and well worth checking out if you want to. But Marvel future revolution ended up getting a an award in innovation because it's an open world action RPG that brings the Marvel cinematic universe to stunning life through a metal powered blend. What that means for folks who are listening metal is Apples built in technologies for making use of the graphics processors inside of the devices that you use.

Mikah Sargent (00:40:28):
So by, by involving metal then you can get a really good graphic engine at work. And in this case, you've got fluid combat. They say, lavish cut scenes in a multi versus worth of magnificently detailed character models. So it's you're, you're gonna get a really cool looking game that you're playing. And the fact that it's open world is pretty awesome too finalists in this category included active arcade, which we talked about earlier as the game that lets you work out while you are playing different arcade games with your camera focus noodles, which is a cute app that basically it's a, it's a, it's a lot like a Pomodoro timer, but you are making bowls of noodles by staying focused. So it sort of sits the background and your bowl of noodles is made as you do the things that you were trying to do while that timer is running and then procreate again art app and drawing app.

Mikah Sargent (00:41:32):
And last but not least is town scap, which has been an app cap of mine in the past town. Scap is a way to build little towns and sort of make a beautiful canvas of towns with all sorts of different colors. It's a, it's very interactive. The art style is unique and the interaction design is unique. It's, it's got this very playful nature, this bouncy playful, fun nature that just has you, like, I got lost in this game and there's not really anything to it other than just like build out town, make your, you know, your houses taller here and shorter here and add water here, all sorts of stuff like that. It's really fascinating how this game kind of can just, you could just get lost in it as you were creating little towns that, that are in the middle of a body of water.

Mikah Sargent (00:42:22):
All right. That folks brings us to the end of the Apple design awards winners for 2022. Congratulations, of course to the winners, to the finalists, everybody who worked on these apps who continue to make these apps awesome. I am always in awe at the, a number of apps that exist out there, but B the number of quality apps that exist out there. And this time is so fun. This time of year is so fun to get to see what folks have been working on and what awesome stuff is out there. And, you know, getting to download these a trial of them out is just it's, it's a blast. So thank you to all of the developers out there and congratulations again on those apps. All right, Rosemary, we're gonna take one more quick break, and then we're gonna come back with you and your shortcuts corner this week.

Mikah Sargent (00:43:16):
I do wanna tell you so excited per usual, to get to talk about them it's nomad, who are bringing you this episode of iOS today. You've seen their products on our show in the past because Rosemary and I are fans of the products, even outside of sponsorships. You know, this was before they sponsored the company where nomad just makes high quality stuff. Leo's talked about his nomad products in the past, and very much enjoys all of those. And so I am pumped that they were able to join as a sponsor of the show today. A little history about nomad. The founders met in Santa Barbara and started as a Kickstarter project in 2012. They were hoping to build ultra rugged, but also minimalist tools for the 21st century that would seamlessly integrate into your everyday carry your EDC.

Mikah Sargent (00:44:11):
These are these products, the devices, the little objects that you carry around with you every day in the past nine years, nomad has expanded from that to offer a wide range of different accessories. You know, it's not just those those base products anymore. Now they've got so much iPhone cases, Apple watch straps, wireless chargers, premium wallets, passport holders. Many of them crafted with H leather when it comes to leather from nomad, you know, you're getting that really nice H leather. This is leather from the H tannery in Chicago, founded in 1905, which offers unparalleled blend of quality and consistency. It's leather accessories of course, develop a rich patina over time. So, you know, when you get this leather good that it's gonna be looking fantastic whether it's brand new or it's one that you've had for a long time, I don't have it with me right now.

Mikah Sargent (00:45:04):
I'm kind of annoyed. I forgot to bring my AirPods pro case. I have nomads leather case for the AirPods pro and it's perfectly fitting, first of all, which is super nice. You know, you slide the case in, it's not going anywhere, but I've had that thing now for like two years or something, and it looks gorgeous and it's quite the fidget device, like holding that in your hand and just kind of like feeling that leather is really nice in your hand. It's got a little spot on the side where you can loop in a little lanyard. And so I've got a short little lanyard on it that helps me to carry it around everywhere. Very nice. But outside of that, I mean, they're wireless charging solutions. I've got the, let's see, what is this one called? This is, this is a desk stand that nomad offers.

Mikah Sargent (00:45:56):
I'm not exactly sure what it's called, but it is for wireless charging of your device. I put my iPhone on here and it's got the perfect angle so I can look at it. It's got a little L E D light at the bottom, so I can see, but what's super cool and thoughtful is that nomad also puts a a, an ambient light sensor on the back. So that way it will not shine that L E D bright in your eyes. If you choose to have this next to your bedside table, for example all sorts of things like that, including a really cool base station style device that has a charging spot for your iPhone. You can lay down your iPhone and charge it. And then also a charger. There we go, the base one, max a charger for your Apple watch.

Mikah Sargent (00:46:43):
So that can sit on you. In fact, my partner has one the blah black one right there on his nightstand. He can th walk his iPhone onto the right side and drop his Apple watch on the left side. And it charges everything with that one cord, which is very handy. So, oh my goodness. Nomad has all the stuff that you really need to make sure that your devices, your iOS devices are and watch us devices, et cetera, are ready to go. And you can count on these accessories between premium products. That's, what's super important. That's what they prioritize is design and quality over everything else. So if that sounds good to you go to nomad goods.com/ios today, and use promo code iOS today for 10% off your first purchase of any nomad accessory, that's nomad goods.com/ios today with promo code iOS today.

Mikah Sargent (00:47:36):
And this is a limited time offer. So head there quick nomad goods.com/ios today. Oh, and by the way, I wanna give a shout out to nomad because they are also a climate neutral, certified brand. So knowing that you're supporting a company that cares about the environment and is doing what they can to make sure that we're taking care of our environment makes things even better. Thank you nomad for sponsoring this week's episode, nomad goods.com/ios today, head there today, get some cool stuff, and then tell us about it all right. Back from the break. And I can hear the music

Mikah Sargent (00:48:18):
It's time for shortcuts corner. This is the part of the show where you write in with your shortcuts requests and rose Mary orchard. These shortcuts expert provides some responses up first is a shortcuts corner request from Michael Michael Wrights. Every night. My family has an automation that runs on all our home pods, playing music for 15 minutes to remind us to all clean the living room and kitchen until the music stops. Okay, first of all, Michael, I needed to get this set up in my home. We have been using this to keep us on schedule for a few weeks. The problem is that we need help or excuse me, the problem we need help with is stopping playback and having it to where, when my son sets his lofi sleep beats on his home pod to go to sleep, it doesn't play everywhere. We can never remember to go into the settings and stop playback to where each home pod works again individually, what is the best way to do this using shortcuts and have it run automatically at the end of our, our automation for cleaning, we are a five home pod household and right at bedtime, this is a nightmare for anyone who has already gone to bed, hope this makes a good one for your show.

Mikah Sargent (00:49:28):
We could really use the help. Thanks for all you and Mikah do from Michael. Michael, thank you for writing in this is a really cool one. I love that you're getting the whole family engaged and that you've got a shortcut for this. But yeah, it sounds like what we need to do is somehow switch off the play. This sound, every device option, that's there. Rosemary, do you have a solution?

Rosemary Orchard (00:49:50):
I do. And I reached out to Michael and asked for a screenshot of the automation that he's got set up in the home app, just to make sure that I understood what was going on. So it's a time triggered automation, which runs at 7 45, but only when somebody's at home. And then on each of the home pods, it sets it to play. And I'm, I'm presuming that in, in the part that I can't see that there's a playlist or similar selected. And so, first of all we need to be able to turn that playback off after 15 minutes. And there's a couple of different ways of doing this. And one of the ways that you could do this instead of having an automation that says play on each of the home pods, you could actually go ahead and create a scene that will play on each home pod.

Rosemary Orchard (00:50:32):
And you can just add all of your different home pods to that scene. And then you can say play audio and you can run the scene. And the reason why you might want to do this instead of playing directly through the automation. And I'll just name this scene, play audio just so that I can easily find it in a moment. Oh, play audio demo. Apparently it doesn't like the name I've chosen for it. Ah, why is it not working either way? If you set up a scene with this I suspect it's not working, cuz some of my devices are on iOS 16, then what you do when you create an automation. And this only works. If you create an automation with a scene, I should note. So I'll just pick a, a time automation. And if I pick one of these, so I'll pick the B Z scene, then I can say turn off.

Rosemary Orchard (00:51:18):
And that means that that scene will then turn off automatically after 15 minutes, which should pause the audio. Perfect. so that's part one. However, I'm actually gonna solve this in a different way, Michael, because I think the correct way to solve this for you involves de grouping your home pods at the time that you pause audio and you would like those to be closely coupled together. And so just like you have an automation right now that will play the audio. I have one that runs at five o'clock in the morning, which I think everybody should be very up for stealing, which controls all of my home pods. And all it does is it sets a custom volume. And so this custom volume is quite low. So that then when I wake up in the morning and accidentally tap a home pod, or I play some music or something, I'm not deafened in all of my rooms because you know that that's a similar problem that you've got when you're going to bed at night, you don't wanna be woken up by, you know, music blasting really loudly, even if it's something you've chosen.

Rosemary Orchard (00:52:13):
So I have this, but the problem with this automation is that it groups these home pods together so that these home pods all play at the same time. And this for me is what I wanted. But for you, that's not what you wanted. So I have a solution and it involves an automation where you convert your automation to a shortcut. So I'll actually demo how to do that for everyone. So you tap on the plus in the home app, you add a new automation and you set whatever trigger it is that you would like in Michael's case, I'd suggest that he set to two 15 minutes after the the current automation with the same requirements. So that would be, you know, when, when someone is at home. And then if you scroll all the way to the bottom, if you've got lots of scenes and devices, you'll need to scroll for a moment and then tap convert to shortcut, and this will give you the ability to control multiple devices independently of one another.

Rosemary Orchard (00:53:07):
And this is the trick. We don't want to control all of our home pods at the same time, because if we do that. So for example, if I still have my bedroom home pod and my office home pod, and I tap next that controls these together, which groups these, and I mean, that's fine if you're the only person that lives in your house or you want all of them to play together, but that's not what you want when you want these to be separated. And so th that that's not going to work, so I'm gonna cancel out of this and I'm going to show you what I've done. So in this automation, I have a shortcut which then has a bedroom home PPO control on office, home, PPO control, a kitchen home pop control. And then my office one is there again, I need to change that.

Rosemary Orchard (00:53:47):
That should have been the living room. So I'll just change that by tapping these select accessories, once you tap select accessories, this works the same way as creating a standard home automation does. So there we go. There's my living room home. It's got both of them. So I'll, I'll leave that as is for now. But this means that each of these will be paused. So this automation that I've got just pauses the audio, but that means that then when your son runs his automation to do his you know, music in the bedroom to go to sleep, then that's only going to affect his home pod. So that's the solution I would use convert it to a shortcut use a shortcut action to control one home pod that you want to con you know, that you want group to itself, and then, you know, repeat with the others. And that's it. That's all you need to do. It's not difficult. I don't think, I hope you'll be able to do that. And fingers crossed. You're gonna be writing back to us next week to say solved, done, finished. And that's what we'd like to hear, but if it isn't let me know, let me know, but I did test this out. And it, it worked for me though. I didn't realize I had my office home pod in there twice. Oops.

Mikah Sargent (00:54:53):
<Laugh> all right. The next one comes from Alan. This is a, a, a pretty simple one. It says, is it possible to display the screen brightness percentage number for the iPhone 12 via a shortcut?

Rosemary Orchard (00:55:07):
And the answer is yes, Ellen. It is definitely possible. Yeah. Also hi to somebody else from the UK. So I've got a shortcut here that I put together. I've done it on my iPad. This will work just the same on the iPhone. I just thought I'd jazz it up by showing off a different screen. And so what we need to do is we need to get device details. And so if you look under the scripting actions on your device in shortcuts, there is a, an action called get device details. And if I just tap to add this, it defaults to the device name, which is not hugely useful. But if you tap on that, then you can change it to device. Model or device is watch system version, screen width, but there's also options for current volume and current brightness.

Rosemary Orchard (00:55:50):
And there's one for current appearance. So you can tell if you're in light or dark mode. So I've changed that from the device name to get the current brightness, but this returns your brightness as something like 0.44, which is, you know, a percentage. So I've multiplied that by 100 and then because it's not 0.4, four, it's 0.44, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I've added a rounding action to round that. And then I've added the final step, which is a show alert. I've set the title to screen brightness. And then I've just put the rounded number for a, by a percent sign in the main area. And when I run this, it tells me my screen brightness is 58%. And so just to prove that it works, I'll set my screen brightness all the way up to 100%, which if you're watching the video, you wouldn't see a difference. But it it's telling us now that it's 100%. And then if I crank it as far down as I can go, while still being able to see the screen then it tells me 18%. So there we go, fingers crossed. That's gonna work for you, Alan. And that link will be in the show notes for everyone to download and have a play with. Maybe you wanna do something similar with the volume or something, you know, why not give it a play and see what else you can do.

Mikah Sargent (00:56:58):
Awesome. All right. From feedback, we've got our end questions. We've got one from Alice. Alice writes in, in the mail and safari apps on my iPad. These mini previews appear at the bottom of the screen. When I first opened the app, they disappear. As soon as I touch the screen, I find these pop up previews very annoying, but I can't figure out how to stop them from appearing. Is there a way to stop them from appearing? Thanks. Love the show. You were both great teachers. So what, what I'm struggling with here is I, I think that Alice might be talking about link previews that take place. But I'm curious what you think, Rosemary.

Rosemary Orchard (00:57:38):
So my assumption when Alice said this and I'm just gonna try showing it on my iPad, I put my iPad into a mode where we should see this. So when you open safari, these little previews down here at the bottom and these little previews down here are because you've got multiple windows and it's the same with mail. You've probably got multiple windows open in mail, and you might do that with have that with other applications as well. And if you have multiple windows open in an application like safari, if you tap and hold on the tabs icon, then you get this option to merge all your windows, which pulls mul all the windows together. And that works great for safari. It will not work for mail. So what you'll want to do is swipe up to get into the app, switcher on iPad, and then you'll swipe up to get rid of the extra mail versions that you don't want.

Rosemary Orchard (00:58:26):
It's probably what has probably happened is when you've tried to split screen or something, you've then separated those back out afterwards. And when you separate that back out, then that gives you an extra version of safari in your app switcher. So that's almost certainly that what's happened there. That's also maybe why you've lost some taps possibly if that's happened to you or similar that the, the easiest thing to do is just to get rid of one of them. The only thing I'll say is don't get rid of all the apps here. That's gonna decrease the battery life on your device. That's gonna mean that when you go to open things, stuff is not gonna be open as it was before. Ios is really great at managing memory. The only time you need to force quit applications is if you've got multiple windows open on your iPad and you don't want multiple windows, or if an app's not doing what it's supposed to, if it's not responding, if something's just not working, then you can try force quitting it and or rebooting your device. But I suspect that you've got multiple windows open in safari there. Alice,

Mikah Sargent (00:59:26):
Well put, well put, all right, folks with that, it is time to head into our app cap segment.

Speaker 5 (00:59:33):
Let's blast off to the ISS, the moon, Mars and beyond I'm rod pile host and your personal space expert on this week in space each week, I'm joined by TARC Mallek of space.com and together we break down the latest rumblings about atomic rockets, space, junk blue origin, and SpaceX with an ever-changing panel of guests, including astronauts, former asset scientists, and more, it's more fun than a person should be allowed to heaven this or any other galaxy. Get a new episode of this week in space every Friday, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

Mikah Sargent (01:00:14):
This is the part of the show where we wear caps. The top hour heads to honor our app or gadget picks of the week. These are the apps or gadgets that we're using now that we think that you should check out. They may be ones that we've known about for a long time, but we haven't had a chance to share them with you. And any case we are excited about these apps and gadgets. And we want you to know about them. Rosemary orchard. Tell us about the cap at top your head, and then tell us about your app cap.

Rosemary Orchard (01:00:41):
Well, the cap at top of my head looks ridiculous on camera. It also looks ridiculous in person. So I don't know why I added the on camera caveat. But it is a rainbow stripy boat. Captain's hat. Yep. There's a peak at the front. It goes up ridiculously high because there's a piece of cardboard on the inside and there's just rainbow stripes all over it. I love it. It's ridiculous. June is pride month. And so I thought, what better way to share it? How much everybody at TWI loves everybody else by wearing a rainbow pride hat. But while while we all love everyone else, we don't necessarily love hearing everybody else all the time, especially when we're trying to sleep. And this is a problem I've had for years sometimes. There's just a sound and it bothers me and I'm not able to sleep very well.

Rosemary Orchard (01:01:27):
And so years ago, Bose came out with something called the Bose sleep buds. I believe they were actually an Indigogo project at the time. And they did very well and I managed to buy some in store and then Bose ended up issuing a recall for them because it turned out that as great as the Boose sleep buds were, they were pretty finicky and not great at charging. And so I returned mine, waited, I'm waited, I'm waited. And I'm pleased to say that I have new bow sleep buds. And I've been testing these for a couple of months now. And I'm really pleased that they seem to have resolved the issues that I had with the original ones and they work. And so for anybody who's seen an AirPod, they know how big an AirPod is. And I will note that I do have pretty long nails at the moment, but I'm just gonna hold up.

Rosemary Orchard (01:02:11):
One of the Bose sleep buds with my thumb. And you can see that it's pretty darn tiny. It's, it's a very small you know headphones, however, these aren't headphones, they are SleepBus. And the reason behind that is because these do not play music. What they do instead is they play sounds, which are downloaded onto the device. They're not streaming music from your phone all the time, because otherwise the battery life probably wouldn't last through the night. But instead you have a choice of different sounds that you can, you can play and you can download them from the sound library to your device and get rid of ones that you want. But as well as that, you can also add alarms so that if you're going to take a nap or you know, go to sleep and you want to be woken up, then you can have an alarm built into this as well.

Rosemary Orchard (01:02:57):
And I found a combination of my Apple watch buzzing you know about a minute before the Bose sleep buds alarm starts to fade in, really helps me wake up in the morning. And more importantly, when I go to sleep, I'm actually not like struggling because of the sounds that are around. And I have to say, I'm just quite pleased with these. They work very well. They even pair with multiple devices. And I love the auto generated name of my SleepBus, which is twinkle twinkle. But they are just a very nice device. They are not the cheapest, but I have to say where I, where they won me over is where I tried this out on a transatlantic flight. I flew back from New York on an overnight flight from the us and got and landed in London the next day.

Rosemary Orchard (01:03:41):
And I, unlike my parents actually managed to sleep because I had the best sleep bud zone, meaning that, you know, I, I, I got all the benefit of the noise counseling that was there. The case is a charging case. One of the biggest problems I had with the previous, both ones was that when you dropped the headphones in, they didn't magnetize properly onto the charger and these ones do so there's little indicator lights for each sleep bud, to indicate that it's properly seated. And then those little mini indicator lights to tell you how much charge the battery case has. The case is not the smallest, but it's also something you don't wanna lose. And it's U SBC, which I, I have to say, I appreciate no more micro USB devices in my life if I can avoid that, please.

Rosemary Orchard (01:04:23):
So yeah, I'm pleased with the both sleep beds they are available for various prices I would recommend. And this is what I did looking on camel, camel, camel to get a discount for them so that you can take advantage of that, but the both sleep buds two, oh I just had the, the page open. I now it's disappeared on me are $249, but do keep an eye out on Amazon or similar to see if you can get them at a discount. They're currently 5% off on Amazon UK. But I, I, I can't remember how much I got mine for, but it was certainly less than that. So yeah. Look out for discount. If you're looking for some headphones that are comfortable to sleep in that play some really lovely background sounds for me, they work incredibly well and another bonus tip for anybody, even if you're not interested in the bow sleep buds, if you've got a pair of headphones or similar, and there is an app that you can download for them then give it a try. You might be surprised at what settings you can unlock and what you can improve.

Mikah Sargent (01:05:24):
That is a top tip for sure. Alright for me, I've got a tiger, a top of my head sort of it is a tiger stocking cap with a mouth and nose, and it's got these little hanging down parts that go over your ears, like ear flaps and it's adorable. The cap or the app that I wanna talk about is actually one that was a finalist for the Apple design awards. And I was reading about it when I was reading about the Apple design awards. And I thought that is such an important thing, such a cool idea. And I'm glad that someone's making it. This is an app called empathy, and it is an app to help you when you are dealing with when you or your family is dealing with loss. It is an app that helps you with the practic practical nature of dealing with loss, as well as the mental health aspects of dealing with loss.

Mikah Sargent (01:06:15):
It's kind of everything. So what you do is you sign up for the app and when you sign up for the app, it'll give you some different options. It'll quiz it'll as a quiz to kind of get loaded and figure out what it is exactly you're looking for. So I filled in like preparing for a future loss was the reason that I was getting this. And then it, it gives you a checklist to kind of kick things off. And I love these different topics that are here in the days before the loss. You wanna make arrangements for pets, verify beneficiary designations list, all debts and settle necessary ones, make sure a state plan is in place, communicate about the will make a master list of numbers and passwords get assigned advanced directive, assigned power of attorney, but watch what happens when I tap into this.

Mikah Sargent (01:06:58):
So let me do the get assigned advanced directive. When we tap into this, it has some information at the top, including the ability to assign this to a specific family member. So I could add my whole family to this and say, okay, I know that my uncle is he, you know, went to law school for a year or something like that. So he's probably most likely to know, or went to medical school for a year in the case of an advanced directive. So I would like for him to take care of that, instead of me, you can set reminders, you can add a note and then you'll see an option that says get help from our care team. I'll talk about that in a moment, but I want to go through with this. And so there's an overview and it talks about what an advanced directive is, what you need to do.

Mikah Sargent (01:07:42):
And then it says, find the right advanced directive forms. So there's actually a list that they give you a link to. And the P O L S T program as well, which like, if you don't know what the heck a P O L S T is, then this can help you with that as well. And then reading more like what's the difference between a P O L S T, which is probably shortened to pulse versus an advanced directive, which you can both read, but also can listen to, they will read it back for you. You can share that out very easily. You can bookmark it if you need to and come back to it. There's living a living will and healthcare power of attorneys. So you can learn about that. And then once you've completed this, you can just check it off and that will be done.

Mikah Sargent (01:08:23):
And then it shows you, you know, what, you have less what you have left, excuse me, then there are tools like grief guidance. So there's some stuff here for listening to listening to some tips on grief, understanding grief working through grief and then a journal so that you can do check-ins to see how you're doing in terms of grief. This is an all in one app for dealing with loss. And I think it's really fantastic. There are also some time saving options here, including a professionally written tribute getting subscriptions canceled for someone who has passed away keeping people informed with the family hub. That's the section where you add other people and they can all work together to get things done. And the vault is a sort of locked away place that lets you keep those documents together.

Mikah Sargent (01:09:12):
And what happens here is you can access a lot of this stuff for free. As you saw, I was able to read some of those those of those pieces about pulse versus advanced directive and some of the different steps, including like bills and debt applying for benefits, but you can subscribe to the premium service and I will, I will say upfront, it is, it is expensive, but this is not a thing where you're going to be using it, you know, for three years or something like that. And in the case of your family member, having life insurance, then that can help be covered by this. But let me find it again. So it's, it's $120 for three months, which is around about the time that hopefully it should take to get most of this stuff done and then $400 for a year.

Mikah Sargent (01:10:08):
And that is because it's not just an app, that's like, you're not just gonna get access to some more features in the app, in terms of more libraries of content, you're going to get access 24 7 to an actual care team, a group of people who are going to be available by phone chat at email, to help you through this process, to give you tips on how to do things and also to complete tasks and paperwork for you. So they can actually help you get that figured out. And you can talk to experts for grief guidance, and be able to understand how to do the proper estate planning. So that amount of money I think, is very reasonable for a professional team, helping you with with the process of actually working through all of this. So I am not surprised that this was a finalist for an Apple design award.

Mikah Sargent (01:11:01):
And I think like I, I have this app downloaded and you know, everyone at some point will have to deal with loss of some sort and being prepared and planned for that is so important. And I wish I'd known about this app. Just I think a couple years, two years maybe even in just a year ago when there was some stuff that we needed to get figured out as a family with loss and not having kind of a whole picture of what needed to be done, this would've been a very helpful thing. So yeah, I just wanna shout this with the rooftops for more people to know about this app and know that it's here to provide assistance in this way. And I think that this is such a cool thing and democratizing in a way that more people have access to cuz again, there's so much of the free stuff in here where you don't even have to pay to be able to gain access to this content.

Mikah Sargent (01:11:55):
That's both for listening and reading. So really, really cool app. I think everybody should check it out, empathy, loss support. And with that, we have reached the end of this episode of iOS today. If you have questions, if you have apps, you think we should check out if you have shortcuts, corner requests, all of those can go to iOS, twi.tv. You can also tweet at us either of us or I've gotten Instagram DMS from time to time to, you know, just send us a message somewhere and say that you have a, a, a question or a shortcuts corner request for iOS today. And we do record the show live every Tuesday around about 9:00 AM Pacific, which is 12:00 PM Eastern. So you can tune in to watch us at twi.tv/live. That is a great way to see kind of how the show gets made.

Mikah Sargent (01:12:42):
It includes our little flubs and errors and things like that before the final edited episode, thanks to our technical director and editor, Anthony Nielsen goes up later in the day which you can get by going to twi.tv/ios. There you'll find links and look, there's the new artwork. You'll find links to subscribe to the show in all of the various places we exist in both audio and video formats. So you can click, subscribe to audio, subscribe to video, and then click your platform of choice. And we love it if you did subscribe there because that way you'll get the show as soon as it's available and you get the nice, pretty tidy version of it, which is super awesome. I should also mention that you can help support the network, support the shows that you love and make it possible that we can continue to bring you these awesome apps by joining club, TWI TWI do TV slash club TWI for seven bucks a month.

Mikah Sargent (01:13:37):
You get every single TWI show with no ads because instead of ads supporting the content, you will be supporting the contents directly. You get access to the twit plus bonus feed that has extra content. You won't find anywhere else, outtakes behind the scenes, lots of fun stuff there and access to the members only discord server. That's a place where you can go to chat with your fellow club, twit members. And also those of us here at twit it's on and popping always a lot of fun in there and lots of fun events that take place. So seven bucks a month, that's it. And you get access to the club, do TV slash club, TWI support us and make it so that we can continue to do these awesome shows that we have so much fun doing every week. Rosemary orchard. If folks wanna follow you online and check out all your great work, where should they go to do so?

Rosemary Orchard (01:14:23):
The best places is Rosemary orchard.com, which has links to all the things they do on the internet and various different social media. You can find me on including Twitter at Rosemary orchard. And of course, if you're a club TWI member, then you can find me in the club, TWI discord in the iOS today, channel where I'm always watching, even if you're not paying me Mikah, where can people find you

Mikah Sargent (01:14:41):
Always watching? You can find me online at Mica Sargent on many, a social media network or head to chiwawa.coffee. C H I H U a H hua.coffee, where I've got links to the places I'm most active online. You can check out tech news weekly later this week on Thursday which I record with Jason Howell, where we talk to and about the people making and breaking the tech news and on Saturdays where I co-host the tech guy radio show heard around the United States, the rest of the world, where you call in with your tech questions, Leo, and I try to help you out. That is where you can find me. And of course, here on iOS today, thank you for tuning in today. I hope you got so excited and are downloading all of the different Apple design award-winning apps. They're all fantastic. I wish I could give trophies to every single one of them. The finalists included because goodness gracious. Are they amazing? They're inspiring. And I would love to hear from you, what was your favorite ADA winner or finalist of all of those? Let us know, let us know. And we will see, or I will see you next week, right? Is Rosemary going to be here next week?

Rosemary Orchard (01:15:49):
No, no. Next week I am not here, but we have a special guest for you and best part, they've already lined up their app cap. So, you know, I love

Mikah Sargent (01:15:58):
It. I love

Rosemary Orchard (01:15:58):
It. We're ready. We're ready for next week. And I should be back fingers for the week after I have to go into the office unfortunately next week. And wasn't sure I was gonna make it home on time to record the show. So figured I'll make sure that we don't leave you in the lurch, Mikah

Mikah Sargent (01:16:12):
<Laugh> thank you. We will miss you next week. But we, we did line up a great guest and I'm looking forward to that. So we'll keep our, our mild sealed for now, but soon you will find out about that. And thank you again, everyone. And until next time, well, in which case it'll still be iOS today, but until next time, this is what iOS today at C at C at C goodbye. <Laugh>

Speaker 6 (01:16:35):
The world is changing rapidly so rapidly. In fact, that it's hard to keep up. That's why Mikah Sargent and I, Jason Howell talk with the people, Mac 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.