iPhone Apps & Gear for Your New Year’s Resolutions

In the 150th episode, David and Donna share apps and gear to help you accomplish your 2021 goals. Last but not least, they’ll go over tips for decluttering your phone that will help give you a fresh start for the new year!   Click here to listen and subscribe. If you like what you hear, be sure to leave a review. And remember to tune in every other week to hear our editors share with you the latest Apple news, best apps, iPhone tricks, and coolest accessories. Claim 10% off your subscription to iPhone Life Insider when you visit iPhoneLife.com/PodcastDiscount. This episode was brought to you by OWC. Have you invested in a new MacBook Pro but find yourself frustrated by the lack of ports? The OWC Thunderbolt 3 Mini Dock ($118) gives you everything you need to expand your connectivity. This sturdy, smartphone-sized dock weighs just over 5 ounces and offers two HDMI ports, a USB 2, USB 3, and even an Ethernet port. When you connect up to two external monitors, you’ll experience the productivity boost of screen-extension and mirror modes and enjoy 4K video and streaming for movies, games, and more. The benefits don’t stop there, though. Audiophiles will appreciate the high-fidelity sound supported by HDMI precision multi-channel audio. The Gigabit Ethernet port keeps users navigating, streaming, and sharing when Wi-Fi isn't reliable or fast enough. The USB 3 port even charges smaller devices and accessories. Done for the day? It's quick and safe to disconnect the Mini Dock with included Dock Ejector app, which is engineered to ensure all data is written before disconnecting.    Questions of the week: What are your New Year's resolutions & how are you using your iPhone to meet them? Email podcast@iphonelife.com and let us know. Articles referred to in this episode: * How to use pIcture in picture on iPad & iPhone New Year's apps & gear referred to in this episode: * Withings Body+ Smart Scale ($99.95) * Tangram SmartRope ($79.95) * Duolingo (Free) * Informant 5 (Free)    Digital decluttering tips referred to in this episode: * How to Fine-Tune Notifications on Your Lock Screen * iPhone Storage Other: What it Means & How to Clear It * How to See What’s Draining Your iPhone or iPad Battery * How to Use iCloud Keychain to Create Unique, Strong Passwords for All Your Accounts   ​Useful links: * The iOS 14 Guide: Master Apple's New Widgets, Tools & Features * Join the iPhone Life Facebook Group * Insider walk-through: get a sneak peek of members-only benefits * Get the Insider discount for Podcast Listeners * Sign up for the free Tip of the Day Newsletter * Email the Podcast * Subscribe to iPhone Life magazine ​Episode 150 transcript: - Hi and welcome to the iPhone Life Podcast. I'm Donna Cleveland, Editor in Chief at iPhone Life - And I'm David Averbach, CEO and Publisher. - Today we are are celebrating our 150th episode of the iPhone Life Podcast. - Wow Congratulations, Donna. - Can you believe that? - What's the traditional gift for the 150th episode? - I think something bronze and I don't know. - Mm yeah. No, I cannot believe it. That is a lot. That's a lot of time you and I have spent talking about iPhones together. - I know, it's been so much fun. It's one of my favorite parts of this job, I have to say. - It is a lot of fun and thank you all for sticking around. Has there... Okay this isn't the official question of the day. Is there anybody out there who's listened to all 150 episodes? Send us an email podcast@iphonelife.com - Yeah I know, I wonder... I do feel like we have some very, a very loyal fan base of listeners who have been with us for this whole time, so it'd be fun to hear from you. Email us and let us know what you enjoy most about the podcast too. That would be a lot of fun. - Yeah, or anything you'd like to see changed. I'm curious 'cause I feel like I am subjective, but I feel like we've gotten better over time. I feel like the earlier episodes were not as good. - Well, I remember the first time we recorded or the first couple times. I had this impression like, "Oh, I have to say everything perfectly or else we have to start all over again." So like in front of the mic like, "Like how am I gonna get through like an hour without having to start all over again?" - Well, in the early- - So we've come a long way since then. - In the early days, we had one microphone for all three of us and we weren't recording the video, so you couldn't see us. So what we'd do is we'd all sit around like on the floor with our faces next to this microphone and these little three, Cassera was there, all three of us. - Before days of COVID - Yeah, before the days of COVID and now we're in our homes, but we actually have a studio that I would like to see some day. - I know. Yeah, it's fun to get to hang out on Zoom, but it was more fun when we did it in person. So it'll be fun to get back to that one day. Which maybe fits in with our new theme for this issue, for this episode. You can tell I'm thinking about the magazine. We're about to go to print. Anyways, this episode, the theme is New Year, New You. So we want to go over apps and gear and tips for decluttering your phone to give you a fresh start for 2021. - Yes. - And how that fit in with what I was saying before is hopefully in the coming year at some point, we'll all be back in the office together again. - I cannot wait. - And David, do you want to tell us about our sponsor for this episode? - Yeah. Today's sponsor is OWC and OWC is this great company. They have this really great line of Mac and iPhone and iPad accessories and they also sell used and refurbished Mac computers. But today I'm gonna tell you about their product, the USBC Travel Dock and don't let the name fool you. It is great for if you're traveling, but it's really great for if you're at home as well. I've talked about it in the past, but this is actually the second generation, so they've made some improvements. And what it is basically for your iPad or your Mac computer that's USB-C. It has a cable that is now built in, which is nice and you plug it in and it gives you a range of docks that you now can use with your, either your Mac or your iPad and it has a traditional USB-C cable, it has an SD card reader, it has HDMI reader. It also has this really cool new feature, which it has pass-through, a USBC passthrough up to 100 watts and what that means, I know it's a little bit technical, but what that means is you can actually plug your charging cable into this dock and it passes through. So you can be charging your computer while also having access to all of these other docks and it's only having one cable plugged into your computer. So you don't have to have this mess of cables. So it's a really great product. It looks sleek, it's aluminum, it matches the Mac look and feel and it's pretty affordable. So make sure you check it out, we'll link to it in the show notes or you can go to OWCDigital.com and find it. And again, that is the USB-C Travel Dock used for travel and at home because we're not traveling right now, but it's still great. - It sounds like I need one for my new Mac. - You do. I have one, I love it. - Yeah, with the limited ports on the newer devices, devices like this are crucial. - Yeah, everybody needs a dock for the like... To have all the range of cables that you sometimes need. - Yeah. All right, next I want to tell you about our daily tip newsletter. We send out a free daily newsletter, where you can learn something cool you can do with your iPhone in just one minute a day. It's a really awesome service because, you know, a lot of us don't want to invest a ton of time learning how to use our devices, but we don't want to miss out on all the cool things that your iPhone and iPad can do. We also include tips for the Apple Watch, we're getting into Mac as well. So go to iPhonelife.com/dailytip to sign up. I have a tip I want to share with all of you this week that I've been making a lot of use of and it's how to use picture and picture on your iPhone and iPad. And this is a- - Mm I love this. - Feature that's been around for the iPad for years, but it's new for the iPhone ever since iOS 14 and there are some new tips and tricks, even if you have been using it for years there are some new ways you can use it. So first, I just wanted to talk about like what apps this feature is available for. As most of you know picture and picture minimizes your video view so that it only takes up a little bit of your screen so that you can multitask and do other things while you're watching a video and it works with a lot of Apple stock apps. I actually have a list here of apps you can use it with. You can use it for FaceTime, which is really nice. You can use it in the podcast app for video podcasts. You... What are some of the apps that you use it for? - I mean the main one I use it for is FaceTime and this is new with iOS 14, that you can do it with FaceTime. Before on FaceTime, if you were on a FaceTime call and you swiped up to use your phone. It would pause and it would not... The video would pause and it would tell the other person that the video was paused. And so it was very clear to the other person that you were not watching them and you could not multitask. Now sometimes I, especially with COVID and you know, all the people I don't get to see. I'll have pretty long FaceTime calls, where either I wanna multitask because I'm talking about something that I want to look up on my phone, or maybe sometimes I get a text message that comes in and I'm responding to that text message as I'm talking to somebody. Little things like that where it's really nice to have, be able to have their video and have my video not pause, while also being able to sometimes use my phone for other things. Another use case that's great, is if you're one of our Insider subscribers, you get video versions of our daily tips and our guides. When you log into our site, you can go watch the video and have it be small so that you can still be scrolling through the written step-by-step directions and then follow along with it as you watch on the video, or you could like be going into your settings and change the settings that the video is telling you to do while you're watching, because we use Vimeo and YouTube to play our videos. And those are apps that are compatible with this. Vimeo is what we use for our Insider videos and it definitely works. I was gonna say, actually, a caveat is that YouTube is a little tricky. YouTube doesn't... They want to make you pay for their YouTube monthly service in order to use picture and picture and be able to minimize your video window. It seems like with some YouTube videos you can like play it through the Safari app and not use the YouTube app and then you can use picture and picture but like, I think that Apple has tried to block that too. But anyway, I'm gonna post a list at iPhonelife.com/podcast of all of the apps that are compatible. 'Cause I think it's a feature you're not gonna take advantage of, unless you know that it's there, but it works for like a lot of the network news apps like CNN for the NFL, Netflix and Hulu support it. There's a bunch of ones, so I'm gonna post that there. - And if you're- - iPhoneLife.com/podcast. - Just to echo what Donna said, if you're an Insider, I really encourage you to test this out with Insider because it's such a cool functionality to have the tip going and be able to do, follow the steps as you're doing it. So you have the video in the corner and it says, "Go to settings," and you go to settings and you get to see where it is. And it's such a great way to use the video tips we have every day to actually customize the things you want to customize while somebody is walking you through it. It's really an awesome functionality that we're taking advantage of there, so if you're an Insider make sure you check it out. If you're not an Insider, we have a great link for you. - Yeah, also not to mention, if you're listening to the video version of this podcast, it's great. - Yeah. - Like which also, I just want to take a minute to explain to people because it can be a little confusing. We have an audio and a video version of the podcast. They're both available through any podcast player that you, that pretty much any podcast player that you'd want to use, but they're two separate feeds. So if you want the video version, you search for iPhone Life Video Podcast. Otherwise, you just search for iPhone Life Podcast and so you would subscribe to those separately. - You also can watch it on our website at iPhonelife.com/podcast and we also put it in YouTube, So we're everywhere. - We're everywhere, yeah. - Everywhere you wanna be. - So back to picture and picture. I've told you about like the benefit of why you'd want to use picture and picture, so here's how you use it. Once you open up one of the apps that I mentioned and are playing a video or you're making a FaceTime call or something like that. You either tap, like there's gonna be a little picture add picture icon, which is like a square with a little arrow. And you tap that and it makes the windows smaller or if you're in full screen mode while you're playing the video and just swipe up from the bottom of your display, you'll also go into picture and picture, but that'll only work if you're in the full screen mode. If you're playing a video just in like, that's not in full screen mode and you swipe up, you'll just close the app. So that's something, a distinction that messed me up for a while that I wanted to explain. And then once you have a smaller window, you can just pinch and spread your fingers to resize the video window and you can move it around. You can drag and drop the window anywhere you want on your display, so it's not covering up anything you're trying to use. And this is a cool, newer feature. You can swipe the window off of your display and a little like arrow tag will appear and the audio will continue of whatever you were listening to. But that way, let's say you need your whole display without any obstruction you can do that. And then just like tap that little tag at any time and it'll come back onto your display. And it works on your iPhone now too, so it's awesome, I use it all the time. - And those are some nice little bonus tips there. I didn't know until we... I think we talked about it in one of our classes, actually our iOS 14 class, but I didn't realize you could pinch to adjust the size of it. That's a really nice little bonus tip. - It is, yeah. So that's our tip of the day and next, I want to tell you about our Insider subscription. We were just mentioning before all these great videos that we have. This is part of our premium subscription. If you go to iPhoneLife.com/podcastdiscount. You'll get 10% off your subscription, which is a great bonus for all of you loyal podcast listeners. So you'll get not only our whole collection of video guides for all of your different Apple devices that will teach you, start to finish, how to use your new devices, but you'll also get unlimited access to our live online classes. We now have added four classes every year, plus monthly online live workshops that you can join, where we'll go in depth on a topic. For instance, as soon as the new operating systems come out. We launched the very next day a class that will teach you how to take advantage of all the new features and how to go through the updating your software without messing up your phone and things like that. We're gonna teach you how to use the camera and how to organize your photos, all of that. If you go and sign up for Insider. And we also have a feature called Ask An Editor, where you get access to our experts. If you're having a tech problem and you're not having an easy time fixing it. Like you don't have to bother family members, you can email us and we'll walk you through and help you find solutions to your problems. You also get access to our full archive of iPhone Life magazine and the premium version of our podcast with no ads and premium extra content. What am I missing David? Daily video versions of our daily tip. - Yeah and we have an archive of thousands of them now, so you can go through all of them. And I'm particularly excited that we now have classes in our Insider and that we're doing live monthly workshops, so we have lots of ways to learn through Insider. - So start off year 2021 right by signing up for Insider and this year really make use of your Apple devices. It's also something that, you know, you can, you don't have to invest a lot of time when you sign up for Insider. There's so many different ways to learn that you can really learn at your own pace and use the features that work for you. We try to offer lots of different things and you can sort of find within that. What is the most accessible and comfortable for you? - One thing, I don't know if you mentioned it or not, but it's important to emphasize for you podcast listeners. We have an extended version of the podcast for Insiders. We have bonus content and it's ad free. So you get a extra special podcast each episode - without us doing this every time. - Yeah, you don't have to listen to this because you're already enjoying Insider. - Yeah. Okay, let's get into our special theme now. Now we are, as we mentioned, we want to help you start off your new year with apps and gear that help you meet your goals and live a healthier, happier life. We also want to... Like we think it's a great time now to go through and do a digital decluttering and get rid of all the extra things on your device that might be slowing it down or just stuff that you no longer need and makes your user experience with your phone, less enjoyable. So let's dive into it. I see David, you have some product recommendations. Let's start with that. - Sure. I have one that I use every day, which is the Withings Smart Scale. I've had it for years and I actually love it. They're a sponsor now, so I have to put that disclaimer, but I've had this for years, I love it. And basically- - He's not just talking about them 'cause they're a sponsor. - This is true. - He actually had it before. - This is true. And basically, how it works is it's a normal looking scale, but when you step on it, first of all, it recognizes you. So you can have different profiles for different family members and it syncs with your app, and you can track your... Obviously, you can track your weight and your, but you can also track your Body Mass Index over time. It also tells you the air quality, so that's a nice little bonus thing. It tells you the weather, which I actually really like. It's just a really quick easy way in the morning, as I'm getting ready to know what the weather is gonna be. But my favorite part about this is that, if you use it regularly over time, you get a really good sense of your weight trends. I've been using this for so many years that I can literally see like the peaks and valleys of when I've gained weight, when I've lost weight and I'm actually a fan. I think that it's really... Personally, I think it's healthy to weigh yourself every day. I know that's a controversial thing, but to me it sort of, it gets me out of the- - I disagree. - I know a lot of people do, so it's a personal thing. But it gets me out of the head space of like thinking it's a really charged thing. It just, I don't... It removes the emotions for it for me. I just look at it and it also gives me a pretty decent sense of like, which activities are causing me to gain and lose weight. And cause it's not always intuitive but if you look at like, you know, it's pretty easy to see, "Oh, I lost weight this month, what did I do differently?" Or, "I gained weight this month, what did I do differently?" So I'm a big fan of that. If weight loss is something that is a goal for you for 2021 and I know we've all been very sedentary for 2020, so it might be. Then I really recommend the smart scale. - I have a fun while we're on the fitness side of things, a fun product recommendation, Colin Thomas, one of our writers featured this in our buyer's guide. It's called the Tangram SmartRope and it's $79 and it connects to your phone. So it tells you like how many reps you have from doing jump rope. And it has this really cool thing, where it creates this sort of like holographic display on the wall that tells you how many reps you've done while you're jump roping. - That's crazy. - And it's a really cool, like techie look to it. So if you're someone who sort of likes to geek out on tech stuff and you're trying to get in shape. This is a great device and you can, you know, have like goals of how many reps you want to do every day, for instance. Yeah, when I saw that. My husband just got a jump rope and is really into it. He wants to be jump roping every day to get in shape for tennis and I thought that this would be like... It would have been a cool device for him. Instead of just a plain old jump rope, - Boring old jump rope. - Yeah. We talked about this last episode, but I think it's a good thing to bring up again. That Apple just came out with a fitness service and this is if you're wanting to get into working out and you're not going to the gym because of COVID. This is a really good alternative. It's 9.99 a month. You have to have Apple devices to use it. You can watch it on your Apple TV, iPhone or iPad, and you use your Apple Watch you connect, hook it in with your Apple Watch so that it actually, shows you completing your movement goals on the display as you work out. - And I mean, right along with that this is an obvious one, but a lot of people don't have it and that's the Apple Watch. Donna and I both love our Apple Watches. - Yeah. - We use it for fitness constantly. It is a... Similarly to how with a smart scale, just tracking your activity over time can help you identify trends. It's the same with your Apple Watch. Tracking that well your activities over time is really nice to understand. Get a feeling for how many calories you burn while going for a walk versus how many calories you burn for going for a run and, you know, tracking each of your workouts, looking at them over time. I love the Apple Watch, so that's another great fitness device. - Yeah, I agree and since Apple came out with the Apple Watch SE now. You can get instead of like the starting price being 350. You can now get an Apple Watch, I think it's like 270 or something like that. - Yeah. - So it's more affordable than it used to be. - Yeah. - And yeah, with Apple Fitness+, I talked about this last episode too. I'd used it for a couple of different workouts and I did want to say like there are some issues with it. It's not perfect but overall I think it's great. And the fact that it gives you that extra motivation through your Apple Watch does give it a big edge over just like watching a YouTube workout. - Yeah, absolutely. - Yeah, I like it. - I've got a couple of recommendations for you here. - The first one, this is another advertiser. Just full disclaimer but we recommend. I only recommend things that I like. They did not pay me to recommend them, but it's funny 'cause they brought this on my radar, which I don't normally think of calendars and reminders as being a new year's resolution type thing. But every year their ads just go through the roof this time of year and they find that across the board. That all of a sudden one of people's goals is to get more organized. And one of the best ways to get organized is to have a good reminders app and a calendar app. And so Fanatic, who is a sponsor of ours, and they have an app called Pocket Informant really does have one of the best apps for this. And what they do is they combine the reminders and the calendars app into one. So it's all in one place and it allows you to... It's just a more natural way of interacting with it. 'Cause there are so many times where I don't know, am I creating a reminder for tomorrow or am I adding it to my calendar for tomorrow? And in reality they're kind of the same functionality. So it's a great app. They invest a lot of energy into making it really easy and intuitive to use. Also it works across all of your devices. So if you're somebody who, let's say, maybe doesn't have a Mac computer. Then suddenly all of Apple's calendar apps aren't gonna work very well for you, so it's a great option as well. - Awesome. Yeah, there's something so satisfying about like really spending the time to like fill out your calendar schedule and set your reminders and kind of like have all of that set up really well in your phone. And that's been... We've had this sponsor for a long time and they've just been really popular with our listeners. I've used it a bunch too and enjoy it. It works out really well like both with Withings and with this company. That when we get sponsors that like we really believe in and then it's easy to... - Yeah. - Yeah, it's a win-win - Absolutely and it definitely is one of the things, you know, we're going through this listen, "I want to do better in 2021." I actually just started this month of just being more diligent about adding things to my to-do list because I have this really bad habit of keeping that list in my head and then it doesn't stay in my head. It just disappears and I just kind of have to improvise every week. So having a to-do list, keeping it organized, making sure I'm prioritizing it is something that I need to get better at, so it's on my list. - I found that the HomePod Mini has made me want to do that more because I like using the feature, where you ask what your schedule is that day and it tells you. - Oh, that's cool, yeah. - So it's nice to like have it all in there. - What I love if you are using the reminders app, I have a grocery list on my reminders app and you can use Siri to add things to your grocery list. So I'll always be like in the kitchen and I'll be like, "Hey, Siri, add milk to my grocery list," cause I just ran out of milk. So that's a really nice use case too. - Yeah. So for me, I don't have much more. I wanted to spend most of my time talking about like the digital decluttering 'cause I think that's a great thing to do this time of year, but did you have any other just sort of aspirational apps for people to use for new year's resolutions? I have one more for you, which is Duolingo. This is one that my stepson has been using. Well, you know, because of COVID he did a lot of homeschooling and we improvised a lot. And one of the things we did is had him learn Spanish and he used the app Duolingo and it was great. He really... He's eight and he was learning Spanish, it was wild and it's a really well-designed app. I think it's free but they, you know, to really use all their functionality, they have a monthly subscription service but I'd recommend it if you are interested in using a language. Maybe you have travel aspirations for 2021. - Yeah, that's a great idea. The one I wanted to put in was Yousician and the guy who mentioned it before, but a couple of years ago I picked up a ukulele and Yousician is a fun app that gives you... It's like just fun. Like it gives you little exercises where you play along with different songs. It has a tuner in it. You can like learn pop version. You can learn ukulele versions of like pop songs and things like that. So that combined with just using like YouTube tutorials has been a fun way to like pick up some different songs. I don't know how my husband feels about my ukulele hobby, but I've been fun with it. - On our 200th episode. - On our 200th episode are you gonna play the ukulele for us? - I don't know. I was gonna say, I don't know if that's like a promise or a threat. I'm not very good. I would. I would be happy to do that but David, you might want to have me at... You might like edit it out later. - Well, I've heard you play. I mean this was a couple of years ago. I don't know if you've gotten better or worse, but you were decent, it was listenable. - Okay. All right, yeah, 200th episode I'll play you guys the Ukulele. - I can't remember, I think it was our five-year company anniversary. I had a goal of juggling flaming pins for the five-year anniversary and my... Ralph, our CTO who was on the podcast recently is an excellent juggler and taught me how to do it, and then I did it for our five-year anniversary. Were you there then? - I remember that, I was there then. I think that was towards the beginning when I was there. That was fun. - It's just as terrifying as it sounds. I mean I like had a couple jugs like I am not that good, but maybe for our 200th episode you can play the ukulele and I'll juggle. - Okay, it sounds good, yeah. Since there's no like fire involved with mine, I'm comfortable with that. All right, so digital decluttering, let's talk about that. - Yeah, let's get back on topic. - Yeah. So as everyone knows, I feel like with Marie Kondo and all of that, like people are really into living a more minimalist life and clearing out the clutter of things that don't spark joy in your life or whatever. I definitely, with all the time at home in 2020, spent more time throwing away old stuff, but people you know just forget about your phone and it's really like between all these different files that people have sent you like GIFs and different things like will clog up your messages app. Sometimes you've downloaded tons of apps that you haven't used in years. That they're just sitting there and sort of getting in the way of getting where you need to go. So I think it's a... A lot of people don't take the time to go and... Through all this stuff and organize their phones, so I thought we could talk a little bit about that. - Yeah, sure. - What are some of your top tips for decluttering? - One thing I would recommend, I mean there's a lot there. But I recommend everybody review their notification privileges for apps. 'Cause what I find is a lot of times I open an app and A, I haven't used it before so I don't know if I'm gonna want notifications and B, I'm just kind of trying to get through it quickly. And I'll often allow it to give me notifications, but notifications are a really powerful thing. They grab your attention and make you pay attention to your phone when you weren't necessarily trying to. And so I recommend going and proactively clearing out a lot of them that you don't actually want to get notified regularly. And you know, in particular, it's like I get notification from news apps and it's like, I don't necessarily want in the middle of my day to like have like, "There's a mass shooting." Like I can check it at my time, when I'm ready to look at the news. I don't need that in my face. So, you know, really think through. Like you were saying, honestly I love Marie Kondo. Like are these notifications bringing you joy, are they serving you at all? And checking that is a really good, easy decluttering. - Yeah, a lot of this goes hand in hand with the type of recommendations we give, if you're wanting to work on your iPhone addiction. I feel like all of us at this point have a bit of an addiction. It's not a personal insult and it's because a lot, like these apps developers spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to hook you in and it's just based on basic psychology. So yeah, like some of these notifications will draw you in when you picked up your phone to do something else. So you want to shift things back to that. You're using your phone, like your phone isn't using you. So I think one big thing too is like I like to turn off badge app icons for most of my apps because that little red notification on your app is like very distracting for the mind. You want to see what's new that's in there. So if it's not an app that you're wanting to visit regularly going and turning that off is great. So that's something you will also do in your notification settings like David said. So notifications is the first big recommendation we have. Another one is going in and just checking out, what's going on with your local iPhone storage. This is different than your iCloud storage. So you go to Settings, General, iPhone Storage and you'll see a display that will show you how much of, you know, depending on what iPhone storage you bought. You'll see a different total amount. I have 128 and 47 gigabytes of that are being used right now. So I'm not having a big problem there, but I still don't want extra stuff on my phone that I don't need. So at the top, it'll give you recommendations of ways that you can clear out clutter. It'll say review large attachments. So you can tap that and it will show you, a lot of times it'll be videos that people sent you. And most of the stuff that people are sending me in messages. I don't really feel attached to and don't want to keep. So you can go through and either swipe left to delete things or tap Edit in the top right corner and like tap all the videos that you don't need and then hit delete and trash them. - One thing I do want to make a couple of recommendations there. Things to be careful of, number one, something that can save you a lot of space, but I recommend using with caution is offloading unused apps. I used to do that. - I hate it feature. - I hate it because what ends up happening is there's this category of apps that you don't use regularly but when you use it you want it. So a good example of that may be, this was something that drove me crazy, is travel apps, right? Like I don't use the Southwest app very often, but when I'm traveling and I want to load up my ticket. I don't want to have to re-download that app in the airport. And it just kept happening to me over and over, where I tried to use an app. It was like a situation where I really wanted to access it quickly and it couldn't because I had offloaded it. And then I'm trying to download it when I don't have wifi. I'm on the go when I need to use the app. So that's one that I recommend being cautious using. - How do you turn that off? I'm like having a hard time finding it. - I don't know 'cause right now I just have it, like the option is typically there to enable it in your storage settings and mine, I just haven't enabled it. I don't know, we'll have to... - I'll have to look it up. - I'm looking it up. Okay, I've got other points too, while you're looking that up. The other feature that I- - Oh interesting, it's in the App Store now. - I thought that's where it might be. - They moved it. I feel like it didn't use to be there. So you go to App Store and then- - Are you literally turning this feature off as I'm talking? - Yeah, seriously I like... Hold on, you keep going 'cause I'm... - You're now just a listener of the podcast. - Yeah. - The other thing that I did that I regretted was I... Another thing that can save you a lot of space is if you delete your message history. So you can have your messages stick around forever, you can have your... Or have it delete after a year or after I think a month, and at one point I got desperate and I deleted everything after a year, and I really miss it. Because, first of all, there's when somebody texted me something a long time ago that I want to go look. Like, for example, my sister texted me her address. Now I need to send her a Christmas present and it was over a year ago and I don't have it. Another example is people die and you've lost all their messages. So that's another one where, you know, you some... It's a personal preference thing but my recommendation is to have your message history kept forever. It's just really. There's all of these use cases that I find that I regret having deleted old messages. So that's another one where I don't want to recommend being proactive. A couple of ways though, where I think you should be proactive. Number one, like Donna said, reviewing large attachments. You can do it in the... From the iPhone storage settings, but also often what it is is it's long videos that you recorded and so if you just go look through your videos in your photos app and just delete the ones that are really long that you don't need anymore. That frees up a lot of storage. The other thing is audio or video that you've downloaded. So the podcast app is a notorious culprit for downloading a bunch of stuff that you don't need. So going into your podcast app and managing, are you downloading like a bunch of podcasts that you subscribe to that you aren't actually listening to. Going into like Netflix and Disney Plus and iTunes and seeing did you download movies? 'Cause that takes up a lot of storage as well. Okay, I went through a lot there. Donna, what do you have? - Okay, so if you go... But I just wanted to give you all an update. If you go into Settings, App Store there you'll have the option to toggle off Offload Unused Apps. And once that's toggled off, when you download an app, it's there and Apple's not gonna decide to uninstall it for you if you haven't used it in awhile. And like David said, that can help you out. Like, it's really annoying if there's an app that you use periodically and every time you try to use it has to be re-installed. And depending on your internet connection at the moment, that could be a problem. So if you have a phone with a decent amount of storage, I like to turn that feature off. And yeah, so other things you can do, now with iOS 14 you can design your home screen how you want it to look. And I think that's great for digital decluttering in that you can actually limit how many home screens you have. Now with the App Library, which you swipe right to left to get to, you'll have a list there, alphabetical list of all of the apps on your phone. When you tap the search icon there you can scroll through. So that's always there, you can always access every single app on your phone that way, but you don't necessarily need to have every single app that you have on your home screen. And people have been getting around this for years by throwing stuff into folders but like you don't need to do that. So now if you tap and hold on your display and you tap the little plus icon in the upper left corner. Wait, shoot, that takes you to your widgets. Nevermind, you tap at the bottom below, where all of your app icon show up there's like little dots. And you tap that and it will show you a page of all of your home screens and you can select which ones show up. And I've changed it now, so I only have one home screen and on that screen, I like to keep the apps that I use every day and the apps that I would like to get myself to use every day, like the ones I want to encourage. So I'm not gonna be putting Facebook and Instagram there. Those are the ones I'm trying to minimize, but Yousician would would be one I would put there, 'cause it's an app that I. Like I'd like to play the ukulele more and I'm gonna keep my work apps there and Spotify and stuff like that. So that's a way to declutter and just keep what you're wanting to use your phone for within sight. - And there's two types of people in this world. There's the people that keep their apps meticulously organized in folders and folders within folders. My experience is those people are pretty few and far between, especially those who not only do that once, but then keep it maintained regularly as they're downloading apps. If you're one of those people, then you may want to have a bunch of home screens, but most people in my opinion, the primary way you should access apps is by searching for them and people don't think about it. They try to always find it just by swiping through a bunch of home screens. You don't need the home screen, just search for the apps. And if you just get in the habit of that, you can have such a clean phone because you don't have to have page after page after page of apps. - That pretty much those are my biggest recommendations. I think, you know, you also may want to go in and delete photos that you don't want. Like these days so many of us take more than 100 photos of an outing that we had. And so you might have like six shots of a person and really you just want one. You know, so you could like trim down 100 photos to like 20, because you're taking basically different versions of the same photo. So that's something I don't have any really fast hack for you there. Like you do kind of need to go through and choose what to keep and delete. But I think that's something that's worth doing, because then when you're going and looking through your photos later. You can see a nice curated, you know, like assortment of photos from different places you've been and not a bunch of junk that you don't need - Yeah, that ties into one of my new year's resolutions, my digital new year's resolutions. Apple has added a lot of new functionality around creating albums and I really never do that, but I would like to do that more. I'd like to be able to have kind of albums from important moments in my life that are a little more curated. So that's a nice... It's less decluttering but it's a nice thing to do and then you can have those albums to review over time. So that's something I want to do a little more of. Another thing I'd recommend, we talked about reviewing your local storage but you also want to do that for your iCloud storage. Because that's another thing where make sure you have enough cleared out iCloud storage that you're backing up regularly. That's one of the big mistakes people make is not backing up the... Having automatic backups set up for you. And then the last one I would say is review... Yeah, Donna you're typing just what I was getting ready to say. That's so funny. Donna, we have a Google Doc open for our script. I'll let you say it, Donna. - Oh it's a good time while you're going through this to figure out what apps are potentially hogging your battery and going through and addressing those now. So you go into settings, tap battery and there, you'll be able to see. Like up top, you'll see the apps that are using the most of your battery and you can look at that over either like from the last day or the last 10 days. And and then like either delete the app if you're not using it or just adjust how you're using it accordingly. Like, do you have any tips for that? Like, if it's not an app that you want to delete, but it's using a lot of battery, what can you do about it? - Yeah, it's tricky. I mean, I guess one thing is background app refresh, making sure you've turned off your background app refresh. 'Cause a lot of times it's using battery when you're not even using the app. You can have changing... The other thing I'd recommend doing is monitoring what apps are you using your location? Not only because it's a pretty serious privacy violation at times, but also because it does drain your battery a lot. So that's a nice way and there's now, Apple gives you options. So you can have, allow it to use your location while you're using the app, as opposed to always is a good one. My final recommendation that I would say is review your passwords. This is a really good thing to do every once in a while. Change your passwords for your apps that you use regularly that are, you need to be secure, like your email and your banking. And also go and look through what is the, what are the passwords that you're reusing? 'Cause you're not really supposed to be doing that and then create new secure passwords for that and save it in your password manager, whether that's Keychain, OnePass, LastPass any of those, but having secure passwords, especially for your most secure apps and using a password manager is a really good... That would be a great new year's resolution. If you all did that, I feel like my work here is done. - Yeah and here I wanted to make our question of the week. This ties in now to ask you all, what are your new year's resolutions and how are you planning to use your iPhone to meet them? And that can be either something you were inspired by this podcast to do. So don't shy away from sending us something we talked about at the show or let us know your new ideas that maybe we hadn't thought of. - Yeah. - So you email podcast@iphonelife.com and let us know what are your new year's resolutions and how are you using your Apple devices to meet them? - All right guys, happy new years, - Happy new years and stick around Insiders 'Cause we have some extra special content for you. - Yes. - Bye. All right David, I wanted to ask you for the Insider Section, do you have any new year's resolutions? Have you thought of this yet? - You know I was just getting ready to ask you that too. I would say, I mean, first of all, just a little like behind the scenes, we're recording this early, it's December 15th. So I haven't given it a lot of thought. One new year's resolution that I definitely have is working out regularly. I'd like to work out at least three times a week. I used to. It was really sad because before COVID, I like really had gone in the best shape of my life. For the first time ever, I was like going to the gym regularly. I had a personal trainer and then I couldn't do it anymore. And I've been really bad during COVID about working out regularly. So that's my biggest 2021 recommendation, is that. How about you? Again I hadn't thought of it a whole lot. Like on a personal level, I was more just thinking about like how can you use your iPhone to accomplish a new year's resolution. But for myself, I think that one thing that I like to do every year, that I use my iPhone to do is to create a list in the reminders app and the way... It's based off a podcast I listened to called Happier, where you do like 20 for 2020 or it was 19 for 2019. And you just come up with like a list of things that you want to do in that year and it can be big or small. So I do that every year and it'll be things like I've had... Well, I wanted to do yoga twice a week, hang out with my sisters once a week, spend time with my niece and nephew once a week. Like for me, it was finish the first season of my podcast. So like I have a lot of things that I want to do or like, you know, get some new sunglasses. Like I just put made really random things like that and if I do like half of them, then I'll be happy. - Yeah. - So I have that list and I keep that in my phone reminders app. And I think that's something like people don't... You know, you don't have to... It doesn't have to be a list that you're revisiting constantly. You can create lists in the reminders app for kind of like longer term aspirational goals. So that's a little tip I was gonna give people. What's gonna be your 21 for 2021 list, David? Yeah, so I'm gonna create that. - Yeah, I can't help but notice you didn't actually give us any though. - I didn't... So which ones did I accomplish? - No, wait, yeah for 2021. - I think for this year I would like... Well, I want to do season two of my podcast. - Yeah. - That's gonna be a big one. That's probably my biggest like outside of work, passion project so I want to keep going with that. - If you haven't listened to Donna's other podcast. It should actually be your new year's resolutions. Donna, give us, how can people find your podcast? - I was just hoping you would ask me so I can plug my personal podcast, yeah. If you search for a Thread the Needle. I have it on an Apple Podcasts and also on Spotify. There's like another podcast called Thread the Needle 2, so mine is the one the yellow and pink episode artwork. Yeah. - It really is - Yeah, thanks guys, thanks David. - You're welcome. - So I have a tip I wanted to tell you guys about. Do you have and it's a learning because it used to be a frustration of mine. - Mine is just- - And actually you're the one who helped me- - Okay, mine is just complaining. Remember last episode I told you I had a lot of complaints for the upcoming episode. I'm ready to complain. I came, I'm ready to complain. - Okay, go for it. - This is like the classic. It's like an oldie but goodie complaint and that is, I'm so frustrated by Apple's autocorrect functionality. The thing that drives me crazy is, you know, cause now it's 2020, it's almost 2021. Clearly they're using machine learning to do autocorrecting, yet for some reason it always autocorrects my think wrong and it's the you're and your or we're and we are. Like I will do it correctly and it will autocorrect it to the incorrect one. And it's so frustrating and it's so embarrassing to me 'cause it always makes me look like I don't know grammar at all. And really, for some reason, it's autocorrecting wrong. Are you having this happen to you? - This does happen to me a lot and I... It's funny 'cause it's one of those things. Like I type informally to people very quickly and will have errors in there and as an editor, it's especially painful and awkward to be doing that. And I also totally judge other people for doing that. - Yeah. - Doing that and like wait, "Do you like not know how to punctuate a sentence?" So yeah, it's a problem because most of the time when we're texting we're doing it quickly. You don't want to spend a lot of time like thinking about your sentence structure and grammar and punctual. - I don't judge people for having typos but like... I do 'cause I shouldn't judge people at all for anything in this world but I do judge people if they don't know the you're from the your. And like when it's going out of its way to add an 're when I shouldn't. It doesn't look like- - And it's wrong. - Yeah, it doesn't look like a typo, it just makes me look dumb. - The other one than it does a lot is its I-T plus the S. It will sometimes change that the wrong way too, it's very frustrating. I don't have a good answer for this. - There's no solution. - I would just say, if you're using you're or its in a sentence then you should proofread before sending. - Yeah. The other one that's a complaint and this is... Maybe it's borderline not safe for work. When I'm not recording a podcast I sometimes swear, especially if I'm texting people and I'm on a rant, I'll swear and it always auto-corrects it. And I'm like, "Apple, we're all adults here. Can't you just let me swear in my text messages?" - Wait, like when you're doing a dictation you mean? - No, if I'm just typing. - Oh, yeah. - It'll be like it's always ducking. - That is a big one, yeah. - Yeah, like who's this using the word ducking that much? - I know, like you're almost gonna have to, in order to swear in a text message, you have to like go in and do that setting. There's a setting that you can do, where you can like teach Apple words that you use. - Yeah, it's frustrating. - But that also seems like a lot of work to go do to be able to swear in your text messages. It seems a little strange. - Yeah. - Yeah. I was gonna get like one workaround I was gonna... It's not something that's gonna teach autocorrect anything, but for people... Like, I don't think everyone's aware of the feature that if you like press and hold on your keyboard, it goes into trackpad mode and then you can quickly move your cursor to the middle of a word. Which is really great if you are proofing a text and you want to add an apostrophe or delete an apostrophe that Apple added that shouldn't be there. That way you can do it. 'Cause I used to not know how to do that and I would be like tapping forever to try to get my cursor to go where it's supposed to go and that would be extra annoying so. - Mm that's a good one. - You can like quickly move your cursor to the middle of a word using this feature, just press and hold your keyboard until it turns gray, and then it's magically transformed into a trackpad. - And the other setting that you were saying is also nice, which is for words that it regularly gets wrong. You can actually go and create shortcuts that will auto, that'll correct it to the right thing. - Remind me how you do that, it's in keyboards? - Oh man, Yeah. So if you open the settings app, let's see if I just type in keyboards. I can never remember like off the top of my head where these things are settings, general, keyboard and then- - Text replacement. - Text replacement. - Yes. - And so that when you add the little tap plus icon, you can type in the word that you want to appear and then the shortcut or in this case, the incorrect version. So if it's a shortcut, you could have OMW and that will turn into, on my way. - Yeah. - Or it could be, you know, what's something wrong? The shortcut could be ducking, would it be? And then you put in the swear word as the actual phrase, if you're wanting to like be allowed to swear or whatever. - You're really committed to these swear words. Another cool use case for this is you can use the... You can use emojis for it. So you could do like if you did like the colon smiley face, it will convert it to an actual emoji smiley face. And that's a cool use case too for this feature, the text replacement. I think last complaint about this, I think what frustrates me about the swearing thing. It's not like that big of a deal but it fits into this archetype that Apple has, which is sometimes Apple can try to be my nanny. You know what I mean? - Yeah, it's controlling. - It's like reminds me to breathe, doesn't let me text while I'm driving. Like tells me I can't use my phone at night. Like all of these types of things, just that's not how I want my technology to interact with me personally and so, it really frustrates me when Apple tries to do that stuff. - Yeah. - Okay, tell me- - Yeah, I find it really annoying. Okay, so mine is that there's a feature with your AirPods that will read your text messages to you and I don't like that happening if I'm working out with my AirPods, but it's a feature that can be useful. So it might be something that you want on sometimes and you want off other times. And I didn't know until David told me that you can quickly toggle this feature on and off in your Control Center. So first, what you have to do is if you have AirPods, you go into your settings app and go to notifications and then there'll be a section, it says, "Announced messages with Siri," and you want to have that be toggled on. So by default, this feature is on. If someone texts you when you're on a run, it'll like interrupt your music and read the text to you. - Which I love. Donna hates it but I'm on record as loving this feature by the way. - Yeah, so I'm not crazy about it. So now once you have that on, you can go into your settings app, tap Control Center and from there is now you can like add a Control Center option for announcing messages with Siri. It's a box with a little square, with a little plus symbol in the upper right corner. So once you've added that, then you can open. Like, let's say you are using your AirPods and you're about to go out on a run, and you don't want to be interrupted with texts. Just swipe down for Control Center and toggle off that setting and you won't be bothered and so I was very happy about that. Oh, it's not a plus icon, it's a bunch of little dots in the upper right of the square, but it'll tell you in Control Center what the feature is. So you don't have to memorize the icon. - Can I tell you what though? I appreciate you giving me credit for this. I did not know you could do this, so it was definitely not me who told you this? - Really. - No. - I wish, I should take credit for it but no, I had no idea. - Yeah, maybe it was Sarah. Oh, another thing you can do is once you, when you are going into your notifications and you tap, Announce Messages with Siri. In that same section, you can toggle on or off this option that says reply without confirmation. So let's say you want to have your text messages read to you and you want to respond to it, but like you don't want to have to go through the step of saying it and then Siri letting you know what you said, and if you want to send it or not because that's kind of just making the whole thing a little more onerous. You can toggle that off. Then again like Apple might send text responses. Siri might send text responses that have errors in it and you'd have to be okay with that. But I think for me, I decided to toggle that off because the whole thing is like, I just don't want to be bothered and for it to take extra time of mine. And so if I'm going to use it, I'm just gonna say like, "Take my chances at responding with some typos." - That sounds so dangerous to me. I would never do that. I would always confirm. - Like you don't want to have to dictate and then have it sent and you might have like, it might have totally gotten it wrong and send something weird. Totally gotten wrong or sometimes my fear would be like. - I mean you're probably right. I feel like sometimes it thinks I'm trying to reply and I'll just be talking to somebody in the room and not trying to reply. And that would be my nightmare if I'd like texted that to somebody and especially if I was talking about them. - That's true. Yeah, maybe I should think twice about that, but those are our tips for the week. Yeah, I just wanted to say thank you to all of you Insiders for being with us for another year. It's been, you know, it's been a really difficult year for so many of us but it's... We've still had so much great content and had so many great courses. I feel like we really got to know a lot of you this year through the courses and being able to interact which has been really cool for all of us. And so I hope you all have a good new year and we're excited to bring you a bunch of more exciting content in the new year. - Yeah, absolutely. Thank you guys so much for your support this year. It's a hard year to be a small business owner and you guys made it great. And so we appreciate you so much and as Donna said, we really enjoyed this year, in particular adding classes to Insider, getting to know you all a little bit more and we hope you have a really excellent 2021, a much better 2021. - Yeah, with any luck it will be. All right, bye. - Thanks everyone, happy new years. All right, Donna. - Uh hu, I'm hungry. - Let's stop this one, damn. Topics: AppsThe iPhone Life PodcastMaster your iPhone in one minute a day: Sign up here to get our FREE Tip of the Day delivered right to your inbox.
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Samsung Introduces New HDR10+ Adaptive Feature for Better At-Home Viewing Experience

Samsung Electronics today announced that the HDR10+ Adaptive feature will be supported in Samsung TVs, which improves the HDR10+ viewing experience in
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Apple Fitness+ Review: Who Will Love It & Who May Not

How do you work out in a world where COVID-19 has made gyms unsafe? The simple answer is to work out at home, but that doesn't mean it's easy. Home workouts seem lackluster when you've been stuck at home for months already. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Apple has met this need head-on with a techy subscription offering, complete with a free trial offer. The advent of their newest fitness app, Apple Fitness+, is timed just right, but the expectations are high for this new service. So how does it measure up? Jump to: * Who Should Try Apple Fitness+ * How Easy Is It to Use Apple Fitness+? * Fitness+ Trainers Are Top Notch * Pros, Cons, and The Final Verdict Apple Fitness Plus... Finally! I'm an NASM Certified Personal Trainer, so I keenly feel the frustration and struggle in trying to force yourself to work out even in the best of circumstances, let alone a time when distractions and stress are at all-time highs. Most people don't have much in the way of at-home workout equipment, and many are short on free time and motivation. Combine that with the fact that many families are having to budget especially carefully right now, and options for maintaining fitness are not exactly plentiful. Enter: Apple Fitness Plus (you'll see it referred to as Fitness+ as well). My coworkers here at iPhone Life have been patiently tolerating my excited chatter about this new service ever since it was announced in September, and I'll admit I'm still just as excited about it despite some of the notable drawbacks I've discovered while using Fitness+. So let's get down to it: who is going to love Apple Fitness+, and who will likely cancel after their free trial? Related: Fitness+: Apple's Comprehensive Digital Workout Program Image courtesy of Apple.com Apple Watch Users Should Try Apple Fitness Plus Without a doubt, anyone who owns an Apple Watch should take advantage of the free trial. It's designed for Apple Watch users, and incorporates the watch's fitness metrics right on the screen to give you calorie-by-calorie motivation and tracking. You can use it at home or at the gym, and Smart Suggestions will hook you up with recommendations based on your activity and previous workouts. If you have an Apple Watch but other family members don't, they can follow along, but they won't be able to track their metrics in the Fitness app or access the workouts solo, which is a major bummer, and probably the biggest drawback of this subscription-based service. On the one hand, I can see why Apple would want to incentivize users to buy more Apple Watches, but on the other, they’re expensive, and leaving out a whole group of users who may otherwise use the service isn’t what I’d call smart marketing. The price of the subscription isn't especially high, though, which is good. At $9.99/month or $79.99/year, many users won't feel too much of a burden on their pocketbooks. However, users who can manage their own workouts (like me), or who truly don't care to spend the extra cash (also like me), will likely opt to cancel at the end of their free trial. Fitness Plus Is Easy to Use & Easy to Enjoy Tucked accessibly into a new tab within your Fitness app, Apple Fitness+ is designed to be useful and fun. You can do Fitness+ workouts on your iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV, as long as you've kept up with current iOS updates. The interface itself isn’t hard to browse and search, and each workout comes with a description to help you understand the difficulty, impact, and cardio level of the exercise. The welcome screen is a great place to find suggested workouts, scroll through categories, and see what themed workouts are available (like the Holiday Cheer category). You can also tap right into a selection of beginner-friendly workouts without having to search or filter categories. One downside, though, is that when you’re using the filters within a workout category, such as Strength, you only have the option to filter by trainer, time, and music. I could see a filter for skill level coming in handy here, especially since most of the workout titles are not at all descriptive of the intensity level. Or, frankly, descriptive at all. You have to actually tap into the workout to read the description in order to gauge the level of the workout. That said, most of the workouts are quite scalable and will allow users to perform the movements with variances in pace, treadmill incline, weight, or resistance. This means absolutely anyone can use Fitness+ for exercise, including newbies, personal trainers, and everyone in between. You can also see a checkmark on workouts you've done before, and add any workout to your Workouts for easy access later. All of your workout activity is tracked on your Apple Watch, making it extremely easy too close those Activity Rings! Image courtesy of Apple.com Fitness Plus Trainers Are Top Notch One thing we know about Apple is that the company wants to be represented well, and they chose Fitness+ trainers accordingly. I spent quite a bit of time looking through the profiles of the Fitness+ trainers, checking out their current and previous Instagram posts, and gauging how well they give cues for pace, safety, and modifications for less-advanced users. In a word, I’m impressed. The only thing that made me choose certain workouts over others was my own mood. I didn’t dislike what I saw from any of the trainers, and they all appear to be both qualified and skilled in their areas of instruction. From experience, I can tell you that training a person you can’t see is pretty tough; you have to know how to give the right linguistic cues to ensure that a trainee knows how to maintain healthy and safe form. On this one, Apple nailed it. As Apple puts it, these trainers are "All inspiration. No intimidation." If you're looking for someone to terrify you into working out à la Jillian Michaels, you may want to look elsewhere. Pros: * Free one-month or three-month trial * Huge variety of workouts for strength, cardio, yoga, and many more * App experience is designed to be simple and familiar so that even novice users can navigate it * The Fitness+ welcome screen suggests options for all fitness levels * You can add Fitness+ workouts to your Workouts to save for later * Workouts are fun and engaging, and most are scalable to your fitness level * Trainers are experts in their fields, and chosen based on their engaging personalities * Workout tracking readouts show on your screen during the workout, and save in your Activity when completed * Even if you don't have a treadmill or a stationary bike at home, you'll have plenty of cardio and strength options to choose from Cons: * You have to have an Apple Watch to use Apple Fitness+ * You have to have an iPad or an Apple TV, otherwise you'll be stuck doing workouts on a tiny iPhone screen * Search filters are limited and not especially helpful until you have already done several workouts * Workouts are not given intuitive titles, making it hard to know what a workout includes unless you select it and read the description The Final Verdict You'll notice I didn't mention the price in the Pros and Cons. In my opinion, the price isn't prohibitive, unless you won't get much use out of the app. However, shelling out almost 10 bucks a month can be a good motivator.  All in all, I can see what Apple did here, and I like it. Apple Fitness+ is an excellent and timely addition to the Fitness app, and will serve many users with exactly the kinds of instruction, structure, and motivation needed to stay fit at home. Unfortunately, many features feel half-baked, such as the limitations to search and filtering, and the fact that so many Apple users are excluded from taking part in workouts because they don't own an Apple Watch. I've given Apple Fitness+ a rating of four stars, but I'm looking forward to further development of the service and hoping for more inclusion in future.   Topics: Apple WatchApple AppsApple WatchHealth AppMaster your iPhone in one minute a day: Sign up here to get our FREE Tip of the Day delivered right to your inbox.
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[Infographic] Enjoy Flexible Productivity on Your Terms with Galaxy Book Flex2 5G

As the boundaries between our home and work lives continue to shift, we require devices that can support us in both our work and our play more than ever
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[Sports on QLED] ② Your Ticket to Enjoying Thrilling, Front-row Sports Action From the Comfort of Your Home

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The 8 Best 3rd-Party Apps iPad for Apple Pencil

An Apple Pencil is a great tool that can help you make the most of your iPad. It can be used for drawing and designing, or simply to taking quick notes by hand. There are many iPad Apple Pencil apps that help you explore your creativity and boost productivity. Check out these third-party Apple Pencil-compatible apps that will allow you to step up your iPad game. Jump to: * Art Apps for Apple Pencil * Notes and Writing Apps for Apple Pencil Best Apps for Drawing & Painting with Apple Pencil Digital art opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Grab your iPad and begin creating with the best Apple Pen apps. Whether you are sketching, painting, drawing, animating, or editing, the following apps will equip you with a new way to create art. 1. Procreate ($9.99) Boasting 150 different brushes, Procreate is one of the most popular third-party apps that can turn anyone into an iPad artist. The impressive library contains all the tools you need for sketching, inking, drawing, painting, and even exploring airbrushing, calligraphy, charcoal, and spray paints. These different textures allow your imagination to roam free. Procreate also allows you to work with layers to create designs as simple or as complex as you wish. 2. Artstudio Pro ($11.99) Artstudio Pro may be one of the best iPad Pencil apps because it's great for both drawing and editing. It's often compared to Adobe Photoshop, but it comes at a much more affordable cost. Artstudio Pro is primarily used for natural painting, and mimics the most basic drawing tools to transform your iPad into a digital canvas. This app makes it easy to see all your available tools, and hide them to offer a clean workspace when necessary. 3. Brushes ($3.99) One of the top apps to use with Apple Pencil is called Brushes. It gives the user full control with layers that can be locked. These layers can also have their color balance adjusted, blended, and transformed to achieve the desired look. Brushes, as the name of this app suggests, specializes in their selection of brushes. These can be customized to your exact needs and adjusted in real-time. The app can be used on iPad with an Apple Pencil, as well as on iPhone. 4. FlipaClip: Create 2D Animation (Free) This cartoon animation app is a great tool that allows the user to create frame-by-frame animation. FlipaClip makes learning to use the app incredibly easy with video tutorials that introduce the tools and give a walk-through of the app. There is even a starter project available to help users practice before diving into their personal projects. FlipaClip is great for beginners, and is easy to use even if you aren’t a great artist on paper. 5. Drawing Desk: Draw & Paint Art (Free) Drawing Desk is definitely one of the best apps for Apple Pencil because it's free and still offers a great selection of features. It's very easy to use, and even includes functions such as color match, resize, rotate, and highlight. In addition to a good selection of brushes, there are also patterns that can enhance your designs. You can use Drawing Desk to create artwork from scratch, or to edit images that you can upload from your phone. Must-Have Apple Pencil Apps for Taking Notes & Writing The great thing about the Apple Pencil is that it can be used to make note-taking easier. Typing on an iPad isn’t the most convenient during fast-paced presentations or lectures. Fortunately, there are many great 3rd party apps that make taking paperless notes a breeze. 6. Notepad+ (Free) Notepad+ may be the best note-taking app for Apple Pencil since it combines a simple design with a very intuitive layout. With an adjustable palm rest at the bottom of the screen, Notepad+ feels just like using pen on paper. In addition to allowing you to take notes by hand, the app also lets you make markups on typed documents. Notepad+ also makes it easier to organize the notes you have taken with its convenient drag-and-drop feature. 7. GoodNotes 5 ($7.99) Using powerful Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, GoodNotes 5 makes everything searchable. That means that you can easily find handwritten notes, PDF text, documents, folder titles, typed text, and outlines. Everything can be organized in folders to make your notes easy to access. Since GoodNotes 5 is compatible with iCloud, it can automatically sync with all your devices for easy access to your notes from whenever you are. 8. Notability ($8.99) Notability gives you all the tools you need for note-taking. Not only is it compatible with both iPhone and iPad, it also incorporates audio recording into the mix. This third-party app makes it easy to take notes, journal, draw, and highlight typed text. Notability is the perfect all-in-one app that can accompany you to class, work meetings, and any other noteworthy occasion. Whichever app or apps you decide to go with, we hope you enjoy making art and taking great notes with your Apple Pencil!   Top Image credit:  Iryna Imago / Shutterstock.com Topics: AppsAccessoriesiPad OnlyThird-Party AppsMaster your iPhone in one minute a day: Sign up here to get our FREE Tip of the Day delivered right to your inbox.
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How to Take the Best Photos of Your Furry Friends with the Galaxy Z Flip

From the Galaxy Z Flip’s Flex mode to its handy Quick Selfie feature, the Galaxy Z Flip is as faithful a companion as people’s best friend when it comes to
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Year-End Gift Guide: Cherish More Memories with Samsung’s Memory Technologies

  In a typical city in a normal December, the streets would be full of people getting ready to celebrate the end of the year. Needless to say, this
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[Infographic] Refrigerator Top Tips: How to Keep Your Food Fresher for Longer

How many times have you thrown away unused food from your refrigerator, or wasted food you simply forgot about because it was out of sight and therefore out of
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[Invitation] The First Look 2021

  Samsung Electronics is bringing its innovative technologies to screen experiences in a way you’ve never seen before. At The First Look 2021, Samsung
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Samsung TV Plus Expands to 12 Countries With Over 740 Channels Worldwide

Samsung Electronics announced that Samsung TV Plus,1 Samsung’s free Smart TV video service, which delivers instant access to news, sports, entertainment and
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MS Excel Match and Index , MS Excel VLookup and MS Excel HLookup formula

[Sports on QLED] ① Enjoying the Season’s Most Unmissable Games to the Max With Samsung QLED 8K

While the festive season is likely to look slightly different than normal this year, one thing that promises to stay the same this year-end is the sheer
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Samsung Achieves 305Gbps on Its 5G SA Core

Samsung Electronics announced a significant performance breakthrough on its 5G SA Core, in collaboration with Intel. The two companies achieved a 5G SA Core
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Gifts, Gadgets & Stocking Stuffer Ideas for Techies

In the 149th episode, David and Donna share holiday gift and stocking stuffer ideas, from the HomePod mini to the original AirPods to the best iPhone screen protector. Stick around for an update on Apple’s new M1 MacBooks and Mac mini, plus a first look at Apple’s new workout video service called Fitness Plus. Click here to listen and subscribe. If you like what you hear, be sure to leave a review. And remember to tune in every other week to hear our editors share with you the latest Apple news, best apps, iPhone tricks, and coolest accessories. Claim 10% off your subscription to iPhone Life Insider when you visit iPhoneLife.com/PodcastDiscount. This episode was brought to you by CASEBUDi Crossbody Phone Lanyard ($20). Losing your phone is more than just annoying: it can leave your private data in the hands of whoever finds it! Instead of worrying about someone else having access to your location, passwords, and photos, it’s best to find a way to keep your phone close by. CASEBUDi’s adjustable lanyard is an affordable and stylish fix for this issue. The comfortable crossbody strap pairs with a PopSockets PopGrip (not included) on the back of your phone—just slide it on and it locks into place. You can use your phone as you normally would without having to remove the lanyard. If you’re the kind of person who likes to be out and about but doesn’t want to shove your phone into a bag, an accessory like this will free up your hands. It's especially helpful for shopping, sightseeing, or hiking, where you want easy access to your phone without having to hold it the entire time.   Questions of the week: What are your thoughts on Apple Fitness Plus? Email podcast@iphonelife.com and let us know. Articles referred to in this episode: * How to Receive Mail Notifications for Important Contacts Only * AirPods Max: Apple’s High-End, Over-Ear Headphones Are Finally Here * Fitness+: Apple's Comprehensive Digital Workout Program * New MacBooks Air & Pro: Everything You Need to Know about Prices, Specs, Release Dates   Gift ideas referred to in this episode: * Belkin WeMo WiFi Smart Plug ($14.99) * Ultimate Ears Boom 3 Bluetooth Speaker ($149.99) * Zagg VisionGuard Screen Protectors (Starting at $39.99) * HomePod Mini ($99) * MagSafe Otterbox Cases ($37)  * Ultimate Ears Wonderboom ($99) * Apple AirPods (Starting at $159)   Apps & media referred to in this episode: Apps * Winter Fireplace (Play on your Apple TV to create festive ambience) * Disney Plus (Have watch parties with friends you can't see in person) * Sneaky Santa (Draw Secret Santa names) * Amazon (Order last-minute holiday gifts) * Uber Eats (Send a friend coffee & a pastry!) * Shutterfly (Make a family photo book) Holiday Music Playlists * A Charlie Brown Christmas * World Christmas * Frank Sinatra Christmas ​Useful links: * The iOS 14 Guide: Master Apple's New Widgets, Tools & Features * Join the iPhone Life Facebook Group * Insider walk-through: get a sneak peek of members-only benefits * Get the Insider discount for Podcast Listeners * Sign up for the free Tip of the Day Newsletter * Email the Podcast * Subscribe to iPhone Life magazine ​Episode 149 transcript: - Hi and welcome to the iPhone Life Podcast. I'm Donna Cleveland, editor in chief at iPhone Life. - I'm David Averbach CEO, and publisher. - And we have a fun episode for you today. We're gonna be going over holiday apps and gear to help you get in the spirit over this holiday season. We're also going to talk about follow up to the M1 Macs, we have the early benchmark tests, and early reviews in which have swayed our what we have to say about those Macs, so stay tuned for that. Also I have just tested out Apple Fitness Plus with my Apple watch this morning. It just released last night. And so I wanna tell you all about that as well. So we have a fun jam packed episode for you. Yeah and it's so- - Yeah we really do. - David and I haven't really been on an an episode in a while doing our regular format. So happy to hang out with you David. - Yeah I missed you. Donna's not in town anymore. So we're, this is our catch-up time. - It's true, I know. - It was funny looking back, preparing for this episode we realized pretty much all of our recent episodes have been about announcements. So we haven't really done a lot of just normal episodes. So it's nice to get back on track. - I know. Having three Fall announcements from Apple has been pretty nuts. Also, we don't have a lot dedicated to this because we we haven't tried them yet, but Apple also just came out with premium headphones with the AirPods Max over your headphones that are $550. It's been a wild, wild Fall into Winter for Apple. - Apple really went for it, yeah. - Yeah. All right, before we get into the episode we have a sponsor to tell you about. - Yeah. So today's sponsor is a sponsor that you're probably familiar with. It's GOBUDi, but they have a new product and I'm really excited to tell you about it. Cause it's a really cool product and it's just in time for the holidays. As always, it's a very affordable, great stocking stuffer. What it is, it's called the CASEBUDi Crossbody Phone Lanyard. And how it works is, it's a accessory that works with a pop socket. So if you have a pop socket it basically is a lanyard that goes across your body as the name would imply, and it clicks in. And so you can just have your phone securely strapped to you, which is really awesome for times when let's say you're on a hike, or you're walking around the house, you don't have pockets, let's say you wear pajamas all day for some reason, and you don't have pockets. It's a really nice way just to keep your phone secure, safe and easily accessible. It's really affordable. It's normally $25, but right now they have it on sale, 'cause they just launched it for $15. We will link to it in the show notes, if you go to iPhonelife.com/podcast. - That is right. And we also have a daily tip, that this is a one that's a special favorite of mine. And that's how to receive mail notifications for important contacts only. For those of you who don't know, we have a daily newsletter where we send you a one minute tip that you can do something cool with every day, a one minute iPhone tip. And you can go to iPhonelife.com/dailytips if you would like to sign up for that. Did I say daily tips? It's daily tip. Although probably either one would- - iPhonelife.com/dailytip. Yeah, it's singular. - Okay it's singular. So this tip allows you to only get notified of emails from contacts that are important to you. And if you're anything like me, you get tons of email in your inbox every day, so you don't want to be notified of every single email that comes in. So I think for most people, this is extremely useful. Do you have this set up, David? - I do have the setup for a few people, yeah. And it is really nice 'cause if you're a longtime listener of the show, you know, I have actually, I will give you a live update right now. I believe it's 181,000 unread emails. - Just to give everyone listening, some anxiety. - I get a lot of emails and I can't keep up. So yeah, I do use it and I do really enjoy the feature. But I would place the caveat, use it sparingly, because notifications for emails are, A. they can clog up your notifications, which is even more invasive. And B. if you have too many of them coming in, then it sort of defeats the whole purpose. You want it to be a very select few people that you really wanna make sure you don't miss. - Yeah, that's a good point. I just set it up for, I went and got tested for COVID a few days ago. And so I set it up for the email address where they were gonna send me my results, 'cause I didn't want, you know, they email you your results. I didn't want that to get lost in a stream of emails, so this is a good example of like a way that you might wanna use it. So here's how you set it up. You open your mail app on your iPhone or your iPad. You go to your mailboxes view, which is what the app opens to. So you should just be there. And there's an inbox in your mailboxes that for VIP, your very important people mailbox. And so you tap on that and you'll have the option to add contacts there if you haven't added any before. And then you go and find a contact from there. You can also just open your phone app and go to contacts or open the contacts app. And when you get to a specific contact, like from the list of options there, add to VIP will be one of them. So those are your ways- - That's always how I've done it. As I just go to the contact. Like when I have it, it usually what happens to me is an email comes in that I've missed, I'm angry that I missed it, and then I just tap on the name and do add VIP. - Right, so that's an easy to do it. So that's like phase one of this tip is selecting who are your very important contacts. Once you have those contacts set up, you then wanna make sure you have the notifications coming in for those VIP contacts. So back in the mail app from your mailboxes view, which is like the main view, you'll tap the little info icon next to VIP. And I think this trips people up sometimes 'cause you don't just tap the VIP and go back in the list. You tap the little info icon, and from there at the bottom there'll be a button that says VIP alerts. And you'll tap that. It'll take you to your notification settings for those contacts. And from there, you can make sure that you have your badges turned on for that. And so that way you'll actually see it pop up on your phone. You also can tailor your privacy there. I like to keep previews of my mail turned off, that way it's not popping up on your screen with the actual content of the message in there, it'll just show you who the sender is. And that is how you do this. So if you go to iPhonelife.com/dailytips you can sign up and I highly recommend you do that, because you'll get tips like this every day. And they're extremely useful. I also wanted to tell you about our Insider program. We have a premium subscription, iPhonelife.com/dailytips, that's how you sign up for our free newsletter. But if you really wanna get the most out of your iPhone and you love your Apple devices, and want to make sure that you're taking advantage of all the features that they have, you'll wanna sign up for iPhone Life Insider. We have video guides that walk you through everything you need to know about your device, whether it's your iPhone, iPad, or Apple watch. We have classes, that's a new feature we've come out with where quarterly we hold live online classes where you have instructors who will lead you through any topic that we choose. And you can come on live and ask your questions to us. So it's very interactive. We make sure nobody gets left behind or confused. And you also get a ton of other features with Insider. You get a premium version of this podcast with no ads and extra content. You get a digital subscription to iPhone Life Magazine, and plus full access to our archive, and video versions of our daily tips. So there's a lot there. And if you're listening to this podcast, you get a discount. So go to iPhonelife.com/podcastdiscount for I believe 10% off. Right David? - I believe it is 10% yes. And a couple of things real quick. Number one, we are working on a AirPods guide, which I'm excited about 'cause a lot of you either have AirPods, as you can see Don and I both have our AirPods in, we use them to record the podcast, and or you're gonna get them for the holidays. And so it's a really great guide coming out soon. So if you're interested, make sure you subscribe. Also, we just started doing, in addition to classes, we started doing live monthly workshops. What's the term we're using? I can't never remember. - Yeah workshops. - So you get to hang out with Don and I monthly now. - Yeah we choose topics based on what Insiders have been expressing to us that they wanna know about. And with these workshops, you can come on and ask us questions about that topic, and we will go in depth on it with you. So, yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot in Insider. It's a great deal. So iPhonelife.com/podcast discount is where you can go to sign up. - All right, should we talk about the M1? - Yeah, did you, we had a couple of comments from listeners. - Oh yeah sorry. Didn't mean to get ahead of us. - Yeah, we haven't read any out, I don't think in a couple episodes so we can pick a couple. Thanks everyone who wrote into us over the last few episodes. One was about our coverage of the MacBook Pro. And we just wanted to say, we recorded our podcast about the MacBook Pro, the new MacBooks and MacMini right after the announcement. So nobody had had any hands-on reviews yet. And there was a lot of reason to be concerned about the M1s and maybe to be a little cautious about buying. We are gonna get into a lot of the positive reviews that have come since then, and we'll be modifying our recommendations. But we still stand by the fact that it was probably good to wait and see what the early reviews were. So Greg wrote in and he said, "I was contemplating giving my 2019 MacBook Pro to my son for school, and buying a new MacBook pro with the M1 chip until I listened to your latest podcast. The CTO guest and your follow-up swayed my opinion. And I'm so thankful for your efforts and information, keep up the great work. Best regards Greg F." Thanks for writing in Greg. I hope you're listening today too. 'Cause we're going to tell you about some of the positive reviews of the Mac book and we'll see whether or not that sways your purchase decision. Jim also wrote into us. "Hi Donna, happy Thanksgiving. I love iPhone Life Magazine." - What about me? - Oh sorry, David. - I celebrate Thanksgiving. - Yeah, I dunno, I guess I'm just special. - Yeah, it's true. - "I hope you can convince me that I made the decision correctly in purchasing the iPhone 12 Pro. I had an iPhone XR for two years. I debated which I phone 12 I should get, I considered the pro max, but realized that once the pandemic's over and we're out and about again, it would probably be too big for my pocket. I got my wife, the regular 12, and I got the pro. I am a little disappointed. I like the fact that the iPhone 12 was a little lighter. I would have bumped up the 12 to 128 gigabytes if I decided to get that. So I figured that for $140 difference, I might as well get the pro. I've noticed the screen brightness isn't great, so I've been trying to adjust that, and my phone does get hot at times during the day. I put my own screen protector on, which was kind of interesting because I've never done it." And I, and he bought an ultra thin case. And he asked me do you put a case on your pro? What about a screen protector? Please convince me that I made the right decision. Other than the camera, I'm hoping there's a few other features I will really enjoy. Best, Jim. So yeah that's- - A lot to cover there. - There's a lot to cover there. I mean, the first thing is, I do think that the 12 pro is a great device but it does depend on what device you're upgrading from on whether or not you can really make a case for whether or not it was worth it. You know, like if you have an older device and you you get the 12 pro then you're getting sort of a few features that you haven't been able to have for a while. You're getting a way better camera with more lenses. You're getting a faster processor, and better quality display and all that. Now with the XR, I never had the XR I had the iPhone 10, but I still think it is a pretty significant upgrade. Like your display quality is gonna be better. I was surprised that Jim said that his screen is like not as bright. Because to me, when I upgraded to have the OLED display I found a huge improvement in that, and that alone was almost worth the update. - So I have a couple thoughts. First of all, Jim, I believe you made the right choice. That's the choice I would've made. In terms of the brightness, I'm wondering iPhones now have auto adjusting brightness. I love that feature 'cause if you walk from a low light situation to a bright situation, let's say you're in your house, then you walk outside, it'll adjust for you, and there's less eye strain. But it sounds like what might be happening is your personal preference for screen brightness is different than what Apple's is. So you may actually wanna go into your settings and turn off the auto adjust feature, and then you can kind of have it bright. Because my feeling is it's the problem is not that the older display is not capable of brightness. I think it just your preference is different than what Apple thinks it is. Second of all, I'm looking here at the weight, and you are right. And I actually hadn't realized it that the weight of the iPhone 12 pro is 6.6 ounces, whereas the iPhone 12 is 5.78 ounces. So it is different. That being said, it's less than an ounce difference. So I feel like there might be some subjectivity to it, maybe some buyer's remorse there, cause I doubt that you're holding them and really feeling that the heaviness that much. I think it's a pretty marginal difference. I do personally, as Donna was saying, I think that over time you'll have to email us back again and tell us what you think over time. 'Cause I think over time, I have found that I appreciate the upgraded features more and more, such as the screen. It's one of those things that when you first get it, it looks nice you're like, whatever, but over the course of the lifetime of the phone, every time you go to read it's just a little bit clear, a little bit less eyestrain, text looks crisper and that matters. And I think that, especially once the pandemic is over and you're taking a lot of photos of presumably your friends, your family, you're gonna really enjoy having that nicer camera 'cause it is a dramatically nicer camera. That's my 2 cents. - And the fact, another thing is I really liked the design of the 12 pro the flat edge design, instead of the rounded, because you really do get like more screen in a smaller device. And I just find myself like even using Apple Fitness Plus, the video workouts on my iPhone, I found like was doable. And like, the more you're able to like have a media device that you can like watch videos on that can fit in your pocket is really great. And so I think that's another thing I really like about it. Also, one thing that Jim didn't mention was 5G. I don't know Jim, where you live but depending on where you are, you're gonna be getting access to 5G networks, and you're gonna be experiencing a lot, like faster download speeds if you're downloading media, just in general faster internet connection. So I think, or, you know, cellular data connection. I think that that's also something that's gonna be getting better over the next year or two. So if I were you, I'd probably hold onto your 12 pro for the next couple of years, and you'll be getting good use out of it because that 5G feature, I'm in an area that has 5G in Florida but it's still just very unpredictable and intermittent. So most of the time I'm not noticing my phone being any faster at all. - A couple last things here. Number one, I think Jim's buyer remorse is not that he bought a new phone, but that he bought the 12 pro instead of the 12. So just to clarify, 5G is across all of the iPhone 12 line, correct? - Yes. - Okay, so any of the new iPhone 12 will have 5G. Second of all, just to answer your other question I always have a case and a screen protector on my phone. The phones have just gotten too expensive, especially the pros where the OLED displays are more expensive to fix if your screen does break, the back is still glass. So I believe right, the back is glass? - The back is glass, and like the whole ceramic shield thing they have on the display, it's not gonna still, it's not good enough that you can drop your phone and be fine. And it's really expensive. Once you switched to OLED displays, replacing your display is $250. So you don't wanna even mess with that. - Yeah, and I actually later, I have a screen protector recommendation, but I actually think screen protectors are the one of the more underrated accessories. I think everybody should have them and most people don't. Okay last question and then, cause we actually have a really long podcast today. - I know. - When you have 5G how is it Donna? Is it like dramatically better? - No. - No. - My experience has been it'll tell me, like every once in a while I notice that it says 5G in the status bar on my iPhone. I've noticed no difference. - Oh, that is so depressing. - I mean, it's like in general... The thing is is that 4G is pretty good. Like, so my phone is fast, but I'm not noticing that much of a difference. And I think what it is, is that right now as they're building out the 5G support with different networks, like, it's just I almost think it like it seems like my phone is almost confused at times. Like, it'll say it'll be like almost slower or something. And I don't know, this is totally anecdotal. I don't know if it's like, my phone is trying to connect to both to different networks and it's not quite, it doesn't seem like it's worked out yet. - I do think, and I'm a little bit hazy on these details so I'm sorry. But I do think that there is different things that the carriers are calling 5G, and carriers are trying to be aggressive with what they're considering 5G because everybody likes to feel like they have 5G. I think there's ranges. And I think that like the fastest, most official 5G, is really, really fast, but there's some people, like there's some kind of slightly faster networks that they're claiming is 5G and is not quite 5G. The same thing happened with 4G as well, where there was a period of time where they were claiming that like 3G was 4G for some technical reason that just made no sense. - Yeah. Like one of our writers, Colin Thomas, just wrote a full article on 5G that I was just editing last week. And it was a similar takeaway where it's even places that have the highest speed 5G, like there's low, medium and high band 5G. And most of what they're calling 5G now is low band which isn't gonna be that much faster even though it is faster than 4G. The high band 5G is what you hear people talking about that that's like these amazing blazing fast speeds but that's mainly only available in areas like, sports arenas or things like that where there's no walls or trees or anything obstructing, because high band 5G can't get through, like it can't penetrate walls. And so it's just very rare that you're gonna have that. And it's only within small areas that you will. And I haven't, I guess I have not experienced high band 5G yet. So I still think of like getting a 5G iPhone is still more of an investment in the future. And so I think I'll wanna like hold onto this phone for a couple of years, and I'm sure by next year we'll be having experiencing more of the benefits of 5G. - Yeah, yeah. Okay I'm glad to verify our subjective experiences with there is like low, medium, best 5G. - And they're calling it all 5G, yeah. - Yeah, okay. All right we need to move on. We've got so much to talk about, yeah. - Yeah, let's move on to news. So let's first talk about Apple released three new Macs. We've got the Mac mini, a 13 inch MacBook Air and a 13 inch MacBook Pro. And they all contain Apple's own chip called the M1. And this is Apple, this is a big change 'cause Apple used to use or in the rest of it's Macs, still uses Intel processors, and now they're building their own processor. So this is like basically a whole new brain for your computer. And so it's a big deal and we were skeptical, or cautious about telling people to go and necessarily buy these new Macs right away when we weren't sure there might be some problems with it early on. So we wanna do a follow up and talk about that. - And part of why we wanna do a up is we advised people to wait, and now we are seeing the reviews. And as Donna has alluded to, they're pretty good. The reviews so far have actually been much better than I expected, which probably came across when we were talking about it. And so, yeah, the reviews are essentially, the battery life as we expected is excellent. But what we also are learning as we're getting third party benchmark reviews, is that it actually is significantly faster. So the processor is faster. And most importantly 'cause this is something we are really worried about, not only is it faster, but they're largely is compatibility with third-party software. I would imagine there still are a few notable exceptions to that, but Photoshop has released a version that works on the M1 processor, Google Chrome works, also Apple, if you remember has the software called Rosetta Stone 2. Is that what it's called Rosetta Stone? - There's no Stone. I think you're thinking of the language teaching. - Well, but no, I'm thinking of the literal Rosetta Stone from Egypt, but yeah. Okay, just Rosetta is the software and what it does is it translates the software from software that only works on Intel processors, it translates it, so it can still run on your M1. And that has gotten good reviews as well, that it works well. And we were unsure that it would. - Yeah, I know. And it was reassuring enough to me, that I actually am getting the new 13 inch MacBook Air, and so are two other people on our team. So that just shows, our confidence now that we'll be able to do our jobs well on these new devices. So for what that's worth. Yeah to me, what really shifted was knowing that the Rosetta 2 software works, translation software works really well because the last thing I would want was to get a new computer and not be able to run the software that I need to do my job on it. But like, or the early tests have shown that, I think you go through a few second set up process for each app that you open using Rosetta, the first time you use it. And then after that, like it won't run as fast as as apps would that have actually been built for the M1, but that, for the most part you won't really notice any difference, and hopefully over the next year or so more apps will actually build, more developers will actually build versions of their apps for the M1. But in the meantime, it seems like Rosetta 2 is working really well. So that's cool. - So a couple things there, number one with this new information that it is fast, I think I would like to go ahead and revise my buyer recommendation to say, I would certainly we're recommending people buy it because we're buying it for ourselves in the office. I would personally recommend avoiding Intel based Macs right now, because I think that the M1 and Apple's own chips are the future. And so if you're buying an Intel based Mac, then you're sort of dating yourself in terms of the support you're gonna get down the road and Apples they came out with a few Macs, but there's a lot more coming. I think there's a 16 inch MacBook Pro coming, there's rumors of maybe late 2021, early 2022, some more Pro-line like the iMac coming. So unless you really need a computer, and you don't want the 13 inch, 'cause I personally don't like the 13 inch. Like I wouldn't buy a computer right now, personally. But if you really need a computer, obviously I think Intel processors are still fine, but my personal recommendation is to only buy Apple chip Macs 'cause you're kind of future-proofing it then. And computers, you only buy once every five or so years. - Yeah at the most. So, yeah and I also do prefer the larger displays. 13 inches is a little bit small, but I think that one of the things we didn't really talk about in our previous episode too, that's a huge benefit of these new MacBooks is that, the Mac book air doesn't even come with a fan anymore, because the MLN is able to run so efficiently. Well not only does it greatly improve your battery life, but it also doesn't run hot. And like, I'm sure a lot of you have experienced MacBooks can get really hot. Some of the older ones, like to the point that it's so hot that you can't even really hold or like comfortably sit with it on your lap. And so the fact that the new Macs don't, MacBooks don't have that situation is pretty awesome. The MacBook Air, MacBook Pro does have a fan in it because it's built to have like heavier task loads over a longer period of time, so it will heat up a little bit and need a fan. But I'm really excited about that personally to have the MacBook Air, the super thin device, with a great battery and it doesn't heat up. Like that sounds pretty awesome. - Yeah, absolutely. But the one funny thing is the thing that we were potentially the most excited about in the original podcast, is actually not getting very good reviews, which is the iPhone and iPad app right Donna? - Yeah so I know we were like, all these things seem problematic except that it's really cool. You can run iPhone and iPad apps on your Mac. But apparently the user experience is pretty terrible for running iPhone and iPad apps on your Mac. Now, basically with the new M1 Macs when you open the app store, it'll tell you whether apps are built for the Mac or they were built for the iPhone or iPad and you can install them and use them on your Mac. But like basically a lot of app developers haven't spent any time to create a nice user experience for iPhone and iPad apps on the Mac. And there's no way to really know. So like there are a few apps that have thought it through and work well, but the rest of them are pretty terrible. And there's not like there are millions of apps on the app store. So how are you supposed to know which are the good ones and see my end up wasting a lot of time? The other thing that I think The Verge wrote about this, and I really agree with is that, the making app developers go through the process of figuring out how to run apps that are built for touch displays and to have like ways to use it on your Mac, so you have to convert it like, you know what do you do on your keyboard or track pad, instead of tapping your display. Why not instead build Macs that have touchscreens? If they really wanna run iPhone and iPad apps on your Mac, why not do that instead of like, you have to learn these other ways to use the app on your Mac? It seems a little bit like if they're gonna take this step and they're tryna unify the experience that the MacBooks should just have touched. - I think they will. I think we're entering a new era for Apple where we're gonna start seeing more hybrid type devices like in kind of like we see with Microsoft where you have the, what's it called the Slate? the Microsoft service that it's sort of like a computer and a tablet in one, I think we'll start seeing more devices like that. The answer, funnily enough is Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs had a really, really strong opinion that it was an awkward user experience to have a touch screen on a laptop. And I think the legacy of that, the contradicting of Steve Jobs is something that's really hard for Apple to do and they've held out. But I think they're only gonna hold out for so long. - I agree because I mean, we have the Apple Pencil and Steve Jobs made fun of styluses, styli, I don't know. So yeah, but I thought like because Apple still does seem to be moving the direction of merging its operating systems more and more. It seems like a matter of time, even though they've held a line on that for a long time. - I agree. I do wanna just take a minute to address sort of the more meta point of this, cause we did get a few angry emails from people as we were saying, telling everybody to hold off. And then the reviews came in and they're really good. I personally, it's something that I want to start doing more of, just to warn you all, which is, I think that there's time and place to hold off for a little while. Either when Apple releases a new operating system, there's a lot of times where you wanna wait to make sure it's not buggy. If Apple is taking a risk, and you are using the device for critical things in your life, you sometimes wanna let early adopters take that risk first. So that's kind of what our stance is as a company is we sort of have three tiers, either like this is really safe, this is great, go do it. This is not safe, we don't recommend buying it. And we do sometimes recommend against buying products that are Apple products. So we are actually not affiliated with Apple and we do our best to cover these as honest journalists and tell you if you shouldn't buy an Apple product or we don't like it, but there is that middle ground. And so I don't want people to be upset at us when we tell you to hold off and then it turns out to be good because that's part of the process. And so we're trying to kind of help you to make the best decision in that moment. And we will revise it over time. As journalists, there's no winning this because you know, if we tell people, if we always tell people to buy Apple products then we don't have honesty as a source you can trust, but we are of course, catering towards Apple enthusiasts. So if we say don't buy an Apple product, then people who are enthusiastic feel insulted. And if we tell people to hold off and then it turns out to be good, then people get angry. So we can't win this, but all we can do is at least share our thought process with you all. - Yeah and like David said, it was based off of what we knew at the time 'cause the early benchmarks weren't out yet, since they just been announced. All right. Shall we move on to Apple Fitness Plus? - Yes. - So I'll just for those of you listening who don't know about it, or haven't been following Apple that much this Fall, a few months ago Apple announced that it would be coming out with fitness service called Apple Fitness Plus. It costs 999 a month, or you can buy it with an Apple one subscription which gives you a bunch of Apple services for 2995 a month. And basically it's like workout videos, and you can play it on your Apple TV, your iPhone, or your iPad. And it requires that you use it with your Apple Watch. And so how this works is that your Apple Watch will like fitness metrics will show up on the video display and it will motivate you to close your activity rings for the day. And it will also show you like how your heart rate zone compares to other people who've done the workout to motivate you to do more. So it's a pretty cool fitness service. I tried it out this morning and liked it pretty well. But yeah, I guess, first of all, have you David used any of the competing apps out there? - Yeah. And I'm actually pretty excited about this. I unfortunately didn't have a chance to try it out this morning, but I am very excited about it. Cause I used the Peloton App for a while because I go to the gym, or I did until COVID and they had stationary bikes. So I didn't feel the need to buy myself a full Peloton bike, but I also really enjoy doing spin. And it was a really nice experience. I just prop my phone up in front of the bike, and it would just go take me through a spin class basically. And that's not something that I can really do, I'm not good at like doing that on my own. I'm not like doing hills by myself without somebody guiding me sort of a thing. So I really enjoyed that. I also would sometimes do yoga through it or other types of workouts. And so I'm excited for it because I of course have an Apple Watch, and I do really like the feedback mechanism or the idea of having that feedback mechanism in my workouts where it can kind of guide my workout based on what my heart rate is. So I'm excited about it. What was your experience, Donna? - So I liked it. I'm also excited about it. In general I am coming from the perspective of not loving home workouts. I really thrive off of the social element of workout classes and sort of that motivation and not having to like, think about it at all. You just show up and the coach helps you. And so I have a little bit more resistance to it in that way, but I do think the fact that it's tied in with the Apple Watch is great. Like it's annoying for people who don't have the Apple watch, for me it's interesting. I was reading online that you have to have the Apple Watch like even on Apple's site it's like Apple watch is required, but for me it was letting me still play workout videos without connecting to the watch. It's just not gonna have that like extra element of showing you your activity. So anyways, I thought I would put that out there. That, from what I can tell you can play the videos, if you wanna pay for Apple Fitness Plus, and like play the videos without wearing your watch, you can do that, it's just gonna be a more limited experience. To me I think what makes this more appealing as a home workout for people who prefer the gym, is that it does it like has an element of a coach there and that it's motivating you to hit your activity goals and to like compete with other people who've taken the class. Cause it shows you like how other, how much of a workout other people are getting. So I think it's cool in that way. The things that I don't like about it, is I didn't try Peloton, but I know that Peloton does have like live classes and you can actually see other people who are watching non-live videos. Like you can see the workout metrics of other people who just happened to be watching that video at the same time. So it gives you more of that, like live class experience which David did you do any of the Pelotons live classes? - I didn't. In general, I was getting ready to say I didn't care that much, that it didn't have like classes because it's like, the benefit of an app is you don't have to time your schedule around something that's live. And you know, there's COVID of course which means I wasn't gonna attend live classes. But in general if I'm gonna take the time to plan my schedule around a live class, I'm gonna go to a real live class, I'm not gonna like do Peloton. - Except for COVID though. For COVID it's a little different like having a live class of like a cool instructor, that's something you're excited about and looking forward to might hook you in. - I'll have to see because I did like definitely part of Peloton's whole thing is like they're instructors and they have people with big personalities. So like singing along to the songs and doing playlists. And you still, you end up with your favorite instructors. So there is some of that, that because they are alive, even though I'm watching the recording later, I'm probably benefiting from, but in general I didn't feel like cared that much about the liveliness of it all. But again I'll have to try it and report back in the next episode. - Yeah I think overall, this is something I will definitely incorporate into my workout routine. I have an Apple 1 subscription with my family, so it's pretty affordable. And so it's part of the package. So it's sort of like, I might as well use it. I don't know if I didn't have an Apple 1 subscription if I'd wanna pay $10 a month for this, because I know it's not gonna be my sole method of working out. Like I like doing other things too. The things that I think about it, like they do have a lot of variety. You can do workouts that require no gear. You can do cycling or, rowing, or treadmill, or things like that. If you happen to have things like that at your house or using it at the gym, there's a lot of options. I definitely think I did the dance workout this morning and it's like cheesy. And the instructors are so far, I have a couple of instructors I like, it seems like it still has that same Peloton thing where you can find favorite instructors and like filter by that and sort of feel connected that way, which is cool. But I don't know, like there's something, sometimes about Apple's services, similar to their announcement vibes where it feels a little cheesy and like wanna be or something. Like they're really trying to be cool, but like aren't really. - Apple doesn't pull off cool very well. - And so it's kind of falls into the category of some of their other Apple services where they're copying another service, but doing it in like a little bit of a, like I don't know, you know? Like, it seems like this is a Peloton wanna be. But the upside is that it really ties into all of Apple's ecosystem, so probably I'll use that instead of Peloton. But like also you can't listen to music with swear words in it. Like it's just interests, like I feel like there's something about it that feels a little like, I don't know. - Yeah, definitely that does. I mean, Apple in general it's a tricky one when they branch into more artistic areas. Cause the same problem with like the Apple shows is they only wanted to do family friendly shows and you know at some point you're like, yeah but sometimes I wanna watch a non-family friendly thing. How much my main question though is, did you find the synchronization with the Apple watch helpful? Was that like, did that add a layer to your workout that you wouldn't have had otherwise? Cause that's my kind of hope for it. It's sort of the whole like theory orange idea where like you're basing your workout by keeping your heart rate in a certain level. And having that feedback on the screen, in potentially catering the workout to that sort of thing, that all really appealed to me, but did it work in function? - So I had higher... I thought they were gonna do more with that than they have at least so far. It shows you your rings on the display, so it's like, there's the motivation of being like, I'm closing my rings and it shows you what your heart rate is. It doesn't have anything like heart rate zones. And that's what like Orange Theory does really well, is it has like a section about halfway or three-fourths of the way through the workout where it really pushes you to get into like your highest heart rate zone. And I thought that's what this workout was gonna do, and it doesn't. What it does have, which didn't show up when I did my core and dance workout this morning, but something called the burn bar and it shows you like other people who've taken the class and how you are comparing in terms of how many calories you've burned, compared to what other people are burning, or have burned. So that seems like the closest thing that will be like work harder than you're working- - Burn more calories what are you doing? - Yeah, but like one, I didn't no burn bar showed up for me. And the other thing is like, it's still not really doing heart rate zones or letting you compete against yourself. And so I'm hoping that that's something that maybe this is, they just came out with Fitness Plus, they'll probably be developing it more over time, but yeah. - That makes sense. Okay let's make this our question of the day. Have you tried Fitness Plus? Will you try it? What do you think of it if you did? Or why did you not try it? If, or why are you not interested if you're not? There's a lot of nested questions there, but let us know your thoughts on Fitness Plus. Send us an email at podcast@iphonelife.com. Well, excited how my brain works. My like nested bullet pointed list, that I'm always making in my head. - You know David you're probably overwhelming people. - Yeah I'm sorry. - Yeah I'm really curious to hear what you all think of Fitness Plus. I would say overall, I would give it like a B. And I'll be using it. I'm gonna be... And it's also, I only used it one morning. I'm curious at its ability to keep me hooked in over time. And like, if it will successfully become a part of my workout routine. So I think we should do a follow up in like a month and once you've had time to use it too, and talk more about it. - Yeah, I agree. And like you said, this is Apple's first foray into it. It's been a day. Like they will presumably add more functionality over time that may improve it. - Yeah. - Okay, let's talk holiday theme. Oh man we are... This is a marathon cause we missed you guys. So we just packed this episode. - I know. It's the last episode before the holidays. So we couldn't leave you guys without some of our holiday app and gear recommendations. - Yeah, okay. - So you wanna give yours first David? - Sure. I have one that is this is a fun one cause it is both a potential gift, but also just a cool use case for the holidays, I was showing off to Donna yesterday. And that is a smart plug. I personally recommend a Belkin Wemo smart plug, it's I think $25. I actually got it for Black Friday for like $15, so it was a really good deal. The main thing I recommend, if you get a smart plug is to get one that is HomeKit compatible. Because then you can sync it with your other devices. You can create automations. And so what I did that was really useful was I plugged it into the lights on my Christmas tree. So now I can have it so that the Christmas tree automatically the lights automatically turn off, at eight o'clock when we go upstairs and stop looking at it and it turns on in the morning. And that's not only useful cause it's fun to make sure that we have the Christmas tree on during the day, it also I'm told, I haven't fact checked this, but I'm told that it's potential fire hazard that trees get dry and the lights, if you just leave on all the time can create a spark that can start a fire. So it's a nice safety thing. Also you can, with the smart plug you can just say, "Hey Siri, turn off my Christmas tree," and it'll just turn off. I showed Donna yesterday and she was irrationally impressed by that. - There's something very satisfying about it. - Yeah, it's really cool. I found some other... I actually wanna spend a minute talking about smart plugs cause I think smart plugs, if you do one smart home thing, I think smart plugs are really good entry into smart homes. Basically how they work if you don't know, I probably should have started with this, is it's a plug that can be turned on and off remotely. And so you can use your phone to turn this plug on or off, and you can create rules around it that will turn it on or off. And so it can turn a normal gadget into a smart gadget. So a couple of use cases that I found for it in addition to the one that I just said, the Christmas tree. For some reason, I tend to have these use cases only be in the Winter, but I have one for my humidifier. So I have it in my room that at night, my humidifier automatically kicks in and then in the morning it automatically turns off, so that I don't have those kinds of problems with humidifiers either way where you either forget to turn it off and it's just running all day, and you end up with this like puddle by your, by your humidifier, or you forget to turn it on at night and then you don't get the benefit of a humidifier. So that, having that programmed, I really enjoy. And the last one that I have, is I have a plugged into a few space heaters around my house. So for example, what happens in my house is at seven in the morning, my humidifier in my room turns off, and then the space heater in my bathroom turns on. So I walk in the bathroom and it's a warm bathroom. - I feel like all of those are awesome use cases. And what is a smart plug like $25 or something? - Yeah, it's not too expensive. So it makes a great stocking stuffer. Again, that's Belkin Wemo smart plug. And the one caveat I will make, it's this weird thing where not all accessories will work with smart plugs. And weirdly it tends to be the cheaper accessories that work better. The reason is some accessories for example, in the summer, I'll plug it into a fan. If I have a pretty expensive fan that if I turn the fan on, and then I unplugged the fan and plug it back in, the fan is intelligent enough to not automatically be turned on, which is nice if you wanted to use the fan to program it yourself, but completely ruins the functionality of a smart plug. So you do sorta want to test out your accessory that you're buying it for ahead of time, and to test it out you basically turn it on, manually unplug it and plug it back in and see if it'll turn on when you do that. Cause it, otherwise you can't use it with an accessory. But yeah, it's twenty-five bucks. You can get some cheaper ones, I believe. Make sure you get one that's home kit compatible. But that's my like favorite gift/kind of Winter accessory. - Awesome. All right is it my turn? - Yeah. Your turn, that was a long one, but my other ones are short I promise. - Cool. Yeah so I wanted to give you a few gift idea recommendations. I think that the, I'm sure Apple planned it this way, but releasing the Home Pod Mini, right around the holidays, it's priced at a point that it's a great holiday gift for someone. I just thought I would bring mine out and show you for those of you watching the video podcast. I've had my Home Pod Mini for a little over two weeks now, and it is $99. While I don't think that it's a perfect device, like I still think that there are some issues with the Home Pod Mini, I've really been enjoying it overall and think that most people that you know, who like Apple are gonna like having a Home Pod Mini. I have it stationed in my kitchen. I've been using it to like listen to the news, timers, speaker phone, things like that. And it's pretty awesome. Although I was gonna say if you care more about audio quality and want something with like a little more power for the same price you can get the Ultimate Ears Wonderboom which is a little bit bigger than this. And it's a waterproof speaker. It's also portable. Like all smart speakers, you have to have plugged into the wall. So you can't just like grab and go with it. And I think for that same price, you get a lot better sound. So those are sort of like my two mini speaker recommendations, if you're looking for a holiday gift. - Oh yeah. A couple of thoughts there. Number one, I've been an advocate of the home pod for awhile now, and I am a little bit in the minority. So that's why I keep voicing this because people talk about Alexa as being kind of the, be all and all of smart speakers. And Alexa has been around longer, they have a little bit more advanced technology especially in terms of having third-party apps. But if you are an Apple user, if you have an iPhone the integration with Siri to me is so much better than having an Alexa speaker. So I do really wanna push people towards, I think you'll have a much better experience with a home pod than you will within Alexa smart speaker, because of those integrations. I also have a speaker from UE that I was gonna recommend, which is around it's a little bit more expensive. It's the UE Boom. And it's again, it's a very different use case. It's portable, it's Bluetooth, it's a little bit more expensive than the one Donna was saying. So it's a little bit bigger, has a little bit nicer sound quality, but you pay a little more for it- - It's around 200, right? - I don't think so. I think it's like 150, I should've checked that sorry. I'll check it. I'll just do your next one. But yeah, it's a very different use case. So think it through, because one is if you just have this in one room in your house, definitely the home pod mini is the way to go in my opinion. Because you got a smart speaker for the same price and the sound quality is... How is the sound quality on the mini by the way? - So I was very happy with it to listen just to like easy listening music when I'm cooking dinner or podcasts. It's great for that speakerphone, it works well. Today when I was using Apple Fitness Plus I was playing like my hip hop workout music through it and was so disappointed. Just it's like, for a speaker this size, you can't really expect much. And it sounds great for its size, but you're not gonna get like satisfying base or very low, like also knowing Apple, they weren't gonna let the volume go higher, like too high to the point where it would distort, which I appreciate in a lot of ways, but yeah, it doesn't really get that loud. So I think it's great for, if you're having like a dinner party with a few people or it's just for your own personal listening to have like in your bedroom or the kitchen or something like that then it's actually pretty amazing. But yeah, it's not gonna for like a party or any, if you just you wanna listen to music with bass and actually feel it, like you're not gonna get that from a speaker this size. - Yeah. Then you gotta go with the Real Deal Home Pod probably. - Yeah. - Okay Donna, what are some of your other ones? - So yeah, so I think the home pod mini makes a great gift. I just wanted to say, I agree with you, David that for things like now that Apple came out with multi-user support, they have voice recognition on the home pod. So you can send texts and you can make calls, and have it just come connect to your Apple ID and only make calls or send texts from your device. And so that is really great now. And like I have an Amazon Echo and I don't send messages or make calls through it. It's not as easy. And so I think that is really great. What's annoying to me is just that it doesn't let me play music from Spotify. It doesn't give me a variety of different news sources to play news briefs from. It's just like very like Apple, I think needs to build out more support that like I'm used to having with the Amazon Echo. Those are the things that bothered me. And I think they need to have their own Home Pod app. - Yes I completely agree on everything you said. They need their own Home Pod app, and Apple and Spotify need to be better friends because I wanna listen to my Spotify, I wanna use voice for it. I don't like Apple Music, stop making me try to use Apple Music. - Exactly. Okay moving right along. I think the AirPods Pro or even the older AirPods, regular AirPods that are, you can start at 159 for regular AirPods also are awesome gifts. Like you don't even need the pro. I have the second generation AirPods and I love them. And I think that like anyone I know who uses them find them to be so great. They're really comfortable. They connect so well to Apple devices. You can use them in a lot of different situations even like working out and running. - Yeah. Can I just echo that because I think there's this the way Apple's branded it. There's just a sentiment that like the pros are of course, universally better. And it's really a preference thing. I actually personally would never own the pros. And I love my AirPods because for me I find the fit a lot more comfortable with that their are like sealed fit in my ear. And also I want ambient noise when I'm walking around the house or when I'm working out, especially if I'm going for a run, I don't want noise cancellation. If I want noise cancellation, I have larger headphones to use for that. My partner has the pros, she loves them. I actually hate them, because she will use them like around the house and she can't hear us at all. And so I'm always walking in the room, and she'll either like jump cause she's scared or I'm like yelling at her to take off her headphones. So I do think that like, especially now with the price being so affordable for the AirPod, instead of the AirPod pros, it's definitely a gift worth considering. - Yeah I know the AirPods pro my husband has them. It's funny that both of us fall into this camp. I don't love being totally sealed in, and he's been loving it because I have like video meetings all day at work and he puts his, you know, noise canceling AirPods pro in and doesn't have to hear me. So that's great. I think it's a preference thing like you said, the sound quality is also a little better in the pro, but they're also great in the regular. Few more recommendations for you. I think usually we give you all these recommendations for big family get togethers, and most likely people aren't gonna be doing that in the same way at least with as many people as they usually would because of the pandemic. So I wanted to give people a few other ideas for getting festive. Recently, I tried out Uber Eats to send a friend holiday themed Starbucks drink and pastry to their house. And I just wanted to say like, if you're wanting to like check in on someone who you're not in the same location as them, and you're not able to hang out cause of COVID, it's nice. Like you can send them a little treat using this, Uber Eats. And there are a lot of apps that do delivery like that. But Uber Eats has Starbucks, which that's also kind of like an inexpensive, nice way to do this. And you can just enter in the address of the person you wanna send it to and set the delivery time. And I was like amazed at, just for spending like 15 bucks at how touched my friend was, who I did that for. So I think that's a fun idea. I was thinking about doing that for my grandma over the holidays, 'cause we usually spend Christmas together and aren't because of the pandemic and still let her feel, loved and thought of. - That's a great idea. It's a great recommendation. They have to live in a medium to large city sadly. But yeah, that's a great idea. - Yeah. - I've got a couple here. First of all, I have one more gift recommendation, 'cause I did promise I would recommend a screen protector. The Zagg Visionguard Pro would be the one I, it's the one I'm using. I personally the main thing I recommend is, I like the glass screen protectors. I think that those have a much nicer feel. They're a little bit higher quality. I've had good luck in terms of not having my screen break with them. And they have this one is a higher quality glass, they have a special glasses is pretty, they claim is very unbreakable. I don't know. But the thing there's a couple of other things that make it unique. Number one, it's antimicrobial. They haven't gotten FDA approval for claiming that it's antimicrobial as in it prevents COVID, but it prevents viruses from sticking in your phone. So there's no reason to think it would not be effective for COVID as well. And they have this cool technology that actually blocks blue light from coming through your phone which is blue light is, can be disruptive especially at night to your sleep patterns, it can create eyes strain. It does make it a little bit more of a yellow tone on your phone which some people don't like, but I recommend it. I enjoy it. So that's a great gift, again that is a Zagg Visionguard Pro. And I have a couple other ones that are not gifts. Do you have some gifts you wanna go over, and then I'll get into a few like holiday recommendations. - The last gift I wanted to bring up was using Shutterfly to create photo books for people out of photos on your phone. I do think like one sad thing about technology is just like, it is really nice to have printed out versions of your photos, of like special moments with your family and friends. And my parents had been using Shutterfly to create these photo books that they'll do every year, especially for my sister's kids, that you know the first year of their life or whatever, and create these photo books for them. And so I wanted to put that out there. It's a little late in the game now, I guess to be creating something like that but you might be able to get it shipped to you in time for the holidays. - That's a great idea. So I've got a couple of just staying in touch with people, ideas. Number one Disney Plus, the Disney streaming service has this cool functionality where you can do group watching, and I've used this- - Really? - Yeah, it's fun. I've used this a couple of times where you basically you can invite people through the app, and you can watch a movie together. And if I pause it, it pauses on yours and it keeps the movie synced. And so you can do that and you can have, what we've done is we've done that Plus had like a FaceTime call going or a Zoom call so that we're just like chatting and watching a movie together. And that's a really nice little way of I don't know, personally, I find the like full family Zoom calls like painful, and I try to avoid them. Not to be mean but they're just hard to keep a conversation going with so many people. And oftentimes you all who are listening are presumably pretty tech savvy or, but oftentimes a lot of people aren't, and so you spend half the call with like either people with small children who don't know how to mute their Zoom call and they're just screaming, so no one else can hear anything or people dropping in and out. So I like finding ways to connect with family that aren't just that. And so this is a nice one is Disney Plus has that service. I think a couple of other streaming services do, but surprisingly few of them have that functionality. The last thing is because you can't all get together, my partner's family is doing a Secret Santa where we're mailing each other gifts, and you can use a service that we usually use in the office for our Secret Santa called Sneaky Santa. It's free, and basically it manages the whole Secret Santa process so that you don't have to have one person who knows everybody, who everybody has, and also so that people can create little profiles. Cause sometimes the secret Santa, you end up with somebody you don't know very well. So you can create like a wishlist on your little profile. It's free, it's easy to use. If you're gonna do Secret Santa, I would definitely recommend it. - I use that too. Sneaky Santa is the best. - Yeah. Okay what else, anything else you have? - That's pretty much it. I have a few Spotify music playlist for the holidays that I'm gonna include at iphonelife.com/podcast for you all including Charlie Brown Christmas and Frank Sinatra. I'm more into sort of the Christmas classics. So I was gonna say that. I also think the Winter Fireplace app is a free app that you can put on your Apple TV. If you don't have a real life fireplace, it creates that cozy vibe pretty well I'd say. Like you could even probably you need an Apple TV for it. Like you can put it on your iPhone or iPad but that seems a little silly. - Yeah definitely, I think it's more effective with an AppleTV I've I always put it on though. It's fun. And it has like, it's in 4k and you can hear the little crackles and you can choose between a few different fire options. - Yeah. I feel like it actually creates a surprisingly like cozy environment. It seems like it would be cheesy, but it's not really. So I feel like between doing that and like lighting up a Christmas scented candle, like you can create an ambiance in your house without having to deal with the real fire. - Exactly. - Yeah that's pretty much it. I think, you know it's gonna be an unusual Christmas or holiday, a lot of people are not celebrating Christmas necessarily but holiday season, less in person celebrating. And so we wanted to give you some creative ideas, hopefully we did to still have it feel festive and fun. - Yeah and happy holidays, everyone. - I know happy holidays, David. - Happy holidays Donna. Gosh, we- - It's a fun episode. - Yeah, we got through it. We're an hour in, so thanks everyone who stuck around. Hopefully we, it was a jam packed hour. So hopefully you all got some out of it and have a great holiday. Please make sure to stay in touch with your family who is isolated. And yeah, we have our next episode coming right before the new year. So we've got new year's themed episode coming next. - And Insiders stick around, I have a little thing that I've discovered that I wanted to- - Oh yeah. I've got some serious complaining to do, just to warn the Insiders. - All right. Bye everyone. - Bye. - All right Insiders, we have a special complaints and learning segment for you. It's been a while since we've had a special section for you because with our announcement podcasts, we've just done one version. So David has lots of complaining to do for you. - You know, what's funny as I looked and actually my complaints are for the next episode. I have only a marginal amount of complaining this episode. Just- - So what's your complaint? - Okay well it's a complaint and a learning. I think you actually talked about this in a recent episode audio messages that you started doing audio messages is that okay? So I also have sorta gotten into audio messages and I'm really enjoying them overall because they're a nice way, there is a certain intimacy of hearing someone's voice. Also there's something nice about, obviously Don and I like to talk and it's like hard to write it all out, but if you just turn on a microphone in front of me, I'm gonna talk for awhile. So I've been enjoying that. It's kind of a nice way to stay in touch with people that isn't quite, you know, it's asynchronous. So you don't have to like have your schedules lined up to talk on the phone, but it's a little bit more personal than a phone call. Oh sorry, it's a little more personal than text message I mean. But here's my complaint, I find that Apple's functionality with it is like somehow I always end up, accidentally deleting my audio messages before I send them. Have you had this happen to you? - No. - It drives me insane. So here's kind of the use case where they end up deleting. If you have your phone on low battery mode. So let's say it's like later in the day and you're trying to send an audio message. Your phone on low battery mode will after 30 seconds will automatically go to sleep. But if you're in the middle of recording an audio message, it will still automatically go to sleep. And then it'll delete the message that you were in the middle of recording, and it drives me insane. So it's an easy solution. You just have to remember to turn off your low battery mode before you start recording an audio message. But it's so crazy to me that they haven't like created a workaround where it won't go to sleep while you're recording an audio message. Also- - That sucks. - If you navigate a way it'll disappear. So let's say you record an audio message and then like somebody texts you or you get a phone call that happened to me. I was recording audio message, and then I got a phone call and then it went away. And so there's all these weird situations where it'll just delete the audio message before you send it. And it's really frustrating. So it's a learning that a reminder to people that you can send audio messages, just as a reminder of how to. If you open up the text message app, on the it's right where you tap to text the message on the right side you'll see what looks kind of like an audio recording. And if you just press and hold that it'll start recording and then you can push the arrow to send it. So that is my complaint and my learning. - There's also in, if you go into settings and messages, you can tweak your settings to keep all of your audio messages if you want. Like under audio messages it has the option expire. And you can like, by default, they'll expire after two minutes and you can't listen to them anymore or you can choose never. And I've just switched it to never cause my nephew has been sending me the cutest audio messages and I wanna hold on to them. - Yeah that is a... Cause that does frustrate me cause sometimes if somebody sends me an audio message, I'll want to reply, but sometimes I can't reply right away and then it's gone and I can't remember what they said to me, and then I have to respond. So that's a good bonus tip for you all. - So mine is super simple, but it's nice. Like Apple just, I've been in general, like I wish they would come out with new wallpapers more often, because it's like a fun way to customize your phone. And like in general, I feel like they could do a lot more with that. But they recently like in one of their recent updates, snuck in some new updates that are cool. If you go to settings, wallpaper, choose a new wallpaper and go to stills, if you scroll down they have like a new set of landscape ones that they're cool in that they, at night time, they shift to a nighttime scene. So there's one that looks like they're shot in Arizona, without look kind of like those, you know, like it's from Tucson or something and they have a really cool scene. And then other ones that are more of like an illustration of the ocean or something like that. And they turn into these nighttime scenes and they're just really pretty. And I've been having fun like seeing them like shifts throughout the day. And so yeah, those type of dynamic wallpapers are cool. And I haven't heard anyone else in the office talking about them. And so I thought I would share that. And it's a super easy way to change up the look of your device. - Yeah. So can you tell me, okay I just found them. So you go to settings, wallpaper and they are under stills. - Yeah choose new wallpapers. - Yeah those are fun. Cool. - Yeah. So that's it, it's easy. - Alright Insiders, thank you for being Insiders and happy holidays to everybody. - Yeah happy holidays. We'll be back in a couple of weeks with the new episode for you. For our new year, new you will be the theme. - New year, new you. I am so excited for a new year. - Yeah oh my gosh. Let's hope it's better. All right. Bye. - Bye. Topics: The iPhone Life PodcastMaster your iPhone in one minute a day: Sign up here to get our FREE Tip of the Day delivered right to your inbox.
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