iPhone SE, 'M2' MacBook Pro, and 'Apple Watch Series 8'

### Article: A Deep Dive into Tech News, Product Features, and Listener Q&A

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#### Introduction

In this episode, we delve into the latest tech news, explore product features, and engage with listener questions. From updates on Apple’s ecosystem to gaming industry developments, and even some personal anecdotes, there’s something for everyone. Let’s dive in!

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#### News Roundup: Apple’s Ecosystem Updates

Apple continues to dominate the tech world with its seamless integration across devices. One of the most notable features is **iCloud keychain**, which has evolved significantly over time. While it still faces challenges like browser compatibility (especially in non-Safari browsers), iCloud keychain remains a reliable password management tool, especially when combined with Apple’s **Pass Key** initiative, set to revolutionize authentication using biometrics.

Another highlight is **QuickTime on Mac**, which offers versatile video conversion and editing options. For those looking to rip Blu-rays, tools like **makeMKV** and **HandBrake** are indispensable for creating high-quality, format-friendly files. Additionally, Apple’s support for older devices, such as the iPhone 7S running iOS 15, is a testament to its commitment to long-term hardware-software compatibility.

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#### Product Features: Notes App and Shortcuts

The **Notes app** on iOS and iPadOS remains a workhorse for many users. However, it has its quirks. For instance, managing text formatting (like headings or subheadings) differs across devices—on the iPhone, you might need to use keyboard shortcuts, while on the iPad, you’ll find a plus button. On macOS, it’s entirely different. This inconsistency highlights the need for a more unified experience.

Similarly, **Shortcuts** on macOS feels outdated compared to its iOS and iPadOS counterparts. While Apple has made strides in streamlining automation across devices, there’s still room for improvement. A full overhaul of Shortcuts on Mac would be welcomed by many users.

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#### Listener Q&A:/UI Discrepancies

Listener Jeff Wilson (@jeffsimon) asked about the most irritating UI discrepancies across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. Here are three key annoyances:

1. **Contacts app**: On iOS, you can’t manage groups or add contacts to specific groups, making it less functional compared to macOS.

2. **iCloud Keychain**: Its placement in system preferences (Mac) vs. settings (iOS) is confusing and lacks a standalone app for better management.

3. **Notes app**: The lack of consistent text formatting options across devices disrupts productivity.

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#### Listener Contributions: Old Mac Collectors

Listener James (@jamesapple) shared his passion for collecting old Apple devices. His collection includes an iBook G4, which he lovingly calls “the OG.” If you’re ever in a flea market, keep an eye out for these classic devices—they make great conversation starters and nostalgic additions to any tech enthusiast’s space.

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#### Productivity Tools: Video Converters

Listener Malcolm (@malcolm) asked about the best video converters for Mac. Here are some top picks:

- **QuickTime**: Built-in app with versatile export options.

- **VLC Media Player**: Free and capable of converting videos while maintaining quality.

- **Compressor**: Apple’s professional-grade video encoding tool, perfect for advanced users.

For those looking to rip Blu-rays, a combination of **makeMKV** (to create MKV files) and **HandBrake** (for format conversion) is highly recommended. For bypassing copyright protections, explore Homebrew solutions, though proceed with caution.

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#### Listener Q&A: Home Theater Setup

Listener Fernando (@fernandosilva) asked for recommendations on in-wall and in-ceiling speakers. Here’s what we suggest:

- **Sonos**: Known for its seamless integration with Apple devices and AirPlay compatibility.

- **Monoprice**: Offers affordable in-wall subwoofers, ideal for budget-conscious users.

- **Dolby Atmos**: Consider a home theater receiver to future-proof your setup.

If you’re building a new house, running Ethernet cables and speaker wires is a must. Look into homekit-compatible receivers for added smart home integration.

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#### Microsoft’s Acquisition of Activision Blizzard

In tech news, Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard has sent shockwaves through the gaming world. This move aims to bolster Xbox’s competitive position against Sony and other major players. While regulatory hurdles loom, this deal underscores Microsoft’s commitment to gaming as a key growth area.

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#### Final Thoughts

This episode covered a wide range of topics, from Apple’s ecosystem updates to listener questions and gaming industry developments. Whether you’re a tech enthusiast or just curious about the latest in gadgets and software, there’s something here for everyone.

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Thank you for joining us on this journey through tech news, product features, and listener Q&A. If you have any questions or recommendations, feel free to reach out on social media or leave a comment below!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwelcome to the Apple Insider podcast this is your host Steven roblas and today we're going to talk about the iPhone SE iPad air coming out M2 possibly MacBook Pro the iPhone 14 weird Notch and maybe some concerns about one password as well this episode is brought to you by Helix sleep and joining me this week is my friend Wes Hillyard how's it going Wes uh pretty good Stephen you might hear some construction noise in the background people across the street have a lot of beeping trucks so we'll see how that goes oh very good very good now I think I saw you recently changed your Twitter picture uh am I right in thinking you have a beard now I've I've had a full beard since I got out of the military like two and a half years ago okay well I guess I just always see your Skype picture and it is Son's beard I don't even know what that horrific thing might be my Skype picture is my initials as far as I know so that's not what I see well I'm going to send you this and this is the picture I see in Skype oh that was uh I was still in the military that was like a weekend of of of facial hair growth right there that's okay about all I could muster yeah I see okay well I want to do a lightning round of news because there's a bunch of little news tidbits little rumors and leaks here and there I want to talk about one password and some weird IRS stuff too but just right before we recorded the iOS 15.3 Beta release candidate was launched so it means we're very close to a public release but even though this is like a whole point update going from 15 14.2.1 I believe to 15.3 doesn't look like there's any new features and I don't think it has universal control yet either isn't that right no universal control yet nothing user facing anyway yeah yeah people usually dig this stuff up in in special settings so it's it's nowhere to be seen that's almost going to be a year or at least 9 10 months late I guess from WWDC so we'll see I'm still curious to try it I know your setup would really benefit from universal control with iPad and MacBook there together so we'll see maybe not 15 15.4 maybe we'll see it oh we definitely have another 15 or two left uh even with WWDC coming around that's several months from now right but just for that and then the actual releases for 16 won't be till September so universal control could ship after 16 is announced that doesn't matter it's just that's true I I understand people are like oh I even bother announcing it if it's not going to come out it's just you know they planned on it and hit a hitch it happens well it looks like there's some leaks and rumors pointing to an iPhone SE and iPad Air refresh coming soon there's been talk about a March or April event looks like it could also include these two devices there was some eec database filings that looked like new iPad Air and iPhone SE models the iPad Air we're expected to have the a15 bionic chip updated maybe some 5G cellular and that updated Center Stage front-facing camera 12 megapixel with FaceTime and all that the iPhone SE is what I'm interested in not just for me personally but I'm really curious I predicted last year maybe maybe a little too soon that the next iPhone SE would lose the home button and adopt either the side Touch ID button or maybe face ID does not look like it'll be face ID but some of the leaks are just saying it'll be a very small refresh not really any major changes just 5G support and maybe a slightly larger display what do you think do you think the home button is still going to be there for another year oh yeah I mean iPhone SE I don't I don't see this getting face technology I know the the stuff is getting cheaper to make but it's just not in it for this there's also rumors of the iPhone SE plus so I could see two things happening I could see the iPhone 8 style uh get you know recycled again with a new processor and 5G connection and then the iPhone SE plus be an iPhone 10r kind of style again like would Apple want to bring back a rounded face ID phone when we have the flat sided phones now I mean that body's completely out of production at the this point right that's true it's only the SE yeah so it's it's it's it would be odd to to see that and then to I don't know do the iPhone Mini I think we're going to I think we're going to bite our time with the iPhone 8 style how big is that display is it 5.4 in oh you're testing me now so so pretty much the size of the iPhone Mini right so my guess is we're going to get an iPhone se3 that looks like an iPhone 8 and then the next one will be the iPhone Mini body brought back from the dead well and this is okay I'm sorry so the iPhone SE second generation is actually a 4.7 in display God I forgot how small it was so even even more so right it just it just proves the point like the the SC and I'll bring this up when we talk about the iPad Air but I looking at these more consumer focused devices it seems that Apple likes using leftover stuff from other products to make these things and sure the iPhone SE I could I could definitely see just being oh we have cartons of these aluminum platings for for the iPhone eight body style let's just keep selling it until we run out and then eventually they will finally they'll be able to move on to the face ID stuff but I just don't see them bringing back an old school uh candy bar shaped soap slippery sides of the iPhone 10r 10 Series right right now with all the flat-sided stuff it would just look too old and out of place so I I'm sure the Apple will wait until the iPhone Mini is a couple years dead and then bring that back for the se you know I've actually never owned an se but I know they're very popular especially just because of the price point you know $3.99 for a new quotequote you know brand new iPhone is attractive especially for a kids young people if you're getting them for family members so we'll see it looks like maybe in the next couple months I don't think they would have an event where the iPhone SE and iPad Air the headline products I can imagine an event where you have iPhone SE iPad Air refresh and then the Mac Mini and large iMac all in one event you know that feels like the kind of events that they've had recently yeah this spring events definitely a Mac event and oh by the way here's a a processor bump for the iPad Air and a iPhone SE that's that's all I'm seeing people are they're you know shooting for the moon here with these um iPhone iPad rumors but again it's just guys take a breath that's not let's observe every other release cycle of Apple products and you'll see this is not how it goes I'm also curious about the M2 Chip because we've have a rumor here that the current 13in M1 MacBook Pro which is still being sold still has the touch bar that it will be replaced by a remodeled 14in that'll resemble the new Macbook Pros you know with the whole SD card slot HDMI port that body style but instead of the M1 Pro and M1 Max that this base model MacBook Pro would have an M2 Chip the only time we've really heard about the M2 chips is in the refreshed MacBook Air and this rumor it comes from Dylan dkt on Twitter which he's been pretty reliable in the past year or two it seems strange though that Apple would have an M2 remodeled MacBook Air and then also have a base model 14-in MacBook Pro with the same chip I'm not sure you know if there's the same kind of ram limitations as the M1 I would think you could probably get the same specs 16 gigs of RAM 1 tab SSD maybe up to 2 terabytes but then what would be the differentiating factor I mean you have the display and you have ports I mean the the lineup is this right now this is this is the lineup we have and this would this would be apple doing the same thing that's true I'm 100% certain that this fall we're going to see the same release lineup as we saw with the M1 it's going to be M2 processor with an with a redesigned Mac Mini a redesigned MacBook Air and a redesigned 13-inch MacBook Pro for Apple to say hey look guys remember back in July when we gave you a Mac Pro with M1 Pro Max processor yeah now we have this the second generation of M series processor and to show off how great it is here's complete redesigns of all the products that we started off with two years ago right and uh yeah I think that I think that's the move the redesign 13 to 14 in I think makes sense just because again this this goes back to what I was talking about a minute ago Apple likes taking the junk they have lying around and stuffing some slightly worse chipsets in it and calling it a consumer device that's that's what they do yeah they've probably got plenty of 14in aluminum unibody designs laying around give it you know a slightly worser screen don't give it promotion don't give it mini LED give it two Thunderbolt four ports maybe those extra connectors mag safe call it a day you know M2 processor and that's all you need and price it at that what $1,400 price point so that yeah and that would be kind of a nice bow to tie off the 2-year transition where presumably they'll announce the Mac Pro at WWDC and then probably available for sale late in the year and then once you hit the November October time this year you have the M2 air mini and base model Pro that would be I don't know feels like a symmetrical transition from the very first event to this one people are of course just very excited so they're shooting again just for the most extreme crazy timeline that they can and say you know what yeah M2 is coming out in April and we're getting an iPad Pro and the Mac Pro and an iMac Pro and every possible computer that we've ever wanted all in the same event before WWDC and you know and then the Apple cars coming out in July for just for William in a press release yeah in a yeah just press release yeah here look at what Apple's done in the past I mean they love this showb type of you know look at what we did kind of behavior and they said two years they did two years we're going to get you know two more Macs you know the larger iMac and the Mac Pro conclude the transition and then Apple's going to parade out all these new fancy redesigned products with a Next Generation M series processor in the fall that just sounds so Apple the one device that I'm curious where they will fit is the I Ad Pro with an M2 Chip currently has the M1 surely it will get the M2 at some point I don't think they would use the iPad Pro as the first M2 device to be released so I don't think it's going to be just a year after the M1 iPad was announced at that April 20th event released in May I don't think they would do it this may the iPad Pro has also kind of been on like a year and a half to 2year cycle anyway so I think maybe they release the M2 MacBook Air Base model MacBook Pro in the fall maybe we'll see an M2 iPad Pro next spring or maybe just in the same event as the fall when do you think they're going to stick that M2 iPad Pro this is definitely a spring device Apple's been off and on between 18 months and 2 years for the iPad Pro sometimes a little shorter if you look at that calendar it's kind of all over the place but the Wikipedia for just search any iPad cuz I've been doing this all week they for some reason every Wiki page for any iPad model has just a chart of every release of every iPad by year and it it looks uh interesting if you look at that it tells you a lot about how Apple does their releases for certain products like the iPad Air having that fouryear Gap I forgot about that everyone thought it was dead remember right oh yeah but uh anyway the iPad Pro it's odd it sits anywhere between you know maybe a year I think they did that one time but every other time it's been 18 months or so right it seems too soon there's no there's no new processor uh the M2 is not getting announced at the spring event it's just not going to happen they're not going to do July release cuz again that M2 I think is a fall product it's not going to get announced at WWDC uh at the absolute earliest this fall that would put it at about 18 months but even that still feels a little too early like they need to have something else like the last iPad got Center Stage Thunderbolt and the uh M1 processor and mini LED is there a mini LED display ready for the 11-in iPad I don't think so right you know so I'm assuming a little bit longer here let's let's say 2 years on this cycle anyway yeah I agree last few leaks and rumors the supply chain analyst Ross young has suggested that the upcoming Apple watch which would be series 8 could increase in screen size and body size again making three class sizes that Apple might actually have like a large size a medium and a small and analyst quing Chi has also shared multiple reports that apple is looking into a temperature sensor as the additional feature for the Apple Watch series 8 if they do increase the screen size once again would be for it I mean I I would go one more millimeter even two more on my Apple watch I really like the big screen especially on the series 7 what if it means you don't have you have to get new bands if you if there's a 40 what 46 millimeter what is this now it's 45 45 right now we to like 47 millim and this thing is the size of your wrist uh do you think you'd need new bands I don't know if it meant my battery life has been pretty good I don't even know if battery life would be it I don't and I don't know what feature I mean we're getting away from we're getting away from watch territory these things are going to be like full-on cuffs uh here soon true I mean there are some like big I've seen people wear watches that are like the uh old school Deep dive outfits look at basketball player watches cuz those those guys are like the size of houses anyway and their watches have to match they got big watches like look at one of their watches on a normal sized human and it's it's comical yeah like a MAG safe Puck on your arm basically I don't see apple making one out of three sizes have a different band I feel like if they're going to change the band they would change it for all three sizes what about Apple watch Pro you know I don't there's enough computing power in a watch to to consider a pro but I would say if they do make it bigger that they should offer a smaller size to kind of even out the lineup because if it's if the sizes are like extra large and large I think there's going to be a group of people that might not want him that big like I know I've been thinking about getting my mom an Apple Watch and would not get her the big size I would get her the smaller size maybe even like a smaller size if it was available but again depends on battery life too I mean if battery life is just really bad on a tiny size so the only way three sizes make sense to me from just an Apple product perspective is the series 8 both get bigger again just slightly you know another millimeter increase and then the SE stays at the same size so that there's three different sizes but two different band classes that kind of thing which we kind of have now cuz you can get the SC in two different sizes can't you yeah I guess you can actually yeah it's the old sizes 40 and 40 yeah you can get 40 and 44 in the Apple watch SE so even right now we kind of have four different sizes cuz you can get the Series 6 and the Apple watch SE in 40 and 44 and then the series 7 is 41 and 45 so a lot of these leak guys they only see Parts part numbers stuff like that so it's really hard to say exactly what we're looking at I mean this might be that rugged uh display maybe it has a just different size class or different structure so it has a different display panel true that might be that might be where they might be getting the separate size from even though it might be looking like the same size on paper anyway right cuz the rugged model could be like 43 mm and then you would have 41 43 and 45 as the three sizes for the new watches I'm still curious what a rugged Apple watch means I don't see apple doing like rubberized casing for an Apple Watch and the titanium with sapphire glass is pretty adorable as it is so I'm curious what that would mean rugged like is this something that Dwayne Johnson has to wear when he's rescuing something from a volcano in a movie like I I don't know what kind of rugged you're looking for in a in a smartwatch it brings me back and I someone will find me on Twitter and tell me I think this is College Humor it could have been one of those 30 comedy channels yeah but I don't know if you've seen this one of the gosh it must have been 2014 one of the the videos where they parody Johnny I releasing an iPhone and and he's just like and we made it out of the same thing as cases so you no longer need a case it's just made out of the same stuff so if you drop it made out a case brilliant you know just like bril yeah like revolutionary you know that's hilarious they should make the whole plane out of the Black Box material why don't they do that right anyway listeners that that's a joke because it wouldn't fly it's different anyway last couple things iPhone 14 there was a rumor that promotion would still remain on the iPhone Pro Line and not come down to the iPhone 4 14 regular which honestly makes sense to me this is how the iPads work you have promotion on a iPad Pro but on no other iPad it's not on the iPad Air and it's not on the iPad mini and then even on MacBook Pro you know we have promotion on the new Macbook Pro but it's not on the air so makes sense it's in the name Stephen it's a pro yeah yeah feature I don't see it coming anywhere else a lot a lot of people seem to think that it's like oh yeah let's just bring it down it's like you you understand the difference in these devices prices goes with the feature right like that thing expensive to put in right exactly I don't I don't see them putting that in like budget devices but I think we skipped over the iPad Air earlier we never got to that oh yeah have you heard about the the rumors surrounding the iPad air5 I mean other than just updated processor and Center Stage was it what's the other big one 5G you know oh they they have to do the 5G update yeah well iPhone SE too yeah 5G I did see one weird rumor I wanted to ask you about uh what you thought of this OLED did you see that rumor the uh we have an article I think yesterday one of the display guys said that Apple's ramping up production OLED panels for an iPad Air to release in the spring that doesn't feel right no it doesn't I don't that does not feel right at all I would not no I don't think so cuz Okay mini LED is more advantageous to use in larger displays it's better it doesn't have you know screen retention or Burnin issues it's really good at color accuracy and stuff but OLED is better at darks it I think it has even better color accuracy like it has its advantages they each have their pros and cons But ultimately I think it's cheaper and more advantageous for Apple to Target mini LED and eventually micro LED for these larger displays OLED gets very expensive right uh once you get a but bigger than a phone so that's why I don't think we'll ever see it in the iPad Pro Models but then like to put it in an iPad Air this display Tech that is maybe technically better than mini LED on paper why would they kind of one up themselves there it's just a it would be a very odd product choice I think yeah I agree I mean they wouldn't do it for the 11inch pro and then have mini LED in the 12.9 in so that wouldn't make any sense that wouldn't make any sense yeah I I don't think so I don't think that's coming to the air if Apple's ramping up production of 11 in uh OLED displays it must be for the Apple car or the Apple home device that'll have a screen on a homepod I'd be down for that but then no no no that's not yes everything in Apple's lineup has mini LED except for phones having OLED oh by the way here's this home pod with OLED just randomly no no I know I did want to mention we didn't really get a chance to talk about this last week but the rumors of the iPhone 14 changing from a notch to a pill and hole punch design I think we we mentioned the hole punch but then after that there were these rumors that it'll have both a elongated pill and a hole punch and I don't know they look kind of funny there was a bunch of hilarious memes and stuff of like riding iPhone using the the elongated pill and hole punch as the eye and stuff I don't know I mean maybe the elongated pill I don't see apple doing a pill and a hole punch where you'd have like two holes in the front for that matter I would think they just keep the notch I mean what do you think I don't really understand why the pill part is there if only because like the camera needs to be free from the display in order to physically collect light and see the imagees taking a picture of or whatever yeah but the other sensors they're not they're not going to get bothered like you can have a thinner layer of glass for infrared stuff like that like there's ways to get through that so there's really no techn technological reason for Apple to need a whole another cutout for its sensor array for ID and stuff so that and like why wouldn't they just make it one long oval um with everything connected that way it it doesn't seem very apply to me and again this is all stemming from I think I mentioned this uh last time I was on the show it's all stemming from an image of a back plate of an iPhone supposed 14 right where there's two separate cutouts for the modules but it did not show the cover glass the glass could cover that pill shape completely and off escate it we would never see it but inside of the frame of the phone there is a pill with a dot but I think it's all stemming from that and everyone just ran with it correct me if I'm wrong unless there's another photo somewhere of a of a display panel with this thing no but no yeah very odd choice I don't see it happening I'm sticking to the whole cutout but really I'm I'm just going to probably say it's just going to be a notch and the iPhone 14 design is just going to look like an iPhone 13 sorry guys I I feel like that's probably accurate it's just it seems like too much at once I I still can't even understand uh how we're going to get rid of a camera bump after making it bigger like twice as big generation over generation and now it's just going to be gone congratulations I don't think it's a flatback I I really doubt that Tim Cook walks into the office and says guys we need to overcome the laws of physics by the next iPhone release or make it an inch thick right which also yeah does not seem feasible so well those are all the leaks and rumors I wanted to get to I guess you could say good news stories I wanted to redeem air tag as a product cuz we had talked about some anti-stalking things last time and all the articles about that well now this is kind of a good news story about airte this was a military family they were moving I think cross country the military spouse Valerie mcnolty actually put an air tag in the items that were going into the moving truck that this moving track was going to be taking their belongings she had heard about some horror stories about moving trucks so she wanted to be able to possibly track where the truck was at any given time they expected a delivery date of January 7th with the truck and all the Goods but did not come on the delivery date the driver said that they were like days and days away she pulled up the air tag in the fine my app and saw that the truck was just 4 hours away from the home that it was supposed to be at and the driver was saying it's going to be days before we can get there the driver obviously caught in whatever lie it seemed like he was trying to spin and said that we'll be there you know soon or whatever I a couple days later so I thought it was interesting that they were able to use air tag to great effect in this situation to actually track their belongings across the country this story is crazy to me cuz I was in the military forever and pcsing permanent changes station is what this woman was going through where you basically tell the military I'm moving to this location come to my house and collect all these boxes and they send professional quote unquote professional movers uh they'll even pack for you quick quick Horror Story my sister did this with her she was married to Marine or is currently still xmarine but they did this uh while he was in the military and they packed food in some of these boxes and then put it in storage for like 6 months so when they got their stuff back like potatoes had eaten through photos like it was just it was a mess yeah like the these people are terrible they're they're they're uniquely just somehow the Military Movers like just you're uniquely terrible and uh this This Woman's like you know what I've heard all these horror stories I'm going to hide an air tag and track it and this guy if I don't know if How Deeply you read into this he actually uh admitted that he decided while driving the truck full of their stuff was going to stop for like 3 or 4 days to visit his girlfriend and then make the delivery wow because yeah apparently she you know she looked and he was only four hours away this was at his girlfriend's house and he had to admit I see he was probably fired after that that's that's that's completely insane but wow just wild anyway air tags good uses yeah that there are good uses so that's air tag and another kind of good news story was that airpods might have saved a woman's life this woman is named Susan Putman she's 60 years old she was working in her garage Studio she does like floral work and she fell and actually probably passed out knocked herself out as she fell I guess she was bleeding at the time and she realized she needed to call 911 but didn't have her phone around but she realized she still had her airpods in her ears so she said the magic words I don't want to say it cuz I don't want to accidentally dial Emergency Services on you as you listen she asked her airpods to call 911 and it worked please were able to show up and help her and I think it's interesting that we used to hear so many stories of the Apple watch saving people's lives because they either fell off I know there was stories of like bicycle riders that fell off the road like in a ditch and the watch detected a fall and so they were able you know it automatically called emergency services without the person having to do anything and now it's even moved to airpods because she was able to make the call from you know where she was laying didn't have to find her device didn't have to have anything presumably she didn't have an Apple Watch either so yeah I thought that was a good story also Stephen do you know how much a Life Alert uh service costs no is it exorbitant oh I I don't know either but I'm assuming it's so on I'm on life alerts website right now which redirects to senior living.org and it says that it ranges from $50 to $90 per month for I guess the equipment and the service to do this if you want mobile and GPS it's an additional $20 a month I guess with whatever device you get get and this device does not look very nice this is like I don't even know what you describe it I guess you can also have like a key fob type thing to trigger Life Alert they have all kinds of uh crazy devices I just wanted to point out like airpods or Apple watch these devices Apple cells basically nothing and no subscription compared to what you have to do with uh any normal thing like Life Alert you if you've ever been on a television before you've probably seen one of these commercials falling and I can't get up yeah yeah it they're just wildly specific but anyway this the situations are like what yeah that it's it's very much like the 3:00 a.m. infomercials where they try to sell you a blender that doesn't have a lid that flies off and spew strawberries across your kitchen but yes anyway I sent you a picture of the website I found I don't know if you're seeing the same one I just thought that it was very accurate to what they were selling whoa that I am not looking at that I don't know I don't know where you found that picture lifealert.com I don't know anyway moving on I just thought that was a fun little tangent I will make that the chapter art uh because that is incredible I mean this these images are from the 1980s that they're using that is something okay anyway so again good news story for airpod uh let me touch on this before we get to the one password thing the IRS actually announced that they will soon ask for video selfies to confirm your identity when you're dealing with the IRS and the IRS the Internal Revenue Service here here in the states is like the tax federal body whatever and they've partnered with id.me which is an identity service based out of Virginia but they're using id.me to verify your identity for your account that logs you into your IRS stuff all of this is like super confusing but do you have id. me Stephen well I have a story about this okay yes I do I I also have it so okay so I will just say I'm not sure I had to do something funny with my taxes not illegal I was working with an accountant something funny Stephen that sounds terrible no I I had a unique tax situation I will put it that way and I needed to create an account like four or five years ago and whatever account I created then has carried over till now and so my id.me account still works with the IRS I can log in but I needed to create an account for my wife and it was using the id.me and I just did this like less than a year ago and it was the most frustrating process because even then they were asking for picture selfies not video selfies but pictures she was doing it from her phone we uploaded it we were uploading like passport images and it just took forever to actually confirm her identity it actually kept erroring out it kept not accepting whatever picture it said they couldn't verify identity it took I think literally 2 months of me like emailing their support and I don't think I ever called anybody cuz there not really phone support but it was just a really frustrating process maybe this whole video selfie will make it less frustrating but I do think it's wild that it's like video selfies now not even photos and I don't know with the Deep fake technology today who knows what it'll be next maybe it'll be I don't know what's after video 3 3D depth maps of your face metaverse identity confirmation which I don't even know that would be a thing so id.me um the military uses it okay but now I get to use it to sign into Apple websites to get military discounts so that's fun no it's it's a confusing terrible process it will never work has never worked on the first try uh some sort of algorithm or poor human is looking at your photos trying to determine if your driver's license that you got 8 years ago looks like a photo you just took if we all have to be subjected to this guess what it sounds like the IRS to me like the most painful brutal process possible but hey guess what I already have one so I don't have to worry about it yeah and me and my wife have them now too so hopefully that just sticks could you imagine maybe Apple's identification system uh tapping into this maybe at some point that would be cool I mean yeah it would be cool and if it made it more seamless where your identity can just be verified across platforms or across you know like you have your driver's license and that ID but then you also have your id.me and IRS I it' be great they could just kind of use one over the other or use one in place of the other so it's okay Apple Apple's not good at IDs either I saw this on Twitter yesterday someone pointed out that if you go in your settings you have a contact photo for yourself a photo for your iPhone information and a separate photo that is is unaware of these other two photos that is used for iMessage so yeah apple doesn't know how to do this either so and if you have a Mac your profile on your Mac could be a different picture even if you're Cloud it'll be a random basketball or baseball yeah zebra exactly this episode is brought to you by Helix sleep you know one of the last things you think about during the day because it's probably the last thing you do is your mattress but your mattress has such an important role to play in the sleep that you get every night which then affects your whole next day I hadn't thought about my mattress for a while but you realize it gets more uncomfortable as it goes on probably have an older mattress and that's why it's time to upgrade your sleep experience using Helix sleep I love Helix sleep because it has a quiz you take on their website and in Just 2 minutes it matches your body type and your sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you everybody's unique 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for a 100 nights risk-free they'll even pick it up for you if you don't love it but I know you will Helix is offering up to $200 of all mattress orders and two free pillows for our listeners if you go to helixsleep.com slapple Insider it's a great deal up to $200 off and two free pillows when you go to helixsleep.com slapple Insider our thanks to Helix sleep for sponsoring this episode before we answer some listener questions that people sent in and I wanted to touch on some video converters for Mac I know it sounds super nerdy but I don't know I had some some suggestions for there I want to talk about this one password deal one password which is the app and service crossplatform we've talked about it before they actually took a round of 620 Mill ion of funding like VC type funding and it brings one password up to a $6 billion valuation now typically if an organization or business is growing like that it's a good sign so John grber had a daring Fireball article kind of commenting on this one password investment and he said he quoted a friend he said unless one password is factoring in the value of every individual password a $6 billion valuation for this company makes no sense so being being just a company that saves your passwords and secure notes being valued at that high of an amount it feels funny but it also puts pressure on one password to provide that kind of value to its investors and so I tweeted out semi flippantly like I guess it's time to slowly change to iCloud keychain and it's not because I have a concern for security of my current passwords in the app right now but kind of like how Dropbox did this weird expansion into other areas and it's not really even a cloud storage anymore which it is that but now they do password savings and they do collaborative work environments and they do all this weird stuff that is not really core to what they did one password stories one password stories one password memoji one password in the metaverse there's going to be pressure on one password to justify this kind of investment and because its product is strictly just passwords right now just saving passwords and syncing them between your devices they do some like network monitoring and stuff like that like they check to see if your accounts have been compromised right if Home Depot has like a thing like a a breach they'll tell you change your Home Depot account yeah but like apple does that now too by default like I I I guess so I guess it's not a very complicated system to set up so yeah I guess the question is is where where does this money go what are they spending it on how does it return typically what happens is companies like Dropbox will begin to move more into the Enterprise Market where one password does have commercial orent Enterprise type plans I actually use one password on teams where businesses pay for each user so there is expansion to be made in there but then also when companies start expanding into that Enterprise market and things just get a little weird and iCloud keychain now that they've added two Factor authentication and it's gotten better overall I'm kind of using it more by default at least when I'm in Safari I I just feel like why pay for one password when I'm not sure what direction they're going right now and I can just use iCloud keychain that being said it's not a perfect system because Derek means on Twitter you know he said I use the brave browser on Mac iCloud keychain doesn't work there and I do that as well for any web development I'll use the brave browser I stopped using Chrome but iCloud keychain doesn't integrate and so that's why I think this is a prime opportunity maybe we could see this at WWDC for Apple to break out iCloud keychain like we've said before on this show into a standalone app that you can access on your iPhone and on your Mac that might even then build extension to use in web browsers like Brave so you can use your iCloud keychain in other web browsers I mean Apple might want to stay locked into Safari but I think it could make it a a bigger feature maybe even make it a iCloud plus feature keychain has a Chrome extension and doesn't Brave allow you to use Chrome extensions it does oh so iCloud you can use iCloud keychan and brave I I don't know I'm I'm asking you like I'm you use if you can use Chrome extensions in Brave then you should be able to use the one password keychain extension but on on top of that I do want to point out that yeah while like uh one password has a very specific feature set keychain isn't for everyone people listening to this podcast uh if you were paying attention during last WWDC we're about to come into a whole new different thing with passwords uh called pass Keys they're it's about to change how we interact with uh authentication systems using Biometrics and stuff across our devices Apple has this it's an open system where you're going to be able to use face ID to enter a password on your Apple TV app stuff like that like it's getting very complex very fast and uh from watching the developers talk about it the implementation's almost ready so this year we could start seeing pass Keys start taking over I I would just recommend uh if you're an apple nerd and you like that kind of stuff you're probably going to want to start looking at keychain anyway and I'm sure one password's going to be on top of that but Apple's kind of promising right out the gate like yes you will need to use one keychain to use Pass key but we're going to make a system keep it in place where you can use it everywhere for instance the Chrome extension so okay as you were talking I just went to the Chrome web store which is available in the brave browser and there is iCloud passwords available as an extension it appears to be there and you can pull your iCloud passwords right from there yeah in the last two or three years if you haven't looked at iCloud passwords it's a whole different monster than what it used to be I wish they could just add a couple more Fields you know like one password you can have the two Factor authentication then you can have secure notes or just notes in a login cuz you know if you have account recovery pass Keys like usually when you enable to Factor on an account they'll give you some recovery pass keys and I usually put that in one password as well so just adding a couple features like that would be nice keychain has a long way to go Apple really needs to break it off into its own application I mean on Mac OS and iOS like that is 100% what needs to happen here uh for it to really start gaining ground uh around people uh getting notice by people who aren't into Apple like I tell PE my friends all the time just use keychain like cuz they're constantly resetting their passwords on everything or getting hacked or you're getting these weird Facebook Messenger uh things from people just cuz they guessed their their mother's maiden names or whatever and getting compromised here and it's just like guys just use keychain and use like a 30- digigit pass password you'll never remember but the phone will remember for you and they're like what are you talking about it's it's just crazy to me that this is still so under the radar like it should be taught in schools kind of thing like just have strong secure passwords I don't understand why it's such an issue but like a paid thing like one password it's it's kind of expensive already from free to $40 a year is is you know what you would say expensive keychain is that no barrier to entry kind of thing other than you have to know where it is in the settings menu and uh that's a lot for a lot of people so apple has a long long way to go to make this a little more accessible in real time followup unfortunately you can install this extension on Mac but this extension is for Windows users to use and so even with the extension installed in Brave you click on it it says this extension is made to be used in Windows 10 and will not work on the Mac even though you can install it so yeah on Mac OS there's only one browser didn't you know Stephen right apparently apparently Safari so listen if they just added that just the extension you already have apple just let it be used on a Mac and people can use alternative browsers so anyway again I'm not going to dump one password right now like I'm still going to keep it I still use it in a family which is another feature that iCloud keychain you can't really share logins with other users and one password you can have vaults that you share with family members you can pay for that family plan but there's still some features that are going to keep me there for a little bit but I'm going to just make sure my iCloud keychain and one password account kind of get in parody and have all the logins in both places just in case well you can always you can always export your one password list into a formatted list and then import it into a apple keychain on a Mac you can't do that on iOS but you can do it on a Mac you can import them in on the Mac really um am I crazy I don't know maybe I am wait a minute wait a minute oh my goodness import passwords jeez I'm just showing you the how to do all this my mind canceling one password right now no uh so you can export and import I did not know that that's amazing yeah that way you can have password parody across those two systems if you use multiple systems I wonder if it how it does with duplicates that's that's the next question let me tell you right now Stephen it probably doesn't um it'll just do duplicate everything well better than not having them so question though just before we real quick before we move on what do you think of this P key stuff like I know we've talked about it before but does that interest you at all does it sound like a a cool thing it's super interesting I do think the future like 20 years from now is not a thousand passwords for every site I just think it's a long way off you know because so many different websites and companies and things need to adopt that kind of thing but I definitely think it's the future I just don't know how far in the future I guess it gets into the dangerous area well as long as you can still have a unique username um it's not like you must use your face for both kind of thing right uh Biometrics for because that that would lock you one account to one system and that you know removes privacy and blah blah blah a lot of a lot of issues would arise from that but like as long as it's just a password prompt is using your Biometrics kind of thing that interests me that because that way you could have yeah technically it'd be the same password for multiple accounts but your password in that case would be a unique biometric so how do you break that it's definely something I want to keep an eye on I I want to see how other password systems handle this and if there is going to be crossplatform Integrity here or if it's just going to be a disastrous mess I'm leaning towards disastrous mess okay okay yeah we'll see we'll see all right right before we get to the Q&A I wanted to mention this article it was the best video converters for Mac Malcolm had the article on appleinsider.com and I just wanted to mention some of my choices he's got a great list here and here's some apps that if you need to convert video maybe you need to make it smaller so you can upload it somewhere or send it somewhere obviously QuickTime on the Mac is still a good tool you can export to multiple resolutions you can change a video file to audio only just using the built-in QuickTime app on your Mac so you have Quicktime there VLC is a great free app to use to not only play a varying array of video formats but you can actually change the format and Export things in VLC a compressor is Apple's app for professional video encoding so I use compressor in conjunction with Final Cut and you can change formats to all kinds of things make videos gifts and do all that kind of stuff uh yes I said GIF and then permute is another great option for the mac and the last couple things I wanted to mention was if you have some reason to maybe rip a Blu-ray disc because you want to save the movie that you purchased with your own money legally and you want to have a video file that's high quality of that blue Blu-ray you have to use two apps in conjunction as far as this is how I've done it before I'll put links in the show notes to this but I use an app called make MKV make MKV actually will take a Blu-ray disc and it creates basically an uncompressed MKV file of the video it'll be like 50 something gigabytes cuz that's how big Blu-ray discs are and then with that MKV file you can convert that to a kind of playable more format friendly uh file either using handbrake which is another great application especially if you just need to rip DVDs handbrake is usually pretty good about that and so that combination of make MKV with handbrake is a great way to rip Blu-rays into you know easy format video files you may need something to get past the copyright because a lot of Blu-rays make it difficult to rip because of the built-in copyright protection and for that I would recommend you look into Homebrew home brew has some options for copyright bypassing and all that kind of stuff and I won't link to that directly cuz I don't know like legality wise I don't know you know how above board that is but home brew is the what you need to look for to kind of get past some of that copyright stuff I do it just cuz I like to rip my Blu-rays like I had old Blu-rays that I just wanted to be able to rip and uh that's what I use it with so there you go Stephen do you know how I watch movies on my stuff you stream you stream it you stream it I open the Apple TV app and I spent $10 and watch the movie listen that is what I do 99% of the time now but there's there's just sometimes uh I don't know in my work anyway that I that I've needed to do this so oh sure yeah there's there's circumstances that comes up yeah exactly all right well we had some listener questions I had asked hey let's do a Q&A session and I we have some questions so I want to run through them real quick and the first one is actually from you Wesley hilard he said do you still find glitter in your beard and I am happy to report that I know longer find glitter in my beard if you don't know what that's about listeners you should look at The homid Insider episodes on YouTube youtube.com/ homid Insider and I said if we reach a th000 subscribers there I would put glitter in my beard and I had a very cinematic slow-mo video of me pouring ecofriendly biodegradable glitter on my face but no I don't find them anymore I did find one in my wind screen for the mic that I used the day I recorded that but that's been it it's it's totally out of my beard I'm happy to report so if you hit 2,000 subscribers Andrew has to shave his head and wear a wig that is identical to his previous hair and see if anyone notices that's that's the bet right he has agreed to nothing he has agreed to nothing so uh we're still trying to find a recommendation that Andrew will actually do now this next question came from at complex Simon on Twitter he asked what is your top 10 list of irritating UI discrepancies between iOS iPad OS and Mac OS he gave an example of the functionality in apple music versus TV on iOS and iPad OS like weird things with the back button so I totally get what he's talking about I don't have a full top 10 list but I will say three annoyances the notes app which I use almost exclusively for the notes for this show I share the notes with Wes William and Andrew and there's weird discrepancies of like where to go to make text into a heading or subheading on the iPhone there's like a plus button on the iPad it's like hard to find a lot of times I have to look up the hotkey to do it the keyboard shortcut and then on the Mac it's different so notes could use a little more seamless organization there shortcuts is probably the most glaring difference and shortcuts on the Mac is just still not right you know hopefully in the next Mac OS Apple will kind of update that to just be better and then iCloud keychain that we just talked about again it's in the system preferences on the Mac it's in the settings app under passwords on your iPhone they could just solve this by making a standalone app like we just talked about just make it the keychain app Let It Be Apple's password storage solution and let it be that so those are the three I had I don't know if you could think of all the top your head was oh yeah no I've I've I have long running uh complaints here oh the contacts app on iOS does not have the ability to edit or manage groups you have to use a third party app period right that no yeah that's it like you can go and see that you have groups you can toggle them on and off but you cannot add or delete groups nor can you add contacts to specific groups it's complete Insanity so why even have the feature in contacts like I feel like this app needs a full makeover I I talked about this on previous shows there's so many cool things you could do here to make like contacts and iMessage and photos into this like miniature social network H come on Apple it's right there anyway you you can't add media to your music library on iOS iPad OS you have to do it on the Mac and even then it's slowly dying the Apple's trying to get rid of that all together it seems photos the photos app you cannot add faces to photos on iOS but you can on Mac OS you can name unknown faces on iOS that's there but if you want to say hey this is a face they're just wearing sunglasses you cannot do it on iOS it's crazy that is yes those were excellent examples of frustrating examples like I know these because previously I was you know pretty much iPad iPhone only so if I wanted to do these things I would have to go and boot up the old Mac Mini just to name a face in a photo it's it's crazy yeah no those very good annoying choices I didn't want to mention Mr Jeff Wilson on Twitter he didn't have a question but he was showing off his old Mac Museum I guess you could call it but he has an old iBook power book and an old MacBook all set up over here including one I'm very EnV one that I'm very envious of which is the 12in G4 power book that was my first Mac and of course he has a picture of it right there and I will use that as the chapter art because that's pretty sweet so anyway cool collection do you collect any old Apple gear I wish I kept my old Apple gear but no I don't collect it anymore because I I do tradein a lot now just to keep you know to get new devices I like getting the most value I can out of the old ones so I trade it in right away I do wish I would have kept my first Mac my first iPhone and my first iPod I regret that yeah I randomly I think I mentioned this before I randomly got a iPod video I still haven't done anything with I need to get the 30 pin connector for it so I can plug it into my computer yeah I don't collect these things I've been tempted to multiple times I go to a flea market here in town a lot and it's just one of those where people just sell everything uh it's it's basically a giant yard sale kind of kind of deal uh with like seven or eight nine buildings there it's just a huge huge thing in our area I constantly see old Max like IMAX from 20072 2008 I've seen MacBooks there very tempting um but I'm I'm I'm I'm going to have to start if I ever saw like an iMac G3 I would buy it in like two seconds I don't care if it's $300 that would be just cool to have to put on a shelf but yeah yeah exactly maybe when I get into my new house and office I'll get some old devices to put as Decor around the room James Apple was tweeting some questions about the release schedule for some of the mini and MacBook Air stuff which we covered earlier in the news so hopefully that helped you James apple and finally friend of the show Fernando Silva he's got an incredible YouTube channel talking about iPad stuff he had several questions I want to run through it one what's an iOS iPad OS Mac OS feature you use that goes relatively unnoticed and I think a few things that we've kind of come to take for granted I would say I think the photo sync across Apple devices has gotten very good across Mac iPhone and iPad and it's just something that because it's good nobody talks about it like there's not really many issues so I think that's been really good iCloud backups again kind of along the same line is really good I know we talked about iMessage recently in RCS but the iMessage in the cloud and it's working with SMS where I can reply to an SMS message on my Mac even though it's just a regular old SMS the way that works with continuity and everything is just awesome and one thing that is not so much an OS feature but the fact that older devices still support the newest iOS I mean Apple I think is probably the only one that supports devices 5 years and older you know I still have a couple friends that have iPhone 7S which was released in 2016 it's a 6-year-old device and they still run iOS 15 and actually even the 6s runs iOS 15 and so just I think Apple's support of older devices giving those software updates to those devices I think they're second to none in that regard and because you know no one really talks about old device as much anymore I think it goes unnoticed the iPad Air 2 still runs iPad os5 wow see that's the kind of stuff that's what I'm it's Insanity I I wanted to point out one uh continuity features just in general like I constantly copy something on my Mac and paste it on my iPad and it just it just happen seamlessly you never think about it like stuff like that is really cool Google did promise that they're going to try to do this um in the next 30 years or so on Android so we'll see if that happens but I don't know I I feel like a lot of uh iPhone users just don't um recogn like like uh night mode a lot of times I I'll notice like people be like wow I can't believe this photo came out this way and it's because of night mode half the time like people don't even realize that their phone has night mode or what that uh Moon indicator is on their phone they just oh cool this this photo worked I never thought it would actually take a picture stuff like that right no that's good that's really good yeah and just the camera in general I mean how I don't want to be disparaging but like it's just foolproof because I see people take pictures with their iPhones that like they don't even wait for the shutter to like blink on the screen before they move the phone and somehow the iPhone still captures those images and captures a clear one which I know there's so much computational photography going on in the background it's like constantly capturing stuff as long as you have the camera app open but even so it goes unnoticed because it's so good and it's just helps normal people take great photos and so best this is also from Fernando best product idea based around mag safe we've seen lots of different magsafe Chargers but I think some of my favorite ones is the magsafe car mount I use the belon magsafe car mount which is really cool I love being able just to throw my phone up there puts it at a good viewing distance and I don't have to like hook anything in there's no like holster it just sticks right on there and I got my wife that mag safe popsocket and I don't use popsockets personally but the fact that she can have popsocket and it's not glued to the back of her case anymore that she can actually just take it on and off via the magnet is really cool so I'm glad popsocket made that a MAG safe thing I feel like mag safe is still early days um oh yeah the best accessories are yet to come people are still just basically converting old accessory ideas into uh magnets um right this this thing has just unlimited potential I think uh the the battery pack stuff is relatively novel but I still think is missing the point I do like that uh it's massively improves wireless charging even non 15 wat Chargers just regular Qi Chargers using um Apple's magnetic alignment system it's just day and night you just throw the phone down and as long as you feel that snap into place you'll hear the bump click and you're done and you're charging whereas before it's just pure magical guesses if your phone is charging or not you need a bright green LED light flashing in your face telling you if your phone is actually charging if you're just using regular Qi Chargers it's it's just really Cool Tech and it's so silly cuz it's just a simple magnet with an NFC chip embedded uh in the back of the phone and they made it work yeah it's sweet and his final question from Fernando was how's the house coming along and so if I haven't mentioned it on this show I'm in the middle of building a new house it should be done in a few months and I am right now at the time where I will be running my own ethernet cable and my own home theater speaker cable in the rooms that I want that I talk about it at length on The homid Insider show that comes out Monday so youd like to hear all the details you could check that out the Wi-Fi network I think I'm going to go with and some other stuff but if listeners of this show have recommendations for in-wall and in sealing home theater speakers that are not crazy expensive I talk about my experience at Best Buy the H kid Insider show but if you have recommendations for that kind of stuff home theater stuff receivers and maybe just like in the middle of construction tips about running wire and ethernet and like I'm going to run ethernet everywhere to every Apple TV to every Wi-Fi access point all that stuff but if any of our listeners out there have been through that process and have some warnings or some tips that might help we're right in that stage we I'll be kind of doing all that myself in the next couple weeks and I'll be tweeting about it if you're curious so follow me on Twitter at Steven robbles that's in the show notes but yeah that's where we are so Stephen uh just for my recommendation here um I I use Sonos have you ever had Sonos products I've had a Sonos one and it was sounded very good I did like it so Sonos is cool and I I I got in early I mean I'm in 2016 I've had the same it's the original system I have like the living room like uh home theater system uh and a couple of other speakers and not added much to it since so I don't have I have like one of the newer systems which is a Sonos beam in my bedroom and that's it but uh if I had to start over again and I might uh here soon just cuz I've been thinking about it I don't know that I would want to go all in on a proprietary Network especially outside technically outside of Apple system it does support AirPlay kind of Legacy Style airpl but it it works I think if I had to do it over again especially for the home theater system I think you'd be better off investing in nice speakers and the brains being a homekit receiver and then yes that way you know something cool happens Dolby Atmos 2.0 blah blah blah you can just change out the receiver you still have the very nice sounding speakers but now you can add even more intelligent technology just by upgrading the brain in the center and I think that is a much more more efficient system than buying a $600 subwoofer that that has Wi-Fi connectivity it's just you know Sonos is great I've loved my system but I've been doing the math and I was like I really want that Dolby Atmos upgrade and it's like oh I would have to spend $2,400 to yeah get it and then guess what in two years when a new sound variant comes out it's now outdated and I have to do it again I I kind of now realize like oh if I want to do the apple style upgrade whenever I want to type stuff for this I'm going to need something a little bit more interchangeable and a receiver where you yes have to run cables or something like that if you're building a house run the cables in the wall there you go right especially since sound cables are Universal generally so you can probably run that cable and have a outlet for a speaker pop out near your TV and that would be really cool too and that's that's exactly what I hope to do I'm going to look at some homekit receivers I'm going to run that just standard speaker cable and so recommendations on brands of in seiling and in wall speakers you know Best Buy has some crazy expensive ones I'm not looking to do that maybe I'll upgrade them later but you know ones where I can get a pair for 150 to 200 bucks and also I even saw that monoprice.com has in wall subwoofer and there is actually a room that I might do that in so if anyone has any experience with that kind of stuff like an in-all subwoofer the in-all speakers put a subwoofer under your couch you know have you ever heard of a butt kicker no that's I'll have to look so in in music there's a butt kicker you would put it under the drum player's seat and it was literally this huge motor that would vibrate when like the kick drum was hit or when the bass player played a note and it would vibrate and it's right under the seat of the drum player and so they would call it a book kicker and some people would do that in their home theater they would literally Mount those under the floor where the sofa was and so in addition to a subwoofer actually doing sound they would have these butt kickers like vibrating the floor so well see that's the reason why 7.2 exists now because the point 2 would be you'd have a subwoofer in your face and then a subwoofer under your furniture and that's like a legitimate thing people can do um you can look into but anyway exactly let's hit the the Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard just because I was a big Starcraft uh player back in the day God and so so blizzard I recognize that name and I I think it's interesting Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion valuation making it the world's third largest gaming company by Revenue behind tens Cent and Sony so I think it's interesting that Microsoft wants to get big into the gaming industry and I don't know this might be something that Apple wants to consider with apple arcade to get some like first run like AAA games on the Apple arcade platform but what thoughts did you have about it first of all it hasn't happened yet reg regulatory approval is going to be real crazy for this one uh everything I've heard covering this is talking about Facebook and the metaverse and I think that's exactly what Xbox wants so Regulators are like oh it's a it's a move to compete with Facebook approve approve approve they're going to go send on the way through but what's really happening and you know Xbox knows this it's about the games it's about having um access to IP on its platform that can compete with Sony because right now if you haven't checked Sony's IP catalog intellectual property catalog is insane they have some of the best studios in the industry right now and Xbox has been hurting for a while and after buying obsidian and stuff where they they have access to uh Elder Scrolls and and whatnot in the future to uh go excl exive um that's great for Xbox but now getting Call of Duty and such possibly making it exclusive I mean that that would be huge for the company and very sketchy considering uh like right now Sony is the Call of Duty platform I don't know how much you keep up with gaming stevenh but Sony kind of stole the uh Call of Duty namesake during the uh console transition last generation so the PS4 cycle Sony's had all of The Upfront DLC all of the promotions and if you see a Call of Duty commercial it is PlayStation playing it so um XBox buying this uh now just kind of Screams in the face of that and I I I wonder what's going to happen with the regulatory approval process are they going to require Xbox to play nice with Sony and let them continue their exclusive exclusivity deals like could you imagine Xbox owning Activision and having to give PlayStation 6mon DLC access like it's Insanity anyway I I I'm very interested in seeing where this is goes I've seen a lot of fun art I don't know if you've seen clippy and Call of Duty uh all the stuff well I saw basic apple guy put clippy on a World of Warcraft figure and then I requested he put it on a protos character and he did that and I really appreciate it that was very all the great memes but of course you know behind the memes is scary antitrust so yeah we'll see I'm I'm not against it because um as I said on Twitter none of these properties these companies own affect me in the least I'm definitely when 100% Die Hard PlayStation you know but you know God of War Final Fantasy Kingdom Hearts that that's my playground and it is PlayStation for unless Xbox goes to buy Square Enix like I I would probably storm the Xbox building if I had to if if that was going on but uh yeah this doesn't affect me and Call of Duty's been a bad game since the Modern Warfare 2 fight me yeah what if what if Apple bought Square Enix I'd be okay with that I have all I don't know if you know this but I have all of the Final Fantasy 1- n on my iPad so you know it's already it already fits yeah that's what I'm saying I'm I'm a big Final Fantasy fan I put eight on my iPad just to try it out and it just was kind of amazing like the wave of nostalgia to play Final Fantasy 8 on an iPad was kind of just kind of wonderful actually all right well that was it for today listeners you can follow Wes and myself our Twitter handles are in the show notes if you are you know from Apple or Google and want to submit an anonymous tip or if you're a little birdie you can actually message me on Signal securely and anonymously that's in the show notes as well if you could give us a F star rating and review in the Apple podcasts app that helps out the show you can also support the show with $5 a month to get an adree version Early Access and you get into our private Discord Channel as well don't forget to check out The homekit Insider show that comes out every Monday I'll talk more about my new home construction in Monday's episode so you can check that out and as always thanks for joining us we'll catch you next timewelcome to the Apple Insider podcast this is your host Steven roblas and today we're going to talk about the iPhone SE iPad air coming out M2 possibly MacBook Pro the iPhone 14 weird Notch and maybe some concerns about one password as well this episode is brought to you by Helix sleep and joining me this week is my friend Wes Hillyard how's it going Wes uh pretty good Stephen you might hear some construction noise in the background people across the street have a lot of beeping trucks so we'll see how that goes oh very good very good now I think I saw you recently changed your Twitter picture uh am I right in thinking you have a beard now I've I've had a full beard since I got out of the military like two and a half years ago okay well I guess I just always see your Skype picture and it is Son's beard I don't even know what that horrific thing might be my Skype picture is my initials as far as I know so that's not what I see well I'm going to send you this and this is the picture I see in Skype oh that was uh I was still in the military that was like a weekend of of of facial hair growth right there that's okay about all I could muster yeah I see okay well I want to do a lightning round of news because there's a bunch of little news tidbits little rumors and leaks here and there I want to talk about one password and some weird IRS stuff too but just right before we recorded the iOS 15.3 Beta release candidate was launched so it means we're very close to a public release but even though this is like a whole point update going from 15 14.2.1 I believe to 15.3 doesn't look like there's any new features and I don't think it has universal control yet either isn't that right no universal control yet nothing user facing anyway yeah yeah people usually dig this stuff up in in special settings so it's it's nowhere to be seen that's almost going to be a year or at least 9 10 months late I guess from WWDC so we'll see I'm still curious to try it I know your setup would really benefit from universal control with iPad and MacBook there together so we'll see maybe not 15 15.4 maybe we'll see it oh we definitely have another 15 or two left uh even with WWDC coming around that's several months from now right but just for that and then the actual releases for 16 won't be till September so universal control could ship after 16 is announced that doesn't matter it's just that's true I I understand people are like oh I even bother announcing it if it's not going to come out it's just you know they planned on it and hit a hitch it happens well it looks like there's some leaks and rumors pointing to an iPhone SE and iPad Air refresh coming soon there's been talk about a March or April event looks like it could also include these two devices there was some eec database filings that looked like new iPad Air and iPhone SE models the iPad Air we're expected to have the a15 bionic chip updated maybe some 5G cellular and that updated Center Stage front-facing camera 12 megapixel with FaceTime and all that the iPhone SE is what I'm interested in not just for me personally but I'm really curious I predicted last year maybe maybe a little too soon that the next iPhone SE would lose the home button and adopt either the side Touch ID button or maybe face ID does not look like it'll be face ID but some of the leaks are just saying it'll be a very small refresh not really any major changes just 5G support and maybe a slightly larger display what do you think do you think the home button is still going to be there for another year oh yeah I mean iPhone SE I don't I don't see this getting face technology I know the the stuff is getting cheaper to make but it's just not in it for this there's also rumors of the iPhone SE plus so I could see two things happening I could see the iPhone 8 style uh get you know recycled again with a new processor and 5G connection and then the iPhone SE plus be an iPhone 10r kind of style again like would Apple want to bring back a rounded face ID phone when we have the flat sided phones now I mean that body's completely out of production at the this point right that's true it's only the SE yeah so it's it's it's it would be odd to to see that and then to I don't know do the iPhone Mini I think we're going to I think we're going to bite our time with the iPhone 8 style how big is that display is it 5.4 in oh you're testing me now so so pretty much the size of the iPhone Mini right so my guess is we're going to get an iPhone se3 that looks like an iPhone 8 and then the next one will be the iPhone Mini body brought back from the dead well and this is okay I'm sorry so the iPhone SE second generation is actually a 4.7 in display God I forgot how small it was so even even more so right it just it just proves the point like the the SC and I'll bring this up when we talk about the iPad Air but I looking at these more consumer focused devices it seems that Apple likes using leftover stuff from other products to make these things and sure the iPhone SE I could I could definitely see just being oh we have cartons of these aluminum platings for for the iPhone eight body style let's just keep selling it until we run out and then eventually they will finally they'll be able to move on to the face ID stuff but I just don't see them bringing back an old school uh candy bar shaped soap slippery sides of the iPhone 10r 10 Series right right now with all the flat-sided stuff it would just look too old and out of place so I I'm sure the Apple will wait until the iPhone Mini is a couple years dead and then bring that back for the se you know I've actually never owned an se but I know they're very popular especially just because of the price point you know $3.99 for a new quotequote you know brand new iPhone is attractive especially for a kids young people if you're getting them for family members so we'll see it looks like maybe in the next couple months I don't think they would have an event where the iPhone SE and iPad Air the headline products I can imagine an event where you have iPhone SE iPad Air refresh and then the Mac Mini and large iMac all in one event you know that feels like the kind of events that they've had recently yeah this spring events definitely a Mac event and oh by the way here's a a processor bump for the iPad Air and a iPhone SE that's that's all I'm seeing people are they're you know shooting for the moon here with these um iPhone iPad rumors but again it's just guys take a breath that's not let's observe every other release cycle of Apple products and you'll see this is not how it goes I'm also curious about the M2 Chip because we've have a rumor here that the current 13in M1 MacBook Pro which is still being sold still has the touch bar that it will be replaced by a remodeled 14in that'll resemble the new Macbook Pros you know with the whole SD card slot HDMI port that body style but instead of the M1 Pro and M1 Max that this base model MacBook Pro would have an M2 Chip the only time we've really heard about the M2 chips is in the refreshed MacBook Air and this rumor it comes from Dylan dkt on Twitter which he's been pretty reliable in the past year or two it seems strange though that Apple would have an M2 remodeled MacBook Air and then also have a base model 14-in MacBook Pro with the same chip I'm not sure you know if there's the same kind of ram limitations as the M1 I would think you could probably get the same specs 16 gigs of RAM 1 tab SSD maybe up to 2 terabytes but then what would be the differentiating factor I mean you have the display and you have ports I mean the the lineup is this right now this is this is the lineup we have and this would this would be apple doing the same thing that's true I'm 100% certain that this fall we're going to see the same release lineup as we saw with the M1 it's going to be M2 processor with an with a redesigned Mac Mini a redesigned MacBook Air and a redesigned 13-inch MacBook Pro for Apple to say hey look guys remember back in July when we gave you a Mac Pro with M1 Pro Max processor yeah now we have this the second generation of M series processor and to show off how great it is here's complete redesigns of all the products that we started off with two years ago right and uh yeah I think that I think that's the move the redesign 13 to 14 in I think makes sense just because again this this goes back to what I was talking about a minute ago Apple likes taking the junk they have lying around and stuffing some slightly worse chipsets in it and calling it a consumer device that's that's what they do yeah they've probably got plenty of 14in aluminum unibody designs laying around give it you know a slightly worser screen don't give it promotion don't give it mini LED give it two Thunderbolt four ports maybe those extra connectors mag safe call it a day you know M2 processor and that's all you need and price it at that what $1,400 price point so that yeah and that would be kind of a nice bow to tie off the 2-year transition where presumably they'll announce the Mac Pro at WWDC and then probably available for sale late in the year and then once you hit the November October time this year you have the M2 air mini and base model Pro that would be I don't know feels like a symmetrical transition from the very first event to this one people are of course just very excited so they're shooting again just for the most extreme crazy timeline that they can and say you know what yeah M2 is coming out in April and we're getting an iPad Pro and the Mac Pro and an iMac Pro and every possible computer that we've ever wanted all in the same event before WWDC and you know and then the Apple cars coming out in July for just for William in a press release yeah in a yeah just press release yeah here look at what Apple's done in the past I mean they love this showb type of you know look at what we did kind of behavior and they said two years they did two years we're going to get you know two more Macs you know the larger iMac and the Mac Pro conclude the transition and then Apple's going to parade out all these new fancy redesigned products with a Next Generation M series processor in the fall that just sounds so Apple the one device that I'm curious where they will fit is the I Ad Pro with an M2 Chip currently has the M1 surely it will get the M2 at some point I don't think they would use the iPad Pro as the first M2 device to be released so I don't think it's going to be just a year after the M1 iPad was announced at that April 20th event released in May I don't think they would do it this may the iPad Pro has also kind of been on like a year and a half to 2year cycle anyway so I think maybe they release the M2 MacBook Air Base model MacBook Pro in the fall maybe we'll see an M2 iPad Pro next spring or maybe just in the same event as the fall when do you think they're going to stick that M2 iPad Pro this is definitely a spring device Apple's been off and on between 18 months and 2 years for the iPad Pro sometimes a little shorter if you look at that calendar it's kind of all over the place but the Wikipedia for just search any iPad cuz I've been doing this all week they for some reason every Wiki page for any iPad model has just a chart of every release of every iPad by year and it it looks uh interesting if you look at that it tells you a lot about how Apple does their releases for certain products like the iPad Air having that fouryear Gap I forgot about that everyone thought it was dead remember right oh yeah but uh anyway the iPad Pro it's odd it sits anywhere between you know maybe a year I think they did that one time but every other time it's been 18 months or so right it seems too soon there's no there's no new processor uh the M2 is not getting announced at the spring event it's just not going to happen they're not going to do July release cuz again that M2 I think is a fall product it's not going to get announced at WWDC uh at the absolute earliest this fall that would put it at about 18 months but even that still feels a little too early like they need to have something else like the last iPad got Center Stage Thunderbolt and the uh M1 processor and mini LED is there a mini LED display ready for the 11-in iPad I don't think so right you know so I'm assuming a little bit longer here let's let's say 2 years on this cycle anyway yeah I agree last few leaks and rumors the supply chain analyst Ross young has suggested that the upcoming Apple watch which would be series 8 could increase in screen size and body size again making three class sizes that Apple might actually have like a large size a medium and a small and analyst quing Chi has also shared multiple reports that apple is looking into a temperature sensor as the additional feature for the Apple Watch series 8 if they do increase the screen size once again would be for it I mean I I would go one more millimeter even two more on my Apple watch I really like the big screen especially on the series 7 what if it means you don't have you have to get new bands if you if there's a 40 what 46 millimeter what is this now it's 45 45 right now we to like 47 millim and this thing is the size of your wrist uh do you think you'd need new bands I don't know if it meant my battery life has been pretty good I don't even know if battery life would be it I don't and I don't know what feature I mean we're getting away from we're getting away from watch territory these things are going to be like full-on cuffs uh here soon true I mean there are some like big I've seen people wear watches that are like the uh old school Deep dive outfits look at basketball player watches cuz those those guys are like the size of houses anyway and their watches have to match they got big watches like look at one of their watches on a normal sized human and it's it's comical yeah like a MAG safe Puck on your arm basically I don't see apple making one out of three sizes have a different band I feel like if they're going to change the band they would change it for all three sizes what about Apple watch Pro you know I don't there's enough computing power in a watch to to consider a pro but I would say if they do make it bigger that they should offer a smaller size to kind of even out the lineup because if it's if the sizes are like extra large and large I think there's going to be a group of people that might not want him that big like I know I've been thinking about getting my mom an Apple Watch and would not get her the big size I would get her the smaller size maybe even like a smaller size if it was available but again depends on battery life too I mean if battery life is just really bad on a tiny size so the only way three sizes make sense to me from just an Apple product perspective is the series 8 both get bigger again just slightly you know another millimeter increase and then the SE stays at the same size so that there's three different sizes but two different band classes that kind of thing which we kind of have now cuz you can get the SC in two different sizes can't you yeah I guess you can actually yeah it's the old sizes 40 and 40 yeah you can get 40 and 44 in the Apple watch SE so even right now we kind of have four different sizes cuz you can get the Series 6 and the Apple watch SE in 40 and 44 and then the series 7 is 41 and 45 so a lot of these leak guys they only see Parts part numbers stuff like that so it's really hard to say exactly what we're looking at I mean this might be that rugged uh display maybe it has a just different size class or different structure so it has a different display panel true that might be that might be where they might be getting the separate size from even though it might be looking like the same size on paper anyway right cuz the rugged model could be like 43 mm and then you would have 41 43 and 45 as the three sizes for the new watches I'm still curious what a rugged Apple watch means I don't see apple doing like rubberized casing for an Apple Watch and the titanium with sapphire glass is pretty adorable as it is so I'm curious what that would mean rugged like is this something that Dwayne Johnson has to wear when he's rescuing something from a volcano in a movie like I I don't know what kind of rugged you're looking for in a in a smartwatch it brings me back and I someone will find me on Twitter and tell me I think this is College Humor it could have been one of those 30 comedy channels yeah but I don't know if you've seen this one of the gosh it must have been 2014 one of the the videos where they parody Johnny I releasing an iPhone and and he's just like and we made it out of the same thing as cases so you no longer need a case it's just made out of the same stuff so if you drop it made out a case brilliant you know just like bril yeah like revolutionary you know that's hilarious they should make the whole plane out of the Black Box material why don't they do that right anyway listeners that that's a joke because it wouldn't fly it's different anyway last couple things iPhone 14 there was a rumor that promotion would still remain on the iPhone Pro Line and not come down to the iPhone 4 14 regular which honestly makes sense to me this is how the iPads work you have promotion on a iPad Pro but on no other iPad it's not on the iPad Air and it's not on the iPad mini and then even on MacBook Pro you know we have promotion on the new Macbook Pro but it's not on the air so makes sense it's in the name Stephen it's a pro yeah yeah feature I don't see it coming anywhere else a lot a lot of people seem to think that it's like oh yeah let's just bring it down it's like you you understand the difference in these devices prices goes with the feature right like that thing expensive to put in right exactly I don't I don't see them putting that in like budget devices but I think we skipped over the iPad Air earlier we never got to that oh yeah have you heard about the the rumors surrounding the iPad air5 I mean other than just updated processor and Center Stage was it what's the other big one 5G you know oh they they have to do the 5G update yeah well iPhone SE too yeah 5G I did see one weird rumor I wanted to ask you about uh what you thought of this OLED did you see that rumor the uh we have an article I think yesterday one of the display guys said that Apple's ramping up production OLED panels for an iPad Air to release in the spring that doesn't feel right no it doesn't I don't that does not feel right at all I would not no I don't think so cuz Okay mini LED is more advantageous to use in larger displays it's better it doesn't have you know screen retention or Burnin issues it's really good at color accuracy and stuff but OLED is better at darks it I think it has even better color accuracy like it has its advantages they each have their pros and cons But ultimately I think it's cheaper and more advantageous for Apple to Target mini LED and eventually micro LED for these larger displays OLED gets very expensive right uh once you get a but bigger than a phone so that's why I don't think we'll ever see it in the iPad Pro Models but then like to put it in an iPad Air this display Tech that is maybe technically better than mini LED on paper why would they kind of one up themselves there it's just a it would be a very odd product choice I think yeah I agree I mean they wouldn't do it for the 11inch pro and then have mini LED in the 12.9 in so that wouldn't make any sense that wouldn't make any sense yeah I I don't think so I don't think that's coming to the air if Apple's ramping up production of 11 in uh OLED displays it must be for the Apple car or the Apple home device that'll have a screen on a homepod I'd be down for that but then no no no that's not yes everything in Apple's lineup has mini LED except for phones having OLED oh by the way here's this home pod with OLED just randomly no no I know I did want to mention we didn't really get a chance to talk about this last week but the rumors of the iPhone 14 changing from a notch to a pill and hole punch design I think we we mentioned the hole punch but then after that there were these rumors that it'll have both a elongated pill and a hole punch and I don't know they look kind of funny there was a bunch of hilarious memes and stuff of like riding iPhone using the the elongated pill and hole punch as the eye and stuff I don't know I mean maybe the elongated pill I don't see apple doing a pill and a hole punch where you'd have like two holes in the front for that matter I would think they just keep the notch I mean what do you think I don't really understand why the pill part is there if only because like the camera needs to be free from the display in order to physically collect light and see the imagees taking a picture of or whatever yeah but the other sensors they're not they're not going to get bothered like you can have a thinner layer of glass for infrared stuff like that like there's ways to get through that so there's really no techn technological reason for Apple to need a whole another cutout for its sensor array for ID and stuff so that and like why wouldn't they just make it one long oval um with everything connected that way it it doesn't seem very apply to me and again this is all stemming from I think I mentioned this uh last time I was on the show it's all stemming from an image of a back plate of an iPhone supposed 14 right where there's two separate cutouts for the modules but it did not show the cover glass the glass could cover that pill shape completely and off escate it we would never see it but inside of the frame of the phone there is a pill with a dot but I think it's all stemming from that and everyone just ran with it correct me if I'm wrong unless there's another photo somewhere of a of a display panel with this thing no but no yeah very odd choice I don't see it happening I'm sticking to the whole cutout but really I'm I'm just going to probably say it's just going to be a notch and the iPhone 14 design is just going to look like an iPhone 13 sorry guys I I feel like that's probably accurate it's just it seems like too much at once I I still can't even understand uh how we're going to get rid of a camera bump after making it bigger like twice as big generation over generation and now it's just going to be gone congratulations I don't think it's a flatback I I really doubt that Tim Cook walks into the office and says guys we need to overcome the laws of physics by the next iPhone release or make it an inch thick right which also yeah does not seem feasible so well those are all the leaks and rumors I wanted to get to I guess you could say good news stories I wanted to redeem air tag as a product cuz we had talked about some anti-stalking things last time and all the articles about that well now this is kind of a good news story about airte this was a military family they were moving I think cross country the military spouse Valerie mcnolty actually put an air tag in the items that were going into the moving truck that this moving track was going to be taking their belongings she had heard about some horror stories about moving trucks so she wanted to be able to possibly track where the truck was at any given time they expected a delivery date of January 7th with the truck and all the Goods but did not come on the delivery date the driver said that they were like days and days away she pulled up the air tag in the fine my app and saw that the truck was just 4 hours away from the home that it was supposed to be at and the driver was saying it's going to be days before we can get there the driver obviously caught in whatever lie it seemed like he was trying to spin and said that we'll be there you know soon or whatever I a couple days later so I thought it was interesting that they were able to use air tag to great effect in this situation to actually track their belongings across the country this story is crazy to me cuz I was in the military forever and pcsing permanent changes station is what this woman was going through where you basically tell the military I'm moving to this location come to my house and collect all these boxes and they send professional quote unquote professional movers uh they'll even pack for you quick quick Horror Story my sister did this with her she was married to Marine or is currently still xmarine but they did this uh while he was in the military and they packed food in some of these boxes and then put it in storage for like 6 months so when they got their stuff back like potatoes had eaten through photos like it was just it was a mess yeah like the these people are terrible they're they're they're uniquely just somehow the Military Movers like just you're uniquely terrible and uh this This Woman's like you know what I've heard all these horror stories I'm going to hide an air tag and track it and this guy if I don't know if How Deeply you read into this he actually uh admitted that he decided while driving the truck full of their stuff was going to stop for like 3 or 4 days to visit his girlfriend and then make the delivery wow because yeah apparently she you know she looked and he was only four hours away this was at his girlfriend's house and he had to admit I see he was probably fired after that that's that's that's completely insane but wow just wild anyway air tags good uses yeah that there are good uses so that's air tag and another kind of good news story was that airpods might have saved a woman's life this woman is named Susan Putman she's 60 years old she was working in her garage Studio she does like floral work and she fell and actually probably passed out knocked herself out as she fell I guess she was bleeding at the time and she realized she needed to call 911 but didn't have her phone around but she realized she still had her airpods in her ears so she said the magic words I don't want to say it cuz I don't want to accidentally dial Emergency Services on you as you listen she asked her airpods to call 911 and it worked please were able to show up and help her and I think it's interesting that we used to hear so many stories of the Apple watch saving people's lives because they either fell off I know there was stories of like bicycle riders that fell off the road like in a ditch and the watch detected a fall and so they were able you know it automatically called emergency services without the person having to do anything and now it's even moved to airpods because she was able to make the call from you know where she was laying didn't have to find her device didn't have to have anything presumably she didn't have an Apple Watch either so yeah I thought that was a good story also Stephen do you know how much a Life Alert uh service costs no is it exorbitant oh I I don't know either but I'm assuming it's so on I'm on life alerts website right now which redirects to senior living.org and it says that it ranges from $50 to $90 per month for I guess the equipment and the service to do this if you want mobile and GPS it's an additional $20 a month I guess with whatever device you get get and this device does not look very nice this is like I don't even know what you describe it I guess you can also have like a key fob type thing to trigger Life Alert they have all kinds of uh crazy devices I just wanted to point out like airpods or Apple watch these devices Apple cells basically nothing and no subscription compared to what you have to do with uh any normal thing like Life Alert you if you've ever been on a television before you've probably seen one of these commercials falling and I can't get up yeah yeah it they're just wildly specific but anyway this the situations are like what yeah that it's it's very much like the 3:00 a.m. infomercials where they try to sell you a blender that doesn't have a lid that flies off and spew strawberries across your kitchen but yes anyway I sent you a picture of the website I found I don't know if you're seeing the same one I just thought that it was very accurate to what they were selling whoa that I am not looking at that I don't know I don't know where you found that picture lifealert.com I don't know anyway moving on I just thought that was a fun little tangent I will make that the chapter art uh because that is incredible I mean this these images are from the 1980s that they're using that is something okay anyway so again good news story for airpod uh let me touch on this before we get to the one password thing the IRS actually announced that they will soon ask for video selfies to confirm your identity when you're dealing with the IRS and the IRS the Internal Revenue Service here here in the states is like the tax federal body whatever and they've partnered with id.me which is an identity service based out of Virginia but they're using id.me to verify your identity for your account that logs you into your IRS stuff all of this is like super confusing but do you have id. me Stephen well I have a story about this okay yes I do I I also have it so okay so I will just say I'm not sure I had to do something funny with my taxes not illegal I was working with an accountant something funny Stephen that sounds terrible no I I had a unique tax situation I will put it that way and I needed to create an account like four or five years ago and whatever account I created then has carried over till now and so my id.me account still works with the IRS I can log in but I needed to create an account for my wife and it was using the id.me and I just did this like less than a year ago and it was the most frustrating process because even then they were asking for picture selfies not video selfies but pictures she was doing it from her phone we uploaded it we were uploading like passport images and it just took forever to actually confirm her identity it actually kept erroring out it kept not accepting whatever picture it said they couldn't verify identity it took I think literally 2 months of me like emailing their support and I don't think I ever called anybody cuz there not really phone support but it was just a really frustrating process maybe this whole video selfie will make it less frustrating but I do think it's wild that it's like video selfies now not even photos and I don't know with the Deep fake technology today who knows what it'll be next maybe it'll be I don't know what's after video 3 3D depth maps of your face metaverse identity confirmation which I don't even know that would be a thing so id.me um the military uses it okay but now I get to use it to sign into Apple websites to get military discounts so that's fun no it's it's a confusing terrible process it will never work has never worked on the first try uh some sort of algorithm or poor human is looking at your photos trying to determine if your driver's license that you got 8 years ago looks like a photo you just took if we all have to be subjected to this guess what it sounds like the IRS to me like the most painful brutal process possible but hey guess what I already have one so I don't have to worry about it yeah and me and my wife have them now too so hopefully that just sticks could you imagine maybe Apple's identification system uh tapping into this maybe at some point that would be cool I mean yeah it would be cool and if it made it more seamless where your identity can just be verified across platforms or across you know like you have your driver's license and that ID but then you also have your id.me and IRS I it' be great they could just kind of use one over the other or use one in place of the other so it's okay Apple Apple's not good at IDs either I saw this on Twitter yesterday someone pointed out that if you go in your settings you have a contact photo for yourself a photo for your iPhone information and a separate photo that is is unaware of these other two photos that is used for iMessage so yeah apple doesn't know how to do this either so and if you have a Mac your profile on your Mac could be a different picture even if you're Cloud it'll be a random basketball or baseball yeah zebra exactly this episode is brought to you by Helix sleep you know one of the last things you think about during the day because it's probably the last thing you do is your mattress but your mattress has such an important role to play in the sleep that you get every night which then affects your whole next day I hadn't thought about my mattress for a while but you realize it gets more uncomfortable as it goes on probably 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number one best overall mattress pick of 2020 by GQ and Wired Magazine so go to helixsleep.com slapple inssider take their 2-minute sleep quiz and they'll match you to a customized mattress that will give you the best sleep of your life they have a 10-year warranty and you get to try it out for a 100 nights risk-free they'll even pick it up for you if you don't love it but I know you will Helix is offering up to $200 of all mattress orders and two free pillows for our listeners if you go to helixsleep.com slapple Insider it's a great deal up to $200 off and two free pillows when you go to helixsleep.com slapple Insider our thanks to Helix sleep for sponsoring this episode before we answer some listener questions that people sent in and I wanted to touch on some video converters for Mac I know it sounds super nerdy but I don't know I had some some suggestions for there I want to talk about this one password deal one password which is the app and service crossplatform we've talked about it before they actually took a round of 620 Mill ion of funding like VC type funding and it brings one password up to a $6 billion valuation now typically if an organization or business is growing like that it's a good sign so John grber had a daring Fireball article kind of commenting on this one password investment and he said he quoted a friend he said unless one password is factoring in the value of every individual password a $6 billion valuation for this company makes no sense so being being just a company that saves your passwords and secure notes being valued at that high of an amount it feels funny but it also puts pressure on one password to provide that kind of value to its investors and so I tweeted out semi flippantly like I guess it's time to slowly change to iCloud keychain and it's not because I have a concern for security of my current passwords in the app right now but kind of like how Dropbox did this weird expansion into other areas and it's not really even a cloud storage anymore which it is that but now they do password savings and they do collaborative work environments and they do all this weird stuff that is not really core to what they did one password stories one password stories one password memoji one password in the metaverse there's going to be pressure on one password to justify this kind of investment and because its product is strictly just passwords right now just saving passwords and syncing them between your devices they do some like network monitoring and stuff like that like they check to see if your accounts have been compromised right if Home Depot has like a thing like a a breach they'll tell you change your Home Depot account yeah but like apple does that now too by default like I I I guess so I guess it's not a very complicated system to set up so yeah I guess the question is is where where does this money go what are they spending it on how does it return typically what happens is companies like Dropbox will begin to move more into the Enterprise Market where one password does have commercial orent Enterprise type plans I actually use one password on teams where businesses pay for each user so there is expansion to be made in there but then also when companies start expanding into that Enterprise market and things just get a little weird and iCloud keychain now that they've added two Factor authentication and it's gotten better overall I'm kind of using it more by default at least when I'm in Safari I I just feel like why pay for one password when I'm not sure what direction they're going right now and I can just use iCloud keychain that being said it's not a perfect system because Derek means on Twitter you know he said I use the brave browser on Mac iCloud keychain doesn't work there and I do that as well for any web development I'll use the brave browser I stopped using Chrome but iCloud keychain doesn't integrate and so that's why I think this is a prime opportunity maybe we could see this at WWDC for Apple to break out iCloud keychain like we've said before on this show into a standalone app that you can access on your iPhone and on your Mac that might even then build extension to use in web browsers like Brave so you can use your iCloud keychain in other web browsers I mean Apple might want to stay locked into Safari but I think it could make it a a bigger feature maybe even make it a iCloud plus feature keychain has a Chrome extension and doesn't Brave allow you to use Chrome extensions it does oh so iCloud you can use iCloud keychan and brave I I don't know I'm I'm asking you like I'm you use if you can use Chrome extensions in Brave then you should be able to use the one password keychain extension but on on top of that I do want to point out that yeah while like uh one password has a very specific feature set keychain isn't for everyone people listening to this podcast uh if you were paying attention during last WWDC we're about to come into a whole new different thing with passwords uh called pass Keys they're it's about to change how we interact with uh authentication systems using Biometrics and stuff across our devices Apple has this it's an open system where you're going to be able to use face ID to enter a password on your Apple TV app stuff like that like it's getting very complex very fast and uh from watching the developers talk about it the implementation's almost ready so this year we could start seeing pass Keys start taking over I I would just recommend uh if you're an apple nerd and you like that kind of stuff you're probably going to want to start looking at keychain anyway and I'm sure one password's going to be on top of that but Apple's kind of promising right out the gate like yes you will need to use one keychain to use Pass key but we're going to make a system keep it in place where you can use it everywhere for instance the Chrome extension so okay as you were talking I just went to the Chrome web store which is available in the brave browser and there is iCloud passwords available as an extension it appears to be there and you can pull your iCloud passwords right from there yeah in the last two or three years if you haven't looked at iCloud passwords it's a whole different monster than what it used to be I wish they could just add a couple more Fields you know like one password you can have the two Factor authentication then you can have secure notes or just notes in a login cuz you know if you have account recovery pass Keys like usually when you enable to Factor on an account they'll give you some recovery pass keys and I usually put that in one password as well so just adding a couple features like that would be nice keychain has a long way to go Apple really needs to break it off into its own application I mean on Mac OS and iOS like that is 100% what needs to happen here uh for it to really start gaining ground uh around people uh getting notice by people who aren't into Apple like I tell PE my friends all the time just use keychain like cuz they're constantly resetting their passwords on everything or getting hacked or you're getting these weird Facebook Messenger uh things from people just cuz they guessed their their mother's maiden names or whatever and getting compromised here and it's just like guys just use keychain and use like a 30- digigit pass password you'll never remember but the phone will remember for you and they're like what are you talking about it's it's just crazy to me that this is still so under the radar like it should be taught in schools kind of thing like just have strong secure passwords I don't understand why it's such an issue but like a paid thing like one password it's it's kind of expensive already from free to $40 a year is is you know what you would say expensive keychain is that no barrier to entry kind of thing other than you have to know where it is in the settings menu and uh that's a lot for a lot of people so apple has a long long way to go to make this a little more accessible in real time followup unfortunately you can install this extension on Mac but this extension is for Windows users to use and so even with the extension installed in Brave you click on it it says this extension is made to be used in Windows 10 and will not work on the Mac even though you can install it so yeah on Mac OS there's only one browser didn't you know Stephen right apparently apparently Safari so listen if they just added that just the extension you already have apple just let it be used on a Mac and people can use alternative browsers so anyway again I'm not going to dump one password right now like I'm still going to keep it I still use it in a family which is another feature that iCloud keychain you can't really share logins with other users and one password you can have vaults that you share with family members you can pay for that family plan but there's still some features that are going to keep me there for a little bit but I'm going to just make sure my iCloud keychain and one password account kind of get in parody and have all the logins in both places just in case well you can always you can always export your one password list into a formatted list and then import it into a apple keychain on a Mac you can't do that on iOS but you can do it on a Mac you can import them in on the Mac really um am I crazy I don't know maybe I am wait a minute wait a minute oh my goodness import passwords jeez I'm just showing you the how to do all this my mind canceling one password right now no uh so you can export and import I did not know that that's amazing yeah that way you can have password parody across those two systems if you use multiple systems I wonder if it how it does with duplicates that's that's the next question let me tell you right now Stephen it probably doesn't um it'll just do duplicate everything well better than not having them so question though just before we real quick before we move on what do you think of this P key stuff like I know we've talked about it before but does that interest you at all does it sound like a a cool thing it's super interesting I do think the future like 20 years from now is not a thousand passwords for every site I just think it's a long way off you know because so many different websites and companies and things need to adopt that kind of thing but I definitely think it's the future I just don't know how far in the future I guess it gets into the dangerous area well as long as you can still have a unique username um it's not like you must use your face for both kind of thing right uh Biometrics for because that that would lock you one account to one system and that you know removes privacy and blah blah blah a lot of a lot of issues would arise from that but like as long as it's just a password prompt is using your Biometrics kind of thing that interests me that because that way you could have yeah technically it'd be the same password for multiple accounts but your password in that case would be a unique biometric so how do you break that it's definely something I want to keep an eye on I I want to see how other password systems handle this and if there is going to be crossplatform Integrity here or if it's just going to be a disastrous mess I'm leaning towards disastrous mess okay okay yeah we'll see we'll see all right right before we get to the Q&A I wanted to mention this article it was the best video converters for Mac Malcolm had the article on appleinsider.com and I just wanted to mention some of my choices he's got a great list here and here's some apps that if you need to convert video maybe you need to make it smaller so you can upload it somewhere or send it somewhere obviously QuickTime on the Mac is still a good tool you can export to multiple resolutions you can change a video file to audio only just using the built-in QuickTime app on your Mac so you have Quicktime there VLC is a great free app to use to not only play a varying array of video formats but you can actually change the format and Export things in VLC a compressor is Apple's app for professional video encoding so I use compressor in conjunction with Final Cut and you can change formats to all kinds of things make videos gifts and do all that kind of stuff uh yes I said GIF and then permute is another great option for the mac and the last couple things I wanted to mention was if you have some reason to maybe rip a Blu-ray disc because you want to save the movie that you purchased with your own money legally and you want to have a video file that's high quality of that blue Blu-ray you have to use two apps in conjunction as far as this is how I've done it before I'll put links in the show notes to this but I use an app called make MKV make MKV actually will take a Blu-ray disc and it creates basically an uncompressed MKV file of the video it'll be like 50 something gigabytes cuz that's how big Blu-ray discs are and then with that MKV file you can convert that to a kind of playable more format friendly uh file either using handbrake which is another great application especially if you just need to rip DVDs handbrake is usually pretty good about that and so that combination of make MKV with handbrake is a great way to rip Blu-rays into you know easy format video files you may need something to get past the copyright because a lot of Blu-rays make it difficult to rip because of the built-in copyright protection and for that I would recommend you look into Homebrew home brew has some options for copyright bypassing and all that kind of stuff and I won't link to that directly cuz I don't know like legality wise I don't know you know how above board that is but home brew is the what you need to look for to kind of get past some of that copyright stuff I do it just cuz I like to rip my Blu-rays like I had old Blu-rays that I just wanted to be able to rip and uh that's what I use it with so there you go Stephen do you know how I watch movies on my stuff you stream you stream it you stream it I open the Apple TV app and I spent $10 and watch the movie listen that is what I do 99% of the time now but there's there's just sometimes uh I don't know in my work anyway that I that I've needed to do this so oh sure yeah there's there's circumstances that comes up yeah exactly all right well we had some listener questions I had asked hey let's do a Q&A session and I we have some questions so I want to run through them real quick and the first one is actually from you Wesley hilard he said do you still find glitter in your beard and I am happy to report that I know longer find glitter in my beard if you don't know what that's about listeners you should look at The homid Insider episodes on YouTube youtube.com/ homid Insider and I said if we reach a th000 subscribers there I would put glitter in my beard and I had a very cinematic slow-mo video of me pouring ecofriendly biodegradable glitter on my face but no I don't find them anymore I did find one in my wind screen for the mic that I used the day I recorded that but that's been it it's it's totally out of my beard I'm happy to report so if you hit 2,000 subscribers Andrew has to shave his head and wear a wig that is identical to his previous hair and see if anyone notices that's that's the bet right he has agreed to nothing he has agreed to nothing so uh we're still trying to find a recommendation that Andrew will actually do now this next question came from at complex Simon on Twitter he asked what is your top 10 list of irritating UI discrepancies between iOS iPad OS and Mac OS he gave an example of the functionality in apple music versus TV on iOS and iPad OS like weird things with the back button so I totally get what he's talking about I don't have a full top 10 list but I will say three annoyances the notes app which I use almost exclusively for the notes for this show I share the notes with Wes William and Andrew and there's weird discrepancies of like where to go to make text into a heading or subheading on the iPhone there's like a plus button on the iPad it's like hard to find a lot of times I have to look up the hotkey to do it the keyboard shortcut and then on the Mac it's different so notes could use a little more seamless organization there shortcuts is probably the most glaring difference and shortcuts on the Mac is just still not right you know hopefully in the next Mac OS Apple will kind of update that to just be better and then iCloud keychain that we just talked about again it's in the system preferences on the Mac it's in the settings app under passwords on your iPhone they could just solve this by making a standalone app like we just talked about just make it the keychain app Let It Be Apple's password storage solution and let it be that so those are the three I had I don't know if you could think of all the top your head was oh yeah no I've I've I have long running uh complaints here oh the contacts app on iOS does not have the ability to edit or manage groups you have to use a third party app period right that no yeah that's it like you can go and see that you have groups you can toggle them on and off but you cannot add or delete groups nor can you add contacts to specific groups it's complete Insanity so why even have the feature in contacts like I feel like this app needs a full makeover I I talked about this on previous shows there's so many cool things you could do here to make like contacts and iMessage and photos into this like miniature social network H come on Apple it's right there anyway you you can't add media to your music library on iOS iPad OS you have to do it on the Mac and even then it's slowly dying the Apple's trying to get rid of that all together it seems photos the photos app you cannot add faces to photos on iOS but you can on Mac OS you can name unknown faces on iOS that's there but if you want to say hey this is a face they're just wearing sunglasses you cannot do it on iOS it's crazy that is yes those were excellent examples of frustrating examples like I know these because previously I was you know pretty much iPad iPhone only so if I wanted to do these things I would have to go and boot up the old Mac Mini just to name a face in a photo it's it's crazy yeah no those very good annoying choices I didn't want to mention Mr Jeff Wilson on Twitter he didn't have a question but he was showing off his old Mac Museum I guess you could call it but he has an old iBook power book and an old MacBook all set up over here including one I'm very EnV one that I'm very envious of which is the 12in G4 power book that was my first Mac and of course he has a picture of it right there and I will use that as the chapter art because that's pretty sweet so anyway cool collection do you collect any old Apple gear I wish I kept my old Apple gear but no I don't collect it anymore because I I do tradein a lot now just to keep you know to get new devices I like getting the most value I can out of the old ones so I trade it in right away I do wish I would have kept my first Mac my first iPhone and my first iPod I regret that yeah I randomly I think I mentioned this before I randomly got a iPod video I still haven't done anything with I need to get the 30 pin connector for it so I can plug it into my computer yeah I don't collect these things I've been tempted to multiple times I go to a flea market here in town a lot and it's just one of those where people just sell everything uh it's it's basically a giant yard sale kind of kind of deal uh with like seven or eight nine buildings there it's just a huge huge thing in our area I constantly see old Max like IMAX from 20072 2008 I've seen MacBooks there very tempting um but I'm I'm I'm I'm going to have to start if I ever saw like an iMac G3 I would buy it in like two seconds I don't care if it's $300 that would be just cool to have to put on a shelf but yeah yeah exactly maybe when I get into my new house and office I'll get some old devices to put as Decor around the room James Apple was tweeting some questions about the release schedule for some of the mini and MacBook Air stuff which we covered earlier in the news so hopefully that helped you James apple and finally friend of the show Fernando Silva he's got an incredible YouTube channel talking about iPad stuff he had several questions I want to run through it one what's an iOS iPad OS Mac OS feature you use that goes relatively unnoticed and I think a few things that we've kind of come to take for granted I would say I think the photo sync across Apple devices has gotten very good across Mac iPhone and iPad and it's just something that because it's good nobody talks about it like there's not really many issues so I think that's been really good iCloud backups again kind of along the same line is really good I know we talked about iMessage recently in RCS but the iMessage in the cloud and it's working with SMS where I can reply to an SMS message on my Mac even though it's just a regular old SMS the way that works with continuity and everything is just awesome and one thing that is not so much an OS feature but the fact that older devices still support the newest iOS I mean Apple I think is probably the only one that supports devices 5 years and older you know I still have a couple friends that have iPhone 7S which was released in 2016 it's a 6-year-old device and they still run iOS 15 and actually even the 6s runs iOS 15 and so just I think Apple's support of older devices giving those software updates to those devices I think they're second to none in that regard and because you know no one really talks about old device as much anymore I think it goes unnoticed the iPad Air 2 still runs iPad os5 wow see that's the kind of stuff that's what I'm it's Insanity I I wanted to point out one uh continuity features just in general like I constantly copy something on my Mac and paste it on my iPad and it just it just happen seamlessly you never think about it like stuff like that is really cool Google did promise that they're going to try to do this um in the next 30 years or so on Android so we'll see if that happens but I don't know I I feel like a lot of uh iPhone users just don't um recogn like like uh night mode a lot of times I I'll notice like people be like wow I can't believe this photo came out this way and it's because of night mode half the time like people don't even realize that their phone has night mode or what that uh Moon indicator is on their phone they just oh cool this this photo worked I never thought it would actually take a picture stuff like that right no that's good that's really good yeah and just the camera in general I mean how I don't want to be disparaging but like it's just foolproof because I see people take pictures with their iPhones that like they don't even wait for the shutter to like blink on the screen before they move the phone and somehow the iPhone still captures those images and captures a clear one which I know there's so much computational photography going on in the background it's like constantly capturing stuff as long as you have the camera app open but even so it goes unnoticed because it's so good and it's just helps normal people take great photos and so best this is also from Fernando best product idea based around mag safe we've seen lots of different magsafe Chargers but I think some of my favorite ones is the magsafe car mount I use the belon magsafe car mount which is really cool I love being able just to throw my phone up there puts it at a good viewing distance and I don't have to like hook anything in there's no like holster it just sticks right on there and I got my wife that mag safe popsocket and I don't use popsockets personally but the fact that she can have popsocket and it's not glued to the back of her case anymore that she can actually just take it on and off via the magnet is really cool so I'm glad popsocket made that a MAG safe thing I feel like mag safe is still early days um oh yeah the best accessories are yet to come people are still just basically converting old accessory ideas into uh magnets um right this this thing has just unlimited potential I think uh the the battery pack stuff is relatively novel but I still think is missing the point I do like that uh it's massively improves wireless charging even non 15 wat Chargers just regular Qi Chargers using um Apple's magnetic alignment system it's just day and night you just throw the phone down and as long as you feel that snap into place you'll hear the bump click and you're done and you're charging whereas before it's just pure magical guesses if your phone is charging or not you need a bright green LED light flashing in your face telling you if your phone is actually charging if you're just using regular Qi Chargers it's it's just really Cool Tech and it's so silly cuz it's just a simple magnet with an NFC chip embedded uh in the back of the phone and they made it work yeah it's sweet and his final question from Fernando was how's the house coming along and so if I haven't mentioned it on this show I'm in the middle of building a new house it should be done in a few months and I am right now at the time where I will be running my own ethernet cable and my own home theater speaker cable in the rooms that I want that I talk about it at length on The homid Insider show that comes out Monday so youd like to hear all the details you could check that out the Wi-Fi network I think I'm going to go with and some other stuff but if listeners of this show have recommendations for in-wall and in sealing home theater speakers that are not crazy expensive I talk about my experience at Best Buy the H kid Insider show but if you have recommendations for that kind of stuff home theater stuff receivers and maybe just like in the middle of construction tips about running wire and ethernet and like I'm going to run ethernet everywhere to every Apple TV to every Wi-Fi access point all that stuff but if any of our listeners out there have been through that process and have some warnings or some tips that might help we're right in that stage we I'll be kind of doing all that myself in the next couple weeks and I'll be tweeting about it if you're curious so follow me on Twitter at Steven robbles that's in the show notes but yeah that's where we are so Stephen uh just for my recommendation here um I I use Sonos have you ever had Sonos products I've had a Sonos one and it was sounded very good I did like it so Sonos is cool and I I I got in early I mean I'm in 2016 I've had the same it's the original system I have like the living room like uh home theater system uh and a couple of other speakers and not added much to it since so I don't have I have like one of the newer systems which is a Sonos beam in my bedroom and that's it but uh if I had to start over again and I might uh here soon just cuz I've been thinking about it I don't know that I would want to go all in on a proprietary Network especially outside technically outside of Apple system it does support AirPlay kind of Legacy Style airpl but it it works I think if I had to do it over again especially for the home theater system I think you'd be better off investing in nice speakers and the brains being a homekit receiver and then yes that way you know something cool happens Dolby Atmos 2.0 blah blah blah you can just change out the receiver you still have the very nice sounding speakers but now you can add even more intelligent technology just by upgrading the brain in the center and I think that is a much more more efficient system than buying a $600 subwoofer that that has Wi-Fi connectivity it's just you know Sonos is great I've loved my system but I've been doing the math and I was like I really want that Dolby Atmos upgrade and it's like oh I would have to spend $2,400 to yeah get it and then guess what in two years when a new sound variant comes out it's now outdated and I have to do it again I I kind of now realize like oh if I want to do the apple style upgrade whenever I want to type stuff for this I'm going to need something a little bit more interchangeable and a receiver where you yes have to run cables or something like that if you're building a house run the cables in the wall there you go right especially since sound cables are Universal generally so you can probably run that cable and have a outlet for a speaker pop out near your TV and that would be really cool too and that's that's exactly what I hope to do I'm going to look at some homekit receivers I'm going to run that just standard speaker cable and so recommendations on brands of in seiling and in wall speakers you know Best Buy has some crazy expensive ones I'm not looking to do that maybe I'll upgrade them later but you know ones where I can get a pair for 150 to 200 bucks and also I even saw that monoprice.com has in wall subwoofer and there is actually a room that I might do that in so if anyone has any experience with that kind of stuff like an in-all subwoofer the in-all speakers put a subwoofer under your couch you know have you ever heard of a butt kicker no that's I'll have to look so in in music there's a butt kicker you would put it under the drum player's seat and it was literally this huge motor that would vibrate when like the kick drum was hit or when the bass player played a note and it would vibrate and it's right under the seat of the drum player and so they would call it a book kicker and some people would do that in their home theater they would literally Mount those under the floor where the sofa was and so in addition to a subwoofer actually doing sound they would have these butt kickers like vibrating the floor so well see that's the reason why 7.2 exists now because the point 2 would be you'd have a subwoofer in your face and then a subwoofer under your furniture and that's like a legitimate thing people can do um you can look into but anyway exactly let's hit the the Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard just because I was a big Starcraft uh player back in the day God and so so blizzard I recognize that name and I I think it's interesting Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion valuation making it the world's third largest gaming company by Revenue behind tens Cent and Sony so I think it's interesting that Microsoft wants to get big into the gaming industry and I don't know this might be something that Apple wants to consider with apple arcade to get some like first run like AAA games on the Apple arcade platform but what thoughts did you have about it first of all it hasn't happened yet reg regulatory approval is going to be real crazy for this one uh everything I've heard covering this is talking about Facebook and the metaverse and I think that's exactly what Xbox wants so Regulators are like oh it's a it's a move to compete with Facebook approve approve approve they're going to go send on the way through but what's really happening and you know Xbox knows this it's about the games it's about having um access to IP on its platform that can compete with Sony because right now if you haven't checked Sony's IP catalog intellectual property catalog is insane they have some of the best studios in the industry right now and Xbox has been hurting for a while and after buying obsidian and stuff where they they have access to uh Elder Scrolls and and whatnot in the future to uh go excl exive um that's great for Xbox but now getting Call of Duty and such possibly making it exclusive I mean that that would be huge for the company and very sketchy considering uh like right now Sony is the Call of Duty platform I don't know how much you keep up with gaming stevenh but Sony kind of stole the uh Call of Duty namesake during the uh console transition last generation so the PS4 cycle Sony's had all of The Upfront DLC all of the promotions and if you see a Call of Duty commercial it is PlayStation playing it so um XBox buying this uh now just kind of Screams in the face of that and I I I wonder what's going to happen with the regulatory approval process are they going to require Xbox to play nice with Sony and let them continue their exclusive exclusivity deals like could you imagine Xbox owning Activision and having to give PlayStation 6mon DLC access like it's Insanity anyway I I I'm very interested in seeing where this is goes I've seen a lot of fun art I don't know if you've seen clippy and Call of Duty uh all the stuff well I saw basic apple guy put clippy on a World of Warcraft figure and then I requested he put it on a protos character and he did that and I really appreciate it that was very all the great memes but of course you know behind the memes is scary antitrust so yeah we'll see I'm I'm not against it because um as I said on Twitter none of these properties these companies own affect me in the least I'm definitely when 100% Die Hard PlayStation you know but you know God of War Final Fantasy Kingdom Hearts that that's my playground and it is PlayStation for unless Xbox goes to buy Square Enix like I I would probably storm the Xbox building if I had to if if that was going on but uh yeah this doesn't affect me and Call of Duty's been a bad game since the Modern Warfare 2 fight me yeah what if what if Apple bought Square Enix I'd be okay with that I have all I don't know if you know this but I have all of the Final Fantasy 1- n on my iPad so you know it's already it already fits yeah that's what I'm saying I'm I'm a big Final Fantasy fan I put eight on my iPad just to try it out and it just was kind of amazing like the wave of nostalgia to play Final Fantasy 8 on an iPad was kind of just kind of wonderful actually all right well that was it for today listeners you can follow Wes and myself our Twitter handles are in the show notes if you are you know from Apple or Google and want to submit an anonymous tip or if you're a little birdie you can actually message me on Signal securely and anonymously that's in the show notes as well if you could give us a F star rating and review in the Apple podcasts app that helps out the show you can also support the show with $5 a month to get an adree version Early Access and you get into our private Discord Channel as well don't forget to check out The homekit Insider show that comes out every Monday I'll talk more about my new home construction in Monday's episode so you can check that out and as always thanks for joining us we'll catch you next time\n"