The Challenges and Opportunities of Remote Work

I'm really curious to hear your thoughts in the comments. As I was thinking about remote work, I couldn't help but wonder if it's sustainable in general. The stay-at-home model just isn't sustainable for me. I like the hybrid approach, where you have to go into the office three days a week or maybe two, and then you can work from home on the other days. I'm not sure what the future holds, but I think this is a good balance between being productive and having some flexibility.

Apple Weekly: Air Tags and Their Implications

Are you a Steve Jobs super fan? The answer to that question will determine whether or not you'll be interested in reading about an extremely rare autographed award up for sale. This is a 10-year award plaque that was presented by Apple to a former marketing executive in 2000, and it's signed by Steve Jobs at the bottom. What makes this award so rare is that it's one of only a few awards that Jobs has personally signed, and it's not often that he does. The current price for this award is $95,000, which is a significant amount of money.

However, if you're an Apple collector with a lot of disposable income, this could be the perfect addition to your collection. It's worth noting that if you do decide to buy this award, it will likely come with some caveats. For example, the seller may require you to provide proof of authenticity or have the award verified by a third-party expert.

Speaking of technology, let's talk about Apple AirTags. We've all heard stories about these small devices being used for tracking lost items, but sometimes they can get into some pretty weird situations. Take, for example, the case of a carjacker in Chicago who attempted to steal a manual Audi A3. The thief didn't know how to drive a stick shift, and as a result, he was unable to hotwire the car. But here's the twist: the thief kept the keys attached to an AirTag, which allowed the police to track his movements and ultimately catch him.

This story is just one example of how AirTags can be used for good or ill. In another recent case, border agents in the United States intercepted a package containing a pill press and some pill dies that were believed to be destined for an illicit narcotics manufacturer. However, instead of canceling the shipment or investigating further, the DEA decided to use an Apple AirTag inside the pill press to track its movement. The results of this experiment are unclear, but it's safe to say that it was a surprise for everyone involved.

This case highlights the potential risks and benefits of using AirTags in certain situations. On the one hand, these devices can be incredibly useful for tracking lost items or preventing theft. On the other hand, they can also be used by law enforcement agencies to track individuals without their knowledge or consent. As with any technology, it's essential to use AirTags responsibly and follow the guidelines provided by Apple to avoid any potential issues.

In conclusion, remote work and Apple AirTags are just two of the many topics that we explored in this article. Whether you're a fan of Steve Jobs or an avid Apple collector, there's something for everyone here. So if you're looking for some interesting stories about technology and its implications, be sure to check out our next episode of Apple Weekly.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up guys my name is Brandon and welcome back to Apple weekly in this episode we're going to continue talking about the latest in the world of iOS including iOS 16.4 and the final release coming next week now along with that we're going to discuss the latest iPhone 15 leaks why apple is investing in movie theaters a couple of insane stories about the air tags and much more and as always if you want to stay updated with all things Apple make sure to click that subscribe button down below so you don't miss next week's episode alright so let's start by talking about iOS 16.4 so this past week we did receive the RC or release candidate build which indicates we should see that final release next week now included in this RC we did receive a few updates and Bug fixes that we didn't know about until this came out and the first one I want to talk about is the voice isolation feature on phone calls so as you can see right here I was testing this out in a phone call now keep in mind voice isolation has always been there since like iOS 15 for FaceTime and other VoIP calls but not for cellular regular calls so I did test this I called multiple people and went from standard to voice isolation and back and asked them how I sounded and which one sounded better and everybody said that I sounded better on voice isolation so that is a good sign and I'm really glad to see this finally come to phone calls and you know I think it actually sounds like FaceTime audio now when you're on a cellular car which we've just never had before so this is a great new feature and also it does stay on so whatever you left it at last it stays that way for the next phone call which is nice you never have to go in here and manually turn this on again and then I did also want to talk about the home architecture upgrade because a few people are confused about this so you're not going to see the home architecture upgrade if you already did it in 16.2 before Apple pulled it before Apple removed it so if you already did the home architecture upgrade you know months ago when 16.2 released you're not going to see any type of upgrade here in 6 16.4 however you might notice some performance improvements because I know myself I've actually noticed that my home pods are no longer saying not responding or you know no response anymore so this one I actually unplugged and I plugged it back in I just kept trying it to see if it would actually show the proper you know status of it and it did so for some reason I don't really know what changed but the home application actually seems usable now for the first time in months but if you are still having issues even here on the RC build make sure to go into your settings and check for software updates and make sure you update your home pods to 16.4 and that's probably a big reason why all of mine are performing better now is because they're all on 16.4 another big change coming in iOS 16.4 which I've talked about a lot now is notifications for web apps and I do have a web app right here I'm going to send a notification to myself and you can see that is from a web application and I did want to note that the notifications act just as regular notifications and including if you were to turn on a focus mode to not allow certain you know applications these will follow those rules so they act just as regular notifications on your phone I also wanted to mention that the app icons for these websites that I added to my home screen look much better than they did on previous versions so they actually show like a high-res version of the favicon for the website and not just like a screenshot of the front page also your iCloud shared library now has the duplicates folder down here so you can see I'm in the shared library and I have two duplicates however when I click on it you can see it says duplicates not available and it says it's not available when viewing from the shared Library so it has to be when you have them both enabled so when you go to both libraries that's where you can see the duplicates for some reason it doesn't work just in the iCloud shared Library this update also includes further optimizations to the crash detection feature on the iPhone 14 and the newer Apple watches so that's great I am going to a theme park soon so I am going to see if you know I'm hoping that my phone doesn't call 911 mom on that roller coaster so we'll see but it should be a little bit better now than it was previously I did also want to mention that I've been loving the Focus filter for always on so if you go into your recording a video Focus for example right here you can see I do have my always on display set to turn off that way when I'm in you know this Focus mode I don't want my always on display to be enabled so it's nice to have that I've really been loving that I use that every single day now and it makes a difference I don't find myself getting as distracted as I did before this was a feature so in the code of iOS 16.4 RC where references to a new set of airpods and now Ming chikwo has said this on Twitter I think this is likely the USBC version of the airpods Pro 2 with mass shipments expected in Q2 to Q3 of this year by the way Apple currently appears to have no plans for USBC versions of the airpods 2 and 3. so it looks like apple is going to be doing kind of the same thing they've done with previous airpods where they just have like a mid-cycle refresh instead of just a whole new pair of air pods like the cheaper airpods light but what's interesting here is why would these be referenced in the code for 16.4 if they're not expected until Q2 or Q3 you would think they'd be like an iOS 17 or the final version of iOS 16. regardless expect these new airpods Pro 2 with the USBC charging case to come relatively soon and it will also be interesting to see if Apple sells this charging case separately because last time they did this with the wireless charging case it was not sold separately it was just sold as a new set of airpods so we'll have to wait and see what Apple does in terms of offering this to others who already have the airpods pro 2. and then I did also want to mention the Apple pay later or the Apple settings account are still not here in 16.4 even on this RC build so Apple laid the framework and you know it's in the code that both of these are ready Apple pay later and apple savings account are in the code of 16.4 but for whatever reason we still do not have them here and that wasn't in the release notes or anything so there's a chance that we get it pushed out you know when 16.4 releases to the public via like a server-side push but at this point it's looking like we may have to wait until later for Apple pay later and the Apple savings account now as far as bugs go I have been having this bug a lot on this RC build of 16.4 so I would say every like three or four times to go into the music application I get hit with this you're offline turn off airplane mode or connect to Wi-Fi even though I'm clearly connected to Wi-Fi it's even happened when I'm on LTE on my main device so there seems to be an issue with music here in 16.4 there were a lot of changes so I'm not surprised but this one is pretty annoying and I found that the only way to fix this is to go into airplane mode and out of airplane mode and there was also another bug in the music application where some people would see other people's playlists in their playlist views so you know just random playlists would appear in your own Library so I haven't had that happen I was hoping I would because that would be kind of funny but some users were reporting that and then as far as the performance and battery life goes I have to say that you know after using this on my main device since it was released I think performance and battery life have improved here over 16.3 and 16.3.1 so that's great I've also noticed that the squared off edges on the notifications like when you swipe down sometimes they show up as square and then they go back to being rounded that seems to be fixed on my main device so I never had it on my 14 pro Max but I did have it on my 14 pro and I've not been able to you know recreate that on the RC build of 16.4 so that is a good sign and then battery life like I mentioned I do seem to be getting about 45 minutes of additional on-screen time on a per charge basis here on 16.4 compared to 16.3.1 on my main device my 14 pro over here so we'll see if that continues I will keep you guys updated on that as well I did also want to touch on some more iOS related news not necessarily 16.4 but first let's quickly talk about 16.4 in that final release so as I mentioned before we should see that right there on Monday the 27th or the 28th so usually Apple pushes out these public releases on Mondays but there's a lot of stuff happening on the 28th Apple music classical there's like Sonos integration multiple things are happening from Apple on the 28th so it is also possible to see 16.4 on that day and then we should see 16.5 beta 1 as early as the following day after 16.4 drops and then like I mentioned I do want to touch on some other iOS related news and kind of other tidbits before the main news section of this episode so the first thing I want to talk about is the FTC so they just proposed a new law for making subscriptions as easy to cancel as it was to sign up and this is kind of referencing iOS not just iOS but you know that seems to be a main point they're hitting here and they're wanting to implement a simple click to cancel to make it as easy as possible for users to cancel a subscription without jumping through hoops this ruling is part of the negative option rule which is used to combat deceptive practices relating to subscriptions and memberships and you know Apple has made it pretty easy over the years to cancel subscriptions like you just go into your settings you go to your Apple ID and then you have subscriptions right there and you're able to see all your subscriptions very easily but you know it could be even easier if this does get pushed through and I think it's a great thing to push through not just for iOS but other services sometimes they make it like impossible to cancel your subscription and make it as hard as possible so this should help with that Apple pay just went live in South Korea this past week so users so far are reporting great things about it even though it's super long overdue and it's kind of a soft launch in South Korea but it seems like people are enjoying that so far so that's great to see Microsoft might be making its own Xbox app store for the iPhone as early as next year according to CEO Phil Spencer who said that in an interview with the financial times so this would be allowed on the iPhone as early as next year with iOS 17 of course due to that EU law that makes side loading application stations and third-party app stores mandatory and possible on the iPhone and speaking of gaming the 8-Bit dough controllers are now finally officially supported on the iPhone the iPad the mac and the Apple TV you just have to make sure that your controller and your Apple device is updated now I know some of these controllers worked before but now a lot more of them are supported and eventually all of them will be supported if you're in India apple is preparing to open their first retail store in Mumbai in April and then in May they're planning to open another Apple Store in Delhi I know I have a lot of you guys out there that live in India so this is tremendous news for you guys now let's move on to the main news section of this episode alright so let's start with more iPhone 15 leaks surrounding these solid state buttons that are going to be replacing the volume rockers and mute switch that we've always had on every iPhone on the side so this time shrimp Apple pro has revealed new iPhone 15 Pro renders that show these unified volume buttons and that new mute button so these were taken from a tick tock video and give us some kind of more insight as to what we can expect with the 15 Pro Series now I really hope that Apple allows us to kind of remap that mute switch like that button right there like we can on the Apple watch Ultra with the action button I hope there's some way to press that to do a different action other than just muting because otherwise I don't see why Apple would do that it seems counterproductive and it just seems like a change that nobody really wants like I get it for the volume rockers like converting those into just one long button with capacitive you know touch buttons but I don't understand that for the mute switch I just feel like there's still more to come here and Apple has more in store via software and if you're not a big fan of this change just don't get the Pro Models because the regular 15 and 15 plus are apparently going to have the same volume rockers and mute switch that we have on the 14. so this is a big change no matter which way the dice rolls and I think it's going to ruffle quite a few feathers when it gets released Apple always finds themselves in the middle of controversy and I can already see this being the next big one and then let's move on to Apple's big plans to move into movie theaters in the not so distant future according to Bloomberg apple is increasing its budget to one billion dollars a year for Apple TV Plus movies and this includes releasing them in theaters all over the globe Apple has approached movie studios about partnering to release a few titles in theaters this year and a slate of more films in the future the list of potential releases includes Martin scorsese's killers of the flower Moon the Spy Thriller Argyle and the film Napoleon Apple has pledged to put movies in thousands of theaters for at least a month so this is very interesting and it kind of puts Apple directly up against Netflix and Amazon which Netflix of course is the biggest player in having exclusive titles playing in theater so it'd be interesting to see how Apple does this I've done it before with Apple TV plus I'm pretty sure but just not on a global scale and I haven't you know devoted so much money to it so that's kind of their new initiative that they're planning for this year and maybe even the future now let me take you back a few years remember in 2020 when covet happened and everybody was working from home and we kind of just thought that was going to be the new Norm is working from home well as you've seen over the past year that's just simply not the case and most companies want employees to work together in person and now apple is cracking down even more on those who are working from home according to Platformers Zoe Schiffer apple is tracking the attendance of its employees at offices using badge records to ensure they're coming in at least three times a week in the Tweet she also says that some organizations are saying failure to comply could result in termination but that doesn't appear to be a company-wide policy and for some reason people are upset at Apple for this and I don't really understand it if it's company policy I don't really see why it's a big deal if they're tracking your badge you know scans to make sure you're going in three times a week I know that some companies reported that you know working from home leads to better performance you know companies are performing better now that everybody's working from home but last I saw that was only in like 2020 2021 I haven't really seen anything recent because back then there was really nothing else to do so of course everybody's going to be productive when there's nothing else to do you can't go outside so I'd like to see those numbers nowadays and like late 2022 early 2023 to see how it compares to 2020. I don't know I just feel like the stay-at-home model is just not sustainable like fully stay at home it's just not sustainable in general so I like the hybrid you know where you have to go in three days or maybe two or three days a week and then you can work from home the other days I don't know what do you guys think about this I'm really curious to hear your thoughts in the comments and then are you a Steve Jobs super fan that's question number one question number two is do you have a lot of money sitting around and I asked this because there is an extremely rare autographed award up for sale right now this is a 10 year award plaque that was presented by Apple to a former marketing exec in 2000 and on an included note on this reward Steve Jobs hand signed it at the bottom which is an extreme Rarity as he does not sign many things in general and you know if it is signed it's probably just one of those ones where it's not his real signature this is his real signature but unfortunately you're gonna have to pay a lot of money for it because TMZ reports that the going price is 95 000 so that's a lot of money but if you are a collector especially like an apple collector and you just have a lot of money hey this could be a cool piece to add to the collection all right so it's been a while since we talked about air tags I miss what we always had like funny crazy stories about air tags here on Apple weekly but I have good news for you guys we have two stories today regarding air tags I know you guys always like these as well so the first one was about a carjacker in Chicago who was arrested for number one attempting to steal a manual Audi A3 but failing because he didn't know how to drive a stick shift and number two because well he kept the keys after the failed carjacking and since they had an air tag attached to him the keys he was tracked down by police and arrested you gotta love it and that's just another reason to have air tags attached to pretty much anything you own that has any value I mean they're so cheap you may as well throw an air tag on there even if the person finds them you know they may not so it's worth putting it on there especially in your car maybe down on your keychain you can put it on there but also put it in your car as well it could save you now this second story is even crazier because this comes from a new report from Forbes that's titled the DEA quietly turned Apple's air tag into a surveillance tool here's the context in May 2022 border agents intercepted two packages from Shanghai China inside of one it was a pill press which is a machine used to compress powders into tablets and in the other were some pill dies believing that they were destined for an illegal narcotics manufacturer the DEA was called in they inspected the devices but rather than cancel the shipment or pay a visit to the intended recipients they tried something they'd never been known to try before they had an Apple Air tag inside the pill press so they could track its movement minutes so that is just wild and definitely not what Apple intended you know for these air tags to be used for when they first released them now the report does also go on to say that it's unclear how successful the air tag was and helping the DEA but the intended recipient was charged by the state so it could very well have worked but this has to be the most bizarre case I've ever seen of an air tag being used for tracking anything this is just wild and don't forget if you're trying to do anything nefarious with your air tag in the future just know that you do get an alert on your phone if you know the the recipient sees an air tag tracking them that's not tied to their account so just be aware that that is a real thing hit put anyways I hope you guys enjoyed this video as always if you did I would appreciate if you give it a thumbs up again make sure to subscribe for the next app weekly episode you can check out all the other episodes right here and I will see you guys in the next onewhat's up guys my name is Brandon and welcome back to Apple weekly in this episode we're going to continue talking about the latest in the world of iOS including iOS 16.4 and the final release coming next week now along with that we're going to discuss the latest iPhone 15 leaks why apple is investing in movie theaters a couple of insane stories about the air tags and much more and as always if you want to stay updated with all things Apple make sure to click that subscribe button down below so you don't miss next week's episode alright so let's start by talking about iOS 16.4 so this past week we did receive the RC or release candidate build which indicates we should see that final release next week now included in this RC we did receive a few updates and Bug fixes that we didn't know about until this came out and the first one I want to talk about is the voice isolation feature on phone calls so as you can see right here I was testing this out in a phone call now keep in mind voice isolation has always been there since like iOS 15 for FaceTime and other VoIP calls but not for cellular regular calls so I did test this I called multiple people and went from standard to voice isolation and back and asked them how I sounded and which one sounded better and everybody said that I sounded better on voice isolation so that is a good sign and I'm really glad to see this finally come to phone calls and you know I think it actually sounds like FaceTime audio now when you're on a cellular car which we've just never had before so this is a great new feature and also it does stay on so whatever you left it at last it stays that way for the next phone call which is nice you never have to go in here and manually turn this on again and then I did also want to talk about the home architecture upgrade because a few people are confused about this so you're not going to see the home architecture upgrade if you already did it in 16.2 before Apple pulled it before Apple removed it so if you already did the home architecture upgrade you know months ago when 16.2 released you're not going to see any type of upgrade here in 6 16.4 however you might notice some performance improvements because I know myself I've actually noticed that my home pods are no longer saying not responding or you know no response anymore so this one I actually unplugged and I plugged it back in I just kept trying it to see if it would actually show the proper you know status of it and it did so for some reason I don't really know what changed but the home application actually seems usable now for the first time in months but if you are still having issues even here on the RC build make sure to go into your settings and check for software updates and make sure you update your home pods to 16.4 and that's probably a big reason why all of mine are performing better now is because they're all on 16.4 another big change coming in iOS 16.4 which I've talked about a lot now is notifications for web apps and I do have a web app right here I'm going to send a notification to myself and you can see that is from a web application and I did want to note that the notifications act just as regular notifications and including if you were to turn on a focus mode to not allow certain you know applications these will follow those rules so they act just as regular notifications on your phone I also wanted to mention that the app icons for these websites that I added to my home screen look much better than they did on previous versions so they actually show like a high-res version of the favicon for the website and not just like a screenshot of the front page also your iCloud shared library now has the duplicates folder down here so you can see I'm in the shared library and I have two duplicates however when I click on it you can see it says duplicates not available and it says it's not available when viewing from the shared Library so it has to be when you have them both enabled so when you go to both libraries that's where you can see the duplicates for some reason it doesn't work just in the iCloud shared Library this update also includes further optimizations to the crash detection feature on the iPhone 14 and the newer Apple watches so that's great I am going to a theme park soon so I am going to see if you know I'm hoping that my phone doesn't call 911 mom on that roller coaster so we'll see but it should be a little bit better now than it was previously I did also want to mention that I've been loving the Focus filter for always on so if you go into your recording a video Focus for example right here you can see I do have my always on display set to turn off that way when I'm in you know this Focus mode I don't want my always on display to be enabled so it's nice to have that I've really been loving that I use that every single day now and it makes a difference I don't find myself getting as distracted as I did before this was a feature so in the code of iOS 16.4 RC where references to a new set of airpods and now Ming chikwo has said this on Twitter I think this is likely the USBC version of the airpods Pro 2 with mass shipments expected in Q2 to Q3 of this year by the way Apple currently appears to have no plans for USBC versions of the airpods 2 and 3. so it looks like apple is going to be doing kind of the same thing they've done with previous airpods where they just have like a mid-cycle refresh instead of just a whole new pair of air pods like the cheaper airpods light but what's interesting here is why would these be referenced in the code for 16.4 if they're not expected until Q2 or Q3 you would think they'd be like an iOS 17 or the final version of iOS 16. regardless expect these new airpods Pro 2 with the USBC charging case to come relatively soon and it will also be interesting to see if Apple sells this charging case separately because last time they did this with the wireless charging case it was not sold separately it was just sold as a new set of airpods so we'll have to wait and see what Apple does in terms of offering this to others who already have the airpods pro 2. and then I did also want to mention the Apple pay later or the Apple settings account are still not here in 16.4 even on this RC build so Apple laid the framework and you know it's in the code that both of these are ready Apple pay later and apple savings account are in the code of 16.4 but for whatever reason we still do not have them here and that wasn't in the release notes or anything so there's a chance that we get it pushed out you know when 16.4 releases to the public via like a server-side push but at this point it's looking like we may have to wait until later for Apple pay later and the Apple savings account now as far as bugs go I have been having this bug a lot on this RC build of 16.4 so I would say every like three or four times to go into the music application I get hit with this you're offline turn off airplane mode or connect to Wi-Fi even though I'm clearly connected to Wi-Fi it's even happened when I'm on LTE on my main device so there seems to be an issue with music here in 16.4 there were a lot of changes so I'm not surprised but this one is pretty annoying and I found that the only way to fix this is to go into airplane mode and out of airplane mode and there was also another bug in the music application where some people would see other people's playlists in their playlist views so you know just random playlists would appear in your own Library so I haven't had that happen I was hoping I would because that would be kind of funny but some users were reporting that and then as far as the performance and battery life goes I have to say that you know after using this on my main device since it was released I think performance and battery life have improved here over 16.3 and 16.3.1 so that's great I've also noticed that the squared off edges on the notifications like when you swipe down sometimes they show up as square and then they go back to being rounded that seems to be fixed on my main device so I never had it on my 14 pro Max but I did have it on my 14 pro and I've not been able to you know recreate that on the RC build of 16.4 so that is a good sign and then battery life like I mentioned I do seem to be getting about 45 minutes of additional on-screen time on a per charge basis here on 16.4 compared to 16.3.1 on my main device my 14 pro over here so we'll see if that continues I will keep you guys updated on that as well I did also want to touch on some more iOS related news not necessarily 16.4 but first let's quickly talk about 16.4 in that final release so as I mentioned before we should see that right there on Monday the 27th or the 28th so usually Apple pushes out these public releases on Mondays but there's a lot of stuff happening on the 28th Apple music classical there's like Sonos integration multiple things are happening from Apple on the 28th so it is also possible to see 16.4 on that day and then we should see 16.5 beta 1 as early as the following day after 16.4 drops and then like I mentioned I do want to touch on some other iOS related news and kind of other tidbits before the main news section of this episode so the first thing I want to talk about is the FTC so they just proposed a new law for making subscriptions as easy to cancel as it was to sign up and this is kind of referencing iOS not just iOS but you know that seems to be a main point they're hitting here and they're wanting to implement a simple click to cancel to make it as easy as possible for users to cancel a subscription without jumping through hoops this ruling is part of the negative option rule which is used to combat deceptive practices relating to subscriptions and memberships and you know Apple has made it pretty easy over the years to cancel subscriptions like you just go into your settings you go to your Apple ID and then you have subscriptions right there and you're able to see all your subscriptions very easily but you know it could be even easier if this does get pushed through and I think it's a great thing to push through not just for iOS but other services sometimes they make it like impossible to cancel your subscription and make it as hard as possible so this should help with that Apple pay just went live in South Korea this past week so users so far are reporting great things about it even though it's super long overdue and it's kind of a soft launch in South Korea but it seems like people are enjoying that so far so that's great to see Microsoft might be making its own Xbox app store for the iPhone as early as next year according to CEO Phil Spencer who said that in an interview with the financial times so this would be allowed on the iPhone as early as next year with iOS 17 of course due to that EU law that makes side loading application stations and third-party app stores mandatory and possible on the iPhone and speaking of gaming the 8-Bit dough controllers are now finally officially supported on the iPhone the iPad the mac and the Apple TV you just have to make sure that your controller and your Apple device is updated now I know some of these controllers worked before but now a lot more of them are supported and eventually all of them will be supported if you're in India apple is preparing to open their first retail store in Mumbai in April and then in May they're planning to open another Apple Store in Delhi I know I have a lot of you guys out there that live in India so this is tremendous news for you guys now let's move on to the main news section of this episode alright so let's start with more iPhone 15 leaks surrounding these solid state buttons that are going to be replacing the volume rockers and mute switch that we've always had on every iPhone on the side so this time shrimp Apple pro has revealed new iPhone 15 Pro renders that show these unified volume buttons and that new mute button so these were taken from a tick tock video and give us some kind of more insight as to what we can expect with the 15 Pro Series now I really hope that Apple allows us to kind of remap that mute switch like that button right there like we can on the Apple watch Ultra with the action button I hope there's some way to press that to do a different action other than just muting because otherwise I don't see why Apple would do that it seems counterproductive and it just seems like a change that nobody really wants like I get it for the volume rockers like converting those into just one long button with capacitive you know touch buttons but I don't understand that for the mute switch I just feel like there's still more to come here and Apple has more in store via software and if you're not a big fan of this change just don't get the Pro Models because the regular 15 and 15 plus are apparently going to have the same volume rockers and mute switch that we have on the 14. so this is a big change no matter which way the dice rolls and I think it's going to ruffle quite a few feathers when it gets released Apple always finds themselves in the middle of controversy and I can already see this being the next big one and then let's move on to Apple's big plans to move into movie theaters in the not so distant future according to Bloomberg apple is increasing its budget to one billion dollars a year for Apple TV Plus movies and this includes releasing them in theaters all over the globe Apple has approached movie studios about partnering to release a few titles in theaters this year and a slate of more films in the future the list of potential releases includes Martin scorsese's killers of the flower Moon the Spy Thriller Argyle and the film Napoleon Apple has pledged to put movies in thousands of theaters for at least a month so this is very interesting and it kind of puts Apple directly up against Netflix and Amazon which Netflix of course is the biggest player in having exclusive titles playing in theater so it'd be interesting to see how Apple does this I've done it before with Apple TV plus I'm pretty sure but just not on a global scale and I haven't you know devoted so much money to it so that's kind of their new initiative that they're planning for this year and maybe even the future now let me take you back a few years remember in 2020 when covet happened and everybody was working from home and we kind of just thought that was going to be the new Norm is working from home well as you've seen over the past year that's just simply not the case and most companies want employees to work together in person and now apple is cracking down even more on those who are working from home according to Platformers Zoe Schiffer apple is tracking the attendance of its employees at offices using badge records to ensure they're coming in at least three times a week in the Tweet she also says that some organizations are saying failure to comply could result in termination but that doesn't appear to be a company-wide policy and for some reason people are upset at Apple for this and I don't really understand it if it's company policy I don't really see why it's a big deal if they're tracking your badge you know scans to make sure you're going in three times a week I know that some companies reported that you know working from home leads to better performance you know companies are performing better now that everybody's working from home but last I saw that was only in like 2020 2021 I haven't really seen anything recent because back then there was really nothing else to do so of course everybody's going to be productive when there's nothing else to do you can't go outside so I'd like to see those numbers nowadays and like late 2022 early 2023 to see how it compares to 2020. I don't know I just feel like the stay-at-home model is just not sustainable like fully stay at home it's just not sustainable in general so I like the hybrid you know where you have to go in three days or maybe two or three days a week and then you can work from home the other days I don't know what do you guys think about this I'm really curious to hear your thoughts in the comments and then are you a Steve Jobs super fan that's question number one question number two is do you have a lot of money sitting around and I asked this because there is an extremely rare autographed award up for sale right now this is a 10 year award plaque that was presented by Apple to a former marketing exec in 2000 and on an included note on this reward Steve Jobs hand signed it at the bottom which is an extreme Rarity as he does not sign many things in general and you know if it is signed it's probably just one of those ones where it's not his real signature this is his real signature but unfortunately you're gonna have to pay a lot of money for it because TMZ reports that the going price is 95 000 so that's a lot of money but if you are a collector especially like an apple collector and you just have a lot of money hey this could be a cool piece to add to the collection all right so it's been a while since we talked about air tags I miss what we always had like funny crazy stories about air tags here on Apple weekly but I have good news for you guys we have two stories today regarding air tags I know you guys always like these as well so the first one was about a carjacker in Chicago who was arrested for number one attempting to steal a manual Audi A3 but failing because he didn't know how to drive a stick shift and number two because well he kept the keys after the failed carjacking and since they had an air tag attached to him the keys he was tracked down by police and arrested you gotta love it and that's just another reason to have air tags attached to pretty much anything you own that has any value I mean they're so cheap you may as well throw an air tag on there even if the person finds them you know they may not so it's worth putting it on there especially in your car maybe down on your keychain you can put it on there but also put it in your car as well it could save you now this second story is even crazier because this comes from a new report from Forbes that's titled the DEA quietly turned Apple's air tag into a surveillance tool here's the context in May 2022 border agents intercepted two packages from Shanghai China inside of one it was a pill press which is a machine used to compress powders into tablets and in the other were some pill dies believing that they were destined for an illegal narcotics manufacturer the DEA was called in they inspected the devices but rather than cancel the shipment or pay a visit to the intended recipients they tried something they'd never been known to try before they had an Apple Air tag inside the pill press so they could track its movement minutes so that is just wild and definitely not what Apple intended you know for these air tags to be used for when they first released them now the report does also go on to say that it's unclear how successful the air tag was and helping the DEA but the intended recipient was charged by the state so it could very well have worked but this has to be the most bizarre case I've ever seen of an air tag being used for tracking anything this is just wild and don't forget if you're trying to do anything nefarious with your air tag in the future just know that you do get an alert on your phone if you know the the recipient sees an air tag tracking them that's not tied to their account so just be aware that that is a real thing hit put anyways I hope you guys enjoyed this video as always if you did I would appreciate if you give it a thumbs up again make sure to subscribe for the next app weekly episode you can check out all the other episodes right here and I will see you guys in the next one\n"