The Love-Hate Relationship with RSS Newsreaders: A Personal Perspective

As I sat down to discuss RSS newsreaders with my fellow insiders, I couldn't help but feel a sense of nostalgia wash over me. We all have our favorite tools, and for many of us, that tool is an RSS reader. But let's be real – we're not using the right one. So, which one am I using? I'm currently tied to Net Newswire, but my colleague is adamant about using Reader 5 on their Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

For me, Net Newswire has been a reliable workhorse for years. It's perfect for tracking Apple-related news and technology updates at the office. But as I delved deeper into our conversation, I realized that I've grown accustomed to a different kind of experience – one that's more tailored to my individual needs. My primary use case is not about consuming information in bulk, but rather about accessing specific feeds related to topics I'm interested in. This is where RSS comes in handy.

The beauty of RSS lies in its simplicity. It's like CD-ROMs of old – you know what the letters mean, but it doesn't necessarily help you in a practical way. Yet, that's precisely what I love about it. The fact that it's just a straightforward feed of information means I can focus on the content rather than getting bogged down by extraneous features or distractions. With RSS, I can pick up any reader I like – whether it's Net Newswire, Reader 5, or even Apple News (more on that later) – and know that I'll get a concise list of updates in chronological order.

Of course, there are some downsides to relying on RSS for news consumption. As someone who's used to devouring information at a breakneck pace, the sheer volume of content can be overwhelming at times. It's like having 300 websites to keep track of – not an ideal situation. But with Reader 5 or Net Newswire, I can filter my feeds down to just what's relevant and timely. And when I do need to dig deeper into a topic, the structured format of RSS makes it easy to navigate.

Speaking of Apple News, which has become my go-to source for news on-the-go. But, as I mentioned earlier, I have mixed feelings about this particular app. While it's convenient and well-designed, I find myself occasionally wanting more control over how I consume news. That's where RSS comes in – a tool that allows me to curate my own feed of information without relying on pre-curated aggregators like Apple News.

The other day, I realized that I'd grown so accustomed to relying on Reader 5 or Net Newswire that I forgot about the joys of browsing individual websites. It was as if I'd lost touch with the human side of news consumption – the thrill of stumbling upon an interesting article, the satisfaction of reading a well-written piece, and the connection it brings me to others who share my interests.

But despite its limitations, RSS remains a powerful tool in our digital toolkit. And for those who, like me, prefer a more hands-on approach to news consumption, it's hard to beat. So, if you're looking to upgrade your RSS game or simply want to explore new options, I'd be happy to recommend some top picks – including Reader 5 and Net Newswire.

In the meantime, let's give a shout-out to our friend Steven Roberson, who will be back with another episode of Apple Inside next week. And if you want to support us in bringing more content like this to you, please consider following us on Patreon or even using Apple's own podcast subscription service. It's not about the money; it's about keeping the conversation going – and maybe, just maybe, getting Steven out of jail for a little while longer.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello welcome to the Apple Insider podcast and if you are a regular listener you may already have spotted that I am not Steven robis but fortunately I have been verified by Twitter I am W Gallagher on Twitter I am William Gallagher and while Sten has to be away for a week doing something probably buying more Apple gear you know what he's like we have got a rare opportunity because it's you and it's me and for the first time in a while anyway also Wesley iard normally where Steven keeps us apart doesn't he yeah he doesn't want to put us in a room together it gets dangerous yeah does he know something about us or have you been saying something is this a whole Ted lasso thing I think so I think he's uh trying to make sure I don't influence you in anyway okay well yeah promise to be good for the next few minutes and we'll see what happens speaking of being good apparently some people think we are five star RS love them uh I'll pile of them popping up on iTunes and like including once while actually is it perh B few greetings from Ukrainian living in France says I think B VI oh who finally watched Ted lasso after hundreds of recommendations well all right nice to see you anyway um also Taylor from the USA who says he reviewed with no coercion I'm sorry Taylor that sounds so suspicious yes I am voting five yeah okay but thank you for it also drk bad from USA sorry di what did you just say there oh you said you chime in all the time yeah okay that's a very good point you just made there H hang on Scott Apple ID from USA Scott is this just you can't remember your Apple ID so you put it as your name in things but 5,000 VI as well thank you very much and last for this week um Ryan bil I think I'm that Ryan from USA Ryan was listening on Spotify and has come over to to Apple podcasts just to give us a review now that Ryan you are the person who traveled the furthest to make a review thank you very much yeah that takes some my dedication to go to a whole different app just to write a review but actually in all seriousness going from App inside on Spotify to on podcasts and things I mean it's a fair few steps isn't it you've got to really want I mean I know it's not arduous but I I would get round to it eventually rather than actually doing it or or are you a bit more Happy to Skip between apps like a cat or anything this is why stepen keeps us apart you're just looking at me now ask you just while we're on this point because it has been on my mind actually specifically to ask you because we don't get to talk very often I started using streaming music on Spotify and I didn't like it and I think now it's because it was all new to me then it was like it was okay I didn't want to commit enough to pay so I was just getting the shuffled version in the ads then Apple music came along and I think it was just the right time for me so I got that and I love it and now I never even think about Spotify are you more of a Spotify kind of guy um no never have been I just never could get behind the UI um I'm actually one of those uh odd people that kind of disappeared off the face of the Earth from like 2009 to 2014 so uh military stuff couldn't really get on the internet and Spotify I think came to the United States in 2011 I believe or something maybe earlier but uh just never landed on my doorstep and by the time I cared um cuz at that point I was collecting music on iTunes um but by the time I cared uh about streaming or wanted to look into it um beats music was a thing so I was actually a subscriber my first ever streaming service was Beats Music and then Apple music after that I'm so glad you said the bit about military service there by the way cuz those years were so specific I was wondering you know what crime had you done to be way yes service on a carrier turns out that's bizarre isn't that God I just amazing um so no point telling you that this week Spotify updated its Apple watch with a new and improved UI you just yeah you don't care yeah I'm not sure what the old UI was but the new one does look better uh more bigger tap interfaces and such uh I understand people are who like Spotify they're really like Spotify they're kind of like Tesla fans they're they'll preach it like gospel go around tell everyone the good news um about Spotify but yeah like I said I just I could never really get into the interface I know a lot of people complain about Apple music's interface and it being kind of um arbitrary and random but I actually feel that way about Spotify myself so it to each his own uh just pushing aside the fact that I wonder if there are any tesna fans left after recent events but um I maybe it's whichever one you come to First you like absolutely that sound possible yeah I definitely think that's the case with Windows versus MAC sometimes although you know I was a heavy Android Windows user um for years and switched to Apple so it's not always true so you recovered right okay um I we just mentioned Twitter a couple of times that'll do it's Madness it'll get sorted out and all this stuff um William um you have a verified Wikipedia page so I think you you you should get all the check marks right right no you want me to spend $8 a month to look like I'm a spammer I'm going to change my name to William Gallagher on Twitter just to make sure there's enough representation of the William Gallaghers in the world no I I'm paying for Twitter blue are you are you going to pay the 8 or I mean no no you don't care about editing tweets uh no actually in all I was advising somebody I have a friend who's a writer who is uh quite new to social media and because she's you know she writes you really well well she spends an awful lot of time crafting sentences before she does anything and she sees Twitter as this big burden where I've got to get it absolutely right have it checked have it verified and I'm telling you know you know I know you don't want typos but the odd one or the odd bit that could have been a little bit grammatically better yeah it feel Twitter is a human connection I think and you're giving that to your readers in this case typos separate us from the Bots right oh I wish that were true yeah um no I think just to get it out there I'm going to go I think you can already see it on my account but I'm I'm just paying the $8 uh whatever uh there's multiple reasons I know people are kind of taking a uh what's the stance well for me it's wait and see they're taking a like uh yeah they're they're taking the stance of oh I'm not going to give a billionaire 8 but um Elon Musk when he purchased Twitter did so unwillingly and created a lot of debt for the company and I personally like Twitter and I'd like it to continue to exist hopefully it will remain the same or similar under this leadership but I'm putting my $8 out there for uh a to support the platform that I actually enjoy and B I actually use the edit tweet features and uh I don't want to be buried um because Elon Musk says anyone not paying $8 may as well be uh what like second class citizens I guess so I I definitely don't want my tweets lost in the mix or um under prioritized because of that so yeah $8 it's fine I was paying the five before so not to Me Maybe it's me I just think second class citizens are more fun so I'll stick with them plus actually I have a friend who I believe still works at Twitter uh iy like we very much and I've not been able to get in touch with him in the last week or so to see whether or not he's one of the people that survived and obviously really hope so so it feels a bit personal when you know somebody the the Twitter zombies they they got fired and then brought back but uh before we move on from Twitter I just wanted to say guys um because I've heard from a few people personally who said I'm quitting Twitter I'm leaving there's too much up in the air that's fine you know you do you but I think at the end of the day um everyone needs to realize that this is literally happening Moment by moment no one knows what's true or not uh take what Elon mus says with the grain of salt he's in control but not yes God like he can't snap his fingers and have the API change or the algorithm change overnight there's still humans involved behind the scenes that have to change these things and while he says blue check marks that pay dolls are going to get prioritized that isn't been reflected in the algorithm yet that doesn't just change all of this again is fluid so maybe bear with it stick it out and honestly I believe we're going to land back right back where we started and elon's just going to be like well we tried and failed and uh turns out the original was just fine maybe he won't say it out loud but we'll all be thinking it I hope so let's be optimistic yes okay yeah I'm trying I'm working at it this Artic on app Insider it's just as we record it's only just gone up about how you can tell the difference between fake verified accounts and real verified accounts and as I think it actually was changing as I wrote it so you're right things do keep moving around something I think is much more impressive um actually there's a connection here El muscle loads of satellites doesn't he well Apple rents loads of satellites and now we know that as of the end of this month November uh the iPhone 14's emergency SOS via satellite feature is going to be live um I'm in the UK so it's not going to be live for me do you have an iPhone 14 that can will be able to use this yes uh actually I intend on getting lost in the woods as soon as it's live just to try it out dedication there that that is you not serious are you um well kind of uh we have uh I'm up in the mountains in Tennessee so I assume that the only way to access this feature is to not have a Cellular Connection it's not something you can just go into settings and find and say I want to make a satellite call in the middle of a busy street no I think you actually physically have to lose um signal and uh we have an abundance of that around here um I might just go on a hike to a nearby fire to Tower in the in the woods and and uh see if I can't make a satellite call or at least share my location because I don't want to call Emergency Services when there is no emergency of course myself I just have to go into our kitchen and I've lost all signal so yeah hopefully it will spread to the um I Apple actually said they announced today as we record this when it's coming out or at least by the end of the month which is slightly more specific than they were before uh they also talked more now about how much money it's costing them not in the sense of look at us for spending a lot of money on this be grateful but just that they are investing in American infrastructure for half nearly half a billion dollars worth going into this and because behind the satellites and the apps on the phone and all this there's this whole team of call center people is a massive Enterprise and who else but Apple could start that up well the call center thing I'm still curious about because if I had to guess they're just employing standard call centers and those people um I've known a few people that work at call centers and basically they're like seven different companies sitting in that chair and they just pull up the correct Q card for what they're supposed to read off when that a different phone number Rings um so they're just adding Apple's Q card to the list of uh Taco Bell support and um help with a Elder Scrolls video game or something you know just one of 50 things these people probably have to put up with so I I'm assuming Apple doesn't have a dedicated call Center for this cuz you'd have to imagine there's very few of these calls coming through right you hope so but they talk about they put in global STS that owns the satellite and Apple has paid for them to have new sites around the world new grand stations and they replace the antennas on all of them things but yes you you got to hope there's a lot of very very bored people sitting around there not getting any calls but you they didn't it feels to me like apple doesn't always just try a little something and then grow it I mean it usually iterates products but in this case it's like like a light switch didn't do it before now well I was going to say worldwide but it isn't across the states everything uh 300 employees added Global St solely to do this I don't know if they're call center or or Engineers for it as well but 300 new staff employed for it yeah is that that's the only company that's adding staff at the moment isn't it yeah it's it's definitely interesting the idea of the satellite calls cuz you you get above a certain parallel and uh you can't make calls because there's no satellites um directly above the the North Pole or something you know um I just find it all very interesting and not to bring it back to Elon Musk but he did want to make a bid on this or uh offer starlink um as a part of it and apple ignored uh that offer and just went totally in on global star it maybe it's more of less of a risk because again um elon's property seems to operate under the constant veil of risk and risky decisions so I I would say something uh like star makes more sense for apple and maybe we could see some expansion in the future I don't think we're going to be um downloading apps over satellite connection anytime soon but uh definitely good to have speaking of good to have no I can't even make this because I don't know if it's good or not to have but you have written an article for app Insider about something I don't understand in the slightest and right now i' kind of like to this uh is it FTX uh crypto exchange something it was there yesterday it's gone to day is that a fair summary what what was that um it went out with uh basically instantaneously it it's kind of incredible what happened here this is one of the world's largest crypto trading firms um one of the most important a lot of people had a lot of money tied up in it uh valued at something like let me grab the actual number it's it's ludicrous I'd never even heard of them before they weren't there if you're don't I I'm I'm not a crypto person myself um if you follow me on Twitter I I continuously disdain the idea of cryptocurrency and wish it would all die in a fire and it seems to be doing that itself I don't really need to provide my input on it uh crypto is just unregulated uncontrolled and the kind of one of those systems where the people with the money have made more money and now they're exiting leaving um everyone else to pick up the trash um and uh kind of go broke a lot of people are uh losing significant amounts of money because of this and I feel very sorry for them but uh I would urge people to maybe get at least remove their critical assets from crypto if not all of them you make it sound like it was a pyramid scheme it's almost so yeah it's missing some of the elements of a pyramid scheme because um it requires the money to pass up the people who buy crypto still have their wealth whereas a c a pyramid scheme the wealth moves up oh true but the problem is is like anything um so American currency or you know British anything is regulated it's controlled by a government and a banking system and it prevents sudden uh violent changes usually I mean we have seen um you know the 2008 banking crisis and uh of course the Great Depression all those things but cryptocurrency is set up in a way that we can have a Great Depression every 3 days if they want it to because there's nothing preventing that from happening and that's essentially what's happened with FTX I I've lost that number completely it's it's it's something absurd like 50 like they were worth something upwards of 57 billion do in January and now they're worth maybe 300 million it's a staggering uh change in course well you've changed my mind completely then it's not a pyramid scheme it's the UK economy that's what this is yeah I wouldn't go so far as that give give crypto a little credit okay okay that's that was harsh but fair okay let's let's talk cash let's talk real money actual money any chance you have between $60,000 and $80,000 lying around that you're willing to uh put out on uh shoe wear to uh no thanks but I am eyeballing a $220,000 life-size Chewbacca statue that they're selling I'm not making that up it's real Go Go find out okay well my ones seems a bit uh smaller really Steve Jobs practical anyway well are they I mean 40-year-old sandal allegedly with his Footprints in them um Julian's auctions uh again I'm sorry I'm sure they're very famous in the auction world but I've never heard of them before they are selling or putting up for bid for auction Steve Jobs's sandals and an nft photograph of Steve Jobs sandals and a book that mentions Steve jobs and I'm just it feels like somebody's just raiding cupboards here Steve Jobs n that's fine put it out that than but um he Sneed he sneezed in this napkin once $20,000 okay we're stopping there that's enough e um is this the same Auction Company that's doing Chewbacca because I I could be more tempted no no I I believe the Chewbacca statu is a legitimate like consumer product it's not an auction you go and just purchase it and they have multiple of them and people with money are probably going to do so it's kind of insane okay well in that case very nice talking to you that's the end of the podcast I'm going to go over to no no Poss no the Steve Jobs sandals thing is interesting if only because we see a lot of these products come along the auction line uh we saw his first job application come across or um a business card that he that that has uh a reference on it what what company did he work for Atari he went yeah yeah and those just sell for thousands and thousands of dollars and I appreciate the collector world and usually the people paying out you know tens of thousands of dollars for these things have millions in the bank so true just scratching the surface but it still hurts to think about a little bit I remember reading somewhere a while ago that um people that were collectors of Elvis memorabilia and most of them were reaching stage in life an age in life really where they could do with some money um and they were finding they were no longer able to sell the stuff for what they would have expected because fewer and fewer people remember Elvis Presley the right the yeah fewer and fewer people care and I mean like uh it just brings back the thought of when kids were congratulating um Sho who's who's the Beatles that's still alive um Paul McCartney Paul McCart that's it sorry so people were on Twitter congratulating Paul McCartney for coming out of the shadows and being lifted up by uh the musician um like I can't remember it was Kanye West or someone he did an album with and they're like it's so good they're they're helping the little guy out and uh I just found that hilarious yeah I recently went to a reunion concert of uh remember there was a show called Fame 1980s film by Christopher Gore and then a series about it um and they were known at the time as the kids from Fame and they had lots of chart success outside the states not as well known in the US but especially here in the UK very successful I went to see there reunion concert and I was shocked that they did not build themselves as the pensioners from Fame but they all are it was a good night I think I'm revealing my age more than I am theirs um so the the nft Edition on there these seem to happen a lot of these auctions that here's the thing and here's an nft of it and I'm surprised that we're still seeing any mention of of nfts those seemingly again suddenly just pH LED out and died um earlier in the year um in the spring and no one's talking about them anymore but apparently from what I've under understand read is that these companies uh and a lot of like you know Wendy's or Taco Bell or whatever have invested so much collateral so much money into building nft platforms that they have to commit to it even though no one cares about nfts anymore no one's buying them anymore and they're virtually worthless um think about it if you purchase an nft with with a cryptocoin um that was worth you know $20 yesterday and it's only worth $2 today what's the nft worth think about it it's it's um really kind of crazy watching this all fall apart live in action sorry I think I may have missed a word there are you talking about nfts or the metaverse because it sounds like it's exactly Facebook's struggling with the same it it feels like they're all tied to the same string and they're all just F tumbling down the hill together yeah and uh they they were all they all met in the pandemic and became good friends started a business venture and just failed miserably um I kind of still hold out hope for the metaverse I loved what is it um who's the Apple executive who was asked to complete a sentence that began the metaverse is and he said a word I'd never use Greg joak in fact I bought a t-shirt with that quote on it really excellent I am so with him on that as name and yet and you look at all the examples that we're supposed to be excited by and we are so not I just I'm hanging on I think when Apple comes out with something we know the hardware will be nice but I think they will also have found the killer app and I can't conceive what it is but if they found it on their right then I think something will happen down this line not not to fall into a metaverse rabbit hole CU we have plenty to talk about here but the idea of the metaverse is fine it's going nowhere it reminds me a lot of virtual reality um if you maybe you you remember you experienced this yourself in the 80s William they had virtual reality right they you could put on uh the Virtual Boy headset and play Mario Tennis as if you were really there and um get splitting headache and possibly eye cancer but moving on uh the VR just never it could it could never die it kept resurging kind of like 3D over and over every 5 years or so someone would come out and say the first or 3D and it's like no 3D's been around for decades and the metaverse feels like the beginning of another one of those things it's just going to keep iterating on itself over the next 20 years until finally someone Nails it and actually makes sense uh it's not I don't I don't believe we're ever going to spend hours upon hours inside of one of these things but I do believe it it it will be a foundational aspect of our future where you jump in for a social experience or jump in for a shopping experience maybe for an hour but then you jump back out and you go on living your life yeah and Facebook of course we are seeing the results of them betting too hard too fast on something that doesn't even exist William doesn't exist well actually give him some credit I've always seen Facebook as a money grabbing thing and here maybe that's its ultimate aim but it's following a dream and putting its money excuse me putting our money where its mouth is it's I'm trying to keep the optimism thing going how about this totally different totally more it's almost here and it's real have you tried free form on the iPad or the iPhone get so I am um not going to do this beta cycle because it is tied deeply to the new um homekit uh reintegration and I don't want anything to break so uh especially since I live in a household where we have multiple people with uh iPhones controlling the home I just don't want to go anywhere near that so I'm just waiting for the release in December to try all this out that's a good point um I added a blind to my office and uh I put an aara motor on it and it worked fine until I added it to homekit and now I can't get the thing to work at all so I got to strip it out and try again so yes I understand people saying homekit is um a work in progress let's say that but free form then in that case let me surprise you with the fact that it's quite nice it I've heard a lot of good things um it's like apple took ideas from um P their uh gosh what what is it called it's not PowerPoint oh keynot they took ideas from keynote they they took ideas from Apple notes and they've seem to jumbl it all into this one app that has an infinite canvas and that's all very fun but then they also added live collaboration but is it actually live are we are we gonna actually see people putting pen to paper or is it going to be a five minute lag between each input and output I mean even us here on the shared Apple note that we use for the podcast technically and what Apple advertises I should be able to pretty much see your cursor moving around an Apple notes typing out words live and it is not the case it it might be 10 seconds between edits and then we're accidentally inserting images in the middle of paragraphs that weren't there before right so I I wonder how free form's going to work once it's ultimately released I actually I know um I don't see know anybody else then cuz I thought you would be on the be cycle but I now know nobody is on the be cycle for it I can't use the collaboration tool to see it's like but also I don't care I saw this as a writer is this a tool for me to use and I'm glad you said that about keynote because my first thought when I opened it was I've seen this before it is so familiar all these different bits I've used before and I actually I like them so I thought that would be good at the moment there's no syncing going on between my iPhone and my iPad version of it so that's problem but I'm sure that'll be fixed uh I kind of liked it but I think it needs an apple pencil to be useful and for me to use an apple pencil means a substantially improved handwriting so that's not going to happen right I I mean I I think it def like you said it has it has potential especially as a standalone note- taking app um but since it is being pitched as this collaboration tool I think that's a temp pole feature that needs to work well in order for this to succeed because if it doesn't penetrate the market like apple wants it to it's going to end up like Clips where it exists and no one uses it yeah yeah I think I can see that in its future what was the Google um was it Google wave that let you uh see as everybody was typing the away remember I'm not sure there they have about 37 different one of these um yeah and they they them all last week there was this point where I was in a conversation with two writers and um it was about writing you know so we were typing to each other and it turned I learned that this friend of mine is the slowest typist in in the land it was Agony what waiting for each letter to come along and I think she writes 120 page screenplays and things how could it possibly take her that long to type this I minutes to do two sentences and something um so I actually I I I felt like I was getting out of the conversation to give her a break rather than anything else so we collaborated by each going off to get a cup of tea separately yeah I I don't believe uh any kind of communication between people should ever be one letter at a time I I don't need to see your literal second byc cursor movement um in a chat app I'm not sure why they would Implement that no it was terribly revealing though I every time I got a long email from her afterwards I was more appreciative CU I realized how much effort it had actually taken whereas I just I type quite quickly so it's not a lot of trouble there um speaking of trouble though and communication look what I'm doing here stringing these together uh this thing has gone down in China that Apple has um slipped in China uh if you're a user of an iPhone in China and you update to iOS 16.11 uh airdrop has changed for you uh it's limited now do you use airdrop much for this uh for just randomly sending people things um no I'm not one of those people but uh as far as the utility of it yeah like if like family members needs a photo or a document like like it it's actually coming quite handy a lot um it's it's definitely a nonzero amount that I use airdrop I uh I must be in the high 90s in comparison because I use airdrop every day going between different things and I utterly love it and I think it's just amazing when it works which is almost all of the time but not quite iCloud sync starts bugging out I will definitely just airdrop a file between my devices yes same here I need it over now and it's not getting there just knock it over over air drop absolutely great so that means um I use it all the time but what I don't have switched on is the yeah whatever let everyone send me things cuz I was once in this young writer workshop and I popped on my phone somebody's work which actually I kind of wanted to read but um it was disturbing so I switched that off and now if I was in China I couldn't really switch it on anymore because open to everyone send whatever you like has become open to everyone for the next 10 minutes and that's it um and allegedly this is because uh protesters in China using airdrops to spread material that the government doesn't like we know this has happened before things around Hong Kong it's been well documented it's expected that's happening now which means did Apple switch this off under pressure from China or is there some other reason it feels uncomfortable fir first off everyone listening go and turn off the everyone feature that's silly unless you're like in the moment needing it from some random person that's not in your context sure go turn it on for a second turn it back off um the 10minute uh thing here I don't know okay not not to defend it because this this is of course unfortunate that limiting any kind of communication like this isn't great but the is there any actual loss here because um if you're using airdrop the device has to be unlocked in the first place and if you're one of these people in a place wanting to receive something like this uh turning airdrop on and leaving your device open for you know you to receive it is that not already what you're doing anyway and you're looking at the device and is that 10-minute timer really going to disrupt you from getting um images and things during a protest cuz it's not like you know that you're staring at a phone during a protest in in the first place I'm not talking about laptops on a bus here it's just think of how this is being used physically in real life and ask yourself is this a real limitation and is Apple's capitulation to this just to appease rather than actually hurt anything is my question actually weirdly when you said that I realized there is potentially a difference in this uh difference in intent I mean this is getting a bit you know um paranoid really but previously if I receive anti-government materials on my iPhone through airdrop I could argue it was sent to me by somebody passing by if I have to positively switch it on I am participating in the reception of that material that's fair that's scary thought isn't it yes that that's that's a good that's a good uh thought there I I hadn't really put it way but it makes sense you're you're now able to say no you deliberately turn this feature on in order to receive this and now you're under arrest for you know getting this stuff willingly I want to go away from this thought let's go um all right so that's politics airdrop iPhone uh you you know more about this than I do there's a brand new foldable iPhone that apparently has been made an immense effort but not by Apple um is this right have you got one will you buy one well no uh so this this whole thing is kind of wild to me um what is the ship uh is is it Greek mythology where they're changing out each wooden plank until basically you ask the philosophical question is it the same ship that you started with this device feels the same way to me it's they call it a folding iPhone and generally speaking sure it they took the display from an iPhone and they kept some of the parts the processing but then they built a custom battery a custom case a custom hinge then they completely removed iOS from it and put a uh jailbreak ROM on there to uh add custom um interfaces for folding screens is it really an iPhone anymore nevertheless though it's an excellent project they apparently spent over 200 days getting this right taking a different phones buying different devices investigating how to get it done and they finally landed on this fully functioning working prototype of a folding iPhone which is pretty wild in practice but not great I wouldn't buy one now you had me all the way up to they swapped out iOS like there you go over it's not really an iPhone anymore at that point no that's it the the software is key I keep hearing about great features on Android phone and I'm thinking actually that really does sound good but you'd have to use Android in order to use it and that's the lockin for me iOS more than the software just as with the Mac Mac OS rather than Windows well see iOS worked they just swapped it out only because they wanted a split screen top bottom View and they wanted control over how the camera previewed images blah blah blah but yeah no uh it's a it's a neat idea but again this just they they used the hinge from a Motorola Razor flip 2020 uh because that would allow the screen to bend less basically just a lot of a lot of fun little engineering here the fact that it was possible is what's interesting not the final product I just I remember when Steve Jobs announced the first Itunes phone and it was a it was a a razor and the disdain in his voice as he was presenting it to people it's got two songs on it or something it was almost as dismissive as that so I've always Associated razor with that speaking of uh Android quick segue we can very quickly move on from this but Samsung introduced a the back tap feature to its Galaxy line but how it added that is um pure Madness to me this is come so this is again this is coming from someone who used Android for years I understand how it works I'm not one of these Apple fan boys who doesn't like I I I have messed with modern Android I I I see it I understand it but this is crazy to me the the Hoops that Samsung has to jump through just to get something done on Android because it's so fragmented and broken um on Samsung phones you go to the Galaxy store and you have to download the good lock app which apparently is uh made by Samsung but it's not included in the phones by default you have to go get it yourself and then within this app are different uh routines different um programs that you can download that allow you to modify the UI of the device and this has been around since like 2016 so I haven't used Android since this has been out but it reminds me a lot of um modding Android with skins and such but this is just an official Samsung version they've blessed it or whatever and in order to get this back tap functionality you have to go through all these steps and then add it yourself and now you can double tap the back your phone to launch Google Chrome or whatever I just looking at that and then looking back at my iPhone I've not missing Android at all over here I I have a friend who used to be a strong Windows fan and he was asking about switching to Mac and he was such a Windows fan I actually recommended against it so you know Windows you like it get on with your work have a good time and he swapped anyway because you know that's how valuable my advice is um and for weeks and weeks afterwards he would phone me up laughing down the phone at how different the process was and it was always he wanted to install some soft Ware some hardware and he would read out a page of instructions for Windows and then says get this get this on the Mac side click okay and that was it that was a difference for it the way I always frame it in my mind because again I don't view when Android as bad or Windows is well Windows is Windows it's fine uh but I don't see them as inherently terrible everyone has their own tastes but the way I divide it in my brain is technically like it's a playground if you want to fiddle with the the minutia of what your clock looks like and what your status bar shows and every and like comic Sands and the web browser and whatever Madness you want to install on your phone that's Android go nuts the every little detail is controllable in a way that if I had access to that level of control I would never use the phone for anything other than customizing it I wouldn't get anything done and then over at iOS it's more of a curated experience and I kind of appre appreciate that now especially since I don't have time to sit down and just go through widget Galleries and look at different clock interfaces it's just not what I want I'm surprised to say I I similar thing for me I used to be on PCS because I was on a PC Magazine and I just came a day when I realized I wasn't actually interested in all this the virus stuff one thing customizing other I just wanted to get on with this other stuff and the Mac let me do it um but lately I found am I just time short because all the new lock screen stuff and the widgets I thought yeah you can lose yourself exploring in that and I haven't bothered set up one that'll do I like that it's very nice and carry it on do you fiddle with your lock screen well yeah that's the interesting difference here because um Apple has been going down this road since I would say like 2016 2017 of expanding customization and control across their ecosystem and that's great because I still want control I don't want it to be iOS 7 um gez remember um back in the day when you basically can almost do nothing except launch an app from an iPhone let alone control how it looks or whatever uh but yeah nowadays it's it's pretty complex and I would argue in some cases um iPhone is more customizable and more personal than an Android phone and it's safer to do so because you're not going to install something that's going to inherently break your phone it's all vetted by Apple and yeah I to answer your question I do actually spend some time customizing and building these things but I again I think that's the difference between Android and Apple Android it's all this wild west playground where everything is unknown and there might be something better just over the horizon you're going to keep looking whereas on iPhone it's all just set in stone you do it once and you're done I've got a I've got Focus modes uh I've maxed out how many Focus modes I can have and I've defined everything I want coming in and out of those and then I've built all of my lock screens and watch faces for each of those and now I'm done I can go back and change how a complication appears or change a wallpaper or add a photo or something but it's not something I constantly feel the need to go back to and change dramatically so like Android does I remember when things were just appliances you bought it to do something are you call take a picture do you remember those no I remember thinking TV sets you just turn it on you watch it maybe you switch on cax if you're in the UK those days are gone but you could now I look at my Apple TV box by the way and I could do half of this customization customization on there as well but I never do I have this thing I couldn't bear the thought of being so engrossed in a film that we reached the dramatic Pinnacle of the writer's work and suddenly in the corner of the screen there's a picture of somebody at my front doorbell I just I can't do it at all but I think you're an Apple TV AR you were games us on Apple TV like making that up uh so that's looking at my review here uh I did review the latest Apple TV 4K uh with 128 gigs of storage and the title it's an apple arcade playground and I mean that because um yes I I play games on Apple TV um funny enough I try to seek out what you would call Double A or even AAA I wouldn't I wouldn't say there's any AAA games on Apple TV but at least the daa standards there where there's expansive worlds that you can explore puzzles to perform more involved than something like I don't know Angry Birds or uh a a Flappy Bird or puzzle game or something um and apple arcade actually has a lot to offer and so on Apple TV it's really interesting because um you have all of these games offered by Apple arcade plus some extras that you can buy separately on the App Store but previously 64 gigs you could have five games and you would fill up that TV now I have every game I could want that I'm currently playing or messing with and it's running great on the a15 processor and sure I'm more likely to turn on my PS5 and play whatever I have there but if I just want a casual experience jump into some SpongeBob game or play more on fantasian which I'll finish eventually I promise but I've never heard of it sorry but oh you're fine you're fine uh it's a RPG made by Square Enix one of my favorite companies that makes video games but uh anyway yeah it's it's there and it's great it serves a purpose uh but primarily for a lot of you guys out there jackbox games party games a lot of stuff like that are also on Apple TV so yeah I I play a lot of games on Apple TV so there you are with a brand new topof the range Apple TV you could be watching in 4k some of the finest Productions made in the world ever and instead you you play you say jackbox games so yeah Jack jackbox games are a series of party games I believe there's nine of them now um where you turn it on and it's basically the think of it like having a a closet full of board games and you go to that closet when you have friends over and you're like oh what are we going to play today jackbox is organized the same way it just has trivia games and silly puzzles and things but you play as a group and all you need is a phone and yeah I I really enjoy jackbox I'm sure a lot of people listening are aware of it um I would recommend going playing Dr aul which is uh a really fun drawing thing and if you have an iPad you might have an edge uh on that and uh there's also fibbage where you can make up lies and see if you can trick people into voting for them to uh just really really fun little party games all right H you actually tempting me until that voting bit that's getting too close to the truth tell me something more about games because I know isn't there also something going down with Nintendo they're going to make things I don't think for the Apple TV um so that's the problem um before I get into Nintendo is these major Publishers ignore Apple TV even though Apple makes it almost dead simple to add games to that platform there's no reason why ginin impact or Grand Theft Auto or some of these other major app games that are on iPhone shouldn't be on Apple TV it's almost a click of a button they'd have to modify some UI elements sure but they're just not on there I remember Minecraft getting removed and Microsoft saying no one played it well the turnaround was well Microsoft you never updated it so you know uh anyway so yeah there for whatever reason these large Publishers just avoid Apple TV it's really sad to me it's a very powerful piece of Hardware I think clocked on paper it's faster than an Xbox 360 and is compe it's way more competitive than a Nintendo switch and power so this thing could run really powerful games there's just no one making games for it and Apple has the power to change that but they haven't yet um Nintendo that store um it's nothing's happened yet they're so Nintendo is going into business with uh the company that that's made other Nintendo mobile properties uh Super Mario run uh the Animal Crossing pocket Camp um the company's name is DNA and they're creating a whole new subsidiary company of Nintendo called Nintendo systems Company Limited and this is going to be focused on building new Nintendo calls it new Services tied with Nintendo properties but the long and short of it they're making more mobile games and they are creating an entire division specifically dedicated to mobile games so hopefully we'll see much more broad category games from Nintendo maybe a Zelda you know maybe a Metroid come to iPhone maybe not Apple TV sadly yeah this is why Steven keeps us apart usually because you're a gamer I'm I'm not a gamer you're a Ted Leo fan I'm not a Ted Leo fan but we have actually found some common ground in which to disagree on because uh you I and Andrew or on Apple Insider have just got together to write a feature about RSS Newsreaders which we all love even though you're not using the right one uh which one are you using uh I have net newswire but you use as a strong word uh William were you fibbing I believed you a dedicated this like I am or you're once a week kind of guy you check know so RSS for me I it's one of those I always go back to because it's useful um if for those who don't know you're listening to a podcast that's served to you over RSS the magic of the internet um RSS is a great tool for just getting a bunch of uh news and information to one place chronologically or whatever and you can sort it into folders that's all great but what what am I what do I need it for I I'm just not consuming information that way and my primary use of RSS uh and net newswire specifically is having a bunch of feeds related to Apple technology and news for work so I can see what other people are talking about just in case I want to pipe in and uh put in my two cents on Apple Insider I just as you say that I realize one of the things I deeply love about RSS is that it's exactly like things like um CD ROM where knowing what the letters mean doesn't help you in the slightest bit um are it's a simp really simple syndication or there are alternatives I don't know what they are it's it's news but I do I'm certainly daily I think it's quite hourly but a lot more than you I used to be that um I can't remember fix out but I think I worked out once there were 300 websites that I was interested in and that I liked going to visit but if you do that every day well that's your day gone whereas now with RSS I pick up uh reader reader 5 on the Mac the iPhone and the iPad and it goes off to those sites and if they publish a list it tells me yes there's something new here and it shows me what it is so while I'm bowling the kettle for a cup of tea I can read anything I like see RSS is nice because it is what you would say is a just a dumb feed of information it's just coming at you all at once whatever you've subscribed to it's just there in the order that it shows up and you can read it however you like that's all great but it also so is a little exhausting and I only have so many hours in the day so I prefer a smart news aggregator which is the Crux of your article that you wrote um what to use to replace Apple news Well in fact I use Apple news primarily and uh that's where I go for my if I'm saying hm I'm going to read an article right now with news or whatever I open the Apple news app first not RSS I think I'm a split um sitting at my Mac I'm I'm not that Keen on Apple news on the Mac for for some reason but the iPhone and the iPad yes I will turn to it for what's going on I think it feels to me like RSS I use for deeper dives into more specific topics I don't get a lot of coverage anyway so some science obviously some drama things well so each to their own and each to their own thing but as long as you switch over to reader five for the Mac yeah reader is really great I I like reader but I think because of my casual use I think net news wire fits my needs better just because again that one's just a straight list I don't need to interact with it I can just go see what's the newest thing and then move on actually net newswire is the first one I ever used in one of its older incarnations a very long time ago I I admire it but yes you have you picked up on the fact that I have another preference there only a little add a add a t Ted lasso news line to your RSS and maybe you'll get right well good talking to you and um actually I realize we had this opportunity to talk about Steven Rob behind his back did not take it so that's bad on us but uh Steven will be back uh next week and it will be I'd like to say it'll be back and it'll be a serious podcast but it won't will it it'll be apple inside again uh if you want to hear more from Apple Insider remember there is homekit Insider as well it goes out every Monday and also you can support us on patreon you can put us on uh Apple's own uh podcast Subscription Service basically you can send us enough money that we can get Steven out of I presume jail somewhere in Continental USA back in time for next week but in the meantime W nice to propably talk to you at last and speak to everybody next timehello welcome to the Apple Insider podcast and if you are a regular listener you may already have spotted that I am not Steven robis but fortunately I have been verified by Twitter I am W Gallagher on Twitter I am William Gallagher and while Sten has to be away for a week doing something probably buying more Apple gear you know what he's like we have got a rare opportunity because it's you and it's me and for the first time in a while anyway also Wesley iard normally where Steven keeps us apart doesn't he yeah he doesn't want to put us in a room together it gets dangerous yeah does he know something about us or have you been saying something is this a whole Ted lasso thing I think so I think he's uh trying to make sure I don't influence you in anyway okay well yeah promise to be good for the next few minutes and we'll see what happens speaking of being good apparently some people think we are five star RS love them uh I'll pile of them popping up on iTunes and like including once while actually is it perh B few greetings from Ukrainian living in France says I think B VI oh who finally watched Ted lasso after hundreds of recommendations well all right nice to see you anyway um also Taylor from the USA who says he reviewed with no coercion I'm sorry Taylor that sounds so suspicious yes I am voting five yeah okay but thank you for it also drk bad from USA sorry di what did you just say there oh you said you chime in all the time yeah okay that's a very good point you just made there H hang on Scott Apple ID from USA Scott is this just you can't remember your Apple ID so you put it as your name in things but 5,000 VI as well thank you very much and last for this week um Ryan bil I think I'm that Ryan from USA Ryan was listening on Spotify and has come over to to Apple podcasts just to give us a review now that Ryan you are the person who traveled the furthest to make a review thank you very much yeah that takes some my dedication to go to a whole different app just to write a review but actually in all seriousness going from App inside on Spotify to on podcasts and things I mean it's a fair few steps isn't it you've got to really want I mean I know it's not arduous but I I would get round to it eventually rather than actually doing it or or are you a bit more Happy to Skip between apps like a cat or anything this is why stepen keeps us apart you're just looking at me now ask you just while we're on this point because it has been on my mind actually specifically to ask you because we don't get to talk very often I started using streaming music on Spotify and I didn't like it and I think now it's because it was all new to me then it was like it was okay I didn't want to commit enough to pay so I was just getting the shuffled version in the ads then Apple music came along and I think it was just the right time for me so I got that and I love it and now I never even think about Spotify are you more of a Spotify kind of guy um no never have been I just never could get behind the UI um I'm actually one of those uh odd people that kind of disappeared off the face of the Earth from like 2009 to 2014 so uh military stuff couldn't really get on the internet and Spotify I think came to the United States in 2011 I believe or something maybe earlier but uh just never landed on my doorstep and by the time I cared um cuz at that point I was collecting music on iTunes um but by the time I cared uh about streaming or wanted to look into it um beats music was a thing so I was actually a subscriber my first ever streaming service was Beats Music and then Apple music after that I'm so glad you said the bit about military service there by the way cuz those years were so specific I was wondering you know what crime had you done to be way yes service on a carrier turns out that's bizarre isn't that God I just amazing um so no point telling you that this week Spotify updated its Apple watch with a new and improved UI you just yeah you don't care yeah I'm not sure what the old UI was but the new one does look better uh more bigger tap interfaces and such uh I understand people are who like Spotify they're really like Spotify they're kind of like Tesla fans they're they'll preach it like gospel go around tell everyone the good news um about Spotify but yeah like I said I just I could never really get into the interface I know a lot of people complain about Apple music's interface and it being kind of um arbitrary and random but I actually feel that way about Spotify myself so it to each his own uh just pushing aside the fact that I wonder if there are any tesna fans left after recent events but um I maybe it's whichever one you come to First you like absolutely that sound possible yeah I definitely think that's the case with Windows versus MAC sometimes although you know I was a heavy Android Windows user um for years and switched to Apple so it's not always true so you recovered right okay um I we just mentioned Twitter a couple of times that'll do it's Madness it'll get sorted out and all this stuff um William um you have a verified Wikipedia page so I think you you you should get all the check marks right right no you want me to spend $8 a month to look like I'm a spammer I'm going to change my name to William Gallagher on Twitter just to make sure there's enough representation of the William Gallaghers in the world no I I'm paying for Twitter blue are you are you going to pay the 8 or I mean no no you don't care about editing tweets uh no actually in all I was advising somebody I have a friend who's a writer who is uh quite new to social media and because she's you know she writes you really well well she spends an awful lot of time crafting sentences before she does anything and she sees Twitter as this big burden where I've got to get it absolutely right have it checked have it verified and I'm telling you know you know I know you don't want typos but the odd one or the odd bit that could have been a little bit grammatically better yeah it feel Twitter is a human connection I think and you're giving that to your readers in this case typos separate us from the Bots right oh I wish that were true yeah um no I think just to get it out there I'm going to go I think you can already see it on my account but I'm I'm just paying the $8 uh whatever uh there's multiple reasons I know people are kind of taking a uh what's the stance well for me it's wait and see they're taking a like uh yeah they're they're taking the stance of oh I'm not going to give a billionaire 8 but um Elon Musk when he purchased Twitter did so unwillingly and created a lot of debt for the company and I personally like Twitter and I'd like it to continue to exist hopefully it will remain the same or similar under this leadership but I'm putting my $8 out there for uh a to support the platform that I actually enjoy and B I actually use the edit tweet features and uh I don't want to be buried um because Elon Musk says anyone not paying $8 may as well be uh what like second class citizens I guess so I I definitely don't want my tweets lost in the mix or um under prioritized because of that so yeah $8 it's fine I was paying the five before so not to Me Maybe it's me I just think second class citizens are more fun so I'll stick with them plus actually I have a friend who I believe still works at Twitter uh iy like we very much and I've not been able to get in touch with him in the last week or so to see whether or not he's one of the people that survived and obviously really hope so so it feels a bit personal when you know somebody the the Twitter zombies they they got fired and then brought back but uh before we move on from Twitter I just wanted to say guys um because I've heard from a few people personally who said I'm quitting Twitter I'm leaving there's too much up in the air that's fine you know you do you but I think at the end of the day um everyone needs to realize that this is literally happening Moment by moment no one knows what's true or not uh take what Elon mus says with the grain of salt he's in control but not yes God like he can't snap his fingers and have the API change or the algorithm change overnight there's still humans involved behind the scenes that have to change these things and while he says blue check marks that pay dolls are going to get prioritized that isn't been reflected in the algorithm yet that doesn't just change all of this again is fluid so maybe bear with it stick it out and honestly I believe we're going to land back right back where we started and elon's just going to be like well we tried and failed and uh turns out the original was just fine maybe he won't say it out loud but we'll all be thinking it I hope so let's be optimistic yes okay yeah I'm trying I'm working at it this Artic on app Insider it's just as we record it's only just gone up about how you can tell the difference between fake verified accounts and real verified accounts and as I think it actually was changing as I wrote it so you're right things do keep moving around something I think is much more impressive um actually there's a connection here El muscle loads of satellites doesn't he well Apple rents loads of satellites and now we know that as of the end of this month November uh the iPhone 14's emergency SOS via satellite feature is going to be live um I'm in the UK so it's not going to be live for me do you have an iPhone 14 that can will be able to use this yes uh actually I intend on getting lost in the woods as soon as it's live just to try it out dedication there that that is you not serious are you um well kind of uh we have uh I'm up in the mountains in Tennessee so I assume that the only way to access this feature is to not have a Cellular Connection it's not something you can just go into settings and find and say I want to make a satellite call in the middle of a busy street no I think you actually physically have to lose um signal and uh we have an abundance of that around here um I might just go on a hike to a nearby fire to Tower in the in the woods and and uh see if I can't make a satellite call or at least share my location because I don't want to call Emergency Services when there is no emergency of course myself I just have to go into our kitchen and I've lost all signal so yeah hopefully it will spread to the um I Apple actually said they announced today as we record this when it's coming out or at least by the end of the month which is slightly more specific than they were before uh they also talked more now about how much money it's costing them not in the sense of look at us for spending a lot of money on this be grateful but just that they are investing in American infrastructure for half nearly half a billion dollars worth going into this and because behind the satellites and the apps on the phone and all this there's this whole team of call center people is a massive Enterprise and who else but Apple could start that up well the call center thing I'm still curious about because if I had to guess they're just employing standard call centers and those people um I've known a few people that work at call centers and basically they're like seven different companies sitting in that chair and they just pull up the correct Q card for what they're supposed to read off when that a different phone number Rings um so they're just adding Apple's Q card to the list of uh Taco Bell support and um help with a Elder Scrolls video game or something you know just one of 50 things these people probably have to put up with so I I'm assuming Apple doesn't have a dedicated call Center for this cuz you'd have to imagine there's very few of these calls coming through right you hope so but they talk about they put in global STS that owns the satellite and Apple has paid for them to have new sites around the world new grand stations and they replace the antennas on all of them things but yes you you got to hope there's a lot of very very bored people sitting around there not getting any calls but you they didn't it feels to me like apple doesn't always just try a little something and then grow it I mean it usually iterates products but in this case it's like like a light switch didn't do it before now well I was going to say worldwide but it isn't across the states everything uh 300 employees added Global St solely to do this I don't know if they're call center or or Engineers for it as well but 300 new staff employed for it yeah is that that's the only company that's adding staff at the moment isn't it yeah it's it's definitely interesting the idea of the satellite calls cuz you you get above a certain parallel and uh you can't make calls because there's no satellites um directly above the the North Pole or something you know um I just find it all very interesting and not to bring it back to Elon Musk but he did want to make a bid on this or uh offer starlink um as a part of it and apple ignored uh that offer and just went totally in on global star it maybe it's more of less of a risk because again um elon's property seems to operate under the constant veil of risk and risky decisions so I I would say something uh like star makes more sense for apple and maybe we could see some expansion in the future I don't think we're going to be um downloading apps over satellite connection anytime soon but uh definitely good to have speaking of good to have no I can't even make this because I don't know if it's good or not to have but you have written an article for app Insider about something I don't understand in the slightest and right now i' kind of like to this uh is it FTX uh crypto exchange something it was there yesterday it's gone to day is that a fair summary what what was that um it went out with uh basically instantaneously it it's kind of incredible what happened here this is one of the world's largest crypto trading firms um one of the most important a lot of people had a lot of money tied up in it uh valued at something like let me grab the actual number it's it's ludicrous I'd never even heard of them before they weren't there if you're don't I I'm I'm not a crypto person myself um if you follow me on Twitter I I continuously disdain the idea of cryptocurrency and wish it would all die in a fire and it seems to be doing that itself I don't really need to provide my input on it uh crypto is just unregulated uncontrolled and the kind of one of those systems where the people with the money have made more money and now they're exiting leaving um everyone else to pick up the trash um and uh kind of go broke a lot of people are uh losing significant amounts of money because of this and I feel very sorry for them but uh I would urge people to maybe get at least remove their critical assets from crypto if not all of them you make it sound like it was a pyramid scheme it's almost so yeah it's missing some of the elements of a pyramid scheme because um it requires the money to pass up the people who buy crypto still have their wealth whereas a c a pyramid scheme the wealth moves up oh true but the problem is is like anything um so American currency or you know British anything is regulated it's controlled by a government and a banking system and it prevents sudden uh violent changes usually I mean we have seen um you know the 2008 banking crisis and uh of course the Great Depression all those things but cryptocurrency is set up in a way that we can have a Great Depression every 3 days if they want it to because there's nothing preventing that from happening and that's essentially what's happened with FTX I I've lost that number completely it's it's it's something absurd like 50 like they were worth something upwards of 57 billion do in January and now they're worth maybe 300 million it's a staggering uh change in course well you've changed my mind completely then it's not a pyramid scheme it's the UK economy that's what this is yeah I wouldn't go so far as that give give crypto a little credit okay okay that's that was harsh but fair okay let's let's talk cash let's talk real money actual money any chance you have between $60,000 and $80,000 lying around that you're willing to uh put out on uh shoe wear to uh no thanks but I am eyeballing a $220,000 life-size Chewbacca statue that they're selling I'm not making that up it's real Go Go find out okay well my ones seems a bit uh smaller really Steve Jobs practical anyway well are they I mean 40-year-old sandal allegedly with his Footprints in them um Julian's auctions uh again I'm sorry I'm sure they're very famous in the auction world but I've never heard of them before they are selling or putting up for bid for auction Steve Jobs's sandals and an nft photograph of Steve Jobs sandals and a book that mentions Steve jobs and I'm just it feels like somebody's just raiding cupboards here Steve Jobs n that's fine put it out that than but um he Sneed he sneezed in this napkin once $20,000 okay we're stopping there that's enough e um is this the same Auction Company that's doing Chewbacca because I I could be more tempted no no I I believe the Chewbacca statu is a legitimate like consumer product it's not an auction you go and just purchase it and they have multiple of them and people with money are probably going to do so it's kind of insane okay well in that case very nice talking to you that's the end of the podcast I'm going to go over to no no Poss no the Steve Jobs sandals thing is interesting if only because we see a lot of these products come along the auction line uh we saw his first job application come across or um a business card that he that that has uh a reference on it what what company did he work for Atari he went yeah yeah and those just sell for thousands and thousands of dollars and I appreciate the collector world and usually the people paying out you know tens of thousands of dollars for these things have millions in the bank so true just scratching the surface but it still hurts to think about a little bit I remember reading somewhere a while ago that um people that were collectors of Elvis memorabilia and most of them were reaching stage in life an age in life really where they could do with some money um and they were finding they were no longer able to sell the stuff for what they would have expected because fewer and fewer people remember Elvis Presley the right the yeah fewer and fewer people care and I mean like uh it just brings back the thought of when kids were congratulating um Sho who's who's the Beatles that's still alive um Paul McCartney Paul McCart that's it sorry so people were on Twitter congratulating Paul McCartney for coming out of the shadows and being lifted up by uh the musician um like I can't remember it was Kanye West or someone he did an album with and they're like it's so good they're they're helping the little guy out and uh I just found that hilarious yeah I recently went to a reunion concert of uh remember there was a show called Fame 1980s film by Christopher Gore and then a series about it um and they were known at the time as the kids from Fame and they had lots of chart success outside the states not as well known in the US but especially here in the UK very successful I went to see there reunion concert and I was shocked that they did not build themselves as the pensioners from Fame but they all are it was a good night I think I'm revealing my age more than I am theirs um so the the nft Edition on there these seem to happen a lot of these auctions that here's the thing and here's an nft of it and I'm surprised that we're still seeing any mention of of nfts those seemingly again suddenly just pH LED out and died um earlier in the year um in the spring and no one's talking about them anymore but apparently from what I've under understand read is that these companies uh and a lot of like you know Wendy's or Taco Bell or whatever have invested so much collateral so much money into building nft platforms that they have to commit to it even though no one cares about nfts anymore no one's buying them anymore and they're virtually worthless um think about it if you purchase an nft with with a cryptocoin um that was worth you know $20 yesterday and it's only worth $2 today what's the nft worth think about it it's it's um really kind of crazy watching this all fall apart live in action sorry I think I may have missed a word there are you talking about nfts or the metaverse because it sounds like it's exactly Facebook's struggling with the same it it feels like they're all tied to the same string and they're all just F tumbling down the hill together yeah and uh they they were all they all met in the pandemic and became good friends started a business venture and just failed miserably um I kind of still hold out hope for the metaverse I loved what is it um who's the Apple executive who was asked to complete a sentence that began the metaverse is and he said a word I'd never use Greg joak in fact I bought a t-shirt with that quote on it really excellent I am so with him on that as name and yet and you look at all the examples that we're supposed to be excited by and we are so not I just I'm hanging on I think when Apple comes out with something we know the hardware will be nice but I think they will also have found the killer app and I can't conceive what it is but if they found it on their right then I think something will happen down this line not not to fall into a metaverse rabbit hole CU we have plenty to talk about here but the idea of the metaverse is fine it's going nowhere it reminds me a lot of virtual reality um if you maybe you you remember you experienced this yourself in the 80s William they had virtual reality right they you could put on uh the Virtual Boy headset and play Mario Tennis as if you were really there and um get splitting headache and possibly eye cancer but moving on uh the VR just never it could it could never die it kept resurging kind of like 3D over and over every 5 years or so someone would come out and say the first or 3D and it's like no 3D's been around for decades and the metaverse feels like the beginning of another one of those things it's just going to keep iterating on itself over the next 20 years until finally someone Nails it and actually makes sense uh it's not I don't I don't believe we're ever going to spend hours upon hours inside of one of these things but I do believe it it it will be a foundational aspect of our future where you jump in for a social experience or jump in for a shopping experience maybe for an hour but then you jump back out and you go on living your life yeah and Facebook of course we are seeing the results of them betting too hard too fast on something that doesn't even exist William doesn't exist well actually give him some credit I've always seen Facebook as a money grabbing thing and here maybe that's its ultimate aim but it's following a dream and putting its money excuse me putting our money where its mouth is it's I'm trying to keep the optimism thing going how about this totally different totally more it's almost here and it's real have you tried free form on the iPad or the iPhone get so I am um not going to do this beta cycle because it is tied deeply to the new um homekit uh reintegration and I don't want anything to break so uh especially since I live in a household where we have multiple people with uh iPhones controlling the home I just don't want to go anywhere near that so I'm just waiting for the release in December to try all this out that's a good point um I added a blind to my office and uh I put an aara motor on it and it worked fine until I added it to homekit and now I can't get the thing to work at all so I got to strip it out and try again so yes I understand people saying homekit is um a work in progress let's say that but free form then in that case let me surprise you with the fact that it's quite nice it I've heard a lot of good things um it's like apple took ideas from um P their uh gosh what what is it called it's not PowerPoint oh keynot they took ideas from keynote they they took ideas from Apple notes and they've seem to jumbl it all into this one app that has an infinite canvas and that's all very fun but then they also added live collaboration but is it actually live are we are we gonna actually see people putting pen to paper or is it going to be a five minute lag between each input and output I mean even us here on the shared Apple note that we use for the podcast technically and what Apple advertises I should be able to pretty much see your cursor moving around an Apple notes typing out words live and it is not the case it it might be 10 seconds between edits and then we're accidentally inserting images in the middle of paragraphs that weren't there before right so I I wonder how free form's going to work once it's ultimately released I actually I know um I don't see know anybody else then cuz I thought you would be on the be cycle but I now know nobody is on the be cycle for it I can't use the collaboration tool to see it's like but also I don't care I saw this as a writer is this a tool for me to use and I'm glad you said that about keynote because my first thought when I opened it was I've seen this before it is so familiar all these different bits I've used before and I actually I like them so I thought that would be good at the moment there's no syncing going on between my iPhone and my iPad version of it so that's problem but I'm sure that'll be fixed uh I kind of liked it but I think it needs an apple pencil to be useful and for me to use an apple pencil means a substantially improved handwriting so that's not going to happen right I I mean I I think it def like you said it has it has potential especially as a standalone note- taking app um but since it is being pitched as this collaboration tool I think that's a temp pole feature that needs to work well in order for this to succeed because if it doesn't penetrate the market like apple wants it to it's going to end up like Clips where it exists and no one uses it yeah yeah I think I can see that in its future what was the Google um was it Google wave that let you uh see as everybody was typing the away remember I'm not sure there they have about 37 different one of these um yeah and they they them all last week there was this point where I was in a conversation with two writers and um it was about writing you know so we were typing to each other and it turned I learned that this friend of mine is the slowest typist in in the land it was Agony what waiting for each letter to come along and I think she writes 120 page screenplays and things how could it possibly take her that long to type this I minutes to do two sentences and something um so I actually I I I felt like I was getting out of the conversation to give her a break rather than anything else so we collaborated by each going off to get a cup of tea separately yeah I I don't believe uh any kind of communication between people should ever be one letter at a time I I don't need to see your literal second byc cursor movement um in a chat app I'm not sure why they would Implement that no it was terribly revealing though I every time I got a long email from her afterwards I was more appreciative CU I realized how much effort it had actually taken whereas I just I type quite quickly so it's not a lot of trouble there um speaking of trouble though and communication look what I'm doing here stringing these together uh this thing has gone down in China that Apple has um slipped in China uh if you're a user of an iPhone in China and you update to iOS 16.11 uh airdrop has changed for you uh it's limited now do you use airdrop much for this uh for just randomly sending people things um no I'm not one of those people but uh as far as the utility of it yeah like if like family members needs a photo or a document like like it it's actually coming quite handy a lot um it's it's definitely a nonzero amount that I use airdrop I uh I must be in the high 90s in comparison because I use airdrop every day going between different things and I utterly love it and I think it's just amazing when it works which is almost all of the time but not quite iCloud sync starts bugging out I will definitely just airdrop a file between my devices yes same here I need it over now and it's not getting there just knock it over over air drop absolutely great so that means um I use it all the time but what I don't have switched on is the yeah whatever let everyone send me things cuz I was once in this young writer workshop and I popped on my phone somebody's work which actually I kind of wanted to read but um it was disturbing so I switched that off and now if I was in China I couldn't really switch it on anymore because open to everyone send whatever you like has become open to everyone for the next 10 minutes and that's it um and allegedly this is because uh protesters in China using airdrops to spread material that the government doesn't like we know this has happened before things around Hong Kong it's been well documented it's expected that's happening now which means did Apple switch this off under pressure from China or is there some other reason it feels uncomfortable fir first off everyone listening go and turn off the everyone feature that's silly unless you're like in the moment needing it from some random person that's not in your context sure go turn it on for a second turn it back off um the 10minute uh thing here I don't know okay not not to defend it because this this is of course unfortunate that limiting any kind of communication like this isn't great but the is there any actual loss here because um if you're using airdrop the device has to be unlocked in the first place and if you're one of these people in a place wanting to receive something like this uh turning airdrop on and leaving your device open for you know you to receive it is that not already what you're doing anyway and you're looking at the device and is that 10-minute timer really going to disrupt you from getting um images and things during a protest cuz it's not like you know that you're staring at a phone during a protest in in the first place I'm not talking about laptops on a bus here it's just think of how this is being used physically in real life and ask yourself is this a real limitation and is Apple's capitulation to this just to appease rather than actually hurt anything is my question actually weirdly when you said that I realized there is potentially a difference in this uh difference in intent I mean this is getting a bit you know um paranoid really but previously if I receive anti-government materials on my iPhone through airdrop I could argue it was sent to me by somebody passing by if I have to positively switch it on I am participating in the reception of that material that's fair that's scary thought isn't it yes that that's that's a good that's a good uh thought there I I hadn't really put it way but it makes sense you're you're now able to say no you deliberately turn this feature on in order to receive this and now you're under arrest for you know getting this stuff willingly I want to go away from this thought let's go um all right so that's politics airdrop iPhone uh you you know more about this than I do there's a brand new foldable iPhone that apparently has been made an immense effort but not by Apple um is this right have you got one will you buy one well no uh so this this whole thing is kind of wild to me um what is the ship uh is is it Greek mythology where they're changing out each wooden plank until basically you ask the philosophical question is it the same ship that you started with this device feels the same way to me it's they call it a folding iPhone and generally speaking sure it they took the display from an iPhone and they kept some of the parts the processing but then they built a custom battery a custom case a custom hinge then they completely removed iOS from it and put a uh jailbreak ROM on there to uh add custom um interfaces for folding screens is it really an iPhone anymore nevertheless though it's an excellent project they apparently spent over 200 days getting this right taking a different phones buying different devices investigating how to get it done and they finally landed on this fully functioning working prototype of a folding iPhone which is pretty wild in practice but not great I wouldn't buy one now you had me all the way up to they swapped out iOS like there you go over it's not really an iPhone anymore at that point no that's it the the software is key I keep hearing about great features on Android phone and I'm thinking actually that really does sound good but you'd have to use Android in order to use it and that's the lockin for me iOS more than the software just as with the Mac Mac OS rather than Windows well see iOS worked they just swapped it out only because they wanted a split screen top bottom View and they wanted control over how the camera previewed images blah blah blah but yeah no uh it's a it's a neat idea but again this just they they used the hinge from a Motorola Razor flip 2020 uh because that would allow the screen to bend less basically just a lot of a lot of fun little engineering here the fact that it was possible is what's interesting not the final product I just I remember when Steve Jobs announced the first Itunes phone and it was a it was a a razor and the disdain in his voice as he was presenting it to people it's got two songs on it or something it was almost as dismissive as that so I've always Associated razor with that speaking of uh Android quick segue we can very quickly move on from this but Samsung introduced a the back tap feature to its Galaxy line but how it added that is um pure Madness to me this is come so this is again this is coming from someone who used Android for years I understand how it works I'm not one of these Apple fan boys who doesn't like I I I have messed with modern Android I I I see it I understand it but this is crazy to me the the Hoops that Samsung has to jump through just to get something done on Android because it's so fragmented and broken um on Samsung phones you go to the Galaxy store and you have to download the good lock app which apparently is uh made by Samsung but it's not included in the phones by default you have to go get it yourself and then within this app are different uh routines different um programs that you can download that allow you to modify the UI of the device and this has been around since like 2016 so I haven't used Android since this has been out but it reminds me a lot of um modding Android with skins and such but this is just an official Samsung version they've blessed it or whatever and in order to get this back tap functionality you have to go through all these steps and then add it yourself and now you can double tap the back your phone to launch Google Chrome or whatever I just looking at that and then looking back at my iPhone I've not missing Android at all over here I I have a friend who used to be a strong Windows fan and he was asking about switching to Mac and he was such a Windows fan I actually recommended against it so you know Windows you like it get on with your work have a good time and he swapped anyway because you know that's how valuable my advice is um and for weeks and weeks afterwards he would phone me up laughing down the phone at how different the process was and it was always he wanted to install some soft Ware some hardware and he would read out a page of instructions for Windows and then says get this get this on the Mac side click okay and that was it that was a difference for it the way I always frame it in my mind because again I don't view when Android as bad or Windows is well Windows is Windows it's fine uh but I don't see them as inherently terrible everyone has their own tastes but the way I divide it in my brain is technically like it's a playground if you want to fiddle with the the minutia of what your clock looks like and what your status bar shows and every and like comic Sands and the web browser and whatever Madness you want to install on your phone that's Android go nuts the every little detail is controllable in a way that if I had access to that level of control I would never use the phone for anything other than customizing it I wouldn't get anything done and then over at iOS it's more of a curated experience and I kind of appre appreciate that now especially since I don't have time to sit down and just go through widget Galleries and look at different clock interfaces it's just not what I want I'm surprised to say I I similar thing for me I used to be on PCS because I was on a PC Magazine and I just came a day when I realized I wasn't actually interested in all this the virus stuff one thing customizing other I just wanted to get on with this other stuff and the Mac let me do it um but lately I found am I just time short because all the new lock screen stuff and the widgets I thought yeah you can lose yourself exploring in that and I haven't bothered set up one that'll do I like that it's very nice and carry it on do you fiddle with your lock screen well yeah that's the interesting difference here because um Apple has been going down this road since I would say like 2016 2017 of expanding customization and control across their ecosystem and that's great because I still want control I don't want it to be iOS 7 um gez remember um back in the day when you basically can almost do nothing except launch an app from an iPhone let alone control how it looks or whatever uh but yeah nowadays it's it's pretty complex and I would argue in some cases um iPhone is more customizable and more personal than an Android phone and it's safer to do so because you're not going to install something that's going to inherently break your phone it's all vetted by Apple and yeah I to answer your question I do actually spend some time customizing and building these things but I again I think that's the difference between Android and Apple Android it's all this wild west playground where everything is unknown and there might be something better just over the horizon you're going to keep looking whereas on iPhone it's all just set in stone you do it once and you're done I've got a I've got Focus modes uh I've maxed out how many Focus modes I can have and I've defined everything I want coming in and out of those and then I've built all of my lock screens and watch faces for each of those and now I'm done I can go back and change how a complication appears or change a wallpaper or add a photo or something but it's not something I constantly feel the need to go back to and change dramatically so like Android does I remember when things were just appliances you bought it to do something are you call take a picture do you remember those no I remember thinking TV sets you just turn it on you watch it maybe you switch on cax if you're in the UK those days are gone but you could now I look at my Apple TV box by the way and I could do half of this customization customization on there as well but I never do I have this thing I couldn't bear the thought of being so engrossed in a film that we reached the dramatic Pinnacle of the writer's work and suddenly in the corner of the screen there's a picture of somebody at my front doorbell I just I can't do it at all but I think you're an Apple TV AR you were games us on Apple TV like making that up uh so that's looking at my review here uh I did review the latest Apple TV 4K uh with 128 gigs of storage and the title it's an apple arcade playground and I mean that because um yes I I play games on Apple TV um funny enough I try to seek out what you would call Double A or even AAA I wouldn't I wouldn't say there's any AAA games on Apple TV but at least the daa standards there where there's expansive worlds that you can explore puzzles to perform more involved than something like I don't know Angry Birds or uh a a Flappy Bird or puzzle game or something um and apple arcade actually has a lot to offer and so on Apple TV it's really interesting because um you have all of these games offered by Apple arcade plus some extras that you can buy separately on the App Store but previously 64 gigs you could have five games and you would fill up that TV now I have every game I could want that I'm currently playing or messing with and it's running great on the a15 processor and sure I'm more likely to turn on my PS5 and play whatever I have there but if I just want a casual experience jump into some SpongeBob game or play more on fantasian which I'll finish eventually I promise but I've never heard of it sorry but oh you're fine you're fine uh it's a RPG made by Square Enix one of my favorite companies that makes video games but uh anyway yeah it's it's there and it's great it serves a purpose uh but primarily for a lot of you guys out there jackbox games party games a lot of stuff like that are also on Apple TV so yeah I I play a lot of games on Apple TV so there you are with a brand new topof the range Apple TV you could be watching in 4k some of the finest Productions made in the world ever and instead you you play you say jackbox games so yeah Jack jackbox games are a series of party games I believe there's nine of them now um where you turn it on and it's basically the think of it like having a a closet full of board games and you go to that closet when you have friends over and you're like oh what are we going to play today jackbox is organized the same way it just has trivia games and silly puzzles and things but you play as a group and all you need is a phone and yeah I I really enjoy jackbox I'm sure a lot of people listening are aware of it um I would recommend going playing Dr aul which is uh a really fun drawing thing and if you have an iPad you might have an edge uh on that and uh there's also fibbage where you can make up lies and see if you can trick people into voting for them to uh just really really fun little party games all right H you actually tempting me until that voting bit that's getting too close to the truth tell me something more about games because I know isn't there also something going down with Nintendo they're going to make things I don't think for the Apple TV um so that's the problem um before I get into Nintendo is these major Publishers ignore Apple TV even though Apple makes it almost dead simple to add games to that platform there's no reason why ginin impact or Grand Theft Auto or some of these other major app games that are on iPhone shouldn't be on Apple TV it's almost a click of a button they'd have to modify some UI elements sure but they're just not on there I remember Minecraft getting removed and Microsoft saying no one played it well the turnaround was well Microsoft you never updated it so you know uh anyway so yeah there for whatever reason these large Publishers just avoid Apple TV it's really sad to me it's a very powerful piece of Hardware I think clocked on paper it's faster than an Xbox 360 and is compe it's way more competitive than a Nintendo switch and power so this thing could run really powerful games there's just no one making games for it and Apple has the power to change that but they haven't yet um Nintendo that store um it's nothing's happened yet they're so Nintendo is going into business with uh the company that that's made other Nintendo mobile properties uh Super Mario run uh the Animal Crossing pocket Camp um the company's name is DNA and they're creating a whole new subsidiary company of Nintendo called Nintendo systems Company Limited and this is going to be focused on building new Nintendo calls it new Services tied with Nintendo properties but the long and short of it they're making more mobile games and they are creating an entire division specifically dedicated to mobile games so hopefully we'll see much more broad category games from Nintendo maybe a Zelda you know maybe a Metroid come to iPhone maybe not Apple TV sadly yeah this is why Steven keeps us apart usually because you're a gamer I'm I'm not a gamer you're a Ted Leo fan I'm not a Ted Leo fan but we have actually found some common ground in which to disagree on because uh you I and Andrew or on Apple Insider have just got together to write a feature about RSS Newsreaders which we all love even though you're not using the right one uh which one are you using uh I have net newswire but you use as a strong word uh William were you fibbing I believed you a dedicated this like I am or you're once a week kind of guy you check know so RSS for me I it's one of those I always go back to because it's useful um if for those who don't know you're listening to a podcast that's served to you over RSS the magic of the internet um RSS is a great tool for just getting a bunch of uh news and information to one place chronologically or whatever and you can sort it into folders that's all great but what what am I what do I need it for I I'm just not consuming information that way and my primary use of RSS uh and net newswire specifically is having a bunch of feeds related to Apple technology and news for work so I can see what other people are talking about just in case I want to pipe in and uh put in my two cents on Apple Insider I just as you say that I realize one of the things I deeply love about RSS is that it's exactly like things like um CD ROM where knowing what the letters mean doesn't help you in the slightest bit um are it's a simp really simple syndication or there are alternatives I don't know what they are it's it's news but I do I'm certainly daily I think it's quite hourly but a lot more than you I used to be that um I can't remember fix out but I think I worked out once there were 300 websites that I was interested in and that I liked going to visit but if you do that every day well that's your day gone whereas now with RSS I pick up uh reader reader 5 on the Mac the iPhone and the iPad and it goes off to those sites and if they publish a list it tells me yes there's something new here and it shows me what it is so while I'm bowling the kettle for a cup of tea I can read anything I like see RSS is nice because it is what you would say is a just a dumb feed of information it's just coming at you all at once whatever you've subscribed to it's just there in the order that it shows up and you can read it however you like that's all great but it also so is a little exhausting and I only have so many hours in the day so I prefer a smart news aggregator which is the Crux of your article that you wrote um what to use to replace Apple news Well in fact I use Apple news primarily and uh that's where I go for my if I'm saying hm I'm going to read an article right now with news or whatever I open the Apple news app first not RSS I think I'm a split um sitting at my Mac I'm I'm not that Keen on Apple news on the Mac for for some reason but the iPhone and the iPad yes I will turn to it for what's going on I think it feels to me like RSS I use for deeper dives into more specific topics I don't get a lot of coverage anyway so some science obviously some drama things well so each to their own and each to their own thing but as long as you switch over to reader five for the Mac yeah reader is really great I I like reader but I think because of my casual use I think net news wire fits my needs better just because again that one's just a straight list I don't need to interact with it I can just go see what's the newest thing and then move on actually net newswire is the first one I ever used in one of its older incarnations a very long time ago I I admire it but yes you have you picked up on the fact that I have another preference there only a little add a add a t Ted lasso news line to your RSS and maybe you'll get right well good talking to you and um actually I realize we had this opportunity to talk about Steven Rob behind his back did not take it so that's bad on us but uh Steven will be back uh next week and it will be I'd like to say it'll be back and it'll be a serious podcast but it won't will it it'll be apple inside again uh if you want to hear more from Apple Insider remember there is homekit Insider as well it goes out every Monday and also you can support us on patreon you can put us on uh Apple's own uh podcast Subscription Service basically you can send us enough money that we can get Steven out of I presume jail somewhere in Continental USA back in time for next week but in the meantime W nice to propably talk to you at last and speak to everybody next time\n"