The Facebook-Apple Privacy Dispute: A Tale of Opt-Out and Data Brokers

Facebook has been blowing its own trumpet, claiming that Apple's latest move to surface opt-out availability for Facebook apps is "damaging" and borders on being illegal. The social media giant claims that this new development will make it impossible for users to control their data tracking, but the truth is more nuanced.

At its core, Facebook's argument hinges on the idea that giving users a choice to opt out of ad tracking will be detrimental to the company's interests. But what Apple sees as a simple opt-out option, Facebook views as a threat to its business model. The reality is that even if users choose not to track them, Facebook and other apps can still collect data in other ways, such as through device ID and user behavior.

Data Brokers are another aspect of this issue that Apple points out. These middlemen go out and buy data from various companies, including apps, and resell it to ad distributors or Google. By aggregating data from multiple sources, these brokers can create detailed profiles of individual users, making it easier for advertisers to target them. The problem is that not all data providers are transparent about how they use this information, and some may even sell user data without consent.

The argument over data ownership and control is a contentious one, with each side presenting its own version of facts. Facebook claims that its use of data is anonymous, but Apple points out that by gathering data from multiple sources, these brokers can easily identify individual users. In fact, studies have shown that most of the data collected by these brokers is inaccurate or useless, rendering it difficult to use.

The issue comes down to a simple choice: give users the power to opt out of ad tracking or allow Facebook and other apps to collect their data without consent. While Apple's decision to surface this option may be seen as a threat to Facebook's interests, it is ultimately a reflection of the company's willingness to prioritize user control over its own business goals.

In an effort to address these concerns, Apple has been highlighting the importance of privacy in various initiatives. For example, their "Day in the Life of an iPhone User" report provides a detailed look at how data is collected and used by apps on iOS devices. This information can be eye-opening for users who may not realize just how much data they are generating.

Another interesting aspect of Apple's approach to privacy is the role of data brokers. These companies play a significant role in aggregating user data, but their practices have come under scrutiny in recent years. By highlighting the potential risks associated with these brokers, Apple aims to educate users about the importance of controlling who has access to their personal information.

While it remains to be seen whether this move will lead to any legal ramifications for Facebook or other apps, one thing is clear: giving users a choice to opt out of ad tracking is an important step towards promoting data privacy and control. As Apple's iOS 14.5 beta becomes available in the coming weeks, we can expect to see more apps taking steps to respect user preferences when it comes to data tracking.

Ultimately, this debate highlights the tension between companies' interests in collecting data and users' desire for control over their personal information. While Facebook may view Apple's move as a threat, it is actually an opportunity for users to take charge of their own data and make informed decisions about who has access to their information.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwelcome to the Apple Insider podcast this episode is brought to you by remote HQ get a free trial and use the promo code Apple Insider for 3 months free at remote hq. Copple inssider and Helix sleep get up to $200 off and two free pillows at helixsleep.com slapple inssider and expressvpn visit expressvpn.com appleinsider to get three extra months for free hello and welcome to the Apple Insider podcast this is your host Steven robless and joining me this week is my friend Wes Hillyard how you doing Wes Hey Stephen just thinking about $14,000 a second okay all right so you're going to have to tell us what that is in a moment because that that is a hilarious figure uh before we jump into it I do want to mention had a bonus episode drop midweek earlier this week if you missed it I interviewed actually a longtime childhood friend Nicholas deeon he works at consumer reports and he's worked in many different Publications from motherboard Vice to Gizmodo and a bunch of other things and so it was kind of just fun to talk to him he has a bigger perspective on like the windows and PC World and just kind of hearing what his take from CES so if you didn't see that check it out it's the previous episode in the feed it was my interview with Nicholas yeah it was a good episode uh his mentions of tablets in the industry were was pretty funny yeah and you know I think he admitted from someone who uses a Windows machine as his main device and you know is in that world I think the sentiment that the iPad kind of won the battle 10 years ago and now it's just like you know whatever little offshoots Amazon Fire I didn't realize the Samsung was still making the Galaxy Tabs I didn't hear I haven't heard anything about that in years I feel like have you ever tried any like the Galaxy Tabs or like the Nexus devices back in the day when those were actually like seemingly competitive well I used Android and Windows products up until about 2014 so I got to play with about 30 different tablets cuz they'd release one a month right they they were just not good um I believe it was Ice Cream Sandwich Android tried to merge the tablet and right mobile operating systems and it was just an utter failure yes I do remember back when the Nexus devices were kind of first coming out I had a Nexus one like the original and I got a Nexus S that was like the curved back those were fun devices just kind of like play around with but I actually did have a Nexus 7 that was the tablet that Google released as kind of their raw Android line of devices the Nexus devices and for a form factor it was a 7-in TBL and I didn't do a whole lot with it obviously nothing really productive but for just watching whatever streaming service I I assume Netflix or watching like YouTube videos on it it was kind of a nice form factor for that I imagine the iPad Mini was a lot like that I've actually never had an iPad Mini it was a fun device just for like consuming content real light and easy but do you have you ever had iPad Mini or do you have one now that you use for certain things um I previously had an iPad Mini as my second iPad that's been donated to my nephew and I now use the iPad Air in its place but definitely enjoyed using iPad menis at the beginning of the show you blurted out a f a figure there $144,000 per second and you mind telling our listeners exactly what that means in relation to Apple well the Math's uh little off but it comes out to something like 14,300 some dollar a second but Apple earned that per second last quarter after earning about $111 billion it's just simple math if you divide it up 90 days and a quarter I had to redo the math 15 times just cuz this number just sounds so absurd I'm like I know I missed something somewhere but it's yeah it's about $144,000 a second that's amazing Apple had a great quarter for sure much better than GameStop well we're not going to get into that no go so the betas for iOS 14.5 came out for both iPhone and iPad and the beta for the watch OS and there's been some really cool features that came out there one most notably I'll leave that for the end but some little features the podcast app got a slight redesign the iPad now has a landscape startup screen which this is something that if you're an iPad Pro user especially and if you use the magic keyboard and know Wes and I both have that it was kind of awkward because the magic keyboard the Apple logo on the back is in the proper orientation when it's like sitting on a desk and open so landscape or horizontal position but whenever you would restart the iPad or start it up from being off the Little Apple logo on the startup screen was in the vertical or portrait orientation so they've seemingly flipped that around and so now it starts up in landscape how you would see it basically right side if it was in the magic keyboard case so I thought that was a little interesting did it I don't know if you saw this but it does it change depending on how it's oriented the iPad or is it just by landscape by default now I didn't check I'm assuming it's landscape by default because everyone's probably updating their iPads in and some sort of stand or keyboard so who knows maybe it's dependent on orientation but I don't think uh anything's running at that point when that startup screen comes on so it's probably just stuck there right let me ask you this I didn't think about it till just now but having the startup screen in landscape when you have it in a magic keyboard case it's in landscape by default do you think they will move the face ID and FaceTime camera on the iPad to the long side of maybe the next iPad Pro maybe we'll see it even next month in March as it's been rumored you think they'll move that to the horizontal side long Edge when it's in the magic keyboard case so everything kind of lines up everything would be landscape well even more importantly the logo on the back could be flipped as well no but the uh right the face ID being on the horizontal position would make a lot of sense I don't know if this is going to happen for all iPads but at least just the pro line with the magic keyboard accessory and everything uh I think Apple should move the cameras and stuff just to say it's a distinct and different device and used differently by those users yeah and I feel like I still sometimes get if I'm using it outside of the magic keyboard case like when I edit a podcast I hold it caseless and I still every once in a while realize I'm blocking the camera with my left hand the way I hold it cuz the face ID camera is there and the sensors are on the the left side where my hand covers it and if it was on the long side I feel like that would happen a lot less when holding it free without a case so I I would like to see that I think I think the biggest thing it would fix is FaceTime and calls and stuff like if you have your iPad situated in the keyboard right now you're looking at the left side of the display which is really unnatural you're turning your head in the call or whatever and it it just looks weird right well hopefully they do that some other features in 14.5 it looks like apple card Family Sharing might be coming so right now you can apply for an apple card it's the credit card through Goldman Sachs and you can have that individually but you weren't able to do a joint account so looks like that may be coming in 14.5 Emoji search on the iPad keyboard for some reason you'd be able to search for an emoji on iPhone but not on iPad OS but that's now coming to IP ad Fitness plus you can now AirPlay a Fitness Plus workout to an AirPlay device doesn't have to be an Apple TV if you have like an LG TV or some other TV with AirPlay 2 you can start a Fitness Plus session on your phone or iPad and then AirPlay it to the TV directly so you don't need an Apple TV to do Fitness Plus on a big screen which is great little changes in the reminders you can reorder reminders list and stuff like that you can use a PS5 dual sense controller with iOS devices but most notably the the big change in 14.5 is that apple is adding the ability to unlock your iPhone that normally has face ID with your Apple watch if you have it on and unlocked on your wrist and the reason why is as we are still in the middle of a pandemic and maske wearing is still you know required in many places your face ID has not worked you know I know when I go to the grocery store and I try to look at my phone I have to put in my long alpha numeric passcode but with iOS 4 14.5 and the next version of watch OS if you have an Apple Watch and it is on your wrist and unlocked and you have your iPhone you can set it to where the iPhone will automatically unlock even with your face covered but only with your Apple watch and if your iPhone unlocks that way you'll feel a tap on your wrist from the Apple watch and if it unlocked by accident or you didn't intend for it to be unlocked on your Apple watch you can actually tap it quickly and lock your phone back and from then on or at least the next time you want to unlock your phone you'll have to put in the full passcode before it unlocks again so apple is trying to ride this line of still keeping it secure still giving you the ability to lock it whenever you need to and make it easy to lock back but also so you can unlock your iPhone safely and securely with a mask on and this is a great feature honestly you know some say it's a long time coming maybe it's a little late but I think it'll still be useful if iOS 14.5 5 can be publicly released in the near future I've seen some concern over security and I understand it but like if you've ever unlocked your Mac with an Apple Watch it works very similarly you have to be pretty close proximity I haven't been able to test exactly how far away it's going to work with the unlock but it's also just very simple to quickly lock your phone back if I don't know how often people are in situations where they're in immediate danger of someone snooping through their phone uh very quickly and privately I those types of security concerns are wild to me but I guess if you're sitting at a cafe in the middle of a pandemic and someone walks by and unlocks your phone with a mask and then runs away I there you go but what what are the odds and you can lock it back and then you can lock it back it's definitely a beta feature I've noticed that sometimes uh it does you don't even have to be looking at the phone uh and tap the screen to wake up and it just decides oh there's a mask in my point in my field of view unlock and then the watch will vibrate and it'll unlock so I've noticed that it's not always unlocking when I'm staring directly into the phone so maybe they'll add some attention awareness features or something but uh it seems kind of fast to decide to unlock that tolerance could be changed in the future well it's a pretty cool feature again it's in beta right now if you want to try and jump on those betas for your watch and iPhone but assuming it will be coming out publicly pretty soon and Andrew has a video walking you through how it works and what it looks like so I'll put a link in show notes to that and you can see how the mask unlock works with the Apple watch it's pretty cool Apple's calling this an early spring release so that could be anywhere from uh like the end of March to June so we'll see when this comes out yeah I mean I mean typically when Apple says release this fall it's like the official last day of fall before winter like December 21 or whatever so early what is early spring like I think early spring is maybe two days before summer officially begins I think that's early compared to the last day the groundhog did not see his shadow so if we calculate no you're right well I think it did actually I think he did see a shadow this year didn't he which is the one that says spring is coming sooner spring is coming sooner is he doesn't see a shadow and comes out oh I don't I just I just Googled it I just the Weather Channel said Puck to ha Phil says that he predicts six more weeks of winter oh well I'll uh I'll believe the Weather Channel on that one then I think it's a hilarious uh tradition that we do that but anyway it's pretty great yeah so also Mac OS 11.2 came out with supposed Bluetooth fixes and display fixes now I had talked about how I was having Bluetooth issues with my M1 MacBook Pro especially in clamshell mode trying to use like wireless keyboard and wireless mouse and airpods Macs now I will say I updated to 11.2 like the moment it was released cuz it was really annoying Bluetooth issues it does seem to have fixed the Bluetooth stuff once I updated to 11.2 I have not had issues with using wireless keyboard and mouse and airpods Mac at the same time they've been connecting consistently like devices aren't just disappearing so I think the Bluetooth fixes are there and good there are some users reporting that the display bugs that they were seeing if you were trying to use an external display with an M1 Mac that there were some issues there I will say I have noticed I didn't even think about it till I read these user reports but sometimes when I put my MacBook Pro in the bridge vertical dock there were times where the monitor just wouldn't turn on my LG ultra fine it would just be black I would take my MacBook Pro out I would open it I would see it's on it's ready to go try to put it back in and sometimes it would take like two or three tries so I do think that those display bugs still exist listeners if you've been experiencing that I'd love to hear about a tweet at me let me know if you're seeing that but I do think the Bluetooth issues have been fixed in a Mac OS 11.2 so thank you Apple for at least doing that this episode is sponsored by remote HQ listen as we have been working from home during this pandemic I'm sure you've used lots of different options for communicating with your teams or collaborating online and some of those options are fine but let me tell you remote HQ has some of the best features and I believe will really help your productivity and communication across your team and even your organization remote HQ is a way where you can video conference with other members of your team your co-workers so not only do you get the videos and yes you can share screen just like those other services but remote HQ offers really specific and unique features unlike the other ones out there for instance there's actually co-browsing and co- control on a website or a document so let's say you're in a virtual meeting and you see each other's videos but you also want to pull up a website and maybe interact with that or maybe you have a document that you want multiple people to be able to control you can do that inside remote HQ you can sit back and watch your teammates contributing on the document or you can jump in and collaborate effectively and instantly clicking scrolling typing away and you can even customize the workplace as you know it can be hard to get some of those other services to look exactly how you want inside the window or the meeting well remote HQ allows you to customize the entire workspace whether you want the document here the website here maybe you're using a Google doc and then how your teammates videos are displayed you can customize the entire workplace and then save how that's set to use in future meetings not only that but if you take notes and annotations inside meetings remote HQ gives you a searchable digital Trail again with most other services you got to take your own notes and you got to make sure you know what was talked about and happens maybe you did the recording but people don't watch the recordings all the time well with remote HQ you can take those notes and that digital Trail is then searchable by you or other members of your team so you can see what was talked about what were the takeaways what are the to-dos and you don't have to listen to an hour recording just to find those notes and my favorite part about remote HQ is that there is no software that's required to download no installation required so check out remote hq. slapple Insider for a free trial try it totally for free and then when you're ready to launch use the promo code Apple Insider all one word for 3 months free that's remote HQ r m o t hq. slapple Insider remote hq. Insider for a free trial our thanks to remote HQ for sponsoring this episode well speaking of the Apple silicon world first of all I got an email from a listener in the last episode that I was talking with Nicholas deeon apparently I said Apple silicone I apologize to everyone uh who lives near Silicone Valley and all that I will I'll do my best to say silicon Apple silicon not cone con I think there I think that was a big issue when Apple first announced the name of it people kept saying Apple silicone and it's like no no no not the plastic right they they make silicone cases not silicone chips those are silicone anyway sorry about that listeners I will try I'll will make sure to say apple silicon but Apple actually is requesting the return of the Apple silicon developer transition kits and so if you remember back in WWDC last June when the Apple silicon transition was announced before the M1 and all those Macs came out you were able to apply and buy this Mac Mini that had an a12z chip if you were a developer and you wanted to test your apps and try to begin building for the Apple silicon transition and those Mac minis running the a12 a12z apple is now asking for developers to send those back and there is an incentive of Apple will give you $200 to the purchase of a new M1 MacBook Pro air or mini but the problem is it cost developers $500 to buy this apple silicon Mac Mini developer device and they're only offering a $200 promo code to give it back so I know Steve trouton Smith he's very active on Twitter you know he was a little appalled about this idea but it does seem a little weird I me if apple is literally asking for these back I feel like it should be a little bit closer to the purchase price that developers had to Shell out for this machine right yeah I think the weirdest part of this isn't even the $200 promotional it's the fact that it's promotion that ends you only have until May to use the $200 so that makes it even stranger because what is Apple going to release between now and then are we only going to have the options of buying what's on the market this second at the same time $200 yeah it's less than half of the fee to access the dtk so yeah strange all around I mean whatever decision making here must have been made a while ago I know that some developers were saying that this is an early return I don't know exactly when Apple I think maybe it was a year-long program or something but Apple's recalling them sooner because of them failing or uh not updating properly or something like that but uh yeah there's a there's a reason behind this happening so quickly the incentives definitely just is the strangest part here yeah that is strange well there'll be a link and show notes to that if you want to read about it if you're a developer that got one of those transition kits I'd love to hear your experience with it do you actually use it as a Mac like in your house like do you use it as a computer did you maybe give it away to somebody curious about all that as well it's supposed to just be a development tool I mean I saw a couple of developers saying um $200 is fine uh just because you know they did use it as equipment in their house they got their money's worth being able to develop for the uh M1 processor early and all of that but yeah others like Steve trout and Smith not having the same uh reaction yeah so the Kensington iPad Dock that we saw announced around CES time is now available to pre-order it is $379 if you want to get it for the 11-in iPad Pro or iPad air4 version $399 if you want to get it for the larger 12.9 in iPad Pro but we talked about it before this looks like an awesome doc West did you pre-order it this kind of money on a non-apple product I usually don't just shell out I don't expect this to be in super high demand it's not like it's going to get back ordered for 6 months and if it is then you know fult all mine but I'm going to wait until I can actually order it and see it ship within a week or so I think I'll definitely be buying one just because it's an interesting tool it's iPad specific there's nothing nothing else really like it on the market there are some weird Oddities that keep me from just jumping on it immediately what what are those Oddities so it just seems odd that it's a hub for the iPad has the stand built based on the uh Pro display xdr all of that's fine the iPad magnetically mounts it's all really well done it looks like has a good finish the port lineup and everything it has like nine ports on it that's great and then you look at the foot of it and it's a wireless charger for your airpods and iPhone it's like it seems like an afterthought or unnecessary Edition I don't know who's sitting here thinking oh I wish that my uh iPad stand could also charge my iPhone with this little mat on the bottom of it I don't know it's like Kensington looked at this thing and said you know maybe this device isn't good enough on its own maybe it also needs to be a wireless charging Hub and I it just seems strange to me like strange decision for that part of the equipment I think we're entering an era where you're just going to have like chat Chargers everywhere right like if you could have a cheat charging ped if it was completely unnoticeable like that there was a charger there that would have been cool but it's like this um fabric matte I'm not a big fan of just bright silver things and this is a bright silver stand as well so it definitely probably wouldn't fit in on my desk it would go somewhere else in my house something I want to play with I I wish there was a space gray option or something yeah $400 I know I saw a lot of people wincing at that I can see I can do the math and see why this price makes sense um I posted on Twitter the equipment I'm using with my iPad and it might as well be $400 yeah the 12 Port thing from hyper I have it's $150 and that's just a dumb box that I plug a cable in to think about the the process of Machining that stand and getting all of the stuff inside to line up perfectly to have it fit an iPad on there magnetically charge everything with a good power source all of that combined with the silly wireless chargers on the foot I could see it costing $400 I I don't I don't see that being an unfair price it's just definitely a niche product that should only appeal to like really uh heavy iPad Pro users yeah for sure Frederico vtii he's probably getting this well yeah yeah I could see that so I wanted to mention pad and quill actually just announced a new airpods Max case we talked about the Waterfield airpods Max case I actually did the video review of it on the Apple Insider YouTube channel you can check that out youtube.com/ inssider I'll put a link of show notes to that too this is now a different kind of case for your airpods max it's almost like a leather bag it's got a zipper on top and you undo the zipper and the airpods Mac slide down vertically into this pouch I guess you could say and there is a little pocket for a charger or the other cable a little zippered pouch inside or zippered pocket inside the bag and there's a little leather separator in the middle that I imagine has the magnets to put the airpods max to sleep if you put them in this case I've been liking my Waterfield case I've been using it I did notice because I keep my airpods Max the you know metallic bars extended a little bit I found it wasn't putting it to sleep 100% of the time the little butterfly magnet in the Waterfield case just didn't always line up perfectly and so I did find that I had some trouble connecting it every once in a while when I first took it out of the case because it's been they've been awake for a day you know or a number of hours so I actually started using the airpods max undergarment case inside the Waterfield case which you can do but I did it just to make sure they were fully asleep so now this pad and quill one it's a little bit different you know way it fits in there and how they separate and maybe how the magnets put the airpods max to sleep so I did pre-order one of these and I will let you know listeners how's your been experience with the airpods max are you using the the undergarment included case or did you get I forget did you get the water field one too I haven't got any third party cases I have this cheap little $10 Adhesive Mount on the side of my desk that lets me just uh hang my airpods Maxs there when they're not in use and they sit in the little case on top of that and then I've ran a cable up to that so I can stick a lightning port in if it if I think it needs charged at that moment yeah no no cases for me I thought about getting a stand of some kind this uh pad and quill case also doubles as a stand you flip it over on its head and it stands rigid and you put your airpods on top of it and it displays them very interesting concept there by padon quill I don't think I want to do anything like that I know ctii has a uh headphone stand but I don't like the way it's designed um and the ports for charging are in the front I'd prefer something a little bit more hidden there's definitely some stands and stuff out there I've been looking at but honestly this $10 thing on my desk has been perfect so far gotcha very cool I'll let you know I know Andrew also has that grov made headphone stand which looks amazing you know is a little pricey for a headphone stand and doesn't put your airpods max to sleep but it looks really good so you'll see it in some of Andrew's videos too so if you use the stock weather app on your iPhone you'll know that Apple bought dark sky it's about a year and a half ago but dark sky was famous for its up to- the- minute precipitation forecast like letting you know it's going to rain in so many minutes and Apple started including that precipitation predictions inside the weather app and so I actually used the long horizontal weather widget not the big square one but kind of the rectangle one that takes up I think eight app spots on a thing and I have it in a stack so I scroll through it and Fantastical but I've gotten the weather precipitation forecast in that and it's been pretty accurate again it's using the same information that dark sky used because again Apple bought dark sky and all that stuff and I've enjoyed it and now that precipitation prediction is coming to the UK and Ireland and so you'll be able to include that widget or look in the weather app and get that up to the- minute precipitation forecast in iOS 14.5 when that comes out in a number of weeks or months so pretty cool do you ever use that or do you use another weather app for your forecast stuff I use uh carrot weather and I use its widgets it has um pretty amazing widgets I do have to be careful though because um I have the absurdity level turned all the way up so it uses obscenities and it's weather forecast I take a lot of screenshots for Apple Insider so I don't I don't want my weather app cussing on the front page of Apple Insider so I I have to keep an eye on that but yeah no it's it's an amazing weather app if you use ever used carrot weather Creator just released a new update version five it's fully customizable throughout the app you can create your own theme system and stuff it's it's crazy definitely recommend that one and it has access to the dark sky API so you can still get those up to the minute uh weather notifications and such yes Carro weather is a great app the snark level you know when you crank that up it is pretty funny like I have to give the developer all the credit it is humorous to read the the different weather statements and all that when you crank up the snark but I guess when I use third party apps I was a dark Sky user Allin for a long time and then once Apple bought them I just tried to transition to the stock weather app only because I I'm un sure if Apple's going to shut down that dark sky data feature set to third parties at some point right now carrot weather still uses it but I don't know it's always a big unknown and I'm never sure if I know carrot weather has access to like five different apis it also has Weather Underground which is a really popular service it's pretty accurate I mean the rumors are that WWDC will see a a weather API from Apple that's either free or I I I don't see them charging for it it's Apple but yeah a weather API from Apple would solve all these problems we'll we'll see what happens but I wanted to ask so did you use dark sky back like when it first started I did yeah I think I was a user from day one would you would you say that um it changed its like accuracy and prediction levels to be less accur I think it cost them a lot of money is the problem cuz I remember when it first launched and I I heard about this app that could tell you before it starts raining I had an Apple Watch at the times this might have been like right after it came out 2015 2016 and I would get a thing saying rain starting in 5 minutes and my friends in the car would be like no way that's that's dumb and it would like a raindrop would hit the windshield exactly 5 minutes later and it it was insane and I don't think that's happening anymore it's it it tries to do those things but it's not quite as accurate as it used to be or maybe I'm just desensitized I don't know I do think the accuracy has fluctuated and you know at the beginning it was like creepily accurate and then for a season it was like it'll know when it's going to rain in a day but the up to the minute predictions were a little off but recently at least here in Florida rain is pretty unpredictable unless you like have one of these Services especially in the summertime storms can roll in and you know it's going to rain every afternoon you just never know when you know different kind of rain showers and clusters so when I stopped using the dark sky app and just using the weather widget to look at precipitation I found at least here in Florida it's been pretty good I wish it would send notifications but it does not send me like it's about to rain I still actually have the dark sky app installed and I do get some notifications from from that sometimes it's actually a little different than the weather widget that I'm looking at from Apple but when I look at the widget itself it is pretty good at telling me it's going to rain soon the heaviness of the rain and of all the things what's important to me is like when I go grocery shopping I want to try it to not be raining when I have to go in the store or when I come out of the store and when I look at that widget it's it's usually guided me well if I see that it's going to rain for maybe 20 minutes and as long as I get in the store at this time and out of the store by this time I should stay high and dry it's been pretty good or if it's going to tell me listen no matter what time you go grocery shopping in the next two hours you're going to get rained on it's been accurate about that too so again I think you're right it has fluctuated over time but just using the stock weather widget for me now on my phone has been pretty good I'll say my definitive review pretty good I'm surprised you don't have a weather station set up at your house you know you're the homekit guy if you a weather station set up I believe carrot weather and other weather apps let you target that specifically for weather forecasts now is that a homekit device um you can get outdoor weather stations for homekit I believe there's might be just one but uh it'll do something I think it has to do with automations I can't remember maybe I'm Mis misremembering but I'm pretty sure there's a weather station homekit device well I look that yeah it looks like it's the natmo weather station it works with homekit it's an indoor outdoor deal it's like 180 bucks for the weather station I will uh I will check this out you might hear this on The homekit Insider podcast comes out every Monday and uh I'll let you know if I get one of these we will certainly talk about it there that's pretty interesting this episode is brought to you by expressvpn let me ask you how did you choose which internet service provider to use at your home sadly most of us have very little choice for me personally I have exactly one choice for internet service in my home and because isps operate like monopolies in the regions they serve they take advantage of customers maybe it's data caps maybe it's throttling the list goes on but worst of all many isps log your internet activity and sell that data to other big tech companies and advertisers if you ever wondered why you see creepy ads for things maybe you just talked about or it's super targeted is because all your internet traffic through your internet service provider might be being sold to advertisers so to prevent my ISP from seeing my internet activity all day I protect all of my devices with expressvpn what is expressvpn it's a Simple app from your computer smartphone you can use it on your iPhone iPad your Mac even some smart TVs and it will encrypt all of your network data tunnels it through a secure VPN server and then your ISP cannot see any of your activities think about how much of your life is on your internet maybe you have Smart Home devices you're doing school and work from home every site you visit and video you watch even some messages you send are tracked by internet service providers and then they could sell your information for a profit that's the reason I recommend expressvpn as the best way to hide your online activity from your ISP you just download the app tap one button on your device and you're protected and expressvpn does all of this without slowing down your connection that's why it's the number one rated VPN service by CNET and wired I just want to tell you personally I've had a lot of friends and family ask me about tracking and privacy and security and how they could secure their device and internet traffic at home and I always tell them expressvpn it's the best and easiest way to do it so stop handing over your personal data to isps and other Tech Giants who mind your activity and sell your information protect yourself with the VPN I trust to keep me private online visit expressvpn.com slapple Insider that's expressvpn.com apppp Insider to get three extra months free when you sign up so go to expressvpn.com slapple Insider right now to learn more our thanks to expressvpn for sponsoring this episode so I wanted to have a moment of silence Wes for an old friend this is ecams call recorder and unfortunately if you're in the podcast world you ever tried to podcasting you've probably heard of ecam call recorder it has been a long time utility that records your Skype calls sometimes it was updated where it will record Facetime calls it can record both sides of the conversation in mult multiple tracks and the ecam call recorder was used by many many podcasters all over the place it was kind of like the go-to tool if you're trying to do remote guest on a podcast and after many years of faithful service it appears as though ecam is not going to support apple silicon and is going to have call recorder basically go away I mean again as Apple moves all their Mac to Apple silicon and you know 2 years from now there's not going to be new Intel Max it looks like this is the the slow end and the Long Trail for E Cam's call recorder I remember um ATP guys mentioning this some podcast ago where they said it's it's been on crutches and then you know it's uh lost the crutches now it's just crawling across the ground to the Finish Line trying to survive on Mac OS and everything Apple does just kills it further and further so yeah it it probably just needs to go there's a million options now and that's actually probably a problem because now you never know what kind of setup you're going to need if you do a podcast right I mentioned this on Twitter I think Apple has an opportunity here it's no longer lwh hanging fruit it the the fruit's falling off the tree it's smacking them in the head telling them to do this if they could just make podcast recording software native to the mac and iOS we'd be good to go but you know Apple what are they doing who knows you know that's interesting because podcasts I mean the very name itself is indicative of how they started because it was really Apple spearheading even the idea of podcasts for the iPod you know and I remember hearing about podcasts oh I don't know like 2003 four five and it was a weird word back then because people didn't know what it was you know they would either say internet radio I remember Leo leaport who does this weekend Tech and Mac break weekly and all those shows you know he really tried to make the word netcast stick to kind of call what this is something besides what Apple titled it you know cuz that really comes from Apple he tried to do you know netcasts you love but that didn't really pick up you know pod is now just the vernacular and that came from Apple because Apple's iTunes and their distribution system and their listings for podcast like that was where it was and even still so many apps Pull from the Apple podcast directory and there's some third party now like open source podcast directories that people are trying to start up kind of in a response to what Spotify is doing and other networks trying to lock in podcasts into certain apps or certain services so I'm all for that like those open network third-party podcast directories I put Apple Insider in those and my other shows in those for sure but I think what you're saying is not totally out of the question I mean Apple really spearheaded the idea of podcast had the system that was free for people to just submit their podcast any RS you could make the RSS feed yourself just put it on whatever server that's how I did the first podcast that I ever started I wrote the RSS feed and text editor on my Mac I would save it as an XML file throw it on a server I think I might have been dreaming dream host or something weird and submitted the RSS feed to Apple and that's how I used to update my podcast if there was a new episode comes out I'd open the text file I had copy and paste the episode feed data put in the new info upload the Mp3 link that in the text document and that's how you would update your podcast and that's how I would do it back in the day so the idea that maybe Apple can actually spearhead the idea of podcasting tools for podcast makers that would be amazing and there's great options out there now like for recording with guests you have tricast I actually used that with another show there's Zen Caster some of these options have free tiers so if you want to get into it it's not costly ankor has their stuff so there are tools out there but it would be nice for Apple to create something that their devices especially the iPad and iPad Pro which you know it's really difficult to just do it with an iPad Frederico vtii and like Jason Snell have talked about do a mobile podcasting setup and even do with remote guests all from an iPad but it's like all from an iPad with like a zoom recorder with like another device actually doing the Skype call you only need $112,000 in equipment you can do it yeah like you know it is not easy so I I do think like you're saying there is a still a spot for apple to make something that would help podcasters make podcasts a little more easily I mean it is easy to get into it right now I'm not saying it's as difficult as as it used to be you don't have to know how to code XML anymore which is great but I think having the tools especially on the iPad would be great even though ecam call recorder is gone if or not gone but even though ecam call record is not going to be updated to M1 and if you get an M1 Mac you can't use it anymore I encourage you rogba we actually had the rogba founder Paul kosas on the show last year talking about the App Store and all that but they make a suite of Awesome Audio products I'm using one right now audio highjack and they've actually updated all their apps with full M1 and apple silicon compa ability and for Big Sir and they are staying on the ball with it and it has not been easy working around some of the security implications of big sir and apple silicon so kudos to them again but if you're looking for Audio Apps especially recording with guests audio hijack are making some great stuff yeah even just an API just something that says developer you can make a call record it and save it and edit it from these API tools go make something Apple doesn't even have to include an app themselves but I just think it you know coming from me not a developer but it'd be dead simple to make the podcast app have just a area in it where you could just go pop in uh make a fa call over FaceTime record it save it and publish it all within the same app I just it seems insane to me that Apple hasn't taken advantage of this yet well in just the base level of on an iPad you can't choose different audio input and output devices you know you can't say use this microphone as the input but then use my you know something else as an output like you you just don't have that system preference input output options on the iPad and so I feel like with the iPad Pro especially with the kind of docks and hubs you can get with multiple connections and audio stuff you know it would be great to just introduce some of those features for podcasters and for anybody really which is why I'm recording from a Frankenstein's monster right now but it works you know it's fine yeah it's just Apple could make it better for sure this episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep listen one of the most important things that you need to be able to work productively and get stuff done is a good night's rest and you need a good mattress in order to get a good night's rest now I've tried several different internet mattresses and they're good but let me tell you the Helix mattresses and their products I have gotten some of the best sleep I've ever experienced on a helix mattress maybe you're having trouble sleeping because of all that's going on in the news and politics or you just know your mattress is uncomfortable and you need another one let me highly recommend you check out helixsleep.com slapple inssider and and you can learn about everything that they have to offer and when you go to that website they actually have a sleep quiz and I love that you get to tell them who you are what you like what position you sleep in and all that and they actually recommend a mattress personalized for you you tell them your height your weight your age your gender what position you normally sleep in what kind of mattress feel you like and maybe if actually you're having some back pain lower back upper back or some kind of thing that you need relief for you actually tell them in this this online sleep quiz and they recommend the right mattress for you after I took the quiz I got one of the plus-size mattresses and let me tell you this thing is so comfortable and it's such a joy to sleep on I get a great night's sleep I usually sleep on my side and when I wake up I actually feel rested what a novel concept I know but that's what it's like when you have the right mattress for your body type and for your sleeping preferences they have soft medium and firm mattresses mattress is great for cooling you down if you sleep hot and because wanted something that had that Medium firmness they sent me just the right one so if you're looking for a mattress take the quiz order the mattress that you're matched to and the mattress comes right to your door shipped for free you never need to go to a mattress store again but don't take my word for it Helix was awarded the number one best overall mattress pick of 2020 by both GQ and Wired Magazine they also have a 10-year warranty and you can try it out for a 100 nights risk-free they'll even come and pick it up for you if you don't love it but I know you will Helix is actually offering up to $200 off all mattress orders and two free pillows for our listeners if you go to helixsleep.com slapple Insider that's helixsleep.com slapple inssider our thanks to Helix for sponsoring this episode So speaking of doing things remotely and cameras and mics and all that Wes and will Shanklin actually put together an article an apple Insider talking about the best cameras lights and microphones for working from home and for doing Zoom meetings this is maybe if you just want to start doing some vlogging or videos on your Mac but if you want your Zoom calls to look better you know that FaceTime camera on a lot of Macs are not great maybe you need some lighting because your office situation is dark theyve put together a long list of all the recommended lights different cameras like from Logitech and this razor light that is really cool it's like a little ring light and a camera in one some really cool options there and also the microphone that I know Wes uses and I use if I'm ever traveling and have to record the Audio Technica ATR 2100 that is a great mic I highly recommend that microphone if you're trying to get into podcasting or if you just want better quality audio on whatever you're doing on your computer that's like $100 microphone has USBC and XLR and there's even a headphone jack on the microphone so you can hear yourself as you record if you need to do that kind of setup and so it's a great article with lots of stuff to check out and I'll put a link in show notes um what microphone do you use is it about $9,000 no it is not I I have a couple I use a sure 87a sometimes that is actually the number one microphone that Marco armit recommends on his like huge podcasting microphone Mega review and it is a it's a Shore beta 87a it's an XLR small condenser mic it's 250 bucks it's not super expensive and it doesn't require a powerful preamp to run so there's not a lot of noise you don't need a huge preamp or whatever to you know get good volume from it and it really does sound great I love how that microphone sounds and Marco has like an upgrade pick you know if you want something in that area but noticeably better that he has a nyman KMS 105 for like $600 so you have two options there I use the 87a sometimes right now like right this second and for a lot of the Apple Insider podcasts and homekit Insider I use the sure 7B which is a $400 microphone it's from Shore it's kind of if you ever see the microphone that looks cool in like videos or you know music videos You See It In A lot of music videos and stuff on YouTube the shore sm7 is kind of a standard it's the one like Joe Rogan uses it's you see it all over the place it's a dynamic microphone it sounds good it's flexible it's the one that Michael Jackson used to record Thriller like you know it's got a long history the thing about the sm7 is you need a very powerful preamp to run it and get good volume from it so if you try to get a sure sm7 and you try to use it with like a Focus right 2i2 like base level like you're just not even going to hear yourself like it needs a lot a lot of gain so I use the sound devices mix pre3 it's like an $800 sound device but the preamps in it are powerful enough to run the sm7 and get good volume from it so I use the sm7 with the mix pre 3 most of the the time but honestly the shore beta 87a it sounds equally good it doesn't sound the same I think it is still just as good and depending on your voice type listener I don't you would never know this but I sweat like the EQ settings and the compressor settings like every week for some reason I can't just like set it and leave it alone like just assume it sounds fine and and not worry about it so I I mess with it every week and depending on your voice depending on your voice in the day depending on you know any any number of factors your voice can sound different in any microphone at any time so it's it's difficult to find one that's ideal for you so if you're looking to get a good microphone maybe specifically for podcasting or you're doing voiceover stuff I do encourage you to check out the shore beta 87a first it's 250 bucks you can use a cheaper sound interface and still have plenty of volume and it sounds good and all that so it's in Marco's review as the number one I do recommend it if you want to like just spend a bunch of money and try to buy like the sm7 and a and other devices like you could do that too but I think the 87a is a really good option for most people you know you talk about EQ settings and preamps and it makes me feel like a caveman over here with my USBC plugged into a dock and that's that's all I do set the gain to 30% and record my voice into a microphone I don't think about it too much I think I sound fine I listen to a lot of uh podcast and stuff and hear the differences in voices and just wonder like you know how noticeable is it to the listeners that maybe I'm not on the most expensive setup in the world but also like how much should I be investing into this at the same time it's definitely a fine line to toe yeah and I find I will listen to podcasts like I'll listen to 10 seconds of this one 10 seconds of this one and hear the differences I think honestly for most people and even for me personally if I'm just going to sit and listen to a 45-minute podcast like I'm not thinking about how it sounds compared to other ones only when I compare them in Rapid succession do I start thinking about why does that sound different or what kind of stuff do they use and all that kind of stuff so and I think you sound great honestly and I think a lot like this ATR 2100 audio technical microphone you could just do USBC from that microphone into a Mac and it honestly sounds really really good like it's not a massive difference from other microphones I people might argue you know if you're an audio file I'm sure you hear the difference but you also think about podcasts you know the file is an MP3 file at like 96 kiloby per second or 128 at the most like you're not dealing with a super high quality a AIO file anyway and whatever speakers you're listening to on maybe you're listening to this in airpods Max and you hear the difference but if you're listening to it in just regular airpods or maybe just from your phone speaker you know a lot of people just listen to podcast from their iPhone they just like press play and listen to it on the speaker I don't do that but you know if you do that you're not going to notice really any kind of difference for the most part so I think honestly if you're trying to get started into this and you're just like I just want a microphone to sound better I do think that ATR 2100 for 100 bucks it's great you don't need an audio interface plug it directly in USBC it has an XLR connection if you ever want to like upgrade your setup and have multiple channels via XLR so it's really a great first step and I have one and I use it periodically you know if I'm having to record not in a studio setting so yeah okay he had put the link to this uh mechanical Apple watch I don't even know the whole story I just saw the price point of $30,000 and mechanical Apple watch tell me what is happening here okay so another thing that would never get sold in the US because of being sued the off of uh the company but um some Swiss company said hey let's make this watch that looks like an Apple Watch but it's actually just a mechanical smartw it's kind of insane when you look at it straight on it looks like an Apple Watch but the thing that gives it away is the digital Crown isn't apples it looks like an actual watch Crown the hands are mechanical and then the what looks like the beach ball from the Mac below it is actually a mechanical secondhand that rotates inside of the watch so it it just looks really interesting I can't believe it cost $30,000 but you know watches what what can you do I mean I guess since the first Apple watch Edition that was gold cost $110,000 I mean three times M three times that but there's only going to be 50 produced too so if you want one I guess you got to get on it it's just a chicken and egg thing like the you build a watch then you build a digital watch to mimic the the physical watch and you build a physical watch the mimic the digital watch like it's very strange yes yeah this news came out this past week that Jeff Bezos the CEO of Amazon is actually stepping down from the CEO role he's going to transition to the role of executive chairman of the Amazon board he wants to focus on some other projects He has and it is Andy jasse that is going to take over as the CEO for Amazon so you know not much other information besides that but interesting that Jeff basil is stepping down as CEO and you know trying to work on other projects obviously he'll still be involved you know he's also I think the richest guy in the world some weeks some weeks Elon some weeks it's Jeff Bezos so you know he could probably do a little less work and be fine yeah he he wants to go off and play with Elon in space right let him have his fun I mean we we've learned too that these uh apparently these last couple years he's been just slowly putting more work on jasse anyway so this is very much a Tim Cook Steve Jobs type of transition where it's been years in the making they and he's been slowly letting Jesse just step up until finally just said okay I'm stepping down off of the CEO chair so yeah I don't think anything crazy is going to change at Amazon because of this but it's definitely interesting to watch yeah well last thing I wanted to of course I feel like whenever you're on West we talk about Facebook or Facebook privacy and and AD tracking it's your fault yeah it's my fault my fault this is just hilarious so with iOS 14.5 apple is going to be instituting some of those app tracking notifications that we have talked about previously meaning that it will pop up a thing in apps that track you and say you know do you want to give Facebook permission to track you across its apps and websites and use your data and all that kind of stuff and so with apple doing that Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook is trying very hard to combat this practice saying it's going to hurt small businesses and users and we'll get to that in a moment but we found that Facebook is actually testing these Splash screens and you know apps will do this sometimes where if an app asks if it can use your location and you don't allow it right away like the app can't give you that notification again you can go into the settings and privacy and change it manually there but the app just can't keep asking you for your location after you've already told it don't allow that's something that Apple does in the iOS system and so what a lot of apps will do is do a splash screen that basically says do you want this app to use your location or to use your contacts and it's not the system dialogue box it's the splash screen that the app makes and then you can choose don't allow or allow in that app splash screen and if you hit don't allow it won't surface the system notification this way they can ask you again at some point and if you eventually do say allow then it will show you the system dialogue box that actually affects the system setting and so this is kind of uh how would you say I mean it's a little greasy a workaround it's a workaround and feels a little greasy do you know about the uh rate my like what what is it called it's the rate my app thing like please give my app five stars how do you like the app give me feedback please the popups just every 10 minutes you launch an app Apple disabled the ability for that to happen constantly couple of uh updates ago well now developers have been doing what Facebook's doing with this that's probably where they got the idea of rather than showing a system dialogue saying please rate my app it's a inapp dialogue right with a link to the system dialogue so yeah Facebook's just doing the same thing here Apple doesn't stop it with the star rating system maybe it's because they don't realize it's happening who knows they probably do yeah Facebook blatantly saying we're going to circumvent Apple's thing to bug you as much as possible yeah that seems just a little too shady yeah so this splash screen that Facebook is now putting up before it will surface Apple's dialogue it says this reading from the actual splash screen that it looks like Facebook is testing allow Facebook to use your app and website activity and then two little icons and it says get ads that are more personalized and two support businesses that rely on ads to reach their customers again this is the narrative that Facebook is painting that tracking and this information and getting it from you and tracking is the only way or the most significant way that small businesses can actually reach their customers and just to keep reading the rest of the little splash screen says to provide a better ads experience we need permission to use future activity that other apps and websites send us from this device this willon give us access to new types of information learn more about how we limit are useful for your activity if you turn off this device setting and related settings on Facebook so it is a last ditch effort to get users to opt in to be tracked I understand you know this is what Facebook can do basically if this gets and when iOS 14.5 comes out like this is this is their response but I also thought this was interesting in compared to some data that was actually researched from deoe and another research fir I think it was Harvard Business Review but Facebook throughout this figure when they started first talking about this app tracking notification saying that 60% of businesses or whatever are going to be affected like this is going to affect 60% of small business customer revenue and all that kind of stuff if they can't track activity from the Facebook app from the article I'll put the link in show notes but deoe and the Harvard Business Review they were like this 60% figure is not anything that Facebook like Facebook is not saying what the 60% figure is comparing is it comparing two different campaigns is it comparing a non-targeted ad with a targeted ad like it's Facebook is not telling you what the 60% is coming from and they found that this was deoe they had asked companies from nine Industries whether they increased their use of personal ads during the pandemic so deoy is asking small businesses the group of people that Facebook is saying is going to be hurt the most without personalized ads and deoy is asking this group are you actually using personalized ads and there was only an increase in about 34% of businesses using it well however effective it is that's not in that percentage wise is just saying that 34% of small businesses increase their use of personalized ads so this 60% figure that Facebook is touting doesn't seem to be based in anything and seems just to be blown out of proportion and again the whole idea of this is not that Facebook can't track people if someone says allow Facebook to track me nothing changes you know Facebook apps still tracks you and follows all your data just like it always has been before all apple is doing is surfacing the opt out availability so users can say you know what I don't want you to track me and Facebook is saying that this is like damaging and borders on illegal and it's just again a hilarious argument from Zuckerberg and Facebook that this is you know some some horrendous thing that apple is doing where apple is really just surfacing the fact that these apps are tracking you pretty hard yeah I believe you guys were recording during the Apple privacy day um last week uh when they came out with a bunch of PDFs and stats about why privacy is important just wanted to note a couple things from Apple that seems to Target directly like what Facebook's saying here um data Brokers are these people right they they go out and buy data from other companies like apps and stuff uh say you're a weather app and you say you tell your users enable your location to get weather right those weather app developers get emails from data Brokers saying hey we noticed that you collect user data we will offer you this lump sum of money for their location data that you collect and they can choose whether or not they want to do that and usually the top guys don't some do a lot of these um smaller thirdparty weather apps uh do sell your data so if you ever wonder why they're free that's what's happening but um these data Brokers go out and gather up all this data and then they resell it to ad distributors or or Google buys this information just it it's a big industry and uh create user profiles based on your um like your device ID and stuff now each individual data provider like Facebook and Google advertising companies say that they do not identify individual users using this data and that's technically true um you get assigned these Anonymous numbers and stuff but if you gather enough of this information from disperate points it's pretty easy to guess who you are down to the person and apple um wants to point this out with their day in the life of an iPhone user it's a pretty good read it's uh I know you guys mentioned it briefly the uh where the guy takes his daughter to a park and all the data that's collected one of the stats that jump out here is uh data Brokers uh use the data they harvest to assign users to different like data buckets but they've also found that most of this data is wrong and it's like so there was no point in gathering in the first place because by the time they're done assigning it to your user profile they've guessed wrong anyway so what's the point of gathering the data just lots of little things like that jumping out of Apple's arguments against what Facebook is doing so remains to be seen if there will be any kind of legal ramifications or if Apple will be forced to change what they're doing doesn't look like it iOS 14.5 again it's out in beta I imagine it's going to be coming in the next weeks or a couple months and I will be telling every app not to track me that's just me personally I haven't had the Facebook app on my phone for a long time I think there's actually a toggle deep in settings that will let you completely shut this off from the get-go so ask apps not to track if you turn that off I believe you won't even get the notification and I think that's the danger um that Facebook definitely feels here but again it's an opt out thing users have to decide to uh get away from ad tracking I don't see any legislation fighting against opting out like giving users Choice exact like you can't fight against that right because again apple is not blocking Facebook from tracking you know there not an outright this app cannot track anything at all it is just giving the choice to the users allowed to track or not we'll see be interesting to see that also the fortnite and apple stuff will be coming up in the next few months and all the court hearings about that let us know what you think about anything we talked about today we'd love to hear from you you can tweet at Wes and myself our Twitter handles are in the show notes you can email us that email address is in the show notes as well if you haven't yet we would greatly appreciate a festar rating and review and apple podcast that helps us out a lot and don't forget to check out homid Insider that comes out every Monday where we talk about smart home and homekit devices and apple Insider daily every day you can get the Top Apple headlines in just a few minutes in that podcast thanks so much for joining us we'll catch you next timewelcome to the Apple Insider podcast this episode is brought to you by remote HQ get a free trial and use the promo code Apple Insider for 3 months free at remote hq. Copple inssider and Helix sleep get up to $200 off and two free pillows at helixsleep.com slapple inssider and expressvpn visit expressvpn.com appleinsider to get three extra months for free hello and welcome to the Apple Insider podcast this is your host Steven robless and joining me this week is my friend Wes Hillyard how you doing Wes Hey Stephen just thinking about $14,000 a second okay all right so you're going to have to tell us what that is in a moment because that that is a hilarious figure uh before we jump into it I do want to mention had a bonus episode drop midweek earlier this week if you missed it I interviewed actually a longtime childhood friend Nicholas deeon he works at consumer reports and he's worked in many different Publications from motherboard Vice to Gizmodo and a bunch of other things and so it was kind of just fun to talk to him he has a bigger perspective on like the windows and PC World and just kind of hearing what his take from CES so if you didn't see that check it out it's the previous episode in the feed it was my interview with Nicholas yeah it was a good episode uh his mentions of tablets in the industry were was pretty funny yeah and you know I think he admitted from someone who uses a Windows machine as his main device and you know is in that world I think the sentiment that the iPad kind of won the battle 10 years ago and now it's just like you know whatever little offshoots Amazon Fire I didn't realize the Samsung was still making the Galaxy Tabs I didn't hear I haven't heard anything about that in years I feel like have you ever tried any like the Galaxy Tabs or like the Nexus devices back in the day when those were actually like seemingly competitive well I used Android and Windows products up until about 2014 so I got to play with about 30 different tablets cuz they'd release one a month right they they were just not good um I believe it was Ice Cream Sandwich Android tried to merge the tablet and right mobile operating systems and it was just an utter failure yes I do remember back when the Nexus devices were kind of first coming out I had a Nexus one like the original and I got a Nexus S that was like the curved back those were fun devices just kind of like play around with but I actually did have a Nexus 7 that was the tablet that Google released as kind of their raw Android line of devices the Nexus devices and for a form factor it was a 7-in TBL and I didn't do a whole lot with it obviously nothing really productive but for just watching whatever streaming service I I assume Netflix or watching like YouTube videos on it it was kind of a nice form factor for that I imagine the iPad Mini was a lot like that I've actually never had an iPad Mini it was a fun device just for like consuming content real light and easy but do you have you ever had iPad Mini or do you have one now that you use for certain things um I previously had an iPad Mini as my second iPad that's been donated to my nephew and I now use the iPad Air in its place but definitely enjoyed using iPad menis at the beginning of the show you blurted out a f a figure there $144,000 per second and you mind telling our listeners exactly what that means in relation to Apple well the Math's uh little off but it comes out to something like 14,300 some dollar a second but Apple earned that per second last quarter after earning about $111 billion it's just simple math if you divide it up 90 days and a quarter I had to redo the math 15 times just cuz this number just sounds so absurd I'm like I know I missed something somewhere but it's yeah it's about $144,000 a second that's amazing Apple had a great quarter for sure much better than GameStop well we're not going to get into that no go so the betas for iOS 14.5 came out for both iPhone and iPad and the beta for the watch OS and there's been some really cool features that came out there one most notably I'll leave that for the end but some little features the podcast app got a slight redesign the iPad now has a landscape startup screen which this is something that if you're an iPad Pro user especially and if you use the magic keyboard and know Wes and I both have that it was kind of awkward because the magic keyboard the Apple logo on the back is in the proper orientation when it's like sitting on a desk and open so landscape or horizontal position but whenever you would restart the iPad or start it up from being off the Little Apple logo on the startup screen was in the vertical or portrait orientation so they've seemingly flipped that around and so now it starts up in landscape how you would see it basically right side if it was in the magic keyboard case so I thought that was a little interesting did it I don't know if you saw this but it does it change depending on how it's oriented the iPad or is it just by landscape by default now I didn't check I'm assuming it's landscape by default because everyone's probably updating their iPads in and some sort of stand or keyboard so who knows maybe it's dependent on orientation but I don't think uh anything's running at that point when that startup screen comes on so it's probably just stuck there right let me ask you this I didn't think about it till just now but having the startup screen in landscape when you have it in a magic keyboard case it's in landscape by default do you think they will move the face ID and FaceTime camera on the iPad to the long side of maybe the next iPad Pro maybe we'll see it even next month in March as it's been rumored you think they'll move that to the horizontal side long Edge when it's in the magic keyboard case so everything kind of lines up everything would be landscape well even more importantly the logo on the back could be flipped as well no but the uh right the face ID being on the horizontal position would make a lot of sense I don't know if this is going to happen for all iPads but at least just the pro line with the magic keyboard accessory and everything uh I think Apple should move the cameras and stuff just to say it's a distinct and different device and used differently by those users yeah and I feel like I still sometimes get if I'm using it outside of the magic keyboard case like when I edit a podcast I hold it caseless and I still every once in a while realize I'm blocking the camera with my left hand the way I hold it cuz the face ID camera is there and the sensors are on the the left side where my hand covers it and if it was on the long side I feel like that would happen a lot less when holding it free without a case so I I would like to see that I think I think the biggest thing it would fix is FaceTime and calls and stuff like if you have your iPad situated in the keyboard right now you're looking at the left side of the display which is really unnatural you're turning your head in the call or whatever and it it just looks weird right well hopefully they do that some other features in 14.5 it looks like apple card Family Sharing might be coming so right now you can apply for an apple card it's the credit card through Goldman Sachs and you can have that individually but you weren't able to do a joint account so looks like that may be coming in 14.5 Emoji search on the iPad keyboard for some reason you'd be able to search for an emoji on iPhone but not on iPad OS but that's now coming to IP ad Fitness plus you can now AirPlay a Fitness Plus workout to an AirPlay device doesn't have to be an Apple TV if you have like an LG TV or some other TV with AirPlay 2 you can start a Fitness Plus session on your phone or iPad and then AirPlay it to the TV directly so you don't need an Apple TV to do Fitness Plus on a big screen which is great little changes in the reminders you can reorder reminders list and stuff like that you can use a PS5 dual sense controller with iOS devices but most notably the the big change in 14.5 is that apple is adding the ability to unlock your iPhone that normally has face ID with your Apple watch if you have it on and unlocked on your wrist and the reason why is as we are still in the middle of a pandemic and maske wearing is still you know required in many places your face ID has not worked you know I know when I go to the grocery store and I try to look at my phone I have to put in my long alpha numeric passcode but with iOS 4 14.5 and the next version of watch OS if you have an Apple Watch and it is on your wrist and unlocked and you have your iPhone you can set it to where the iPhone will automatically unlock even with your face covered but only with your Apple watch and if your iPhone unlocks that way you'll feel a tap on your wrist from the Apple watch and if it unlocked by accident or you didn't intend for it to be unlocked on your Apple watch you can actually tap it quickly and lock your phone back and from then on or at least the next time you want to unlock your phone you'll have to put in the full passcode before it unlocks again so apple is trying to ride this line of still keeping it secure still giving you the ability to lock it whenever you need to and make it easy to lock back but also so you can unlock your iPhone safely and securely with a mask on and this is a great feature honestly you know some say it's a long time coming maybe it's a little late but I think it'll still be useful if iOS 14.5 5 can be publicly released in the near future I've seen some concern over security and I understand it but like if you've ever unlocked your Mac with an Apple Watch it works very similarly you have to be pretty close proximity I haven't been able to test exactly how far away it's going to work with the unlock but it's also just very simple to quickly lock your phone back if I don't know how often people are in situations where they're in immediate danger of someone snooping through their phone uh very quickly and privately I those types of security concerns are wild to me but I guess if you're sitting at a cafe in the middle of a pandemic and someone walks by and unlocks your phone with a mask and then runs away I there you go but what what are the odds and you can lock it back and then you can lock it back it's definitely a beta feature I've noticed that sometimes uh it does you don't even have to be looking at the phone uh and tap the screen to wake up and it just decides oh there's a mask in my point in my field of view unlock and then the watch will vibrate and it'll unlock so I've noticed that it's not always unlocking when I'm staring directly into the phone so maybe they'll add some attention awareness features or something but uh it seems kind of fast to decide to unlock that tolerance could be changed in the future well it's a pretty cool feature again it's in beta right now if you want to try and jump on those betas for your watch and iPhone but assuming it will be coming out publicly pretty soon and Andrew has a video walking you through how it works and what it looks like so I'll put a link in show notes to that and you can see how the mask unlock works with the Apple watch it's pretty cool Apple's calling this an early spring release so that could be anywhere from uh like the end of March to June so we'll see when this comes out yeah I mean I mean typically when Apple says release this fall it's like the official last day of fall before winter like December 21 or whatever so early what is early spring like I think early spring is maybe two days before summer officially begins I think that's early compared to the last day the groundhog did not see his shadow so if we calculate no you're right well I think it did actually I think he did see a shadow this year didn't he which is the one that says spring is coming sooner spring is coming sooner is he doesn't see a shadow and comes out oh I don't I just I just Googled it I just the Weather Channel said Puck to ha Phil says that he predicts six more weeks of winter oh well I'll uh I'll believe the Weather Channel on that one then I think it's a hilarious uh tradition that we do that but anyway it's pretty great yeah so also Mac OS 11.2 came out with supposed Bluetooth fixes and display fixes now I had talked about how I was having Bluetooth issues with my M1 MacBook Pro especially in clamshell mode trying to use like wireless keyboard and wireless mouse and airpods Macs now I will say I updated to 11.2 like the moment it was released cuz it was really annoying Bluetooth issues it does seem to have fixed the Bluetooth stuff once I updated to 11.2 I have not had issues with using wireless keyboard and mouse and airpods Mac at the same time they've been connecting consistently like devices aren't just disappearing so I think the Bluetooth fixes are there and good there are some users reporting that the display bugs that they were seeing if you were trying to use an external display with an M1 Mac that there were some issues there I will say I have noticed I didn't even think about it till I read these user reports but sometimes when I put my MacBook Pro in the bridge vertical dock there were times where the monitor just wouldn't turn on my LG ultra fine it would just be black I would take my MacBook Pro out I would open it I would see it's on it's ready to go try to put it back in and sometimes it would take like two or three tries so I do think that those display bugs still exist listeners if you've been experiencing that I'd love to hear about a tweet at me let me know if you're seeing that but I do think the Bluetooth issues have been fixed in a Mac OS 11.2 so thank you Apple for at least doing that this episode is sponsored by remote HQ listen as we have been working from home during this pandemic I'm sure you've used lots of different options for communicating with your teams or collaborating online and some of those options are fine but let me tell you remote HQ has some of the best features and I believe will really help your productivity and communication across your team and even your organization remote HQ is a way where you can video conference with other members of your team your co-workers so not only do you get the videos and yes you can share screen just like those other services but remote HQ offers really specific and unique features unlike the other ones out there for instance there's actually co-browsing and co- control on a website or a document so let's say you're in a virtual meeting and you see each other's videos but you also want to pull up a website and maybe interact with that or maybe you have a document that you want multiple people to be able to control you can do that inside remote HQ you can sit back and watch your teammates contributing on the document or you can jump in and collaborate effectively and instantly clicking scrolling typing away and you can even customize the workplace as you know it can be hard to get some of those other services to look exactly how you want inside the window or the meeting well remote HQ allows you to customize the entire workspace whether you want the document here the website here maybe you're using a Google doc and then how your teammates videos are displayed you can customize the entire workplace and then save how that's set to use in future meetings not only that but if you take notes and annotations inside meetings remote HQ gives you a searchable digital Trail again with most other services you got to take your own notes and you got to make sure you know what was talked about and happens maybe you did the recording but people don't watch the recordings all the time well with remote HQ you can take those notes and that digital Trail is then searchable by you or other members of your team so you can see what was talked about what were the takeaways what are the to-dos and you don't have to listen to an hour recording just to find those notes and my favorite part about remote HQ is that there is no software that's required to download no installation required so check out remote hq. slapple Insider for a free trial try it totally for free and then when you're ready to launch use the promo code Apple Insider all one word for 3 months free that's remote HQ r m o t hq. slapple Insider remote hq. Insider for a free trial our thanks to remote HQ for sponsoring this episode well speaking of the Apple silicon world first of all I got an email from a listener in the last episode that I was talking with Nicholas deeon apparently I said Apple silicone I apologize to everyone uh who lives near Silicone Valley and all that I will I'll do my best to say silicon Apple silicon not cone con I think there I think that was a big issue when Apple first announced the name of it people kept saying Apple silicone and it's like no no no not the plastic right they they make silicone cases not silicone chips those are silicone anyway sorry about that listeners I will try I'll will make sure to say apple silicon but Apple actually is requesting the return of the Apple silicon developer transition kits and so if you remember back in WWDC last June when the Apple silicon transition was announced before the M1 and all those Macs came out you were able to apply and buy this Mac Mini that had an a12z chip if you were a developer and you wanted to test your apps and try to begin building for the Apple silicon transition and those Mac minis running the a12 a12z apple is now asking for developers to send those back and there is an incentive of Apple will give you $200 to the purchase of a new M1 MacBook Pro air or mini but the problem is it cost developers $500 to buy this apple silicon Mac Mini developer device and they're only offering a $200 promo code to give it back so I know Steve trouton Smith he's very active on Twitter you know he was a little appalled about this idea but it does seem a little weird I me if apple is literally asking for these back I feel like it should be a little bit closer to the purchase price that developers had to Shell out for this machine right yeah I think the weirdest part of this isn't even the $200 promotional it's the fact that it's promotion that ends you only have until May to use the $200 so that makes it even stranger because what is Apple going to release between now and then are we only going to have the options of buying what's on the market this second at the same time $200 yeah it's less than half of the fee to access the dtk so yeah strange all around I mean whatever decision making here must have been made a while ago I know that some developers were saying that this is an early return I don't know exactly when Apple I think maybe it was a year-long program or something but Apple's recalling them sooner because of them failing or uh not updating properly or something like that but uh yeah there's a there's a reason behind this happening so quickly the incentives definitely just is the strangest part here yeah that is strange well there'll be a link and show notes to that if you want to read about it if you're a developer that got one of those transition kits I'd love to hear your experience with it do you actually use it as a Mac like in your house like do you use it as a computer did you maybe give it away to somebody curious about all that as well it's supposed to just be a development tool I mean I saw a couple of developers saying um $200 is fine uh just because you know they did use it as equipment in their house they got their money's worth being able to develop for the uh M1 processor early and all of that but yeah others like Steve trout and Smith not having the same uh reaction yeah so the Kensington iPad Dock that we saw announced around CES time is now available to pre-order it is $379 if you want to get it for the 11-in iPad Pro or iPad air4 version $399 if you want to get it for the larger 12.9 in iPad Pro but we talked about it before this looks like an awesome doc West did you pre-order it this kind of money on a non-apple product I usually don't just shell out I don't expect this to be in super high demand it's not like it's going to get back ordered for 6 months and if it is then you know fult all mine but I'm going to wait until I can actually order it and see it ship within a week or so I think I'll definitely be buying one just because it's an interesting tool it's iPad specific there's nothing nothing else really like it on the market there are some weird Oddities that keep me from just jumping on it immediately what what are those Oddities so it just seems odd that it's a hub for the iPad has the stand built based on the uh Pro display xdr all of that's fine the iPad magnetically mounts it's all really well done it looks like has a good finish the port lineup and everything it has like nine ports on it that's great and then you look at the foot of it and it's a wireless charger for your airpods and iPhone it's like it seems like an afterthought or unnecessary Edition I don't know who's sitting here thinking oh I wish that my uh iPad stand could also charge my iPhone with this little mat on the bottom of it I don't know it's like Kensington looked at this thing and said you know maybe this device isn't good enough on its own maybe it also needs to be a wireless charging Hub and I it just seems strange to me like strange decision for that part of the equipment I think we're entering an era where you're just going to have like chat Chargers everywhere right like if you could have a cheat charging ped if it was completely unnoticeable like that there was a charger there that would have been cool but it's like this um fabric matte I'm not a big fan of just bright silver things and this is a bright silver stand as well so it definitely probably wouldn't fit in on my desk it would go somewhere else in my house something I want to play with I I wish there was a space gray option or something yeah $400 I know I saw a lot of people wincing at that I can see I can do the math and see why this price makes sense um I posted on Twitter the equipment I'm using with my iPad and it might as well be $400 yeah the 12 Port thing from hyper I have it's $150 and that's just a dumb box that I plug a cable in to think about the the process of Machining that stand and getting all of the stuff inside to line up perfectly to have it fit an iPad on there magnetically charge everything with a good power source all of that combined with the silly wireless chargers on the foot I could see it costing $400 I I don't I don't see that being an unfair price it's just definitely a niche product that should only appeal to like really uh heavy iPad Pro users yeah for sure Frederico vtii he's probably getting this well yeah yeah I could see that so I wanted to mention pad and quill actually just announced a new airpods Max case we talked about the Waterfield airpods Max case I actually did the video review of it on the Apple Insider YouTube channel you can check that out youtube.com/ inssider I'll put a link of show notes to that too this is now a different kind of case for your airpods max it's almost like a leather bag it's got a zipper on top and you undo the zipper and the airpods Mac slide down vertically into this pouch I guess you could say and there is a little pocket for a charger or the other cable a little zippered pouch inside or zippered pocket inside the bag and there's a little leather separator in the middle that I imagine has the magnets to put the airpods max to sleep if you put them in this case I've been liking my Waterfield case I've been using it I did notice because I keep my airpods Max the you know metallic bars extended a little bit I found it wasn't putting it to sleep 100% of the time the little butterfly magnet in the Waterfield case just didn't always line up perfectly and so I did find that I had some trouble connecting it every once in a while when I first took it out of the case because it's been they've been awake for a day you know or a number of hours so I actually started using the airpods max undergarment case inside the Waterfield case which you can do but I did it just to make sure they were fully asleep so now this pad and quill one it's a little bit different you know way it fits in there and how they separate and maybe how the magnets put the airpods max to sleep so I did pre-order one of these and I will let you know listeners how's your been experience with the airpods max are you using the the undergarment included case or did you get I forget did you get the water field one too I haven't got any third party cases I have this cheap little $10 Adhesive Mount on the side of my desk that lets me just uh hang my airpods Maxs there when they're not in use and they sit in the little case on top of that and then I've ran a cable up to that so I can stick a lightning port in if it if I think it needs charged at that moment yeah no no cases for me I thought about getting a stand of some kind this uh pad and quill case also doubles as a stand you flip it over on its head and it stands rigid and you put your airpods on top of it and it displays them very interesting concept there by padon quill I don't think I want to do anything like that I know ctii has a uh headphone stand but I don't like the way it's designed um and the ports for charging are in the front I'd prefer something a little bit more hidden there's definitely some stands and stuff out there I've been looking at but honestly this $10 thing on my desk has been perfect so far gotcha very cool I'll let you know I know Andrew also has that grov made headphone stand which looks amazing you know is a little pricey for a headphone stand and doesn't put your airpods max to sleep but it looks really good so you'll see it in some of Andrew's videos too so if you use the stock weather app on your iPhone you'll know that Apple bought dark sky it's about a year and a half ago but dark sky was famous for its up to- the- minute precipitation forecast like letting you know it's going to rain in so many minutes and Apple started including that precipitation predictions inside the weather app and so I actually used the long horizontal weather widget not the big square one but kind of the rectangle one that takes up I think eight app spots on a thing and I have it in a stack so I scroll through it and Fantastical but I've gotten the weather precipitation forecast in that and it's been pretty accurate again it's using the same information that dark sky used because again Apple bought dark sky and all that stuff and I've enjoyed it and now that precipitation prediction is coming to the UK and Ireland and so you'll be able to include that widget or look in the weather app and get that up to the- minute precipitation forecast in iOS 14.5 when that comes out in a number of weeks or months so pretty cool do you ever use that or do you use another weather app for your forecast stuff I use uh carrot weather and I use its widgets it has um pretty amazing widgets I do have to be careful though because um I have the absurdity level turned all the way up so it uses obscenities and it's weather forecast I take a lot of screenshots for Apple Insider so I don't I don't want my weather app cussing on the front page of Apple Insider so I I have to keep an eye on that but yeah no it's it's an amazing weather app if you use ever used carrot weather Creator just released a new update version five it's fully customizable throughout the app you can create your own theme system and stuff it's it's crazy definitely recommend that one and it has access to the dark sky API so you can still get those up to the minute uh weather notifications and such yes Carro weather is a great app the snark level you know when you crank that up it is pretty funny like I have to give the developer all the credit it is humorous to read the the different weather statements and all that when you crank up the snark but I guess when I use third party apps I was a dark Sky user Allin for a long time and then once Apple bought them I just tried to transition to the stock weather app only because I I'm un sure if Apple's going to shut down that dark sky data feature set to third parties at some point right now carrot weather still uses it but I don't know it's always a big unknown and I'm never sure if I know carrot weather has access to like five different apis it also has Weather Underground which is a really popular service it's pretty accurate I mean the rumors are that WWDC will see a a weather API from Apple that's either free or I I I don't see them charging for it it's Apple but yeah a weather API from Apple would solve all these problems we'll we'll see what happens but I wanted to ask so did you use dark sky back like when it first started I did yeah I think I was a user from day one would you would you say that um it changed its like accuracy and prediction levels to be less accur I think it cost them a lot of money is the problem cuz I remember when it first launched and I I heard about this app that could tell you before it starts raining I had an Apple Watch at the times this might have been like right after it came out 2015 2016 and I would get a thing saying rain starting in 5 minutes and my friends in the car would be like no way that's that's dumb and it would like a raindrop would hit the windshield exactly 5 minutes later and it it was insane and I don't think that's happening anymore it's it it tries to do those things but it's not quite as accurate as it used to be or maybe I'm just desensitized I don't know I do think the accuracy has fluctuated and you know at the beginning it was like creepily accurate and then for a season it was like it'll know when it's going to rain in a day but the up to the minute predictions were a little off but recently at least here in Florida rain is pretty unpredictable unless you like have one of these Services especially in the summertime storms can roll in and you know it's going to rain every afternoon you just never know when you know different kind of rain showers and clusters so when I stopped using the dark sky app and just using the weather widget to look at precipitation I found at least here in Florida it's been pretty good I wish it would send notifications but it does not send me like it's about to rain I still actually have the dark sky app installed and I do get some notifications from from that sometimes it's actually a little different than the weather widget that I'm looking at from Apple but when I look at the widget itself it is pretty good at telling me it's going to rain soon the heaviness of the rain and of all the things what's important to me is like when I go grocery shopping I want to try it to not be raining when I have to go in the store or when I come out of the store and when I look at that widget it's it's usually guided me well if I see that it's going to rain for maybe 20 minutes and as long as I get in the store at this time and out of the store by this time I should stay high and dry it's been pretty good or if it's going to tell me listen no matter what time you go grocery shopping in the next two hours you're going to get rained on it's been accurate about that too so again I think you're right it has fluctuated over time but just using the stock weather widget for me now on my phone has been pretty good I'll say my definitive review pretty good I'm surprised you don't have a weather station set up at your house you know you're the homekit guy if you a weather station set up I believe carrot weather and other weather apps let you target that specifically for weather forecasts now is that a homekit device um you can get outdoor weather stations for homekit I believe there's might be just one but uh it'll do something I think it has to do with automations I can't remember maybe I'm Mis misremembering but I'm pretty sure there's a weather station homekit device well I look that yeah it looks like it's the natmo weather station it works with homekit it's an indoor outdoor deal it's like 180 bucks for the weather station I will uh I will check this out you might hear this on The homekit Insider podcast comes out every Monday and uh I'll let you know if I get one of these we will certainly talk about it there that's pretty interesting this episode is brought to you by expressvpn let me ask you how did you choose which internet service provider to use at your home sadly most of us have very little choice for me personally I have exactly one choice for internet service in my home and because isps operate like monopolies in the regions they serve they take advantage of customers maybe it's data caps maybe it's throttling the list goes on but worst of all many isps log your internet activity and sell that data to other big tech companies and advertisers if you ever wondered why you see creepy ads for things maybe you just talked about or it's super targeted is because all your internet traffic through your internet service provider might be being sold to advertisers so to prevent my ISP from seeing my internet activity all day I protect all of my devices with expressvpn what is expressvpn it's a Simple app from your computer smartphone you can use it on your iPhone iPad your Mac even some smart TVs and it will encrypt all of your network data tunnels it through a secure VPN server and then your ISP cannot see any of your activities think about how much of your life is on your internet maybe you have Smart Home devices you're doing school and work from home every site you visit and video you watch even some messages you send are tracked by internet service providers and then they could sell your information for a profit that's the reason I recommend expressvpn as the best way to hide your online activity from your ISP you just download the app tap one button on your device and you're protected and expressvpn does all of this without slowing down your connection that's why it's the number one rated VPN service by CNET and wired I just want to tell you personally I've had a lot of friends and family ask me about tracking and privacy and security and how they could secure their device and internet traffic at home and I always tell them expressvpn it's the best and easiest way to do it so stop handing over your personal data to isps and other Tech Giants who mind your activity and sell your information protect yourself with the VPN I trust to keep me private online visit expressvpn.com slapple Insider that's expressvpn.com apppp Insider to get three extra months free when you sign up so go to expressvpn.com slapple Insider right now to learn more our thanks to expressvpn for sponsoring this episode so I wanted to have a moment of silence Wes for an old friend this is ecams call recorder and unfortunately if you're in the podcast world you ever tried to podcasting you've probably heard of ecam call recorder it has been a long time utility that records your Skype calls sometimes it was updated where it will record Facetime calls it can record both sides of the conversation in mult multiple tracks and the ecam call recorder was used by many many podcasters all over the place it was kind of like the go-to tool if you're trying to do remote guest on a podcast and after many years of faithful service it appears as though ecam is not going to support apple silicon and is going to have call recorder basically go away I mean again as Apple moves all their Mac to Apple silicon and you know 2 years from now there's not going to be new Intel Max it looks like this is the the slow end and the Long Trail for E Cam's call recorder I remember um ATP guys mentioning this some podcast ago where they said it's it's been on crutches and then you know it's uh lost the crutches now it's just crawling across the ground to the Finish Line trying to survive on Mac OS and everything Apple does just kills it further and further so yeah it it probably just needs to go there's a million options now and that's actually probably a problem because now you never know what kind of setup you're going to need if you do a podcast right I mentioned this on Twitter I think Apple has an opportunity here it's no longer lwh hanging fruit it the the fruit's falling off the tree it's smacking them in the head telling them to do this if they could just make podcast recording software native to the mac and iOS we'd be good to go but you know Apple what are they doing who knows you know that's interesting because podcasts I mean the very name itself is indicative of how they started because it was really Apple spearheading even the idea of podcasts for the iPod you know and I remember hearing about podcasts oh I don't know like 2003 four five and it was a weird word back then because people didn't know what it was you know they would either say internet radio I remember Leo leaport who does this weekend Tech and Mac break weekly and all those shows you know he really tried to make the word netcast stick to kind of call what this is something besides what Apple titled it you know cuz that really comes from Apple he tried to do you know netcasts you love but that didn't really pick up you know pod is now just the vernacular and that came from Apple because Apple's iTunes and their distribution system and their listings for podcast like that was where it was and even still so many apps Pull from the Apple podcast directory and there's some third party now like open source podcast directories that people are trying to start up kind of in a response to what Spotify is doing and other networks trying to lock in podcasts into certain apps or certain services so I'm all for that like those open network third-party podcast directories I put Apple Insider in those and my other shows in those for sure but I think what you're saying is not totally out of the question I mean Apple really spearheaded the idea of podcast had the system that was free for people to just submit their podcast any RS you could make the RSS feed yourself just put it on whatever server that's how I did the first podcast that I ever started I wrote the RSS feed and text editor on my Mac I would save it as an XML file throw it on a server I think I might have been dreaming dream host or something weird and submitted the RSS feed to Apple and that's how I used to update my podcast if there was a new episode comes out I'd open the text file I had copy and paste the episode feed data put in the new info upload the Mp3 link that in the text document and that's how you would update your podcast and that's how I would do it back in the day so the idea that maybe Apple can actually spearhead the idea of podcasting tools for podcast makers that would be amazing and there's great options out there now like for recording with guests you have tricast I actually used that with another show there's Zen Caster some of these options have free tiers so if you want to get into it it's not costly ankor has their stuff so there are tools out there but it would be nice for Apple to create something that their devices especially the iPad and iPad Pro which you know it's really difficult to just do it with an iPad Frederico vtii and like Jason Snell have talked about do a mobile podcasting setup and even do with remote guests all from an iPad but it's like all from an iPad with like a zoom recorder with like another device actually doing the Skype call you only need $112,000 in equipment you can do it yeah like you know it is not easy so I I do think like you're saying there is a still a spot for apple to make something that would help podcasters make podcasts a little more easily I mean it is easy to get into it right now I'm not saying it's as difficult as as it used to be you don't have to know how to code XML anymore which is great but I think having the tools especially on the iPad would be great even though ecam call recorder is gone if or not gone but even though ecam call record is not going to be updated to M1 and if you get an M1 Mac you can't use it anymore I encourage you rogba we actually had the rogba founder Paul kosas on the show last year talking about the App Store and all that but they make a suite of Awesome Audio products I'm using one right now audio highjack and they've actually updated all their apps with full M1 and apple silicon compa ability and for Big Sir and they are staying on the ball with it and it has not been easy working around some of the security implications of big sir and apple silicon so kudos to them again but if you're looking for Audio Apps especially recording with guests audio hijack are making some great stuff yeah even just an API just something that says developer you can make a call record it and save it and edit it from these API tools go make something Apple doesn't even have to include an app themselves but I just think it you know coming from me not a developer but it'd be dead simple to make the podcast app have just a area in it where you could just go pop in uh make a fa call over FaceTime record it save it and publish it all within the same app I just it seems insane to me that Apple hasn't taken advantage of this yet well in just the base level of on an iPad you can't choose different audio input and output devices you know you can't say use this microphone as the input but then use my you know something else as an output like you you just don't have that system preference input output options on the iPad and so I feel like with the iPad Pro especially with the kind of docks and hubs you can get with multiple connections and audio stuff you know it would be great to just introduce some of those features for podcasters and for anybody really which is why I'm recording from a Frankenstein's monster right now but it works you know it's fine yeah it's just Apple could make it better for sure this episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep listen one of the most important things that you need to be able to work productively and get stuff done is a good night's rest and you need a good mattress in order to get a good night's rest now I've tried several different internet mattresses and they're good but let me tell you the Helix mattresses and their products I have gotten some of the best sleep I've ever experienced on a helix mattress maybe you're having trouble sleeping because of all that's going on in the news and politics or you just know your mattress is uncomfortable and you need another one let me highly recommend you check out helixsleep.com slapple inssider and and you can learn about everything that they have to offer and when you go to that website they actually have a sleep quiz and I love that you get to tell them who you are what you like what position you sleep in and all that and they actually recommend a mattress personalized for you you tell them your height your weight your age your gender what position you normally sleep in what kind of mattress feel you like and maybe if actually you're having some back pain lower back upper back or some kind of thing that you need relief for you actually tell them in this this online sleep quiz and they recommend the right mattress for you after I took the quiz I got one of the plus-size mattresses and let me tell you this thing is so comfortable and it's such a joy to sleep on I get a great night's sleep I usually sleep on my side and when I wake up I actually feel rested what a novel concept I know but that's what it's like when you have the right mattress for your body type and for your sleeping preferences they have soft medium and firm mattresses mattress is great for cooling you down if you sleep hot and because wanted something that had that Medium firmness they sent me just the right one so if you're looking for a mattress take the quiz order the mattress that you're matched to and the mattress comes right to your door shipped for free you never need to go to a mattress store again but don't take my word for it Helix was awarded the number one best overall mattress pick of 2020 by both GQ and Wired Magazine they also have a 10-year warranty and you can try it out for a 100 nights risk-free they'll even come and pick it up for you if you don't love it but I know you will Helix is actually offering up to $200 off all mattress orders and two free pillows for our listeners if you go to helixsleep.com slapple Insider that's helixsleep.com slapple inssider our thanks to Helix for sponsoring this episode So speaking of doing things remotely and cameras and mics and all that Wes and will Shanklin actually put together an article an apple Insider talking about the best cameras lights and microphones for working from home and for doing Zoom meetings this is maybe if you just want to start doing some vlogging or videos on your Mac but if you want your Zoom calls to look better you know that FaceTime camera on a lot of Macs are not great maybe you need some lighting because your office situation is dark theyve put together a long list of all the recommended lights different cameras like from Logitech and this razor light that is really cool it's like a little ring light and a camera in one some really cool options there and also the microphone that I know Wes uses and I use if I'm ever traveling and have to record the Audio Technica ATR 2100 that is a great mic I highly recommend that microphone if you're trying to get into podcasting or if you just want better quality audio on whatever you're doing on your computer that's like $100 microphone has USBC and XLR and there's even a headphone jack on the microphone so you can hear yourself as you record if you need to do that kind of setup and so it's a great article with lots of stuff to check out and I'll put a link in show notes um what microphone do you use is it about $9,000 no it is not I I have a couple I use a sure 87a sometimes that is actually the number one microphone that Marco armit recommends on his like huge podcasting microphone Mega review and it is a it's a Shore beta 87a it's an XLR small condenser mic it's 250 bucks it's not super expensive and it doesn't require a powerful preamp to run so there's not a lot of noise you don't need a huge preamp or whatever to you know get good volume from it and it really does sound great I love how that microphone sounds and Marco has like an upgrade pick you know if you want something in that area but noticeably better that he has a nyman KMS 105 for like $600 so you have two options there I use the 87a sometimes right now like right this second and for a lot of the Apple Insider podcasts and homekit Insider I use the sure 7B which is a $400 microphone it's from Shore it's kind of if you ever see the microphone that looks cool in like videos or you know music videos You See It In A lot of music videos and stuff on YouTube the shore sm7 is kind of a standard it's the one like Joe Rogan uses it's you see it all over the place it's a dynamic microphone it sounds good it's flexible it's the one that Michael Jackson used to record Thriller like you know it's got a long history the thing about the sm7 is you need a very powerful preamp to run it and get good volume from it so if you try to get a sure sm7 and you try to use it with like a Focus right 2i2 like base level like you're just not even going to hear yourself like it needs a lot a lot of gain so I use the sound devices mix pre3 it's like an $800 sound device but the preamps in it are powerful enough to run the sm7 and get good volume from it so I use the sm7 with the mix pre 3 most of the the time but honestly the shore beta 87a it sounds equally good it doesn't sound the same I think it is still just as good and depending on your voice type listener I don't you would never know this but I sweat like the EQ settings and the compressor settings like every week for some reason I can't just like set it and leave it alone like just assume it sounds fine and and not worry about it so I I mess with it every week and depending on your voice depending on your voice in the day depending on you know any any number of factors your voice can sound different in any microphone at any time so it's it's difficult to find one that's ideal for you so if you're looking to get a good microphone maybe specifically for podcasting or you're doing voiceover stuff I do encourage you to check out the shore beta 87a first it's 250 bucks you can use a cheaper sound interface and still have plenty of volume and it sounds good and all that so it's in Marco's review as the number one I do recommend it if you want to like just spend a bunch of money and try to buy like the sm7 and a and other devices like you could do that too but I think the 87a is a really good option for most people you know you talk about EQ settings and preamps and it makes me feel like a caveman over here with my USBC plugged into a dock and that's that's all I do set the gain to 30% and record my voice into a microphone I don't think about it too much I think I sound fine I listen to a lot of uh podcast and stuff and hear the differences in voices and just wonder like you know how noticeable is it to the listeners that maybe I'm not on the most expensive setup in the world but also like how much should I be investing into this at the same time it's definitely a fine line to toe yeah and I find I will listen to podcasts like I'll listen to 10 seconds of this one 10 seconds of this one and hear the differences I think honestly for most people and even for me personally if I'm just going to sit and listen to a 45-minute podcast like I'm not thinking about how it sounds compared to other ones only when I compare them in Rapid succession do I start thinking about why does that sound different or what kind of stuff do they use and all that kind of stuff so and I think you sound great honestly and I think a lot like this ATR 2100 audio technical microphone you could just do USBC from that microphone into a Mac and it honestly sounds really really good like it's not a massive difference from other microphones I people might argue you know if you're an audio file I'm sure you hear the difference but you also think about podcasts you know the file is an MP3 file at like 96 kiloby per second or 128 at the most like you're not dealing with a super high quality a AIO file anyway and whatever speakers you're listening to on maybe you're listening to this in airpods Max and you hear the difference but if you're listening to it in just regular airpods or maybe just from your phone speaker you know a lot of people just listen to podcast from their iPhone they just like press play and listen to it on the speaker I don't do that but you know if you do that you're not going to notice really any kind of difference for the most part so I think honestly if you're trying to get started into this and you're just like I just want a microphone to sound better I do think that ATR 2100 for 100 bucks it's great you don't need an audio interface plug it directly in USBC it has an XLR connection if you ever want to like upgrade your setup and have multiple channels via XLR so it's really a great first step and I have one and I use it periodically you know if I'm having to record not in a studio setting so yeah okay he had put the link to this uh mechanical Apple watch I don't even know the whole story I just saw the price point of $30,000 and mechanical Apple watch tell me what is happening here okay so another thing that would never get sold in the US because of being sued the off of uh the company but um some Swiss company said hey let's make this watch that looks like an Apple Watch but it's actually just a mechanical smartw it's kind of insane when you look at it straight on it looks like an Apple Watch but the thing that gives it away is the digital Crown isn't apples it looks like an actual watch Crown the hands are mechanical and then the what looks like the beach ball from the Mac below it is actually a mechanical secondhand that rotates inside of the watch so it it just looks really interesting I can't believe it cost $30,000 but you know watches what what can you do I mean I guess since the first Apple watch Edition that was gold cost $110,000 I mean three times M three times that but there's only going to be 50 produced too so if you want one I guess you got to get on it it's just a chicken and egg thing like the you build a watch then you build a digital watch to mimic the the physical watch and you build a physical watch the mimic the digital watch like it's very strange yes yeah this news came out this past week that Jeff Bezos the CEO of Amazon is actually stepping down from the CEO role he's going to transition to the role of executive chairman of the Amazon board he wants to focus on some other projects He has and it is Andy jasse that is going to take over as the CEO for Amazon so you know not much other information besides that but interesting that Jeff basil is stepping down as CEO and you know trying to work on other projects obviously he'll still be involved you know he's also I think the richest guy in the world some weeks some weeks Elon some weeks it's Jeff Bezos so you know he could probably do a little less work and be fine yeah he he wants to go off and play with Elon in space right let him have his fun I mean we we've learned too that these uh apparently these last couple years he's been just slowly putting more work on jasse anyway so this is very much a Tim Cook Steve Jobs type of transition where it's been years in the making they and he's been slowly letting Jesse just step up until finally just said okay I'm stepping down off of the CEO chair so yeah I don't think anything crazy is going to change at Amazon because of this but it's definitely interesting to watch yeah well last thing I wanted to of course I feel like whenever you're on West we talk about Facebook or Facebook privacy and and AD tracking it's your fault yeah it's my fault my fault this is just hilarious so with iOS 14.5 apple is going to be instituting some of those app tracking notifications that we have talked about previously meaning that it will pop up a thing in apps that track you and say you know do you want to give Facebook permission to track you across its apps and websites and use your data and all that kind of stuff and so with apple doing that Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook is trying very hard to combat this practice saying it's going to hurt small businesses and users and we'll get to that in a moment but we found that Facebook is actually testing these Splash screens and you know apps will do this sometimes where if an app asks if it can use your location and you don't allow it right away like the app can't give you that notification again you can go into the settings and privacy and change it manually there but the app just can't keep asking you for your location after you've already told it don't allow that's something that Apple does in the iOS system and so what a lot of apps will do is do a splash screen that basically says do you want this app to use your location or to use your contacts and it's not the system dialogue box it's the splash screen that the app makes and then you can choose don't allow or allow in that app splash screen and if you hit don't allow it won't surface the system notification this way they can ask you again at some point and if you eventually do say allow then it will show you the system dialogue box that actually affects the system setting and so this is kind of uh how would you say I mean it's a little greasy a workaround it's a workaround and feels a little greasy do you know about the uh rate my like what what is it called it's the rate my app thing like please give my app five stars how do you like the app give me feedback please the popups just every 10 minutes you launch an app Apple disabled the ability for that to happen constantly couple of uh updates ago well now developers have been doing what Facebook's doing with this that's probably where they got the idea of rather than showing a system dialogue saying please rate my app it's a inapp dialogue right with a link to the system dialogue so yeah Facebook's just doing the same thing here Apple doesn't stop it with the star rating system maybe it's because they don't realize it's happening who knows they probably do yeah Facebook blatantly saying we're going to circumvent Apple's thing to bug you as much as possible yeah that seems just a little too shady yeah so this splash screen that Facebook is now putting up before it will surface Apple's dialogue it says this reading from the actual splash screen that it looks like Facebook is testing allow Facebook to use your app and website activity and then two little icons and it says get ads that are more personalized and two support businesses that rely on ads to reach their customers again this is the narrative that Facebook is painting that tracking and this information and getting it from you and tracking is the only way or the most significant way that small businesses can actually reach their customers and just to keep reading the rest of the little splash screen says to provide a better ads experience we need permission to use future activity that other apps and websites send us from this device this willon give us access to new types of information learn more about how we limit are useful for your activity if you turn off this device setting and related settings on Facebook so it is a last ditch effort to get users to opt in to be tracked I understand you know this is what Facebook can do basically if this gets and when iOS 14.5 comes out like this is this is their response but I also thought this was interesting in compared to some data that was actually researched from deoe and another research fir I think it was Harvard Business Review but Facebook throughout this figure when they started first talking about this app tracking notification saying that 60% of businesses or whatever are going to be affected like this is going to affect 60% of small business customer revenue and all that kind of stuff if they can't track activity from the Facebook app from the article I'll put the link in show notes but deoe and the Harvard Business Review they were like this 60% figure is not anything that Facebook like Facebook is not saying what the 60% figure is comparing is it comparing two different campaigns is it comparing a non-targeted ad with a targeted ad like it's Facebook is not telling you what the 60% is coming from and they found that this was deoe they had asked companies from nine Industries whether they increased their use of personal ads during the pandemic so deoy is asking small businesses the group of people that Facebook is saying is going to be hurt the most without personalized ads and deoy is asking this group are you actually using personalized ads and there was only an increase in about 34% of businesses using it well however effective it is that's not in that percentage wise is just saying that 34% of small businesses increase their use of personalized ads so this 60% figure that Facebook is touting doesn't seem to be based in anything and seems just to be blown out of proportion and again the whole idea of this is not that Facebook can't track people if someone says allow Facebook to track me nothing changes you know Facebook apps still tracks you and follows all your data just like it always has been before all apple is doing is surfacing the opt out availability so users can say you know what I don't want you to track me and Facebook is saying that this is like damaging and borders on illegal and it's just again a hilarious argument from Zuckerberg and Facebook that this is you know some some horrendous thing that apple is doing where apple is really just surfacing the fact that these apps are tracking you pretty hard yeah I believe you guys were recording during the Apple privacy day um last week uh when they came out with a bunch of PDFs and stats about why privacy is important just wanted to note a couple things from Apple that seems to Target directly like what Facebook's saying here um data Brokers are these people right they they go out and buy data from other companies like apps and stuff uh say you're a weather app and you say you tell your users enable your location to get weather right those weather app developers get emails from data Brokers saying hey we noticed that you collect user data we will offer you this lump sum of money for their location data that you collect and they can choose whether or not they want to do that and usually the top guys don't some do a lot of these um smaller thirdparty weather apps uh do sell your data so if you ever wonder why they're free that's what's happening but um these data Brokers go out and gather up all this data and then they resell it to ad distributors or or Google buys this information just it it's a big industry and uh create user profiles based on your um like your device ID and stuff now each individual data provider like Facebook and Google advertising companies say that they do not identify individual users using this data and that's technically true um you get assigned these Anonymous numbers and stuff but if you gather enough of this information from disperate points it's pretty easy to guess who you are down to the person and apple um wants to point this out with their day in the life of an iPhone user it's a pretty good read it's uh I know you guys mentioned it briefly the uh where the guy takes his daughter to a park and all the data that's collected one of the stats that jump out here is uh data Brokers uh use the data they harvest to assign users to different like data buckets but they've also found that most of this data is wrong and it's like so there was no point in gathering in the first place because by the time they're done assigning it to your user profile they've guessed wrong anyway so what's the point of gathering the data just lots of little things like that jumping out of Apple's arguments against what Facebook is doing so remains to be seen if there will be any kind of legal ramifications or if Apple will be forced to change what they're doing doesn't look like it iOS 14.5 again it's out in beta I imagine it's going to be coming in the next weeks or a couple months and I will be telling every app not to track me that's just me personally I haven't had the Facebook app on my phone for a long time I think there's actually a toggle deep in settings that will let you completely shut this off from the get-go so ask apps not to track if you turn that off I believe you won't even get the notification and I think that's the danger um that Facebook definitely feels here but again it's an opt out thing users have to decide to uh get away from ad tracking I don't see any legislation fighting against opting out like giving users Choice exact like you can't fight against that right because again apple is not blocking Facebook from tracking you know there not an outright this app cannot track anything at all it is just giving the choice to the users allowed to track or not we'll see be interesting to see that also the fortnite and apple stuff will be coming up in the next few months and all the court hearings about that let us know what you think about anything we talked about today we'd love to hear from you you can tweet at Wes and myself our Twitter handles are in the show notes you can email us that email address is in the show notes as well if you haven't yet we would greatly appreciate a festar rating and review and apple podcast that helps us out a lot and don't forget to check out homid Insider that comes out every Monday where we talk about smart home and homekit devices and apple Insider daily every day you can get the Top Apple headlines in just a few minutes in that podcast thanks so much for joining us we'll catch you next time\n"