The Art of Mac Repurposing: Luke Meani's iMac Turducken

In a world where technology is constantly evolving, it's not uncommon to see old devices being repurposed and reimagined. One such example is Luke Meani's infamous "iMac turducken," a DIY project that showcases the creativity and resourcefulness of a tinkerer. As explained in an article shared on social media, Meani took the motherboard from an M1 Mac Mini and successfully installed it into a 2011 iMac, leveraging its internal space to create a unique computing setup.

This remarkable feat requires an understanding of computer hardware and a healthy dose of ingenuity. By jerry-rigging the display cable with an HDMI-to-display connector adapter, Meani was able to harness the processing power of the M1 motherboard within the confines of the older iMac casing. While it's not uncommon for enthusiasts to repurpose old devices, this particular project stands out due to its sheer audacity and technical complexity.

One can't help but wonder what inspired Meani to embark on this ambitious project. Was it a desire to breathe new life into an old device or simply a challenge to push the boundaries of Mac engineering? Whatever the motivation, the end result is undeniably impressive – a testament to human ingenuity and the potential for creative problem-solving.

In contrast to modern iMacs with their sleek designs and compact sizes, Meani's project takes inspiration from older models like the 2011 iMac. While these newer devices are indeed smaller and more energy-efficient, they lack the character and uniqueness that comes with repurposing vintage hardware. As an enthusiast of old technology, I couldn't help but feel a sense of nostalgia while reading about this project – it's almost as if Meani has captured the essence of the Mac's evolution.

Ted Lasso Wins Golden Globe Award

In other news, Apple TV+ original series Ted Lasso has won a prestigious award in the entertainment industry. Jason Sudeikis, who plays the titular character, took home the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series. This award serves as a testament to the show's excellence and its ability to captivate audiences worldwide.

As I reflect on this achievement, I'm reminded of the incredible strides that Apple TV+ has made in recent years. With shows like Ted Lasso, The Morning Show, and For All Mankind pushing the boundaries of original storytelling, it's clear that the platform is committed to providing high-quality content for viewers. And with awards like this Golden Globe win, it's evident that their efforts are paying off.

Last but not least, a popular trend has emerged on social media platforms – the Tom Cruise deep fake video. For those unfamiliar, deep fakes involve using computer graphics and engineering to create a convincing illusion of an actor or person in a digital format. In this particular instance, someone who bears a resemblance to Tom Cruise has been used to create a remarkably accurate representation of his mannerisms and expressions.

While the implications of such technology are far-reaching and raise important questions about authenticity and truth, I'm more interested in appreciating the impressive skill that went into creating this deep fake video. The attention to detail is staggering – from the way the subject's eyes move to the subtle nuances of their voice modulation. It's a testament to human creativity and the boundless possibilities offered by digital technology.

Finally, a listener has reached out with some interesting news about iPhone accessories. Christopher mentioned a product called "MAG DOA" (Mag Easy), which is designed to help users with older iPhones access Magsafe charging capabilities. By attaching this small puck-like device to the back of their phone or case, users can take advantage of MAG safe chargers and enjoy faster recharging.

While it's not an exact substitute for a native Magsafe implementation, this hack offers a viable solution for those who want to stay up-to-date with the latest charging technology. With its compact design and ease of use, I can see why Christopher recommended it to Wes – it's definitely worth considering for anyone looking to enhance their iPhone experience.

That concludes our conversation for today! We appreciate your feedback and would love to hear from you on topics ranging from Clubhouse to Apple rumors. Don't hesitate to reach out through email or social media, and be sure to star-rate the podcast if you haven't already – it's greatly appreciated by the team.

Homid Insider, Apple Insider Daily, and The Verge are some of our go-to sources for staying informed about the world of smart home technology, Apple devices, and related news. If you're interested in exploring these topics further, I recommend checking out their websites and podcasts. And finally, thanks again to Christopher for sharing his insights on the MAG DOA product – it's been a wild ride!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwelcome to the Apple Insider podcast this episode is brought to you by J learn more about jam and Apple device management at J that's J mf. iapple Insider and startmail start securing your email privacy today at startmail.com and Helix sleep get up to $200 off a new mattress and two free pillows at Helix sleep.com appleinsider and expressvpn get three extra months for free when you go to expressvpn.com slapple Insider welcome to the Apple Insider podcast this is your host Steven Robles and joining me this week my friend Wes Hillyard how's it going Wes it's pretty good Stephen just listening to the dogs bark I know listen podcasting I'm telling you there there's always noise it's one of those uh you know you bring an umbrella it doesn't rain you don't bring it and it rains if you try to podcast there's going to be some noise as long as an airplane uh engine doesn't fall into my front yard I'll be okay man I saw that this is totally not in the notes are related but I saw the clip I think it was a United flight where the engine like blew up I think so not a not something you want to happen on any a given day but anyway let's cover some rumors man because mingi quo dropped years of rumors literally dropped rumors about the iPhone quote 13 14 and 15 basically saying the road map through 2023 your little details here and there for each line so we're going to go through them and see what's coming Ming quo does one of these reports every year he kind of just outlines everything he possibly knows onto a document kind of just proceeds every month to update that document as he goes this is kind of the basis for a lot of the rumors every year but this time I guess yeah he he kind of went wild and just went three years into the future he did including SE models possible folding phones so let's go through a year by year I'll hit the high level probably the most interesting stuff encourage you to check out the article I'll link to it in the show notes if you want to read all the details but talking about the iPhone 13 which would be the 2021 model so whatever's coming out this September you know we're about six seven months away from that the iPhone 13 you know I'm curious do you think it's going to be 13 or 12s you know interesting we went from 11 to 12 no 11s and are we done with s's or we think we're going to have like whole numbers from now on what do you think well it's definitely strange because Apple's kind of Hit and Miss on the S Cycles lately they skipped the 7s and went straight to 8 and 10 then we had the 10s yeah so here we are again at a junk sure where it could be couldn't be maybe 13 is just a weird number Mike worle and I uh we argue over this how culturally important the number 13 might be there was an iPhone 4 and that's terrible in China so 13 being superstitious in the United States and other you know countries it's has a significance but I still don't think it's significant enough to just skip the number 13 I don't think so the only number we've skipped so far is nine cuz we had six we had seven we had eight and then 10 Roman numeral and then 11 Arabic numeral so we we missed nine but that was the only one we've skipped in the history of iPhone Samsung did the thing where suddenly went to 20 um and uh well that's mostly because they just aligned with the years I don't think we realized that at first we it's why 20 what in the world but yeah they're just doing the year thing now Apple could do something similar where there it's like here's the 2021 iPhone and just go from there I personally would like that better than an arbitrary number or letter but we'll see and you know I've heard other Apple podcasts talk about this like in other l like MacBooks and even iPads there's not really a numeral denomination besides the year you know it's the 2020 iPad Pro the 2018 iPad pro it'll be the 2020 you know MacBook Pro or late 2020 and so when or if the iPhone will go that way and what I've heard the argument and I and I understand it is from a marketing perspective the iPhone is obviously the biggest seller that Apple has you know it's their biggest product the fact that they release one every year they kind of need people to quickly be able to say what the newest one is and be able to kind of distinguish okay what number are we on like what is the newest model and saying the year you know the year would get old pretty quickly the iPhone 12 right now would be the iPhone late 2020 model and that sounds old so I feel like it it would have to be a long time before Apple goes to like a year denomination to separate iPhones and I also think with the S cycle because people like Samsung and other phone makers are kind of just using the whole numbers and getting really high like you know the S21 Ultra I think that the whole number change might be why you know Apple might do that from a marketing perspective so it's just clearly the next model there's no 12 12s it's just 12 13 14 it might be about time they do that what if uh Apple does the car thing and just says here's the 2022 iPhone in in this year ahead of year oh that that is true I mean cuz it is basically for the coming year you know most people who get an iPhone you know don't get it on day one so they would be getting it in the 2021 year so yeah maybe but then also when it comes to selling older models at a cheaper price or you if they keeping something like the iPhone I think I mean the 11 is still in the lineup now you can still buy it directly from Apple do would they want people to have to say oh give me the 20 19 iPhone or the 2020 iPhone that's why I feel like with the I think we're a long way from going to a year designation I think it's going to be whole numbers names are hard in the space I mean Macs and iPads they're delineated by their screen size and I I don't think customers are going to the store and saying like a year name I think they're just saying I want the newest one with this size and that's about it that's true iPhone I guess yeah you're right like it being just a pure marketing scheme uh it falls into being able to say very quickly and easily this is the the phone I want and it's the one that came out this year Honestly though speaking to some non-tech people some people don't even realize what phone they have I think it's the six maybe the seven I don't know that is true maybe even then it's just completely broken I mean as long as it's the iPhone I think no one really cares me personally I would love to see an iPhone iPhone Pro and no number and that's it and just you know us nerds can describe it by year but everyone else just isn't going to Care well let's talk about the actual rumors so mink quo said iPhone 13 whatever model that is called coming out September 2021 September October fall 2021 that it'll finally get the promotion 120 HZ display which has been rumored many times before the iPad Pro already has it so that seems expected and an upgraded six-piece ultrawide camera so the ultrawide camera would get a big update this year not much else but that's the iPhone 13 then he also said an iPhone SE an updated model will come out in the first half of 20 22 so that'd be basically a year from now it would come out with a new iPhone SE and I think correct me if I'm wrong Wes but this this iPhone SE would be face ID style iPhone no longer the touch ID style I think the design yes but I think uh we would still have Touch ID but in a side button oh okay nothing that's not something M quo said though you're calling it out yeah that's just an assumption I'm making based on how they handled the iPad um air oh I just don't I don't don't see unless face ID really is just that cheap by that point I mean it could be uh very easily as we get into more of these quot rumors we're talking about face ID coming down the line adding more technology like more biometric recognition and stuff like touch ID under the display and stuff so maybe face ID just becomes the budget model right right well moving forward to the iPhone quote 14 which would be the 2022 Flagship model he's saying that it'll go to a punch hole display design rather than a notch now we've seen some Android phones have this already where there's no Notch there's no bar at the top but it's actually just a small hole for the front-facing camera so we could see that iPhone 14 in 2022 and then M quo also says possible foldable phone if Apple can get the manufacturing going and it can actually be you know a profitable business and actually could sell 2023 we might see something like that for a foldable iPhone again I I I find a foldable iPhone still hard to believe but possible and also that the flagship iPhone that comes that year 2023 so we're talking 2 years from this fall that it may have an underd display fingerprint sensor and a periscope telephoto camera may be used and again this is very far out so reliability not sure but this is minki quote and he's saying it you know I think the punch hole style camera possible but I almost feel like there were some renders of the iPhone 14 or whatever circling around online and it was basically a notchless iPhone and obviously that's the goal you know I'm sure apple is trying to get to that notchless punch holess front display you know with just totally edgo Edge display surely that's the goal so I imagine Maybe by 20123 we could see something like that the punch hole design I I hate it I I absolutely despise it but um people people talk about the notch getting in the way or whatever of content but you're talking about a hole centered in the screen or on the side left or right side where the content is I mean the notch at least is is above it out of the way you know so that that's how I view it if video is a aspect ratio wide enough it could enter into the punch hole I don't want a punch hole in my videos so the the design that part I'm not sure where that's coming from this is again a supply chain analyst so he's looking at what like Samsung and other companies are doing maybe Samsung's ramping up the creation of those displays and he's just inferring who knows but I just don't see apple doing it for one reason uh marketing again Apple uses the front face of the iPhone and its marketing images like designs and icons and that Notch cutout or previously the touch ID uh button was what said this is an iPhone what happens when the front display of iPhone looks identical to an Android phone what is Apple going to do then that's true and I agree I don't see a punch hole coming to an iPhone I feel like it would be weird block certain content the only thing I've ever seen a punch hole display be used for that was cool was someone did a Baymax wallpaper and made one of the punch holes of Baymax eye that was it that was the coolest thing yeah that's funny well I I mean I've seen people make uh you know Burton Ernie the The Bert wallpaper with the eyebrow with a notch that's pretty fun too that was funny this episode is brought to you by J now I'm so excited that J has come on because I have personally used J in a corporate setting for five plus years J is an incredible tool to remotely manage Apple devices from Macs to iPads to iPhones if you work in it or you're in charge of Apple devices across a team whether it's a small team with just a few devices or many I've personally managed 50 plus devices using J and it is an incredible I think the best tool for managing Apple devices from an IT standpoint you know all the companies Apple Microsoft and Google have unique workflows to provision encrypt and deploy Enterprise technology that's why the idea of some unified endpoint management system has not worked successfully but as Apple devices continue to grow organizations doing bring your own devices so people are bringing their iPhones and iPads to work the need to provide Apple dedicated tools for it and security has never been greater J is the only Apple Enterprise management solution that covers everything you need to connect manage and secure Apple devices for your organization without negatively impacting the nuser experience or requiring an IT department to even touch the device and that's important Sometimes some provisioning softwares and other companies that end user gets a worse experience maybe some profiles doing something in the background slowing down your device and that never happens with J my experience using it across devices Macs iPads and iPhones the end user has an incredible experience and the management tools on the admin side are second to none you can deploy a shrink wrapped Apple device straight from the factory to your staff you can just ship it to them wherever they are and when it arrives they unbox it power it on and get right to work and the set and profiles that you've set up in Jam automatically get applied J makes access to business critical applications a seamless experience with single username and password just imagine the reduction in password resets for your it team finally While most security tools are created with Windows in mind you can be assured J's sole focus is on protecting your Macs and Apple devices and with a history of same day support for Apple OS releases your devices will be secure no matter when your users update more than 40, th organizations rely on Jam to keep devices connected up to-date and secure while ensuring users have the resources they need and the worldclass Apple experience they know love and expect I've been using Jam for years way before they ever thought about sponsoring this episode and it is an incredible tool for device management I highly recommend you try it out for Apple Insider listeners unlock the power of apple and J today with a free 14-day trial try it totally for free to get started go to J.I slapple Insider that's J mf. iapple Insider there's also a link in the show notes and in the article on the website again I highly recommend you check it out j./ Apple Insider our thanks to J for sponsoring this episode well some of the other rumors that were coming is that the iPhone will not get USBC basically ever but that if it goes to anything it would be a mag safe style Port Apple has this patent out there and there's an image I'll put it as the chapter art but it kind of shows a magsafe style connector like older mag safe that you we used to have on the MacBooks and MacBook Pros but this mag safe connector might connect to the iPhone rather than lightning but that USBC is not coming and then I also saw John procer he was tweeting about you know if USBC ever comes to the iPhone he'll shave his eyebrows off or something so it seems like everyone is agreed USBC not coming to the iPhone and that still makes me a little sad I really wish it had yeah prer and a few others have been saying this for a while it makes sense and Mingo he says that this is coming from the mfi program the made for iPhone program right Apple can't license USBC in any way so they would be going from a proprietary connector that they own and can charge money for to one that they can't license at all and I don't see that being a big sticking point for Apple I mean it can't be that much money that they're gaining from it but it is some money um so you know quo obviously goes that route but Apple also has been investigating this like SMART connector or mag safe technology for a while I mean we've been seeing patents since the iPhone 6 era for a SMART connector on an iPhone so yeah had to write I wrote uh the iPhone 14 like explainer uh over these past few days and uh it's it seems that Apple's tackling this from two different directions the portless iPhone either we're going to get no lightning port and just nothing they're just portless yanking that out of there and it's mag safe to charge or wireless charging and data transfer over Wireless and that's it that's all you get right and in that case it seems Apple wants to just avoid cables altogether if I guess Diagnostics need to be done there's been some investigation into hiding a port inside the SIM tray uh but that wouldn't be for you know users or anything that'd be just for technicians right and then the other route would be what you mentioned is the uh smart Connector route where we just slap a magnet on there and data and power can get through it at a reasonable rate yeah and I will say for all that I have been moaned USBC not coming to the iPhone I now have mag safe Chargers everywhere I use mag safe in my car I have the belon 3 in1 mag safe charger by my bed so I actually have not plugged a lightning cable into my iPhone for a while there's been like one time I needed a fast charge cuz I was only going to be near an outlet for a short amount of time so I needed a fast charge and that was the one time I broke out an anchor like 30 W fast charger with the USBC to lightning cable but that was was once in like the last 6 months so I'm living almost that portless life just doing mag safe and I I could see it working and I could see apple just not doing any kind of Port eventually you know maybe just on the Pro Models at first and then putting it throughout the line so to just go along with what quo was saying I think uh the best chain of events here for users even though it might not um sound great especially for power users is the completely portless not even a magnet connector version because that gives us the chance now you know early adopters like so maybe more techsavvy people in the next year to adopt mag safe everywhere right and then Apple goes portless no worries you already have everything you need to be have a portless iPhone versus oh here's the special new connector that isn't lightning that everyone has to buy now and then everyone screams at the top of their lungs on the internet like they usually do yeah okay a rumor that came out is that a magsafe battery that Apple will be releasing a first-party magsafe battery that would attach to the back of your iPhone and charge it ankor just announced theirs it's actually shipping this month I have one coming from Amazon so it's a battery pack you charge a vbc but when you want to charge your iPhone you just attach it to the back and mag safe keeps it on there so it's saying that Apple might be doing first party versions procer actually said on the podcast Genius Bar that Apple's working on two models kind of a premium version and a regular version of this mag safe battery pack and that the premium version might support reverse charging now I'm assuming that means you put it on the back of your iPhone then maybe you could put some airpods on top of it to charge those wirelessly I don't imagine reverse charging means that your iPhone could charge the battery pack I don't know why you would want to do that you want juice in your iPhone so I imagine that's what it means by reverse charging but looks like apple might be developing that yeah I'm definitely interested in this just like I think we mentioned previously there was another Maxi battery pack rumor when I was on last time I definitely want it whatever Apple makes here let me have it the only issue is is it's mag safe it gets hot you're going to be carrying it either in your hand or in your pocket and sure they're going to do thermal throttling to try and keep things cool but then your phone isn't charging as fast either so this isn't as optimized as say the Apple smart battery case but I'm still here for it and these third party Solutions just aren't getting it for me I'm I'm going to avoid those until Apple does something in the field yeah a couple other quick news and rumor things before we get to some bigger stories the iMac 21 1/2 in supply seems to be Ling seems that Apple has stopped producing the 512 gig and terabyte SSD configurations of the current 4K iMac pointing to the fact that that refreshed iMac we talked about it on last week's episode John Pro the renders that that iMac might be coming very soon maybe even this month we'll see but there's also a currently unavailable from Apple's website with some of those models also Apple released a tool that would actually allow users to move their iCloud photo library directly to Google photos I thought this was very interesting you can go to the icloud.com website and we'll put a link in the show notes kind of explaining the step by step but if you want to transfer your iCloud photo library to Google photos Apple has made a tool for you to do that it won't include certain pieces of media like live photos which is strange because by default iPhones take live photos so it might not transfer all of your pictures and videos it doesn't do like shared albums and stuff like that but if you have a lot of pictures in your iCloud photo library and you want to either a backup or you're thinking about transitioning to Android you can use this tool to move your library over it's just another protection I I don't think Apple would have ever released this in a world without regulation it's just another step from Apple saying hey look at what we did we made it easier for people to go to Android if they really want to or apple photos isn't as proprietary as it may have seen before but yeah it's just another move from Apple on that side of things then this last thing I want to point out before we get to some bigger stories is that Apple actually just released a Apple for kids support site and this is telling users how you can set up your devices using screen time parental controls how to set up a device from scratch for a child so some pretty good resources there if you're just getting into that world or you need kind of some step-by-step instructions it's a great page we'll put a link to the show notes in it one of the things that is notable I had not found a place where they explicitly said this but when it comes to Apple watch Apple released this kids setup or at least Apple watch setup from an iPhone like from a parent iPhone so a kid can use an Apple Watch without also having an iPhone themselves if you set up an Apple Watch in that way and I've done that my oldest son we got him an Apple Watch SC for Christmas and he uses that but he does not have all the apps and features that an Apple Watch has when you traditionally set it up paired to your personal iPhone and on this Apple for kids support website if you click the watch information it tells you what apps are not available to certain ages I didn't realize if your child is 13 or 18 there will be different apps and features available when you set up an Apple Watch in this way but the apps that are not available and my kid doesn't have any of these on his Apple watch SE is irregular heart rhythm notifications ECG is not available uh cycle tracking sleep blood oxygen and thing even things like podcast the remote app news home and shortcuts now some of those maybe I could understand things like home is strange because my child has an iPad and we just set them up with the home app so they can control some home devic and we can do the intercom and it actually goes to their devices so it seems strange that like home and shortcuts aren't there but the sleep thing was one of the big things cuz we wanted my son to be able to track his sleep and it's unfortunate that you cannot track sleep when you have an Apple Watch set up for kids that's not connected to an iPhone directly if it's set up parent iPhone to kid Apple watch there is no sleep tracking available in addition to the other things I mentioned so what if you download something like sleep Plus+ can he track his sleep with that no there's actually a lot of apps in the app store cuz he has the App Store on the Apple watch SE and he can download apps directly but many apps like not just a few but there are actually many apps that throw up a warning that says this app requires an iPhone wow and he is not able to download it so like sleep plus plus there's a lot of games that are like this which seems strange because you know most of these games are either made for watch or don't really have an iPhone counterpart he can't download it all because he doesn't have an iPhone paired with it I believe this has this has everything to do with the children's protection online or whatever it might have a lot to do with that I mean it's still a little weird that you can't do sleep tracking or podcasts right yeah there there there are a lot of rules surrounding children under the age of 13 they literally cannot have certain accounts according to law now they make them anyway I mean a lot of kids under 13 are probably on Twitter they shouldn't be but Apple just I think covering their butts here uh regulatory wise shortcuts maybe it's you can download you know third party you know non-apple short cuts and stuff and home who knows that maybe the cameras maybe it's just a prevention from getting the kids uh the ability to play with the light switches who knows but having no ability to as a parent to toggle these on and off is a little strange I I can see what Apple's doing here cuz also in like screen time settings in their iPad I can disable or enable apps like podcasts news Safar and so the apps disappear from their device or I can enable it and I can even do that remotely from my iPhone I can adjust their screen time settings over the iCloud so it is weird that at least I don't you know I don't even get the option because the Apple watch that he has tracks all the normal Fitness stuff you know he can do workouts it tracks calories and movement minutes and basically when you track sleep it's really just looking at heart information and movement so it doesn't make sense why you couldn't track sleep directly on the watch or at least have an iPad that you can maybe connect it to so it's unfortunate I hope Apple does update that soon to give more of that functionality to kids Apple definitely a first generation product oh yeah for sure and first generation like software feature like this just came out you know this past fall for sure this episode is brought to you by startmail as you probably know free email services like Gmail and Yahoo they're not really free you actually pay by giving your data to these big tech companies and they have access to every email you send and receive and once they have that information in your emails from both what you send and receive they can sell that data to the highest bidder if you send sensitive information through Gmail or Yahoo email things like business plans or medical records maybe even you're sending your social security info I know it's tax time and you might be tempted to send some of that tax information to your accountant via email but all that sensitive information is now in the hands of people like Google and Yahoo and they can sell that data and then Target you with intrusive ads maybe even open you up to identity theft and fishing attacks that's why I trust start mail to secure my personal and business email it helps me feel safe safe again and know that my data is not being sold to those big tech companies start mail keeps my email private period every email is encrypted even if the recipient doesn't use encryption which means big Tech can't read scan analyze or sell my personal information ever startmail also prevents government agencies from spying on you and with startmail deleted means deleted when you delete an email it is gone forever startmail uses their own servers not Amazon like many other cloud service companies which means they can't be put out of business like other companies that got shut down when Amazon shut down their Amazon web services looking at you parlor startmail is also backed by the most stringent privacy laws in the world you get unlimited Anonymous aliases which means you can create Alias emails just for giving a specific business that you know you're going to be getting spam email from create as many Alias as you want and use those aliases and give those out when you sign up for things I set up start mail personally and it was an incredibly easy process and you can add all your devices you can add your start mail via IMAP to your iPhone your iPad your Mac and every device gets a unique login so if you ever need to shut down access from one of your devices you can do that right from the start mail website it's incredibly easy to use it's welld designed and I know that my email is secure so don't trust big tech companies with all your email data start securing your email privacy with startmail sign up today and you can get 50% off your first year that is a whole half off that first year just go to startmail.com AI just the letters AI That's startmail with a t stt mail.com AI for 50% off your first year startmail.com our thanks to startmail for sponsoring this episode so I wanted to touch on this story we covered it on Apple Insider but there was a gentleman on Twitter his name is Dustin Curtis and he tweeted saying that that he forgot to update his Apple card autopay and that caused him to miss an apple card payment and because of that Apple disabled his Apple ID now that was like the essence of the Tweet but as we've done research and the Apple Insider staff and you actually have the the full article so I might let you explain a little bit more of it but there was basically a long series of events from purchasing a new Mac to failing to send in the tradein to not updating Bank information a lot of steps in this story that caused Dustin Curtis to have his Apple ID locked and it wasn't just as simple as you missed an apple card payment and apple locks your Apple ID that is actually not the case so maybe you could tell our listeners a little bit about this okay so a little background I first noticed this as it was happening on March 1st and we decided to ignore it just keep an eye on it because it didn't seem like it should be a story that means anything it didn't make sense the Apple card isn't connected to your Apple ID the two can't really be intertwined legally Apple doesn't have any documentation stating that they're even legally able to operate they're they're two different companies uh Apple cards run by Goldman Sachs and Apple's got some participation in it but they're not legally attached to it in that way and Apple ID of course is run by Apple so having your Apple card payments disable your Apple ID not only is it sound wrong it sounds dystopian it you know you get go into debt into apple and suddenly you can't iMessage your friend you know it's right right it gets a little crazy so at first glance this just seemed wild did some research into it and it's actually very difficult to find documentation surrounding these things cuz I guess we were trying to prove a neg a negative rather than trying to prove something that we uh know is factual so long story short this guy the truth of the matter is purchased an M1 MacBook Pro through Apple's installment program and this installment program allows you to make payments over time in order to pay for the MacBook you can do this via apple cart or other payment options I wasn't aware of that I originally thought the payment program was just Apple card but it seems that you can do it on other payment options as well anyway he also traded in or offered to trade in a MacBook Pro and I believe in this you know world where everything's done over online you know pandemic can't really go into an Apple Store Apple's changed some of their policies surrounding this so cuz I've had a lot of people ask this question well if it was a tradein how did he get credit for it so Apple's been doing this thing with the apple tradein called instant credit where he offers a machine describes it and gives its condition to Apple and apple offers an amount to purchase it for to for the tradein and they apply it directly to your payment plan for the new Macbook Pro and that's an agreement you sign it legally saying that this is how this is going to go Apple in the trade in policy describes it once we receive the device we're going to eval it and if it is up to the condition that you described nothing happens you've already you're already paying your payments everything's been decided we're good to go but if Apple decides that it is in worse wear and changes the value of the product then they apply a charge to your account to make up the difference that's that's the whole process right well Dustin Curtis I guess he received his MacBook Pro and then forgot that he did a trade-in policy and claims that Apple never sent him the tradein kit which is plausible Apple may have stumbled there or the mailing system just lost it who knows all we know is he never got his trading kit and then he missed subsequent emails phone calls from Apple and simultaneously to compound the issue he had also changed his banking information in January causing his Apple card payments to stop he was completely unaware of not turning in the MacBook Pro or the MacBook trade in and he was unaware of his MC of his Apple card payments not going through so ultimately by mid February his Apple ID payments had stopped he was no longer able to access the app store or iTunes and he was getting alerts saying that he needed to contact Apple support so he connected the dots in his head and and said oh my Apple card is delinquent therefore Apple disabled my Apple ID and that is not exactly what happened there right that's a jump in logic and apple had a statement you know we included it in our article basically the course of events that Wes just described Apple did not disable his Apple ID because of missed Apple card payments to be perfectly clear the reason why the Apple IDs um iTunes and App Store payment processings were stopped was solely because of the trade-in program right the program saw that he was delinquent and that he had not sent in the device and he had not been paying for the new device so like any Apple payment program or um iTunes any subscription even Apple will stop your um Apple ID payment processings from working until you either update your credit card information so payments can go through or you catch up on your current situation and he didn't either right and I will say I have not done a Mac tradein but I am on the Apple iPhone upgrade program where you do send in your old iPhone in the past two I think three years I've done where it ships the new iPhone to my house it comes on launch day they do great at that and then the trade-in kit comes a couple days later and I send my old iPhone back to Apple now because it deals with a citizen's one like installment loan it's basically like a 0% interest loan there's nothing going to a credit card and there's no payment from a bank account and so what happens is once they receive my old iPhone the old citizens One loan gets like cancelled or closed out I get an email saying your loan is ended or it's been closed because we received your tradein you're good to go enjoy the new phone and the payments continue for the new phone but I will say there has been a few years where I will send back the trade in and it you know comes in a nice box they Apple gives you everything you need to send it back and even the little sticker tapes to close the cardboard box and I've sent it back and tracked it cuz I'm like I want to make sure this thing gets back to Apple and there was one year where my tracking number suddenly just kind of stopped working it never said delivered and it said it was still like somewhere not sure where and I was getting a little nervous cuz I was like if this thing gets lost in the mail like what happens then like I'm not really sure what happens listeners if you ever had an experience where a tradein got lost in the mail I'd be curious how Apple handles that but thankfully like a week later I got an email saying hey we got your old iPhone your loan is canceled and I was like oh great you know so whatever that happened with the tracking numbers it just stop tracking it you know that happens especially we ship a lot of stuff in America so I I get it but there is like that sense of like unease where is this trade in going to make it and especially if you're doing a tradein with a MacBook Pro you might be dealing with a larger ticket item pre pandemic I usually preferred to go to a store especially with the iPhone or if I was trading in anything because you could just hand them your device if you go to the Apple store to pick up your new iPhone even on launch day you literally just hand them your old iPhone and the tradein process happens all in store you don't have to mail anything away so it's nice to know it's like in Apple's hands and they mark it as received and you see it go into the back of the store but the tradein at least in my experience has worked well every time listeners I love to hear if you ever have an issue with this yeah I'll I'll note that uh listeners i' I've been through the reddits and twitters and seen every side angled comment on This I Promise You we've we've done our research go read the trade and policy it's terrible but it describes it in detail exactly what happened to poor Mr Curtis if you want a little side tangent here speaking of male getting lost I've done iPhone tradein programs um while in the military and you can imagine now this was uh through the carrier not Apple itself but same concept um mailing your phone and I remember getting a call from Verizon returning from what we called underways it wasn't a deployment but you were out at sea for maybe a a few weeks if not a month or more sometimes you'll get mail while you're out to see and the way they get the mail on the ship is by connecting it to a cable underneath a helicopter and dragging a pallet of objects across to the boat or even better two ships get side by side and they connect a like cabling system between them and just slide the pallet across via a hook oh my word and let me tell you on deployment 2014 the shiny new PlayStation 4s were arriving to the carrier and I'm pretty sure an entire crate of PlayStations ended up in the ocean so yes uh male can disappear from time to time be it in the ocean or you know the usual but I've had a few times with Verizon applying $67 $800 to my account because my phone showed up two or 3 days after they were expecting it and then they just credit it back to my account no big deal wow that is stress I can't imagine I can't imagine I've helped with those um Maneuvers where we get a bunch of packages from another ship and yeah it's it's pretty terrifying seeing just boxes it's a big crate wrapped in plastic floating over the ocean for about two a minute and a half coming to and it's just oh wow man okay that's unique this episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep listen I know some of you are sleeping on some old saggy mattress at night and you deserve better getting a good night's rest is so conducive to actually being productive the next day working in Creative Fields just being able to focus as you're working and to get a good night's sleep you need a great mattress and most mattresses they're kind of generic you either buy a size and maybe get a foam top or whatever but why not get a mattress that's actually made specifically for your body type and how you sleep that's the difference with Helix mattresses Helix sleep has a quiz that takes just 2 minutes to complete and matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you everybody's unique Helix knows that so they have several different mattress models to choose from they have soft medium and firm mattresses mattress is great for cooling you down if you sleep hot that's me even a helix plus mattress for plus-sized folks so I took the Helix quiz you give it your height your weight whether you're a side sleeper or back sleeper I personally sleep on my side and I wanted a medium mattress not soft not firm just kind of right in the middle like Goldilocks you know what I'm saying and once I told Helix how I sleep and my body type they actually recommended the Helix Plus for me and I have to say the kind of sleep that I have gotten on the Helix mattress beats any other mattress I've tried and I've done other internet mattresses before and the Helix mattress is the best so if you're looking for a mattress take the quiz you order the mattress that you're matched to and the mattress comes right to your door it's shipped for free you don't ever 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 so go to Helix sleep.com slapple inssider take their 2-minute sleep quiz and they'll match you to a customized mattress and you can get the best sleep of your life and they also have a 10-year warranty and you can try it out for 100 nights risk-free they'll even pick it up for you you if you don't love it but I know that you will Helix is offering up to $200 off all mattress orders and two free pillow for our listeners just go to helixsleep.com slapple Insider that's h e liix sleep.com slapple inssider to get up to $200 off your mattress order and two free pillows our thanks to Helix sleep for sponsoring this episode well I wanted to touch on an Apple Store experience I actually brought Max in for a Genius Bar appointment first time in a while and I won't go into great detail I'll put a link in the show notes if you'd like to read it I took some pictures as I was at the Apple Store this was a Apple Store in a mall this is Brandon Town Center mall in Central Florida and going to an Apple store is just a very different experience you know if you went to an Apple Store pre pandemic it was tons of people and you can go up and just try any device type on the laptops hold an iPhone if you wanted to and it was nice especially if you were in the market for a new iPhone and maybe you want to know how big does the iPhone 12 mini fit in my hand and no picture can really communicate that to you but you don't get those kinds of experiences now you know if you want to go to the Apple Store you really you need an appointment I mean it is basically required even if you just want to shop for something they have personal shopping appointments they have Express pickup appointments so if you just want to buy something and pick it up you could do that and then they have the Genius Bar reservations there is lots and lots of plexiglass around the Apple Store and when I went they really relegated it to just four maybe five customers tops towards the front of the store on just a couple tables and every station where a customer was working with an apple representative it was totally encased in plexiglass the only opening between me and the representative was a small like mail slot basically at the bottom where I could slide the MacBooks in that needed repair the repairs are delayed there's like a factory in Texas because of the snow that has been slow and I had a MacBook Air with a faly space bar and that's kind of a delayed repair but they're doing their best and you know they're being very careful taking all the precautions but going to an Apple store is not the same kind of energy it used to have I'll just say that there's a lot of waiting too even if you have an appointment my appointment was like for 12:05 and I still waited in line till like 12:45 like it was I was in line for about 30 to 40 minutes with just three people ahead of me but because they're really spacing out those appointments and trying to address just four to five people at a time it is a it's a slow process so anyway I got pictures in there you could check it out in the show notes yeah I I've been to Brandon it's it's one of those outskirt towns that's basically Jacksonville right it's just another it's Tampa adjacent that's that's it Tampa I couldn't remember which big Florida City it was but yes it's basically the neighborhood outside of Tampa right that's exactly right yes yeah Brandon's cool Apple Store's opening in the pandemic it's it's interesting I remember last year when we were still saying Memorial day it'll be over it's fine we went and visited uh an Apple store after it reopened and it was all those lines and uh masks and everything and this experience sounds much different from that because yeah the plexiglass City just uh kind of wild yeah we also wrote I guess about the uh 270 Apple stores in the United States finally opening for the first time since March last year right all the Apple stores in the US are open and I will say depending on your Apple Store appointments might be a long way off for the Brandon Apple Store it was a week in advance I had to make an appointment and the earliest one they had was a week later there were some stores like the Tampa International Mall which is a much larger Apple Store had some earlier appointments but it was a little farther so you know if you are in need of a Genius Bar appointment especially uh you're going to have to wait for a little bit if you're doing Express pickup that has been very fast I mean while I was waiting in line for half an hour there was three or four people that came they said they had Express pickup they show their phone you get a little like apple wallet pass they bring out the Apple bag to you you don't even go in the store if you're doing Express pickup they bring the bag out to you and you just walk away so if you want to do Express pickup cuz you just want something today and it's not shipping fast enough the express pickup works pretty well it's really The Genius Bar and personal shopping that are more timec consuming events Apple says open but there are three versions of open right now right Cur curbside pickup which is not really open you can just buy things and they bring it out to you right um storefront or like you mentioned Express the storefront is you there's an Apple store with people waiting outside and you can kind of make a appointments or not The Express ones are funny and I don't know where they are but I've seen pictures of them and it's like plexiglass bench uh like a newspaper stand where where people hand you um Apple products out of a small window uh those are pretty funny looking if you haven't seen pictures of those there's somewhere in our site yes and then there's the fully open with you know man with Health Management which is what you encountered in Brandon got you can check your local Apple Store listings in like Apple Maps it'll tell you how open it is we have an Apple Store tracker on Apple Insider that's mostly up to date it's kind of hard to keep up with all 270 stores but it'll get you where you need to go I wanted to touch on clubhouse we've mentioned it before and I sent some invites to people then I ran out of invites and you know it's kind of the talk everywhere and Twitter is doing their Twitter spaces trying to compete with Clubhouse Instagram has announced that it might do a live room with audio type thing so this live audio thing is happening you know it's it's very popular but there's some serious privacy concerns when it comes to clubhouse friend of the show 1810 he actually wrote an article for Inc outlying the different things that Clubhouse does that are pretty shady so if you are interested in getting involved in clubhouse or signing up for it again you need an invite still it's not a public open thing you need an invite but what's Shady about Clubhouse is if you get an invite and you get in the app you create your account if you want to send an invite to someone else you are required to give Clubhouse access to your contacts the contacts thing someone actually sniffed this out I believe actually it might have been one of the TP guys they're only collecting phone numbers and names but still not great Clubhouse doesn't have to actually do this in order to connect people to each other apparently they could just they could collect the same contact data hash the phone number and then connect people but they're collecting the plain phone number information and storing it that way which isn't great yes it's a privacy concern from a startup standpoint it's a great strategy because when you go into Clubhouse Clubhouse tells you look at all these people you know that have signed up and because they know the phone numers in your contacts they know that you know this person and this person signed up with that phone number so it's Shady there but in addition to the whole contact sharing and them getting the phone numbers from your contacts Clubhouse is also recording the audio in the different rooms they say that they don't keep the audio but if there's ever a report about something happening in a room that's inappropriate for investigative purposes they will keep the recording from that room so that's a little weird that wasn't that's not expressly surfaced when you sign up for Clubhouse you also can delete information that other people have shared about you again like your phone number so if Wes is in my contacts and I allow Clubhouse access to my contacts they have Wes's info Wes never gave permission to share his contact info but now Clubhouse has it again a little shady you can't delete your account directly you have to contact Clubhouse and also they're doing some tracking stuff with all that all that to say if you want to try Clubhouse understand there are some privacy and security implications but overall let me ask you Wes have you tried Clubhouse have you been in there I I haven't yet um I'm interested I just I don't like the the privacy concerns I from what I understand it's pretty simple for them to fix and they just haven't yet startup mentality or not it's not okay we don't need another Facebook running around but everything I've heard about it it's either depending on who you talk to it's either a train wreck that doesn't make sense or it's the coolest coolest thing that's ever happened to the internet um I just think it's a bunch of phone calls but uh it's a group group phone chats yeah for me you know I'm like oh right Clubhouse is a thing let me see what's going on and when I open the app nine times out of 10 there is not something that I'm interested happening right then like there's just not a room that speaks to my interests and I have seen some people say hey we scheduled a clubhouse thing it's going to come out at this point the allc consuming podcast with Adam lore and Noah Kina they do like this post episode thing on clubhouse so the episode comes out Monday morning they do a clubhouse in the evening and you know invite anybody who can come that's a cool idea but I feel like I still prefer podcasts because I can listen to it whenever I want and I want to listen to the whole thing the live nature of it is interesting right I don't know how I feel about it because you can't rewind it's not you can't go back and listen to what someone just said you either hear it or you miss it and it's gone forever well it's in clubhouse servers but we're not going to talk about that temporarily yeah and it's one of those things where you you mentioned ATP like they live stream their recording they they use you know proprietary streaming you can just listen to the audio and that's that technology has been around forever but then you can actually download the ATP podcast later and unfortunately unless the people in clubhouse record themselves talking during the live room there's not a way to like make a podcast out of that conversation later and I feel like for it to really have wider appeal like there's been some conversations I'd be curious to know what they talked about but there's there's no recording of it and there's no like Clubhouse archive or you know Clubhouse you know follow the this podcast in clubhouse and I let me be clear I don't want Clubhouse to become a podcast hosting distribution service like Spotify or something don't want that not saying that but I just found it for me I don't see things readily that I care for when I first open the app the few scheduled events has not been you know I've not been able to make it or really hear it so not appealing to me just yet but you know listeners I did send out some invites last time until I ran out so I'd be curious how your guys experience has been if you think this is great or if you found rooms that you really like I'd be curious to know your experience yeah you you William and I should get on a clubhouse and argue over who's going to buy William an iPad that would be great listen I I'm up for it I want to try it I've not done like a broadcasted room but maybe we should try it and we can we can let our our Twitter people know this episode is brought to you by expressvpn there are a ton of VPN providers out there and you've probably heard of a couple of them and some you may have even used as a VPN before but I do my research on my sponsors and I only recommend Brands to listeners that I believe in and that I've also personally used and I can say with full confidence that expressvpn is the best VPN on the market here's why expressvpn doesn't log your data lots of other cheaper free vpns will make money by selling your data to ad companies and expressvpn never does that they have a technology called trusted server that makes it impossible for their servers to log any of your info second of all is speed I've tried multiple vpns in the past and some of them slow down your connection maybe you can't even stream video using that VPN but I've been using expressvpn for several years now and my internet speeds are blazing fast regardless of what device I'm using expressvpn on and I can stream HD quality videos with zero lag what also sets expressvpn apart from the other vpns is how easy it is to use unlike other vpns you don't have to input or program anything there's no profile to install you just fire up the app click one button to connect it's so easy even your grandparents could do it and it's not just me saying this wired The Verge CNET and many other Tech experts rate expressvpn the number one in the world so protect yourself with the VPN that I use and Trust personally use our link expressvpn.com apppp inssider today and get an extra 3 months for free on a one-year package that's expressvpn.com slapple inssider visit expressvpn.com slapple inssider to learn more our thanks to expressvpn for sponsoring this episode all right well a couple linning round things here at the end I have to mention this peak design I use the peak design everyday backpack Peak design makes great products for backpacks bags different kinds of things like that especially for photographers and tech people and Peak design did this incredible thing where they called out Amazon because Amazon released an Amazon Basics product this is Amazon's own brand called the everyday sling and it is a very very clear knockoff of the peak design everyday sling and so Peak design made an entire video calling them out doing this hilarious roleplaying thing as if they were like the Amazon product developers and they just killed it and also it is so slimy that Amazon does this I've seen this happen multiple times the away away suitcase brand ran into this several years ago where Amazon basically released an Amazon Basics suitcase that looked just like away but a lot cheaper they did here with the sling bag from Peak design and again other companies have seen this where companies sell their products on Amazon and then all of a sudden Amazon comes out with an Amazon Basics product that looks like it not up to the Quality that Peak design or away is doing but looks just like it and it is just slimy from Amazon's perspective Peak design has really been hammering them on Twitter like mentioning Jeff Bezos and all this kind of stuff but I will put a link to the YouTube video in show notes because it is just hilarious and kudos to Peak design for for calling them out yeah it's it's a really funny video but you want to talk about regulating antitrust or whatever this is this is the perfect example if I go on Amazon right now and search Peak design what am I going to see you know right Amazon recommended Amazon Basics Peak design for whatever $20 ex and right under it Peak design bag for hund and some dollar well I'm not going to buy that that's crazy you know exactly completely insane all right so someone made an iMac you put this in the notes and it is hilarious it's an iMac turducken which is basically an M1 Mac Mini and this YouTuber Luke meani he took the motherboard from an M1 Mac Mini shoved it into a 2011 old iMac Jerry rigged the display cable with an HDMI to display connector adapter and now basically has an M1 inside of an old iMac it's kind of hilarious West had the article I'll put a link in show notes but I kind of wish he would have done it with like a 4K or 5K iMac I feel like that would have been a better computer but he did it with a 2011 and it it is a ducking for sure I think the space requirements is why he well that and he just happened to have a 2011 lying around but I mean we're still talking about fitting an entire motherboard inside of a casing and the 21in and 27in IMAX that are sold today are much smaller than the 2011 iMac right for sure all right well Ted lasso actually won a Golden Globe award it's the Apple TV plus original show Jason sedus he won the best performance by an actor in a television series for his performance as Ted lasso and I would just say welld deserved and it's pretty cool to see Apple TV plus pretty new service new Streaming new content already won a Golden Globe so pretty cool and last thing before one listener feedback I don't know if you saw this Wes but there is circling around the internet and Tik Tok I think it came from Tik Tok originally but a Tom Cruz deep fake video and if you don't know listener what a deep fake video is it's someone basically an actor that looks close to the actor they're trying to portray so some person that looks a little bit like Tom Cruz and then using computer graphics and Engineering making the actor look just like Tom Cruz it is a scarily accurate portrayal of what like Tom Cruz like it really looks like Tom Cruz in this deep fake video all the implications we don't have time to get into about like the future of video and truth and all this stuff but it is a wild video and I recommend listeners check out the Tweet Link in show notes if you want to watch it the the biggest problem with these videos is the actor uh portraying Tom Cruz is Much Too Tall they need uh they need someone a little bit shorter but he does get Tom Cruz's mannerisms pretty spoton oh it's great yeah whatever yeah whatever this guy Impressions or whatever cuz the Deep fakes I think there might be an audio component am I am I correct so there's I think they do try to make the voice yeah modulation there but yeah he he does a really good job with the mannerisms and everything too yeah it's pretty wild the last thing I want to mention I actually had a listener Christopher email me I talked about the weird iPhone 11 mag safe case which wasn't really an iPhone 11 case at all cuz I was trying to get magsafe capabilities to my wife's iPhone 11 and he sent me this product this is by mag easy it is called a MAG DOA or mag DOA m a d o k I'll put a link in show notes but it's this $25 Puck that will adhes to the back of an iPhone or even the case of an iPhone and it'll basically then line up your iPhone with a MAG safe charger and it will stick to it cuz it's the mag docka little puck thing that you stick to the back of your case has the magnet on it and then if you want to use a MAG saave charger or a MAG saave Duo charger and your phone lines up correctly it seems like this would work you do have to stick this thing on the back of your phone it's 2 mm thin so it is pretty thin but you will have this Puck looking thing on the back of your phone so it's not exactly a clean look but this is the closest thing that I have found to adding mag saave to older phones so thanks Christopher for pointing that out that's pretty interesting well listeners thanks for joining us this week don't forget tweet at Wes and myself let us know what you think about Clubhouse the iPhone rumors and anything else we'd love to hear from you you can also email me that is in show notes don't forget to check out homid Insider that podcast comes out every Monday about smart home and homekit devices Apple Insider daily get the top headlines in just a few minutes every day in just a few minutes and if you haven't yet we'd greatly appreciate a fstar rating and review in apple podcast there's been several of you doing that every week and we greatly appreciate it thanks for joining us this week we'll catch you next timewelcome to the Apple Insider podcast this episode is brought to you by J learn more about jam and Apple device management at J that's J mf. iapple Insider and startmail start securing your email privacy today at startmail.com and Helix sleep get up to $200 off a new mattress and two free pillows at Helix sleep.com appleinsider and expressvpn get three extra months for free when you go to expressvpn.com slapple Insider welcome to the Apple Insider podcast this is your host Steven Robles and joining me this week my friend Wes Hillyard how's it going Wes it's pretty good Stephen just listening to the dogs bark I know listen podcasting I'm telling you there there's always noise it's one of those uh you know you bring an umbrella it doesn't rain you don't bring it and it rains if you try to podcast there's going to be some noise as long as an airplane uh engine doesn't fall into my front yard I'll be okay man I saw that this is totally not in the notes are related but I saw the clip I think it was a United flight where the engine like blew up I think so not a not something you want to happen on any a given day but anyway let's cover some rumors man because mingi quo dropped years of rumors literally dropped rumors about the iPhone quote 13 14 and 15 basically saying the road map through 2023 your little details here and there for each line so we're going to go through them and see what's coming Ming quo does one of these reports every year he kind of just outlines everything he possibly knows onto a document kind of just proceeds every month to update that document as he goes this is kind of the basis for a lot of the rumors every year but this time I guess yeah he he kind of went wild and just went three years into the future he did including SE models possible folding phones so let's go through a year by year I'll hit the high level probably the most interesting stuff encourage you to check out the article I'll link to it in the show notes if you want to read all the details but talking about the iPhone 13 which would be the 2021 model so whatever's coming out this September you know we're about six seven months away from that the iPhone 13 you know I'm curious do you think it's going to be 13 or 12s you know interesting we went from 11 to 12 no 11s and are we done with s's or we think we're going to have like whole numbers from now on what do you think well it's definitely strange because Apple's kind of Hit and Miss on the S Cycles lately they skipped the 7s and went straight to 8 and 10 then we had the 10s yeah so here we are again at a junk sure where it could be couldn't be maybe 13 is just a weird number Mike worle and I uh we argue over this how culturally important the number 13 might be there was an iPhone 4 and that's terrible in China so 13 being superstitious in the United States and other you know countries it's has a significance but I still don't think it's significant enough to just skip the number 13 I don't think so the only number we've skipped so far is nine cuz we had six we had seven we had eight and then 10 Roman numeral and then 11 Arabic numeral so we we missed nine but that was the only one we've skipped in the history of iPhone Samsung did the thing where suddenly went to 20 um and uh well that's mostly because they just aligned with the years I don't think we realized that at first we it's why 20 what in the world but yeah they're just doing the year thing now Apple could do something similar where there it's like here's the 2021 iPhone and just go from there I personally would like that better than an arbitrary number or letter but we'll see and you know I've heard other Apple podcasts talk about this like in other l like MacBooks and even iPads there's not really a numeral denomination besides the year you know it's the 2020 iPad Pro the 2018 iPad pro it'll be the 2020 you know MacBook Pro or late 2020 and so when or if the iPhone will go that way and what I've heard the argument and I and I understand it is from a marketing perspective the iPhone is obviously the biggest seller that Apple has you know it's their biggest product the fact that they release one every year they kind of need people to quickly be able to say what the newest one is and be able to kind of distinguish okay what number are we on like what is the newest model and saying the year you know the year would get old pretty quickly the iPhone 12 right now would be the iPhone late 2020 model and that sounds old so I feel like it it would have to be a long time before Apple goes to like a year denomination to separate iPhones and I also think with the S cycle because people like Samsung and other phone makers are kind of just using the whole numbers and getting really high like you know the S21 Ultra I think that the whole number change might be why you know Apple might do that from a marketing perspective so it's just clearly the next model there's no 12 12s it's just 12 13 14 it might be about time they do that what if uh Apple does the car thing and just says here's the 2022 iPhone in in this year ahead of year oh that that is true I mean cuz it is basically for the coming year you know most people who get an iPhone you know don't get it on day one so they would be getting it in the 2021 year so yeah maybe but then also when it comes to selling older models at a cheaper price or you if they keeping something like the iPhone I think I mean the 11 is still in the lineup now you can still buy it directly from Apple do would they want people to have to say oh give me the 20 19 iPhone or the 2020 iPhone that's why I feel like with the I think we're a long way from going to a year designation I think it's going to be whole numbers names are hard in the space I mean Macs and iPads they're delineated by their screen size and I I don't think customers are going to the store and saying like a year name I think they're just saying I want the newest one with this size and that's about it that's true iPhone I guess yeah you're right like it being just a pure marketing scheme uh it falls into being able to say very quickly and easily this is the the phone I want and it's the one that came out this year Honestly though speaking to some non-tech people some people don't even realize what phone they have I think it's the six maybe the seven I don't know that is true maybe even then it's just completely broken I mean as long as it's the iPhone I think no one really cares me personally I would love to see an iPhone iPhone Pro and no number and that's it and just you know us nerds can describe it by year but everyone else just isn't going to Care well let's talk about the actual rumors so mink quo said iPhone 13 whatever model that is called coming out September 2021 September October fall 2021 that it'll finally get the promotion 120 HZ display which has been rumored many times before the iPad Pro already has it so that seems expected and an upgraded six-piece ultrawide camera so the ultrawide camera would get a big update this year not much else but that's the iPhone 13 then he also said an iPhone SE an updated model will come out in the first half of 20 22 so that'd be basically a year from now it would come out with a new iPhone SE and I think correct me if I'm wrong Wes but this this iPhone SE would be face ID style iPhone no longer the touch ID style I think the design yes but I think uh we would still have Touch ID but in a side button oh okay nothing that's not something M quo said though you're calling it out yeah that's just an assumption I'm making based on how they handled the iPad um air oh I just don't I don't don't see unless face ID really is just that cheap by that point I mean it could be uh very easily as we get into more of these quot rumors we're talking about face ID coming down the line adding more technology like more biometric recognition and stuff like touch ID under the display and stuff so maybe face ID just becomes the budget model right right well moving forward to the iPhone quote 14 which would be the 2022 Flagship model he's saying that it'll go to a punch hole display design rather than a notch now we've seen some Android phones have this already where there's no Notch there's no bar at the top but it's actually just a small hole for the front-facing camera so we could see that iPhone 14 in 2022 and then M quo also says possible foldable phone if Apple can get the manufacturing going and it can actually be you know a profitable business and actually could sell 2023 we might see something like that for a foldable iPhone again I I I find a foldable iPhone still hard to believe but possible and also that the flagship iPhone that comes that year 2023 so we're talking 2 years from this fall that it may have an underd display fingerprint sensor and a periscope telephoto camera may be used and again this is very far out so reliability not sure but this is minki quote and he's saying it you know I think the punch hole style camera possible but I almost feel like there were some renders of the iPhone 14 or whatever circling around online and it was basically a notchless iPhone and obviously that's the goal you know I'm sure apple is trying to get to that notchless punch holess front display you know with just totally edgo Edge display surely that's the goal so I imagine Maybe by 20123 we could see something like that the punch hole design I I hate it I I absolutely despise it but um people people talk about the notch getting in the way or whatever of content but you're talking about a hole centered in the screen or on the side left or right side where the content is I mean the notch at least is is above it out of the way you know so that that's how I view it if video is a aspect ratio wide enough it could enter into the punch hole I don't want a punch hole in my videos so the the design that part I'm not sure where that's coming from this is again a supply chain analyst so he's looking at what like Samsung and other companies are doing maybe Samsung's ramping up the creation of those displays and he's just inferring who knows but I just don't see apple doing it for one reason uh marketing again Apple uses the front face of the iPhone and its marketing images like designs and icons and that Notch cutout or previously the touch ID uh button was what said this is an iPhone what happens when the front display of iPhone looks identical to an Android phone what is Apple going to do then that's true and I agree I don't see a punch hole coming to an iPhone I feel like it would be weird block certain content the only thing I've ever seen a punch hole display be used for that was cool was someone did a Baymax wallpaper and made one of the punch holes of Baymax eye that was it that was the coolest thing yeah that's funny well I I mean I've seen people make uh you know Burton Ernie the The Bert wallpaper with the eyebrow with a notch that's pretty fun too that was funny this episode is brought to you by J now I'm so excited that J has come on because I have personally used J in a corporate setting for five plus years J is an incredible tool to remotely manage Apple devices from Macs to iPads to iPhones if you work in it or you're in charge of Apple devices across a team whether it's a small team with just a few devices or many I've personally managed 50 plus devices using J and it is an incredible I think the best tool for managing Apple devices from an IT standpoint you know all the companies Apple Microsoft and Google have unique workflows to provision encrypt and deploy Enterprise technology that's why the idea of some unified endpoint management system has not worked successfully but as Apple devices continue to grow organizations doing bring your own devices so people are bringing their iPhones and iPads to work the need to provide Apple dedicated tools for it and security has never been greater J is the only Apple Enterprise management solution that covers everything you need to connect manage and secure Apple devices for your organization without negatively impacting the nuser experience or requiring an IT department to even touch the device and that's important Sometimes some provisioning softwares and other companies that end user gets a worse experience maybe some profiles doing something in the background slowing down your device and that never happens with J my experience using it across devices Macs iPads and iPhones the end user has an incredible experience and the management tools on the admin side are second to none you can deploy a shrink wrapped Apple device straight from the factory to your staff you can just ship it to them wherever they are and when it arrives they unbox it power it on and get right to work and the set and profiles that you've set up in Jam automatically get applied J makes access to business critical applications a seamless experience with single username and password just imagine the reduction in password resets for your it team finally While most security tools are created with Windows in mind you can be assured J's sole focus is on protecting your Macs and Apple devices and with a history of same day support for Apple OS releases your devices will be secure no matter when your users update more than 40, th organizations rely on Jam to keep devices connected up to-date and secure while ensuring users have the resources they need and the worldclass Apple experience they know love and expect I've been using Jam for years way before they ever thought about sponsoring this episode and it is an incredible tool for device management I highly recommend you try it out for Apple Insider listeners unlock the power of apple and J today with a free 14-day trial try it totally for free to get started go to J.I slapple Insider that's J mf. iapple Insider there's also a link in the show notes and in the article on the website again I highly recommend you check it out j./ Apple Insider our thanks to J for sponsoring this episode well some of the other rumors that were coming is that the iPhone will not get USBC basically ever but that if it goes to anything it would be a mag safe style Port Apple has this patent out there and there's an image I'll put it as the chapter art but it kind of shows a magsafe style connector like older mag safe that you we used to have on the MacBooks and MacBook Pros but this mag safe connector might connect to the iPhone rather than lightning but that USBC is not coming and then I also saw John procer he was tweeting about you know if USBC ever comes to the iPhone he'll shave his eyebrows off or something so it seems like everyone is agreed USBC not coming to the iPhone and that still makes me a little sad I really wish it had yeah prer and a few others have been saying this for a while it makes sense and Mingo he says that this is coming from the mfi program the made for iPhone program right Apple can't license USBC in any way so they would be going from a proprietary connector that they own and can charge money for to one that they can't license at all and I don't see that being a big sticking point for Apple I mean it can't be that much money that they're gaining from it but it is some money um so you know quo obviously goes that route but Apple also has been investigating this like SMART connector or mag safe technology for a while I mean we've been seeing patents since the iPhone 6 era for a SMART connector on an iPhone so yeah had to write I wrote uh the iPhone 14 like explainer uh over these past few days and uh it's it seems that Apple's tackling this from two different directions the portless iPhone either we're going to get no lightning port and just nothing they're just portless yanking that out of there and it's mag safe to charge or wireless charging and data transfer over Wireless and that's it that's all you get right and in that case it seems Apple wants to just avoid cables altogether if I guess Diagnostics need to be done there's been some investigation into hiding a port inside the SIM tray uh but that wouldn't be for you know users or anything that'd be just for technicians right and then the other route would be what you mentioned is the uh smart Connector route where we just slap a magnet on there and data and power can get through it at a reasonable rate yeah and I will say for all that I have been moaned USBC not coming to the iPhone I now have mag safe Chargers everywhere I use mag safe in my car I have the belon 3 in1 mag safe charger by my bed so I actually have not plugged a lightning cable into my iPhone for a while there's been like one time I needed a fast charge cuz I was only going to be near an outlet for a short amount of time so I needed a fast charge and that was the one time I broke out an anchor like 30 W fast charger with the USBC to lightning cable but that was was once in like the last 6 months so I'm living almost that portless life just doing mag safe and I I could see it working and I could see apple just not doing any kind of Port eventually you know maybe just on the Pro Models at first and then putting it throughout the line so to just go along with what quo was saying I think uh the best chain of events here for users even though it might not um sound great especially for power users is the completely portless not even a magnet connector version because that gives us the chance now you know early adopters like so maybe more techsavvy people in the next year to adopt mag safe everywhere right and then Apple goes portless no worries you already have everything you need to be have a portless iPhone versus oh here's the special new connector that isn't lightning that everyone has to buy now and then everyone screams at the top of their lungs on the internet like they usually do yeah okay a rumor that came out is that a magsafe battery that Apple will be releasing a first-party magsafe battery that would attach to the back of your iPhone and charge it ankor just announced theirs it's actually shipping this month I have one coming from Amazon so it's a battery pack you charge a vbc but when you want to charge your iPhone you just attach it to the back and mag safe keeps it on there so it's saying that Apple might be doing first party versions procer actually said on the podcast Genius Bar that Apple's working on two models kind of a premium version and a regular version of this mag safe battery pack and that the premium version might support reverse charging now I'm assuming that means you put it on the back of your iPhone then maybe you could put some airpods on top of it to charge those wirelessly I don't imagine reverse charging means that your iPhone could charge the battery pack I don't know why you would want to do that you want juice in your iPhone so I imagine that's what it means by reverse charging but looks like apple might be developing that yeah I'm definitely interested in this just like I think we mentioned previously there was another Maxi battery pack rumor when I was on last time I definitely want it whatever Apple makes here let me have it the only issue is is it's mag safe it gets hot you're going to be carrying it either in your hand or in your pocket and sure they're going to do thermal throttling to try and keep things cool but then your phone isn't charging as fast either so this isn't as optimized as say the Apple smart battery case but I'm still here for it and these third party Solutions just aren't getting it for me I'm I'm going to avoid those until Apple does something in the field yeah a couple other quick news and rumor things before we get to some bigger stories the iMac 21 1/2 in supply seems to be Ling seems that Apple has stopped producing the 512 gig and terabyte SSD configurations of the current 4K iMac pointing to the fact that that refreshed iMac we talked about it on last week's episode John Pro the renders that that iMac might be coming very soon maybe even this month we'll see but there's also a currently unavailable from Apple's website with some of those models also Apple released a tool that would actually allow users to move their iCloud photo library directly to Google photos I thought this was very interesting you can go to the icloud.com website and we'll put a link in the show notes kind of explaining the step by step but if you want to transfer your iCloud photo library to Google photos Apple has made a tool for you to do that it won't include certain pieces of media like live photos which is strange because by default iPhones take live photos so it might not transfer all of your pictures and videos it doesn't do like shared albums and stuff like that but if you have a lot of pictures in your iCloud photo library and you want to either a backup or you're thinking about transitioning to Android you can use this tool to move your library over it's just another protection I I don't think Apple would have ever released this in a world without regulation it's just another step from Apple saying hey look at what we did we made it easier for people to go to Android if they really want to or apple photos isn't as proprietary as it may have seen before but yeah it's just another move from Apple on that side of things then this last thing I want to point out before we get to some bigger stories is that Apple actually just released a Apple for kids support site and this is telling users how you can set up your devices using screen time parental controls how to set up a device from scratch for a child so some pretty good resources there if you're just getting into that world or you need kind of some step-by-step instructions it's a great page we'll put a link to the show notes in it one of the things that is notable I had not found a place where they explicitly said this but when it comes to Apple watch Apple released this kids setup or at least Apple watch setup from an iPhone like from a parent iPhone so a kid can use an Apple Watch without also having an iPhone themselves if you set up an Apple Watch in that way and I've done that my oldest son we got him an Apple Watch SC for Christmas and he uses that but he does not have all the apps and features that an Apple Watch has when you traditionally set it up paired to your personal iPhone and on this Apple for kids support website if you click the watch information it tells you what apps are not available to certain ages I didn't realize if your child is 13 or 18 there will be different apps and features available when you set up an Apple Watch in this way but the apps that are not available and my kid doesn't have any of these on his Apple watch SE is irregular heart rhythm notifications ECG is not available uh cycle tracking sleep blood oxygen and thing even things like podcast the remote app news home and shortcuts now some of those maybe I could understand things like home is strange because my child has an iPad and we just set them up with the home app so they can control some home devic and we can do the intercom and it actually goes to their devices so it seems strange that like home and shortcuts aren't there but the sleep thing was one of the big things cuz we wanted my son to be able to track his sleep and it's unfortunate that you cannot track sleep when you have an Apple Watch set up for kids that's not connected to an iPhone directly if it's set up parent iPhone to kid Apple watch there is no sleep tracking available in addition to the other things I mentioned so what if you download something like sleep Plus+ can he track his sleep with that no there's actually a lot of apps in the app store cuz he has the App Store on the Apple watch SE and he can download apps directly but many apps like not just a few but there are actually many apps that throw up a warning that says this app requires an iPhone wow and he is not able to download it so like sleep plus plus there's a lot of games that are like this which seems strange because you know most of these games are either made for watch or don't really have an iPhone counterpart he can't download it all because he doesn't have an iPhone paired with it I believe this has this has everything to do with the children's protection online or whatever it might have a lot to do with that I mean it's still a little weird that you can't do sleep tracking or podcasts right yeah there there there are a lot of rules surrounding children under the age of 13 they literally cannot have certain accounts according to law now they make them anyway I mean a lot of kids under 13 are probably on Twitter they shouldn't be but Apple just I think covering their butts here uh regulatory wise shortcuts maybe it's you can download you know third party you know non-apple short cuts and stuff and home who knows that maybe the cameras maybe it's just a prevention from getting the kids uh the ability to play with the light switches who knows but having no ability to as a parent to toggle these on and off is a little strange I I can see what Apple's doing here cuz also in like screen time settings in their iPad I can disable or enable apps like podcasts news Safar and so the apps disappear from their device or I can enable it and I can even do that remotely from my iPhone I can adjust their screen time settings over the iCloud so it is weird that at least I don't you know I don't even get the option because the Apple watch that he has tracks all the normal Fitness stuff you know he can do workouts it tracks calories and movement minutes and basically when you track sleep it's really just looking at heart information and movement so it doesn't make sense why you couldn't track sleep directly on the watch or at least have an iPad that you can maybe connect it to so it's unfortunate I hope Apple does update that soon to give more of that functionality to kids Apple definitely a first generation product oh yeah for sure and first generation like software feature like this just came out you know this past fall for sure this episode is brought to you by startmail as you probably know free email services like Gmail and Yahoo they're not really free you actually pay by giving your data to these big tech companies and they have access to every email you send and receive and once they have that information in your emails from both what you send and receive they can sell that data to the highest bidder if you send sensitive information through Gmail or Yahoo email things like business plans or medical records maybe even you're sending your social security info I know it's tax time and you might be tempted to send some of that tax information to your accountant via email but all that sensitive information is now in the hands of people like Google and Yahoo and they can sell that data and then Target you with intrusive ads maybe even open you up to identity theft and fishing attacks that's why I trust start mail to secure my personal and business email it helps me feel safe safe again and know that my data is not being sold to those big tech companies start mail keeps my email private period every email is encrypted even if the recipient doesn't use encryption which means big Tech can't read scan analyze or sell my personal information ever startmail also prevents government agencies from spying on you and with startmail deleted means deleted when you delete an email it is gone forever startmail uses their own servers not Amazon like many other cloud service companies which means they can't be put out of business like other companies that got shut down when Amazon shut down their Amazon web services looking at you parlor startmail is also backed by the most stringent privacy laws in the world you get unlimited Anonymous aliases which means you can create Alias emails just for giving a specific business that you know you're going to be getting spam email from create as many Alias as you want and use those aliases and give those out when you sign up for things I set up start mail personally and it was an incredibly easy process and you can add all your devices you can add your start mail via IMAP to your iPhone your iPad your Mac and every device gets a unique login so if you ever need to shut down access from one of your devices you can do that right from the start mail website it's incredibly easy to use it's welld designed and I know that my email is secure so don't trust big tech companies with all your email data start securing your email privacy with startmail sign up today and you can get 50% off your first year that is a whole half off that first year just go to startmail.com AI just the letters AI That's startmail with a t stt mail.com AI for 50% off your first year startmail.com our thanks to startmail for sponsoring this episode so I wanted to touch on this story we covered it on Apple Insider but there was a gentleman on Twitter his name is Dustin Curtis and he tweeted saying that that he forgot to update his Apple card autopay and that caused him to miss an apple card payment and because of that Apple disabled his Apple ID now that was like the essence of the Tweet but as we've done research and the Apple Insider staff and you actually have the the full article so I might let you explain a little bit more of it but there was basically a long series of events from purchasing a new Mac to failing to send in the tradein to not updating Bank information a lot of steps in this story that caused Dustin Curtis to have his Apple ID locked and it wasn't just as simple as you missed an apple card payment and apple locks your Apple ID that is actually not the case so maybe you could tell our listeners a little bit about this okay so a little background I first noticed this as it was happening on March 1st and we decided to ignore it just keep an eye on it because it didn't seem like it should be a story that means anything it didn't make sense the Apple card isn't connected to your Apple ID the two can't really be intertwined legally Apple doesn't have any documentation stating that they're even legally able to operate they're they're two different companies uh Apple cards run by Goldman Sachs and Apple's got some participation in it but they're not legally attached to it in that way and Apple ID of course is run by Apple so having your Apple card payments disable your Apple ID not only is it sound wrong it sounds dystopian it you know you get go into debt into apple and suddenly you can't iMessage your friend you know it's right right it gets a little crazy so at first glance this just seemed wild did some research into it and it's actually very difficult to find documentation surrounding these things cuz I guess we were trying to prove a neg a negative rather than trying to prove something that we uh know is factual so long story short this guy the truth of the matter is purchased an M1 MacBook Pro through Apple's installment program and this installment program allows you to make payments over time in order to pay for the MacBook you can do this via apple cart or other payment options I wasn't aware of that I originally thought the payment program was just Apple card but it seems that you can do it on other payment options as well anyway he also traded in or offered to trade in a MacBook Pro and I believe in this you know world where everything's done over online you know pandemic can't really go into an Apple Store Apple's changed some of their policies surrounding this so cuz I've had a lot of people ask this question well if it was a tradein how did he get credit for it so Apple's been doing this thing with the apple tradein called instant credit where he offers a machine describes it and gives its condition to Apple and apple offers an amount to purchase it for to for the tradein and they apply it directly to your payment plan for the new Macbook Pro and that's an agreement you sign it legally saying that this is how this is going to go Apple in the trade in policy describes it once we receive the device we're going to eval it and if it is up to the condition that you described nothing happens you've already you're already paying your payments everything's been decided we're good to go but if Apple decides that it is in worse wear and changes the value of the product then they apply a charge to your account to make up the difference that's that's the whole process right well Dustin Curtis I guess he received his MacBook Pro and then forgot that he did a trade-in policy and claims that Apple never sent him the tradein kit which is plausible Apple may have stumbled there or the mailing system just lost it who knows all we know is he never got his trading kit and then he missed subsequent emails phone calls from Apple and simultaneously to compound the issue he had also changed his banking information in January causing his Apple card payments to stop he was completely unaware of not turning in the MacBook Pro or the MacBook trade in and he was unaware of his MC of his Apple card payments not going through so ultimately by mid February his Apple ID payments had stopped he was no longer able to access the app store or iTunes and he was getting alerts saying that he needed to contact Apple support so he connected the dots in his head and and said oh my Apple card is delinquent therefore Apple disabled my Apple ID and that is not exactly what happened there right that's a jump in logic and apple had a statement you know we included it in our article basically the course of events that Wes just described Apple did not disable his Apple ID because of missed Apple card payments to be perfectly clear the reason why the Apple IDs um iTunes and App Store payment processings were stopped was solely because of the trade-in program right the program saw that he was delinquent and that he had not sent in the device and he had not been paying for the new device so like any Apple payment program or um iTunes any subscription even Apple will stop your um Apple ID payment processings from working until you either update your credit card information so payments can go through or you catch up on your current situation and he didn't either right and I will say I have not done a Mac tradein but I am on the Apple iPhone upgrade program where you do send in your old iPhone in the past two I think three years I've done where it ships the new iPhone to my house it comes on launch day they do great at that and then the trade-in kit comes a couple days later and I send my old iPhone back to Apple now because it deals with a citizen's one like installment loan it's basically like a 0% interest loan there's nothing going to a credit card and there's no payment from a bank account and so what happens is once they receive my old iPhone the old citizens One loan gets like cancelled or closed out I get an email saying your loan is ended or it's been closed because we received your tradein you're good to go enjoy the new phone and the payments continue for the new phone but I will say there has been a few years where I will send back the trade in and it you know comes in a nice box they Apple gives you everything you need to send it back and even the little sticker tapes to close the cardboard box and I've sent it back and tracked it cuz I'm like I want to make sure this thing gets back to Apple and there was one year where my tracking number suddenly just kind of stopped working it never said delivered and it said it was still like somewhere not sure where and I was getting a little nervous cuz I was like if this thing gets lost in the mail like what happens then like I'm not really sure what happens listeners if you ever had an experience where a tradein got lost in the mail I'd be curious how Apple handles that but thankfully like a week later I got an email saying hey we got your old iPhone your loan is canceled and I was like oh great you know so whatever that happened with the tracking numbers it just stop tracking it you know that happens especially we ship a lot of stuff in America so I I get it but there is like that sense of like unease where is this trade in going to make it and especially if you're doing a tradein with a MacBook Pro you might be dealing with a larger ticket item pre pandemic I usually preferred to go to a store especially with the iPhone or if I was trading in anything because you could just hand them your device if you go to the Apple store to pick up your new iPhone even on launch day you literally just hand them your old iPhone and the tradein process happens all in store you don't have to mail anything away so it's nice to know it's like in Apple's hands and they mark it as received and you see it go into the back of the store but the tradein at least in my experience has worked well every time listeners I love to hear if you ever have an issue with this yeah I'll I'll note that uh listeners i' I've been through the reddits and twitters and seen every side angled comment on This I Promise You we've we've done our research go read the trade and policy it's terrible but it describes it in detail exactly what happened to poor Mr Curtis if you want a little side tangent here speaking of male getting lost I've done iPhone tradein programs um while in the military and you can imagine now this was uh through the carrier not Apple itself but same concept um mailing your phone and I remember getting a call from Verizon returning from what we called underways it wasn't a deployment but you were out at sea for maybe a a few weeks if not a month or more sometimes you'll get mail while you're out to see and the way they get the mail on the ship is by connecting it to a cable underneath a helicopter and dragging a pallet of objects across to the boat or even better two ships get side by side and they connect a like cabling system between them and just slide the pallet across via a hook oh my word and let me tell you on deployment 2014 the shiny new PlayStation 4s were arriving to the carrier and I'm pretty sure an entire crate of PlayStations ended up in the ocean so yes uh male can disappear from time to time be it in the ocean or you know the usual but I've had a few times with Verizon applying $67 $800 to my account because my phone showed up two or 3 days after they were expecting it and then they just credit it back to my account no big deal wow that is stress I can't imagine I can't imagine I've helped with those um Maneuvers where we get a bunch of packages from another ship and yeah it's it's pretty terrifying seeing just boxes it's a big crate wrapped in plastic floating over the ocean for about two a minute and a half coming to and it's just oh wow man okay that's unique this episode is brought to you by Helix Sleep listen I know some of you are sleeping on some old saggy mattress at night and you deserve better getting a good night's rest is so conducive to actually being productive the next day working in Creative Fields just being able to focus as you're working and to get a good night's sleep you need a great mattress and most mattresses they're kind of generic you either buy a size and maybe get a foam top or whatever but why not get a mattress that's actually made specifically for your body type and how you sleep that's the difference with Helix mattresses Helix sleep has a quiz that takes just 2 minutes to complete and matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you everybody's unique Helix knows that so they have several different mattress models to choose from they have soft medium and firm mattresses mattress is great for cooling you down if you sleep hot that's me even a helix plus mattress for plus-sized folks so I took the Helix quiz you give it your height your weight whether you're a side sleeper or back sleeper I personally sleep on my side and I wanted a medium mattress not soft not firm just kind of right in the middle like Goldilocks you know what I'm saying and once I told Helix how I sleep and my body type they actually recommended the Helix Plus for me and I have to say the kind of sleep that I have gotten on the Helix mattress beats any other mattress I've tried and I've done other internet mattresses before and the Helix mattress is the best so if you're looking for a mattress take the quiz you order the mattress that you're matched to and the mattress comes right to your door it's shipped for free you don't ever 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 so go to Helix sleep.com slapple inssider take their 2-minute sleep quiz and they'll match you to a customized mattress and you can get the best sleep of your life and they also have a 10-year warranty and you can try it out for 100 nights risk-free they'll even pick it up for you you if you don't love it but I know that you will Helix is offering up to $200 off all mattress orders and two free pillow for our listeners just go to helixsleep.com slapple Insider that's h e liix sleep.com slapple inssider to get up to $200 off your mattress order and two free pillows our thanks to Helix sleep for sponsoring this episode well I wanted to touch on an Apple Store experience I actually brought Max in for a Genius Bar appointment first time in a while and I won't go into great detail I'll put a link in the show notes if you'd like to read it I took some pictures as I was at the Apple Store this was a Apple Store in a mall this is Brandon Town Center mall in Central Florida and going to an Apple store is just a very different experience you know if you went to an Apple Store pre pandemic it was tons of people and you can go up and just try any device type on the laptops hold an iPhone if you wanted to and it was nice especially if you were in the market for a new iPhone and maybe you want to know how big does the iPhone 12 mini fit in my hand and no picture can really communicate that to you but you don't get those kinds of experiences now you know if you want to go to the Apple Store you really you need an appointment I mean it is basically required even if you just want to shop for something they have personal shopping appointments they have Express pickup appointments so if you just want to buy something and pick it up you could do that and then they have the Genius Bar reservations there is lots and lots of plexiglass around the Apple Store and when I went they really relegated it to just four maybe five customers tops towards the front of the store on just a couple tables and every station where a customer was working with an apple representative it was totally encased in plexiglass the only opening between me and the representative was a small like mail slot basically at the bottom where I could slide the MacBooks in that needed repair the repairs are delayed there's like a factory in Texas because of the snow that has been slow and I had a MacBook Air with a faly space bar and that's kind of a delayed repair but they're doing their best and you know they're being very careful taking all the precautions but going to an Apple store is not the same kind of energy it used to have I'll just say that there's a lot of waiting too even if you have an appointment my appointment was like for 12:05 and I still waited in line till like 12:45 like it was I was in line for about 30 to 40 minutes with just three people ahead of me but because they're really spacing out those appointments and trying to address just four to five people at a time it is a it's a slow process so anyway I got pictures in there you could check it out in the show notes yeah I I've been to Brandon it's it's one of those outskirt towns that's basically Jacksonville right it's just another it's Tampa adjacent that's that's it Tampa I couldn't remember which big Florida City it was but yes it's basically the neighborhood outside of Tampa right that's exactly right yes yeah Brandon's cool Apple Store's opening in the pandemic it's it's interesting I remember last year when we were still saying Memorial day it'll be over it's fine we went and visited uh an Apple store after it reopened and it was all those lines and uh masks and everything and this experience sounds much different from that because yeah the plexiglass City just uh kind of wild yeah we also wrote I guess about the uh 270 Apple stores in the United States finally opening for the first time since March last year right all the Apple stores in the US are open and I will say depending on your Apple Store appointments might be a long way off for the Brandon Apple Store it was a week in advance I had to make an appointment and the earliest one they had was a week later there were some stores like the Tampa International Mall which is a much larger Apple Store had some earlier appointments but it was a little farther so you know if you are in need of a Genius Bar appointment especially uh you're going to have to wait for a little bit if you're doing Express pickup that has been very fast I mean while I was waiting in line for half an hour there was three or four people that came they said they had Express pickup they show their phone you get a little like apple wallet pass they bring out the Apple bag to you you don't even go in the store if you're doing Express pickup they bring the bag out to you and you just walk away so if you want to do Express pickup cuz you just want something today and it's not shipping fast enough the express pickup works pretty well it's really The Genius Bar and personal shopping that are more timec consuming events Apple says open but there are three versions of open right now right Cur curbside pickup which is not really open you can just buy things and they bring it out to you right um storefront or like you mentioned Express the storefront is you there's an Apple store with people waiting outside and you can kind of make a appointments or not The Express ones are funny and I don't know where they are but I've seen pictures of them and it's like plexiglass bench uh like a newspaper stand where where people hand you um Apple products out of a small window uh those are pretty funny looking if you haven't seen pictures of those there's somewhere in our site yes and then there's the fully open with you know man with Health Management which is what you encountered in Brandon got you can check your local Apple Store listings in like Apple Maps it'll tell you how open it is we have an Apple Store tracker on Apple Insider that's mostly up to date it's kind of hard to keep up with all 270 stores but it'll get you where you need to go I wanted to touch on clubhouse we've mentioned it before and I sent some invites to people then I ran out of invites and you know it's kind of the talk everywhere and Twitter is doing their Twitter spaces trying to compete with Clubhouse Instagram has announced that it might do a live room with audio type thing so this live audio thing is happening you know it's it's very popular but there's some serious privacy concerns when it comes to clubhouse friend of the show 1810 he actually wrote an article for Inc outlying the different things that Clubhouse does that are pretty shady so if you are interested in getting involved in clubhouse or signing up for it again you need an invite still it's not a public open thing you need an invite but what's Shady about Clubhouse is if you get an invite and you get in the app you create your account if you want to send an invite to someone else you are required to give Clubhouse access to your contacts the contacts thing someone actually sniffed this out I believe actually it might have been one of the TP guys they're only collecting phone numbers and names but still not great Clubhouse doesn't have to actually do this in order to connect people to each other apparently they could just they could collect the same contact data hash the phone number and then connect people but they're collecting the plain phone number information and storing it that way which isn't great yes it's a privacy concern from a startup standpoint it's a great strategy because when you go into Clubhouse Clubhouse tells you look at all these people you know that have signed up and because they know the phone numers in your contacts they know that you know this person and this person signed up with that phone number so it's Shady there but in addition to the whole contact sharing and them getting the phone numbers from your contacts Clubhouse is also recording the audio in the different rooms they say that they don't keep the audio but if there's ever a report about something happening in a room that's inappropriate for investigative purposes they will keep the recording from that room so that's a little weird that wasn't that's not expressly surfaced when you sign up for Clubhouse you also can delete information that other people have shared about you again like your phone number so if Wes is in my contacts and I allow Clubhouse access to my contacts they have Wes's info Wes never gave permission to share his contact info but now Clubhouse has it again a little shady you can't delete your account directly you have to contact Clubhouse and also they're doing some tracking stuff with all that all that to say if you want to try Clubhouse understand there are some privacy and security implications but overall let me ask you Wes have you tried Clubhouse have you been in there I I haven't yet um I'm interested I just I don't like the the privacy concerns I from what I understand it's pretty simple for them to fix and they just haven't yet startup mentality or not it's not okay we don't need another Facebook running around but everything I've heard about it it's either depending on who you talk to it's either a train wreck that doesn't make sense or it's the coolest coolest thing that's ever happened to the internet um I just think it's a bunch of phone calls but uh it's a group group phone chats yeah for me you know I'm like oh right Clubhouse is a thing let me see what's going on and when I open the app nine times out of 10 there is not something that I'm interested happening right then like there's just not a room that speaks to my interests and I have seen some people say hey we scheduled a clubhouse thing it's going to come out at this point the allc consuming podcast with Adam lore and Noah Kina they do like this post episode thing on clubhouse so the episode comes out Monday morning they do a clubhouse in the evening and you know invite anybody who can come that's a cool idea but I feel like I still prefer podcasts because I can listen to it whenever I want and I want to listen to the whole thing the live nature of it is interesting right I don't know how I feel about it because you can't rewind it's not you can't go back and listen to what someone just said you either hear it or you miss it and it's gone forever well it's in clubhouse servers but we're not going to talk about that temporarily yeah and it's one of those things where you you mentioned ATP like they live stream their recording they they use you know proprietary streaming you can just listen to the audio and that's that technology has been around forever but then you can actually download the ATP podcast later and unfortunately unless the people in clubhouse record themselves talking during the live room there's not a way to like make a podcast out of that conversation later and I feel like for it to really have wider appeal like there's been some conversations I'd be curious to know what they talked about but there's there's no recording of it and there's no like Clubhouse archive or you know Clubhouse you know follow the this podcast in clubhouse and I let me be clear I don't want Clubhouse to become a podcast hosting distribution service like Spotify or something don't want that not saying that but I just found it for me I don't see things readily that I care for when I first open the app the few scheduled events has not been you know I've not been able to make it or really hear it so not appealing to me just yet but you know listeners I did send out some invites last time until I ran out so I'd be curious how your guys experience has been if you think this is great or if you found rooms that you really like I'd be curious to know your experience yeah you you William and I should get on a clubhouse and argue over who's going to buy William an iPad that would be great listen I I'm up for it I want to try it I've not done like a broadcasted room but maybe we should try it and we can we can let our our Twitter people know this episode is brought to you by expressvpn there are a ton of VPN providers out there and you've probably heard of a couple of them and some you may have even used as a VPN before but I do my research on my sponsors and I only recommend Brands to listeners that I believe in and that I've also personally used and I can say with full confidence that expressvpn is the best VPN on the market here's why expressvpn doesn't log your data lots of other cheaper free vpns will make money by selling your data to ad companies and expressvpn never does that they have a technology called trusted server that makes it impossible for their servers to log any of your info second of all is speed I've tried multiple vpns in the past and some of them slow down your connection maybe you can't even stream video using that VPN but I've been using expressvpn for several years now and my internet speeds are blazing fast regardless of what device I'm using expressvpn on and I can stream HD quality videos with zero lag what also sets expressvpn apart from the other vpns is how easy it is to use unlike other vpns you don't have to input or program anything there's no profile to install you just fire up the app click one button to connect it's so easy even your grandparents could do it and it's not just me saying this wired The Verge CNET and many other Tech experts rate expressvpn the number one in the world so protect yourself with the VPN that I use and Trust personally use our link expressvpn.com apppp inssider today and get an extra 3 months for free on a one-year package that's expressvpn.com slapple inssider visit expressvpn.com slapple inssider to learn more our thanks to expressvpn for sponsoring this episode all right well a couple linning round things here at the end I have to mention this peak design I use the peak design everyday backpack Peak design makes great products for backpacks bags different kinds of things like that especially for photographers and tech people and Peak design did this incredible thing where they called out Amazon because Amazon released an Amazon Basics product this is Amazon's own brand called the everyday sling and it is a very very clear knockoff of the peak design everyday sling and so Peak design made an entire video calling them out doing this hilarious roleplaying thing as if they were like the Amazon product developers and they just killed it and also it is so slimy that Amazon does this I've seen this happen multiple times the away away suitcase brand ran into this several years ago where Amazon basically released an Amazon Basics suitcase that looked just like away but a lot cheaper they did here with the sling bag from Peak design and again other companies have seen this where companies sell their products on Amazon and then all of a sudden Amazon comes out with an Amazon Basics product that looks like it not up to the Quality that Peak design or away is doing but looks just like it and it is just slimy from Amazon's perspective Peak design has really been hammering them on Twitter like mentioning Jeff Bezos and all this kind of stuff but I will put a link to the YouTube video in show notes because it is just hilarious and kudos to Peak design for for calling them out yeah it's it's a really funny video but you want to talk about regulating antitrust or whatever this is this is the perfect example if I go on Amazon right now and search Peak design what am I going to see you know right Amazon recommended Amazon Basics Peak design for whatever $20 ex and right under it Peak design bag for hund and some dollar well I'm not going to buy that that's crazy you know exactly completely insane all right so someone made an iMac you put this in the notes and it is hilarious it's an iMac turducken which is basically an M1 Mac Mini and this YouTuber Luke meani he took the motherboard from an M1 Mac Mini shoved it into a 2011 old iMac Jerry rigged the display cable with an HDMI to display connector adapter and now basically has an M1 inside of an old iMac it's kind of hilarious West had the article I'll put a link in show notes but I kind of wish he would have done it with like a 4K or 5K iMac I feel like that would have been a better computer but he did it with a 2011 and it it is a ducking for sure I think the space requirements is why he well that and he just happened to have a 2011 lying around but I mean we're still talking about fitting an entire motherboard inside of a casing and the 21in and 27in IMAX that are sold today are much smaller than the 2011 iMac right for sure all right well Ted lasso actually won a Golden Globe award it's the Apple TV plus original show Jason sedus he won the best performance by an actor in a television series for his performance as Ted lasso and I would just say welld deserved and it's pretty cool to see Apple TV plus pretty new service new Streaming new content already won a Golden Globe so pretty cool and last thing before one listener feedback I don't know if you saw this Wes but there is circling around the internet and Tik Tok I think it came from Tik Tok originally but a Tom Cruz deep fake video and if you don't know listener what a deep fake video is it's someone basically an actor that looks close to the actor they're trying to portray so some person that looks a little bit like Tom Cruz and then using computer graphics and Engineering making the actor look just like Tom Cruz it is a scarily accurate portrayal of what like Tom Cruz like it really looks like Tom Cruz in this deep fake video all the implications we don't have time to get into about like the future of video and truth and all this stuff but it is a wild video and I recommend listeners check out the Tweet Link in show notes if you want to watch it the the biggest problem with these videos is the actor uh portraying Tom Cruz is Much Too Tall they need uh they need someone a little bit shorter but he does get Tom Cruz's mannerisms pretty spoton oh it's great yeah whatever yeah whatever this guy Impressions or whatever cuz the Deep fakes I think there might be an audio component am I am I correct so there's I think they do try to make the voice yeah modulation there but yeah he he does a really good job with the mannerisms and everything too yeah it's pretty wild the last thing I want to mention I actually had a listener Christopher email me I talked about the weird iPhone 11 mag safe case which wasn't really an iPhone 11 case at all cuz I was trying to get magsafe capabilities to my wife's iPhone 11 and he sent me this product this is by mag easy it is called a MAG DOA or mag DOA m a d o k I'll put a link in show notes but it's this $25 Puck that will adhes to the back of an iPhone or even the case of an iPhone and it'll basically then line up your iPhone with a MAG safe charger and it will stick to it cuz it's the mag docka little puck thing that you stick to the back of your case has the magnet on it and then if you want to use a MAG saave charger or a MAG saave Duo charger and your phone lines up correctly it seems like this would work you do have to stick this thing on the back of your phone it's 2 mm thin so it is pretty thin but you will have this Puck looking thing on the back of your phone so it's not exactly a clean look but this is the closest thing that I have found to adding mag saave to older phones so thanks Christopher for pointing that out that's pretty interesting well listeners thanks for joining us this week don't forget tweet at Wes and myself let us know what you think about Clubhouse the iPhone rumors and anything else we'd love to hear from you you can also email me that is in show notes don't forget to check out homid Insider that podcast comes out every Monday about smart home and homekit devices Apple Insider daily get the top headlines in just a few minutes every day in just a few minutes and if you haven't yet we'd greatly appreciate a fstar rating and review in apple podcast there's been several of you doing that every week and we greatly appreciate it thanks for joining us this week we'll catch you next time\n"