Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the IA cast. All right, we have a great conversation for you guys today. With me, I have Michael Babcock back.

Hello. It's been a little while, Michael. I think maybe last show.

Yeah.

Last show, I guess. Yeah, it's hard to we got so many people that come on, it's like.

So many moving parts.

Yes. And we have Marty back with us. Marty will be joining us shortly. And we also have I don't know if he's been on the show before.

But Damasi no first time here and glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

And you guys can hear Damasi on so many other podcasts, unmute Presents and Technically Working and so many other shows. And would you guys like to talk about Unmute and Technically Working and all of the other projects you guys are working on?

So I'll give a quick recap of what we've been doing with Unmute real quick, and then I'll hand it over to Demosty to explain what's going on with Technically Working. So as you hear this episode, you can get the latest Unmute Presents podcast live. Call in the podcast platform of choice. Democy would have just published some content talking about security and why you should be aware of what you're putting in the holes of your iPhone. And then on Sunday, you would have heard probably either Mac Whisper or Mac GPT, which means Michael's going to record something for Sunday, and I have no clue what's publishing. So go look at the podcast feed. Demo. What are we doing with technically working?

So, Technically Working is a show that we recently started. I think we're at six episodes. And the basic premise behind this show as it stands today is really for us to share our experiences as we're working through real life issues, mostly business related technology. There will be some personal stuff that will crop up in there as well. So just a good conversational, show, discussion, discussing the actual things we go through day to day and keeping ourselves accountable. Because if we talk about it on the show, then that means we ultimately have to do it or you're going to have to show up on the show and be like, well, I totally did not do that thing and nobody really wants to do that.

Makes for a very boring show.

All right. And they're all great shows. I mean, I listen to all of their shows. They're great. So if you guys are subscribed to the Iacast, but not to Unmute or Technically Working, you really should go and subscribe to these podcasts. They're fantastic. And that is not my pick for the day, so you have to stay tuned for that. And I believe last Sunday, Marty did a demo of the microphone that I'm on right now, the Sennheiser profile. So that was a fantastic demo. You should really go listen to that. I heard it and I went out and bought one probably that day.

That was the episode that was published on Unmute on April 16. And it is the Unmute presents the profile, and that is marty recorded that real quick and he likes that microphone. So do you, apparently.

Oh, I love it, I love it. And it might be my pick. You'll never know.

Well, you will if you listen to.

The end of the episode until you have to listen to the end to know what my pick is, because it could be a few things. So I guess let's go ahead and talk about the rapidly assembling news of SpaceX.

I thought you're going to say the rapidly assembling news of disassembling spaceships.

Well, that too. Yeah, exactly. I couldn't get the pun out that well, but you did, so congratulations. So today, this is April 20. SpaceX launched its super heavy rocket called Starship and it was supposed to go up and do a launch and then be able to fire, flip up and then eject the solid booster. It flipped but did not eject the booster. So it was, according to them, rapidly disassembled. In other words, it exploded.

Man, you got to love marketing people. It didn't explode, it was rapidly disassembled.

And when you look at the history books, they'll say the SpaceX ship was rapidly disassembled while people enjoyed 420 relaxing.

It was automated.

Yeah, it was automated.

I wonder if there's a failsafe, like if they know that it is not going according to plan. Does the ship itself just say, oh, boom, or does somebody press the button to rapidly disassemble the ship?

I don't know. I'm sure someone listening who is more into space would have an answer because I am not that into space and what's going on?

But, yeah, my assumption would be that I would build in a fail safe where I could push a button just in case things didn't go according to plan. But that's me. And I'm also paranoid. But I would think you would build that in because you can't always count on automated systems to do what you have automated them to do at the time you automated them to do it.

They did say that they planned for it to launch, get up in the air, and the hope was for it to do everything they wanted it to do, but it did not. So it was very interesting.

And didn't someone say something like, our goal was to get it off the runway so it met that goal or something off the launch pad? Yeah, off the launch pad. At least they know. And this was delayed by a couple of days, I think it was supposed to happen on Monday, so we'll see where that happens in the near future. And just for full transparency, because I wanted to verify this was an unmanned operation, so I don't believe there was any injuries or anything involved in that.

It comes back to technology. We always talk about technology. Space travel is a technology. So it's very interesting that we're trying towards these advancements, and it's just very interesting. I know that we there's not a lot of tech news this time. There is some rumors about some new Apple, about iOS and all those things for iOS 17 and all of those platforms. It's interesting because it seems like the biggest focus is going to be on the Watch and the Control Center. The Control Center really hasn't been updated that much since for a while. 2017, I believe. So what are your thoughts on that? Do you think that this is going to be a good thing? Or do you guys wish we were getting more or what are your thoughts?

So I haven't seen the rumors, but just a rumor being out there that they're going to be working on Control Center. I would like more customization in Control Center. I like the ability to put maybe some different apps there to launch besides what they give you by default, which I guess means they will have to introduce an API for developers to make their apps available there. But I would like to see more customization there for sure. And it's a little busy as well. So first thing I do now, I think the last time I set up a device, I had to take out the home integration in Control Center because it's just too much going on in here. So that is interesting to me that they're working on that. Hopefully because they're working on Control Center, some of those things will go across platforms to the Mac iPad as well as the phone. And of course, the Watch needs a lot of work, in my opinion.

That has me excited. Any improvement to the Watch would have me excited. Mallory has the Ultra and she really likes it. But I'm perfectly happy with the Six because of the interface with the Six, and I don't use it. I don't know, maybe because it's sluggish and not convenient to use. So I think watchOS needs some love, and I saw that and I'm like, maybe that'll make me excited about Apple Watch again.

Right?

Yeah. I want to see some more dynamic faces. The Siri Face was a really good idea when they introduced it, and it's like they just never followed through to complete building that out. So I would like to see something more like that or the dynamic island style thing where things surface as necessary. Give me a complication or two that I can put on a Watch face that will change according to what's going on. So Fantastic will show up when I have an event coming up, for example. But if I don't have an event coming up, I don't see a fantasy thing that says have a nice day, or have a number zero. Give me something else. Just don't show me weather or something like that. So hopefully we'll get something along those lines this year. I am at a point where I could and probably should update my watch when they release the newest watch, but I might not just because right now the primary use case for me is just this is a way for me to get those important notifications that I don't have to pull out my phone for.

Right. That's what I use mine for, too. I use it for health and fitness. I'm a huge user of the watch for that kind of stuff, and it's great for swimming or walking. I don't use it for a lot of things, but I think it's hard.

To be like you, Michael, when I grow up.

But one of the things that I really hope they fix is multiple sounds for notifications. I love the sounds that we have, but I want more. And that kind of gets onto my rant on the phone about people using silent notifications. I despise that. I do not like silent notifications. And there's a bunch of apps that do that. So YouTube does it. So you'll be doing something on your phone, your low vision, so you don't have to be looking up, you know, something's up there. You tap and all of a sudden a video is playing because it was a silent notification.

I've never experienced that because it's nothing silent with voiceover. So you know what's going on, right?

Well, so I kind of got caught, like that funny enough yesterday. I'm trying to remember what the app was, but I touched the status bar and I'm a voiceover usually. I touched the status bar and I went to double tap the status bar to scroll back to the top of the window and in between me touching it and actually performing the double tap, which obviously is not that long of a time, a notification slipped in there that wasn't spoken. Phone didn't vibrate or anything like that at all. So when I double tap, I now have launched this app and I forget what it was, and I was completely somewhere I was not expecting to be, and it took me a second to figure out what happened, how did I get here?

So that's kind of my biggest frustration with iOS is they let there be silent notifications and it just drives me crazy. So I think we need to reach out to app one, talk about this like, hey, this can be. What if some app is looking for authentication? You tap that notification not knowing it's going to be there and boom, they've got an authorization.

Yeah, that is a potential problem. Also, I guess I don't run into it as often because I don't have a lot of notifications on, like, my default. When I install a new app or open an app and it requests notifications is, no, I need to figure out if I need your notifications.

And then I'm having issues where I just had to reset all the settings on my phone because of some issue. I don't remember what it was. But now apps are not showing up for notification permissions. So it's like, I want to get notifications for these apps, but it's not available to turn that back on. It's like, got to love the errors.

Now what I would like to see in 17, because we were talking about rumors in 17 and all of this talk about GPT and chat AI and stuff like that, people are like, I want Apple to have a chat bot. And I'm like, no, I just want Apple to give me some reliable predictive text to actually use. That makes sense. And I think they could easily do that in 17. I probably won't see it, but that's what I want.

You see, if they did that, then all of the crazy Facebook double tap on your next predictive word games will go away.

Yes, because then they'll actually make sense. Whatever.

But we don't always speculate here on this podcast, but I find it interesting to talk about sometimes. Just WWDC is coming up. It's very exciting. So.

Very interesting stuff we're about at that point, too, where a lot of rumors that you may hear. Not all of them, certainly, but from the sources that you're used to getting them from at this point around this. Time of year is mostly what they say is kind of going to be true or has some truth to it or a bit more truth to it than normal. Because we're at the time where Apple is finalizing the next phone for release or finalizing what they want to be in the next OS, or at least what they're going to show off at WWDC. So it's interesting time to speculate or pay attention if you are interested in what's coming up. The biggest thing for me this year around Apple at all is the new phones on the new iPhone because speculation is we're going to get USBC and.

It'S like, okay, rounded edges. Again.

I'm just here for the USBC.

I kind of want the rounded edges. I've never cared for the sharp edges.

I love the flat edges myself.

I like the current body of the phone. The way that I've heard about the rounded edges that kind of moved off those edges a little bit, but it'll still kind of have that flat side, so that may be cool. I'm not totally objecting against that, but I'm really mostly looking at upgrading for USBC. Like if they release a phone in September and there's no USBC, I'm pretty certain I won't upgrade this year.

Yeah, I'm just excited about new phones.

Although I do want a pro because this would be my first pro phone because they're not going to make a mini again anytime soon either. So I'm going to have to go up to I figure from going up to a phone size. I don't like them as well get the Pro, which brings along the dynamic island, at least. I'm curious to see how that works out.

Now, do you guys think that we need this is also in the rumors. Do you guys think we need a 15 inch MacBook Air?

Go ahead, Mike.

I was just going to say I can see the place for it. For someone who wants something lighter than maybe a MacBook Pro and just wants that larger screen, because right now it's an eleven inch for the MacBook Air. Correct?

Or is it 13?

Okay. So, yeah, I can definitely see that for that. If it was between the eleven going to a 15, that would be a bit more of a jump for me. But the 13 and 15 inch to me makes a little bit of sense.

Yeah, I just feel like why not just dump the 13 inch Pro and have a 13 inch and a 13 inch Air, 15 inch Pro.

I think we may get there with this. I think it makes sense to have that 15 inch in the lineup if they're going to keep going down the path they're going down with the Air and the probe being where they are, it gives them something in between. I think starting price for the M two Air right now is, what, 1299, something like that. So your next jump up, completely ignoring that touch bar MacBook Pro is still out there because you really shouldn't buy that, right. If your company buys it for you, that's their money. But don't spend your money on it as mine.

And if you get one, just go, yeah.

So completely ignoring that computer because I don't think it's here forever. I just think it's a stop gap between the 13 inch M two Air and the next laptop up that you can buy, that you should buy would be the 14 inch Pro, right? So you're going from 1200, $300 up to, what is it, 2000, 2200, right before you even start customizing anything. So getting something that fits into that slot for people, that also comes with a bigger screen, because again, a lot of people buy the MacBook. Like, I know people who buy the six or have bought the 16 inch Pro just because they wanted a bigger than 13 inch screen, right. And you give them a 15 inch, 15.5, something like that inch screen on an Air. I'm using a MacBook air right now. I've been using a MacBook Air since last September, and it's a great computer. I think if I were going to buy another laptop, I will probably buy a Pro, but that's only because my workflows have changed a little bit. But it's a great computer for anybody. So giving people a slightly bigger screen so they're not jumping up over that $2,000 mark just to get a lightweight laptop is an excellent move.

And maybe that 15 inch would have better speakers than the 13. So that's all.

Good things, better speakers, probably better battery life, for sure, to have a little bit more space to put battery in there. Although you got to be careful, I think they are not to over battery because it still should be light and ideally lighter than the 14 inch Pro.

Well, even if they put more battery, it would be a bigger enclosure. So the M two or M three would be more efficient and can use that really well at that screen size. So that would be a great thing.

Yeah. They should also consider putting an SD card slot on the side of it. Not because I want it, but because I think that is, again, a use case. Why a lot of people want a bigger screen is because they're adding a lot of photos or videos that they're pulling off of these cameras with SD cards, and it's thin enough to fit in the body.

Now, something else that I've just seen that I'm curious if this is new or not, but I just saw that the Audible app is showing up on Mac.

That is new as of yesterday, I believe.

And that's pretty exciting, us having a native well, it's the iPhone app, but it is a or iPad app, but it is a native app for M One Max to listen to Audible.

Now, it is my understanding, however, that as of the time of recording, again, 420, that the Audible app, if you command tab out of it, does not do background playback. So you have to have the Audible app in focus to listen to it. I don't know if you've played with that or not, but someone told me.

That I don't know about command tab, but you cannot command Q, right?

Because that would quit the app. But it was my understanding maybe I misinterpreted or someone didn't understand, because to me, if you command Q out of an app, it's going to quit the app. So you can't listen to it. But it was my understanding that if you move focus out of the app so if you're in Safari, you can't have an audiobook playing in the background.

Or command W. You can't close the window either.

Yeah, I'm excited. You should, because I'm interested to see if that is true. And then you can edit me out, but I am excited for this. Or you can leave me in there and be like, michael doesn't know what he's talking about since it's on YouTube, so you might as well just leave it there.

Yeah, we'll just leave it in.

Not excited at all. I don't care, really?

Yeah.

I'm pretty much done with Audible at this point, so I still have an Audible account because I still buy books out of Audible, but I download my books and bring them into download my books and bring them into Plex and using an app on iOS called Prologue. That is how I've been listening to audiobooks. And for me, kind of the reason behind that is not just to be obstinate, but I have small children who like audiobooks, and I can't just give them the Audible app on their iPad because Audible does not give you any sort of way to filter what little children are going to see. So that's what started me down the path of using Plex and Prologue, which just gives you a nice front end, gives you kind of an Audible feel to the app. The old Audible app actually like when Audible before they start messing around with stuff with the home and all the things they're doing now, prologue is a very good app for listening to audiobooks connected through Plex. So that's how I got there. And just for me is like everything is in there. So even if I buy books from because I also buy audiobooks from other places at times, like they're all in one place versus me jumping through apps. So Audible being on the Mac is cool. It's good to see that they finally have made that move. But for me, it's just complete lack of interest of anything Audible is doing unless they're talking about taking away my credits.

And Michael, it does play in the background.

Okay, so I was wrong about that. What people are probably doing is hitting Command W, which to me, instead of hitting Tab, which to me, either command W or command Q is going to stop the playback anyways.

Well, there's like native Mac apps will run in the background, but they can play. And I wonder if the I accessibility app will work if you close the window. I hope I programmed it that way.

You can have to test it.

We'll have to test that.

But basically Twitter does the same thing. If you do Command W, it just closes the app. It does not keep it open for multiple windows. And I wonder if that's the case. It's for apps that don't use the scene, delegate the multi window support and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, that would be because I've seen a couple of apps like that, too. I can't recall which ones they are at the moment. But yeah, you hit Command W just thinking like, okay, let me close this window a minute. The whole app is gone. Bye bye.

That works more like Windows on Windows, right?

Our favorite reddit app that never comes out of beta is that way.

At this point, I'm starting to think that guy's just trolling Apple. Like, yeah, you can't kick me out of the store or prevent me from being in the store if I never submit to the store.

But they keep reviewing and accepting his stuff.

But test flights are easier lift, right? Like to get into test flights, you don't have to pass the same app review you would to get in the store. Or has that changed?

If you go for external testers anytime you put out a new major version, you do have to go through a form of app review.

What's a major version? Because he's never gone to one.

Oh, he hasn't?

Yeah. He's never moved past that's.

How he's doing?

It? Never went past that one. So it's like 0.4 or something like that. I think he actually matches the version numbers up with the month that the Test Flight expires or something.

That's awesome for a while, ish and some of those apps were only in Test Flight because of that reason.

Yeah, I was thinking Ish wasn't going to even get out of Test Flight at one point, but it's in the store.

Ashell is in the store. Both of those are great apps for using a Linux shell on your phone or iPad. So check those out.

That is not his pick.

No.

Stay tuned.

That'll be the theme of the show, is what's Michael's pick?

Has he mentioned it already or not.

The name of the episode? That is not his pick.

Right. That might be a good name for the episode. We usually have a spot where we talk about a specific thing, but we're just going to go right into our conversation today. And that, I think, is kind of a big topic because it's been in the news, it's been everywhere. And that people are finding ways around passcode locks to get into people's phones and tell me if I'm wrong about this. But I think what's happening is people are looking over your shoulder and they're typing in your code or they're seeing you type in your code to unlock your phone. If you don't use Biometrics, then when you go to put your phone down, they take your phone and then they can unlock your phone. They could go in and they can change your icloud password with a setting in the Settings app. I don't remember where that setting is.

Yeah, it's just if you tap on your account name and change password. So I didn't realize this until I helped somebody change their password a while back. And you just go to Settings, tap on your name, tap on Security, change password, and it will only ask you for the passcode to the device that you're on. And then unless you change your password. And I was like, okay, I see how that is handy for somebody who like this person was where they don't go into App Store all that often, so they're not always entering their password very easily, forgot it, not using a password manager, et cetera, et cetera. But it was easy for them to change their password because they know their Pin code, because that is something they're constantly bringing their phone, interacting with their phone. What is happening? But you're right. What is happening is people are and the way I've heard it is that a lot of people are working kind of in groups. So you have one person that's kind of playing a distraction or whatever, you got another person that's the watcher to see you type in your code. And one of the ways that they're accomplishing this is one just watching over your shoulder to see you type in your code, if that's something that you're doing, or engineering it so that you have to type in your Pin code so somebody can try to see it. So one way that that's been done is somebody taking a picture for you. You're hanging out in front of a cool statue or something like that. Could you please take a picture of me? I'm like, sure. So they'll take your picture, but they also do the little trick on the side where you hold on the side button and the volume button, and it locks your phone and forces you to enter your Pin. So at that point, you have to enter your Pin. And I see how that could work to social engineer someone simply because how many times have you either held your phone, especially with Face ID, you've held your phone at a weird angle, or somebody else has been holding your phone for some reason, and then the phone is just constantly like, oh, is that you? No, I don't know you. Is that you? No, I don't know you. Is that you? No, I don't know you. And now it's locked out. So you have to type in your password, right? You would assume that's what happened when they were taking the picture and somebody gives your password and then they take your phone. And once they've been able to change your icloud password, they now have the one you can't get in to mark that device as stolen through FineMark, because they've changed your password. So now you can't get into your account, but they can deactivate all of your other devices, thereby preventing you from being able to easily reset that password also. And now they have access to a lot of data because they're in your phone, right? And for a lot of people, they use the same email address that is tied to their Apple ID icloud account as their main email address. Like for a lot of people, they are the same. So you're in the phone, you can access the email, you can do all sorts of password resets, et cetera. So it's a bad situation. My advice is one, always be mindful of where you are when you're entering your password. If you feel any way vaguely uncomfortable, just don't type it in. Just wait until you're somewhere where you know you're safe and be aware of people. Just be cognizant the same way you would if you were carrying a bag or wearing an expensive watch. Like, just be mindful that your phone or the information on your phone does have value to someone besides you.

But one of the things that I feel like is very important is we need to have discussions about this online. Because I think through discussions we need to get these tech companies to really make these changes because that is a big security vulnerability and people are not going to be always listening to this podcast or others that you guys are on or the news or ways that you can do this and they're just going to be vulnerable. And I think technology companies need to own up to this. And I've always had a real problem with forced entry of a passcode because we have these biometrics to make things easier. But if you get a notification and your phone's on a desk and it thinks it sees a face and not and all of a sudden you're locked out of your phone, it's not only just an inconvenience, it could be a security vulnerability that they haven't even thought of. So Marty's back with us. So. Hi, Marty.

Hey all, how's it going?

Great. We're glad to have you here. So we're just talking about security and people need to be cognizant of where they are with their phones and using. If you do have to enter your passcode, don't let people see you do it. But also we need to stress this to Apple and Google and others that these biometrics need to be more available so that we don't have these security problems. One of the issues that I have is when you're just using your phone and say you're a little too close, when you go to authorize that purchase and you do that one or two times, it's going to ask you for your passcode there anyway. And that's another point of vulnerability right there because you're obviously going to have to enter it to make that purchase. And if people are watching over your shoulder, that's not even just unlocking your phone, you're making a purchase and people can see that.

Yes, there are a lot of instances where people being able to watch over your shoulder, and I find this particularly difficult to manage sometimes as a person that's completely blind because I've never had like 2020 vision and the usable vision I did have when I was younger growing up still wasn't great. So I have no real concept of how far people can see. People literally will stand on the other side of you can't hear them because they're not making enough noise, but they are a good distance away from you, but they're able to see what you're doing on your phone because of the angles and the fact that they have a line of sight to it. And that's the thing that I think is hard for a lot of people to conceptualize along with the fact that somebody's actually looking at you. Right. Because I think we all kind of at different times in life have that point of where you don't think anybody's paying attention to what you're doing because you're not doing anything interesting. And so why would anybody be paying attention? I don't see them, they don't see me.

Well, if you are someone now, this is not going to work for everyone. This is why I say if you're someone who is visually impaired or blind, one thing you can do to keep yourself safe is wear an earbud. That way nobody can hear your voiceover and turn on screen curtain, and that way nobody can see your screen and you're pretty much protected there because they won't be able to hear your audio and they won't be able to see your screen. So if you can handle both of those things, it's a good safety tip for anyone who's able to do that.

Absolutely.

But again, it doesn't work for everybody. I know some people like just earbuds bother their ears and they utilize the brightness on their screens, but I think we just need to have that conversation with Apple and Google and say maybe an in screen, a good in screen fingerprint would be a good idea. Maybe these three tries you're out strategies are not working because they're making it less secure.

I was going to say I will say that currently I would say over the past few weeks to a month or so, I've had a major problem with Face ID where it won't unlock my phone all the time. And I even have it with my watch is that if the face detection fails, then the watch would be the next thing to jump in and authenticate for my phone. And then if that doesn't work, then you punch the code in. But the Face ID and the watch authentication has been kind of janky over the past month or so. They did do an update to try and resolve that issue, and it did make it a little bit better for me, but it's still not working perfectly. So in this kind of situation, I would say to Apple, this kind of thing should be a priority and please get this fixed ASAP, because what a pain, right?

And I think that's kind of the big thing is Apple thought, okay, entering your Pin would be an inconvenience. Well, it's becoming more of a security vulnerability than an inconvenience.

And on other devices, for example, you have the, let's see, it's going to be the iPhone Se and the iPad Mini, and the iPad Air, the newer model. So I think that'd be the four, maybe the five. I don't remember the ending numbers, but it's the iPad Airs, the iPad minis with the new design, the all glass design, as well as the iPhone Se, they all have a fingerprint sensor still. And in the iPad and the iPad mini, they have the fingerprint sensor in the power button. So I don't see why they couldn't put a fingerprint sensor in all of them, because that would just be another way to be able to access if Face ID doesn't work. If your watch doesn't work, hey, use your fingerprint. It would seem like it wouldn't be such a big deal for them to add that right into the power button on all the models.

And I found that the power button, Touch ID works a bit better than it does in the home button. Have you guys seen that?

Oh, yeah, I agree with you 100% on that. I think that the Finger ID works ultimately the best out of all of the what would you call it?

The Biometric.

Biometric. Thank you. Damasi?

Yeah, I haven't used Touch ID on a button like the Home button in a while, but I do like the Touch ID and the Power button. I have an iPad with that. And personally, I would like to see just different authentication options anyway. Like Face ID is great, but I would also like to have Touch ID because I would like there to be some scenarios where you need both of those in order to complete this action or do this thing on my phone right, without it being just Face ID and you're done. Or touch ID. And you're done. And having extra biometrics available also gives you more data points for the system to learn your behavior. That is one of the problems I think we're facing towards the learned behavior of a device user is not as high as I would like to see it. With Apple, it sometimes figures out like, oh, whenever I have a meeting on this calendar, I'm going to automatically put you in work focus. All right, that's great. Can you also figure out that if for some reason my phone is here but my watch is there, that I'm probably not close to those things, so maybe not. Let lock down everything on the phone a little bit more. I personally turned off the watch unlocked for my phone just because scenarios are possible. You're close enough where you picked up my phone, you're looking at it, it doesn't unlock. And then I get a tap on the wrist and it's like by the time I may or may not even notice it because that is an issue for me with the watches. I don't oftentimes I don't feel those little taps all the time.

Yeah, and I agree. And if we have those multiple data points on the phone, touch ID, Face ID at the same time, then we could probably forego a passcode lock or.

At least encourage people to start using. Because one thing I do is I have a really long Pin code on my device. So it's not six digits, it's more like eleven or something. I rarely have to type it in. It doesn't make it easier because you just get a keypad if you do a long numeric code. But I think with multiple Biometrics too, we could fall back to either enforcing stronger passcodes because they would be less likely to be needed as much, or even encouraging people to use an actual password. Like I could see a world where if you have to fall back to logging in with a password to unlock your phone or your iPad or something, you're actually using your Apple ID password, right, instead of some random pin code that you remember that people are going to shorten or make too simple.

Exactly.

I don't really know the cost of parts and putting things together when it comes to all of that, but could it really be that much more money to put something like a fingerprint sensor in the power button of all the devices? I mean, is it really that much? Is it that costly to add? I don't know. Maybe it is. Maybe that's why they don't do it.

I think it comes down to the design. For example, Apple usually does a three year design process for their phones. So what we've had for the last three years has been the same design on the 1213 and 14. And I think the 15 is getting a different design. But they use a lot of the same metal cutouts and the metal pieces to make each year's phone. And so I think when they do the redesign, they can look at those kind of things. But I think as far as economics and producing all these things, they try to keep them the same for the three year cycle.

I would agree with you on that. The only thing that I kind of add a question mark to is the iPad Air and the iPad Pro. Eleven inch, they're almost the same. I mean, it couldn't be that different.

So I think it's a combination of a couple of things, though. One, I would say, especially with the phones, like, the phone is the primary device. You really don't want to do anything to mess with the phone until you're sure about it. So I think partially the reason we got this in the iPad error and the new iPad mini is it's a testing ground, right? Like, how problematic is this touch ID in the power button, right? Some real world testing from Apple, but on a device is not nearly as popular as a phone. If you make a mistake with the touch ID sensor in the power button on a phone, that's literally millions, tens of millions of phones out there that have a problem. Whereas if you run into the same issue with the iPad error, it's like we probably sold maybe 10 million of those over the course of a year, not over the first weekend that it was available. So I think that's a little bit of it. I think also that they don't have a compelling reason. And when I say compelling, they don't have a reason that they can explain to people, like, here's how you're going to use this. So I think it's one of those cases of, like, software not being where it needs to be in order for them to tell that story. Because I do think one of the stories behind having multiple biometrics. Yes, you can now make a choice, but for your more riskier, more highly sensitive transactions use too. So instead of just having somebody having your kid be able to hold the phone up to your face to complete the purchase of an app or complete an in app purchase, you can have it so that you have to show your face and do your fingerprint in order to make an app store purchase or just switch between them based off what you're doing. You can unlock your phone with your Face, but you can't unlock your bank app without your fingerprint, right? I don't think they have the software there necessarily either to kind of make that compelling story. Because we all know, like, Apple will have a feature. And we oftentimes hear, as we were talking about earlier in the show, like rumors start to come out and there have been years past, couple of years, really, where we get to the iPhone event and there's nothing new. Really announced at the event, but Apple tells the story in such a way that it's like, oh, I heard about that feature three months ago was coming to the new phone, but now I kind of want the phone for this reason. Because Apple has woven this story behind it that makes it more compelling, the narrative behind it.

Well, an interesting thing to think about is how many people have you heard that have had issues or problems with Face ID opposed to people who have had issues with a fingerprint sensor? I hear a ton of people having issues with the Face ID all the time. I don't ever hear anyone. Now, I'm not saying that doesn't mean there isn't anyone that has problems with the finger, but I hear way less issues with people using the fingerprint sensor than Face ID. I hear people have issues with Face ID constantly, whether there's actually an issue with it or they just have trouble with it.

In general, we know for me, being low vision, it's always a do I have it far enough away from my face when I go to activate and.

Unlock that is one thing. Another tip I'll give people too, if you are having sporadic issues not consistent, just kind of sporadically having issues with Face ID not working, wipe off your lens at the top of your phone.

Good idea.

Yes.

And I only say that because face ID is amazing. Right? I can unlock my phone in the dark in the middle of the night, and all of a sudden I was running into a situation where that wasn't working, just consistently was not unlocking for me in certain situations. And finally, at one point, I think I just wiped off the top of my screen because I was like, well, maybe something's covering up the camera. Who knows? I'm always eating and grabbing the phone and doing stuff and it went back to working. So that's where that tip comes from for me is just experience of sometimes wiping the lens off at the top. Especially if you're like me and you don't do selfies and things like that. You probably don't really think about that camera up there.

Yeah, that's true. I think it's probably a little bit more sensitive in a 14 model because I believe in anything previous to a 1413 and back. I believe it's in the camera bump up there so it's a little bit more protected. Where on the think it's really kind of somewhere around that dynamic island area which is really right in the glass. There's no major bump in the 14 models or at least in the 14 pro models. Let me rephrase that.

There was no bump in the others. It was just the notch which was all part of the glass as well. So it's really about the same. It's just in the 14 models it's lower down.

Yeah, got you. Because they took the notch out. So it's kind of where you can more easily see where it is. But it's still the same set up. At this point they have not put the camera under the glass, which is still a rumor that's been going on for like three years that they're going to put a camera under the glass and then it'll just be all glass on the front, no cameras showing. But if my experience with in screen fingerprint readers is any indication, like please wait on that. Take your time on that one.

Apple you know what, I've had very good luck with Samsung's.

I haven't tried theirs. I've tried two pixel phones with it and the experience was not the best for me. I did try early Samsung, I think when they first did it, but that was also at a time when their in screen fingerprint reader was very new and also not super secure either.

I'm pretty happy with the one on the S 21. So I will say that the last thing I want to talk about, and I think you guys have talked about this on Unmute as well, is when you go to charge your phone. If you're out, do not plug your phone into an unknown charger. Bring your own adapters because you don't know what kind of plugs or if they are able to pull data off your phone or jailbreak your phone or do anything nefarious to your device.

So here is a question and maybe Damasi can answer this question, I'm not sure. But if you plug your cable straight into one of those charging stations in an airport, for example, which is a coffee shop or an airport, are going to be the places you're the most vulnerable? Is it only the cable or the port that is going to have a way to cause issues with your device? Or for example, let's say you have like a charging brick or one of those power adapters that has four ports on the front, like two or three USB C's and a USBA. And then you plug that in, then you plug your cable into that, is it still going to get infected or is it only a cable directly into the port or even a plug or whatever?

So it's going to be a cable going into it. So in a lot of public spaces, there are USB ports just sitting there that you plug your cable into, right? At that point, that USB port is the problem. It's always going to be the problem with the port, like whatever is on the back end of that port that has been embedded into the device that has that USB port.

So if you're using a charger brick, that's still going to be the same thing.

You're still going to get no, that's not because if you bring your own charging brick and plug it into a standard outlet, well, that's your power brick, right? So if you're carrying around a malicious power brick, that's something you have done to yourself.

Oh, go ahead, Damasi.

I was going to say the problem is like so plugging into an outlet, you're fine. If you have your own power brick, you're plugging into an outlet, you're perfectly fine. That still works. It's the problem. And I see this like I was in a hotel. They got USB ports on the lamp to plug in to charge your device, because everybody has USB devices to plug in and charge, right? Don't plug into something like that because you have no idea what else is in that lamp. Use a standard outlet, which are a normal charging brick or a travel charging brick that you bring with you. You don't want to be plugging into anybody's random USB ports that are just hanging out there, regardless of how they have managed to provide that USB port. It's an unknown port to you. It's sort of the same thing of 20 ish years ago. You go around with your little flash drive, it's got your documents on it that you keep, and you just plug it into a random unknown computer port. Like you have no idea what you're taking home with you. And the problem is that oftentimes we are not aware of when there are vulnerabilities in software until someone discloses the vulnerability. So it's not that Apple is not on their job because the phone does attempt, all of the devices attempt to protect you. When you plug into a new unknown thing that wants to try to suck data off your phone, you'll get a pop up that says, do you want to trust this device? Where if there happens to be a vulnerability that we're not aware of and Apple at the time is not aware of, that allows people to circumvent that some sort of way. You're now putting yourself at risk of having your data scraped off your phone because nobody's encryption helps you when they're looking at the device that has decrypted the information, right?

And if you want to really stay safe, bring your own charging brick. Find a plug.

They don't have data over power outlets yet. I mean, there are such a thing.

But it's like, yeah, that is less likely. And plus, your power brick nine times out of ten is not going to support that anyway. Like, you have to have a very specialized thing. So bring your own power brick or bring your own portable battery charger for yourself. And personally, this has not ever been a concern of mine, because if I'm traveling, I'm always going to bring a portable battery anyway. Because you're in an airport. Everybody's trying to charge your device. Your chances of getting to an outlet are very low, in my opinion. In most cases, anyway.

I mean, think about the Germs and the cleanliness of those areas.

There's that, too.

You don't want to touch that area.

I mean, just think about this. If you have a Mac laptop, okay, you've got a giant power battery pack, because you can plug that. You can plug in your phone to your Mac with the lid shut, and it will charge your phone.

It will absolutely do that. And I am living proof because I did it on a Greyhound on the way back to Alabama about three months ago. I had a power brick to plug into the outlet on the Greyhound bus because they had an actual outlet, but none of their outlets work. And I was like, Man, I'm still a long way from getting home, and I got to call her, get a lift when I get here, and all of that. And I was like, oh, wait. Laptop in my backpack. I'll just plug it into the laptop. All right? Boom. There we go. Charge the whole thing up just fine. Didn't even notice it.

You could even do that with a MacBook Air. And it will.

That's what I was using. MacBook Air. The m two MacBook air. As I say, like the battery life. Didn't even notice it.

That's a pretty cool tip. Yeah, definitely.

I don't know about Windows laptops. I think those are like the hibernate states are a little more aggressive than the Mac, but for sure, if you have Apple devices, you have a Mac. Easy way to get a charge.

Yes, that works. There's been some advice out there, and I'll kind of address it a little bit. So there are such a thing when you're buying a cable for any device. And just on a side note, even if you're an Android user, don't plug into random public USB ports either. This applies to everybody, not just people with iPhones. Don't do it. Take your own power.

Androids are even more susceptible. That's just my thought.

And think about it from the perspective of when someone has physical access to a device, there's a lot more things they can attempt than remotely trying to access your device. So be aware of that. There are such a thing in both the USBC and the lightning world of cables that only do charging and don't sync data, which means it doesn't matter what you plugged it into, it can't sync data because it doesn't support that. However, I would not depend on that to be my protection simply because I have bought cables that weren't supposed to do things and they did them. And I bought cables that were supposed to do things and they didn't. You never know when you're buying a cable if they gave you the correct specifications, especially when you're shopping on Amazon, and most of us do. So just buy a portable.

Charging brick.

Yeah. And carry that with you. Or bring a power brick. I mean, for me, I have both. Like, I have a portable battery that is just a battery pack, and I can plug anything USB into it to charge. And when I get where I'm going, I have a multi port wall plug that I can plug into the wall and plug my things into. So either one of those I would say if you're picking it for travel in the midst of travel, like you want to make sure you don't lose your battery during your layovers and all of that on planes or buses, get a portable battery pack because that means you can charge anywhere you're sitting. You don't have to be fortunate enough to be next to an outlet to plug up.

And they're currently on sale. The at dies if you're looking for an accessible one.

There you go. This has been a great discussion, but unfortunately we're running low on time. Do you guys have any final thoughts before we wrap up today?

Stay aware so you stay secure.

Yeah, keep yourself safe. And the small things like carrying a power adapter with you, having cables that you know are safe with you is going to keep you safe and give you way less of a headache in the long run. So take an extra few minutes and make sure that you're keeping what you need and keeping yourself safe from problems going forward.

All right, so we are down to the end of this show, and as always, we do our picks for this episode and contact information. So, Marty, since you came in last, let's have you go first. What's your pick and where can people find you online?

So my pick is going to be and it's ironic, we're talking about chargers. My pick is going to be and this is made by a company called Anchor, which you can find on Amazon. And what it is is it's a wall charger. It's got four ports. It's called a Gan wall charger. It's got one USBA. Three USB. C's. They all automatically switch to whatever power is needed, whether it's the laptop, a phone, a tablet, whatever it is. But the cool thing about it is. It also has a 10,000 ML battery in it. So when you plug it into the wall and you charge up all your devices, it's also charging up the battery in there and you have a full battery on the go and you don't need to get another thing. So definitely cool. It's one of my, I would say, new favorite go devices for my go bag. And if anyone wants to get a hold of me, you can find me at feedback at unmute show. And there you go.

Excellent. Damasi, what about you? What's your pick and your contact info?

Has anybody picked Mac whisper before?

Not yet, no.

All right, so my pick is going to be Mac Whisper. And Mac Whisper is an application just to back up a little bit and give you some context. Whisper is a protocol. It's a set of tools put together by the people over at OpenAI, which are the folks behind Chat, GPT and Dolly Two as well, if I'm not mistaken. Yes, but what Whisper does is allow you to send an audio file, push an audio file into it, and it will transcribe that audio to text. And it handles several different languages and has several different models that can be used for transcribing that audio. Mac Whisper is just a desktop application for the Mac that allows you to drag and drop or open up a file there and have it transcribed with timestamps. And at least to my knowledge right now, it can identify two different speakers. So you can go in and label which speaker is which, but it can tell the difference, at least between two different people. I've not been on a call where I've had more than just me and someone else there that I've recorded and a new feature that they've just added which allows you to record the audio from any application on the Mac as well. So I have used that to grab audio out of zoom from the person that's in Zoom and then also grab my microphone audio. So I have a full transcript of the zoom call, which I'm more likely to skim and reread than actually listening to the zoom recording.

So before you give your contact info, I just want to say that I built a Python script that can do the use Whisper. It's interesting because I do not know how to get to do timestamps, but it's very interesting that it's able to do all that. I'm guessing it's using Whisper on the Mac, unless it's going out and using the cloud.

No, it is doing everything that is. The other thing about Whisper is Whisper is done in most cases, there are people hosting it in the cloud, but typically you can install it and it's run specifically from your device. And like you, Michael, like, I hadn't made a Python script yet because I hadn't gotten around to trying to write a script, but I was using. The command line tools for Whisper for a while and Mac Whisper just made it so much easier to deal with.

I built a WX Python script like a gui for it and everything it's really neat but seems like this one has a lot more features than what I was able to get out of just Python.

Two things I would say about demosi's pick I believe there's a paid and a free version, is that right? Democy?

There is a free version and there's.

A paid version, and I believe if you have eight gigs of Ram, it will work. It just might not be quite as peppy. So it'll still work, but just be cognizant of if you only have eight.

Gigs of Ram, yeah, it'll work fine. And that's why the different models are there as well. So there's a very small model that is pretty fast on any kind of hardware, but the accuracy so you change models with Whisper in general, and Mac Whisper is the same as using those same models to basically turn up how accurate you want the transcription to be. The more accurate accuracy you want, the longer it is going to take. But for me, like, a lot of times, I'm running on that smaller lightweight model because I just need the basic information out of his own meeting. I don't need all of the medium large.

Takes quite a while even on my beefy M One Max with 32 gigs of Ram.

Yeah, and it takes a while on my air, like I'm on an M Two Air with 24 gigs of Ram. But it is going to be slower because it's doing more analysis. One nice thing about Mac wish prefer anybody that has used the Command Line Tools before. It's very Easy to tell it, even though you're using a large language model that has support for all these different languages to say, no, just run this as English so you don't waste that time at least trying to analyze each word to figure out is it English? Is it German? Is it Spanish? No, it's all English, just get to it.

Fantastic.

Oh, contact details so you can get to me by emailing. [email protected] and I'm also on that social network that I can't remember the name of, mastodon. If you go to Damasi, D-A-M-A-S-H-E your ownpay.com, that will get you to me on Mastodon wherever I happen to be this month.

All right, and Michael, what about your pick and your contact info?

Yeah, so my pick is going to be one that I may have picked in the past, but it's Reaper, more specifically Reaper and Macros. So I've been using Reaper for years now and Reaper is an audio editor and I was editing on audio with someone and coaching them through the process of how I was putting their audio together so they could launch their podcast next week and I was sharing audio through loopback. And I'm glad I bring this up because I need to go fix that and all that fun stuff. And I realized that some of the macros that I've put together, though they seem very basic and they're only three steps, have saved me a lot of time. For example, if I hit the left bracket key, that starts a time selection across all of your tracks, you play through where you want to edit. And now when I hit the right bracket key, it used to just stop playback and there's my time selection, and I can play it if I want and then delete it and whatever. But now when I hit my right bracket key, it puts that in time selection marker in. It moves the focus to the beginning of the time selection back about a second, and then it plays skipping that time selection all with one keystroke. And to me, that's only three steps. But I am really encouraged to tell people, check out Reaper. It's very customizable. If you tried it and you're like, this doesn't work for my workflow, maybe reconsider it and realize you don't have to keep the same mapped keys. And I think that's something that a friend of mine, that I'm getting to know better, Jacob mentioned, and he's like, you know, I don't use the default key map. I make my own key map to work with my workflow. And if that's possible, realize that that could help you save a lot of time. You can find me at Payown. P-A-Y-O-W-N on just about everywhere LinkedIn. I'm still on Twitter? Occasionally. And you can also go to Michael Yourownpay.com to find me on Mastedon.

Fantastic. I want to give my contact info in just a second, but I got a text from a friend of the show, Louise Ramos, and I want to say thank you to everybody in the Chat Logic Pro X Gaming for chatting with us. He talked a little bit about the SpaceX that the rocket does have a button they could press to destroy the rocket and burn up the fuel so it's not toxic or things like that. But Luis said that Rapid Disassembly is actually made popular by a video game. And that was the Kerbal Space Program video game where you build rockets and they can take off, fly around planets and either land successfully or land terribly. So Rapid Disassembly was made popular by that, apparently. So that's pretty interesting. I'm sure it was used in other places, but popular culture kind of knows it from that. So that's kind of interesting.

And somebody at SpaceX has a sense of humor, I guess, right?

All right, so my pick for this week is a recommendation from Marty, and that is the Sennheiser Profile microphone. I'm talking on it right now. Love it. It's a bit different from my ATR 2100. I don't have to be right up on this microphone like I have it on the other, I can adjust the gain and the mix and the volume of the monitor. I love all of those things. The mute button, you never know if I mute. So it's just a great microphone, good design, good price. At $130 USBC, it just works so well and you can use it on an iPad as well. So that has me really excited about that. So thank you Marty, for that recommendation. This will always go in my travel bag and well, it sits on my desk permanently.

Cool. Glad you enjoy it.

Yeah, it's been one of the better tech purchases I've made in a while, so thank you for that. Yes, and all of our picks are in the show notes, so if you're looking at the podcast later, check those out and you can see those there. As for where people can find me online, I'm Mike Doey's on Twitter, Mike Doey's at Techopolis Social on Mastodon. You can email me at mike Doey's at icloud.com and I'm all over the web, just do a search for me. There's another Michael Doey's in Texas, but I have far many more results. But just googling your name is very interesting if you have ever done that. So I want to thank everybody for being here. Damasi glad to have you on the show. We want to have you back a lot more. Marty, thanks for being back. And Michael, thanks for being back again and it's been fantastic being with you, all of you guys today. And we'll do this again in two weeks. Thanks everyone.

Peace.

See ya. Thank you for tuning in to the IA cast. We hope you enjoyed the show and found the conversation to be insightful and informative. If you have any feedback or comments, we'd love to hear from you. Please send us an email at [email protected]. You can also follow us on Twitter at iacastnetwork to stay informed about new episodes and other updates. Don't forget to check out more great podcast on the IACAs network, IACAs Net. Thanks for listening and we'll see you again soon.