Liven up Your Social Gatherings With These Apps
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Dan Morin
Ugh.
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Dan Morin
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Micah Sargent
Coming up on iOS today, Rosemary Orchard
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Micah Sargent
joins us to party. That's right, party games. Coming up on iOS today,
Dan Morin
podcasts you
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Micah Sargent
This is twit. This is iOS Today, episode 790 with Dan Moran and me, Micah Sargent. Recorded Tuesday, February 17, 2026 for Thursday, February 19, 2026.
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Party games.
Micah Sargent
Hello and welcome to iOS Today, the show where we talk all things iOS, iPad, OS, WatchOS, and so many of the other operating systems that Apple has to offer. This is the show where we tell you about gadgets, apps, settings, and so much more to help you make the most of your devices. I am your host, Micah Sargent, and this week I am joined by six Colors, east coast bureau chief and my fello podcast host, it's Dan Morin. How you doing, Dan?
Dan Morin
I'm doing great, Mike. I'm here and I'm ready to party. Air horn apps today is all air horn apps.
Micah Sargent
Every single one.
Dan Morin
I only need one.
Micah Sargent
But no, because they all have unique flavors. Don't taste them. Anyway, today, yes, we are not talking about air horn apps, although now I kind of want to. We are instead talking about party games. These are games that you can download on your phone, that or, you know, your iPad that give you the ability to kind of play in real life with other people. And some of these may be familiar to you, some of them may have come across for the first time. And of course, this is always the time where I invite you. If you have an app that you like to use to play party games with friends, let us know about it. Iostodaywit TV is how you get in touch. But let's first talk. Dan, I want to hear about your. I mean, you. You do play. You play games with friends.
Dan Morin
I play games.
I love games.
Micah Sargent
How often do you turn to tech to kind of go through that experience?
Dan Morin
Yeah, not insignificant amount. I have a few groups of friends
that we play games with. Most notably, my wife has a Lot of her friends from college. And every year we get a. There's a big house that one of them owns down on the beach and we go down there for several days.
And one of the key events that
we do there is, is playing games. And I've definitely played a few of these in that scenario.
And we definitely do like, a lot of them tend to be more physical board games, but we have definitely played
some tech, you know, party games of
various ilks and I, I think it's fun. I mean, I honestly find party games
is one of my favorite genre of games, period. But also I think it's something that tech lends itself very well. Now when everybody has a device and
it's generally with them, it feels like a good opportunity. And it's like usually a much easier on ramp than like, okay, we're going to put, let me take it out of the box.
We're going to set up a lot of pieces. I'm going to explain to you at length how to play this game.
You know, a lot of us have kids and stuff like that.
We have limited time, so something that
you can play kind of really quick and maybe you leverage everybody's devices to do has a better chance of actually
happening in that way. So I feel like party games are the perfect Venn diagram intersection there for my, my particular situation.
Micah Sargent
Nice. Yeah, I, I've, I've gone through phases because I remember no judgment to people, but I remember one time.
Dan Morin
That sounds like judgment.
Micah.
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Yeah?
Dan Morin
You're about to judge some stuff.
Micah Sargent
Yeah, I think I am a little bit. I remember one time going to a party and it was just so quiet and so dead. And then they put on a game that people could play together on the screen and it made no difference to the mood or the vibe or anything like that. And that sort of colored my experience when it came to some of these games where I was kind of like, oh, golly, I don't want to be the person who has that experience at their home, like when they're inviting people over. It kind of freaked me out. And so I'll be honest that I have not put forth a lot of these, these party games. You know what, I'll just be honest. It was jackbox stuff. And so I haven't done jackbox in a long time. However, some of these games, you know, I've gone for board games and, and, and card games, but some of these games are kind of well known, some of them not so much. And I think fun regardless and easy to pick up. So let's kind of dig into it. The first one on the list here is. And I think people, many people will be familiar with this, it's sort of like charades. Essentially, you take your phone and you hold it up to your forehead and on your forehead a word appears and everyone else can see it and they can give you clues, act it out, et cetera, to try to get you to guess. And then if you guess, you flip the phone. If you guess correctly, you flip the phone saying you guessed it. Otherwise you skip and it's a countdown timer. And then the play passes to the left or the right or however you want to pass. Catty corner, whatever. It's up to you. So Heads up is fun. It is important to note that it has in app purchases for different kind of card packs. And I have found that over time as I've played it with different groups of people, different groups of people will have been familiar with the game and will then remember some of the card selections that they've, you know, played before that they've used before. So that part of it also, I feel makes it a little bit.
Dan Morin
Lacks some replayability.
Micah Sargent
Yeah, it does. It lacks some replayability. Have you played heads?
Dan Morin
I have.
Micah Sargent
Okay.
Dan Morin
Yeah.
I actually my. One of my. I had a fond memory of playing
it in line at a convention I was at or something. You know, we were waiting for a big panel or something like that and I was with a few friends and I remember playing it in line and
it's just one of the nice things about it is that it's like really
easy and fast to do and again, it's pretty easy to explain. So I think that aspect of like,
hey, we've just, like we're literally just
standing here killing time, like, and it's a fun, easy thing to. To for everybody. Graphs. Right. Because the rules are very simple.
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That.
Micah Sargent
Yeah, exactly. The rules are super simple. Have you played classic charades where you've.
Dan Morin
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Micah Sargent
I'm kind of curious which you. Which you prefer.
Dan Morin
I most recently played classic charades at
this past Christmas with my entire extended
family because we were staying in a giant house together and it was kind of a delight. I think the biggest challenge there was like we also played celebrity, which I'm not sure if you're. Yeah, with. Yeah, celebrities. And that was very funny because we
had a range of people from like 18 year olds to 90 year olds
and people that the respective groups know are very funny because as you might expect, there are quite a few people that the 18 year olds know that 90 year olds do not and vice versa. So the 18 year olds would get
up there and be like, Fred Astaire, pass. You know, I don't know who that is.
So I think that's, you know, one of the things with games like this is it really does depend on your audience. And like the, like, you know, I
know they have specific decks for like Marvel.
Right. Like if everybody, if one person is not a fan of a specific type
of thing like Marvel, then you know,
that may be less fun for them. And charades is great, but I think again, charades maybe loses a little bit
of that ability to just like do it in a.
For some reason it's more socially acceptable to like, I'm going to hold the
phone up to my head than it
is, I'm going to act out a
charade in a public place.
Micah Sargent
Yeah, that is funny that, that, that, that, that gets a pass. I, I tend to be, I like, I don't like classic charades because of all of the rules that are involved with it. I like sort of, yeah, you can't say certain things and no one ever has, it seems anecdotally no one ever has the same set of rules. And so then you spend so much time just trying to agree with the rule that for me is like, ugh. So we've always played some variation of charades that's much simpler, which is basically like don't say the word or a word that's in the word and you know, be cool, be cool, be cool.
Dan Morin
That's generally good advice.
For most part it is.
Micah Sargent
Be cool indeed. The next one that I want to mention is a pretty fun game and I'm curious if this is one of the games that you've played sort of outside of apps. Can you tell us about then keep talking and nobody explodes.
Dan Morin
I have played this game. It's a really interesting game. The premise of which is it is
you're defusing a bomb.
Oh no, you think I'm defusing a bomb?
Yeah, you should feel that way.
What makes it kind of interesting and compelling is that it is a game where it's, it's a asymmetrical, which is to say you as the person diffusing
the bomb, have the bomb in front
of you, but your friends who cannot
see the bomb have a manual about how to diffuse the bomb.
And so you might have different games,
like different little mini parts of it, right, where there's like buttons you can press or wires you need to cut or a code you need to enter
and you don't know what you're doing
as you're immersed in this thing, but your friends are looking at the instructions and saying, okay, you have to cut this wire. You have to press in this code.
That already feels challenging enough.
And obviously there's a bomb, so there's a timer going down right before you all explode.
But what makes it extra challenging is, of course, the way they've phrased the manual often is very obtuse and difficult and done with a way to be deliberately confusing. And so you end up with. With things like these very detailed lists
of like, all right, you have to do a maze, and I have to explain to you how to do a maze.
I can't see the maze that you're doing, but I'm going to explain to you how to do Amaze. And I've played this. I think I played it on a
PC when we played it, but it's on a bunch of different platforms and.
And I. I really. It's a lot of fun. It is a lot of fun. It's stressful and it's. It's hard, too.
I find it pretty challenging.
But I. I really enjoyed it when I played it because it has that fun. Like, it is simultaneously one of those things that gets you really annoyed because you're like, yeah, why did you explain it? Why did you explain it that way? Why didn't you explain a different way? But at the same time is also hilarious. And it's a good communication game, right? As you're trying to get somebody to
explain, like, all right, like, walk me
through what you're seeing versus, okay, you said to do this. Like, but wait, wait, did you also say there was this button? Because if you do, if there's that button too, you gotta hold that button while you're doing this thing. And it can be very, very fun to play. I will say I was pretty. Looking at the App Store listing for this, I was shocked and a little disappointed to see that there is not a, like, an asymmetrical version.
You could play with the Vision Pro,
because I feel like this is a
perfect game to play while the person defusing the bomb is wearing a Vision Pro and trying to diffuse the bomb
with their gestures, while everybody else is just looking at a PDF or something that feels.
That feels like an obvious one.
Micah Sargent
Oh, I wish that's how it was. That would be delicious. Come on, what's going on here? Yeah, so keep talking. Nobody explodes. A similar app or game rather to that, but it is an app is called Space Team. And yeah, so with Space Team, you play with other people and you are able to kind of join locally, wi fi wise and you work through to try and move along in your, your, your ship. I can't show because you have to have more than one person locally, but you push button. What I. They call it the cooperative shouting game. Yes, the, the, the descript. Do you like pushing buttons and shouting at your friends?
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Dan Morin
Always.
Micah Sargent
If you answered yes or no, then you might have what it takes to be on a space team. So two to eight players can play and you basically are saying like, you know, jiggle the spectro bolt, engage the eigen throttle, press the macro dryer four times and it goes on and on and on from there. It's really silly, really fun. It's a game. There's a lot of shouting that happens, which is great.
Dan Morin
I have very fond memories of playing
this with my cousin's daughters, who are probably teenagers at the time or maybe twenties, and standing in like the kitchen at a family gathering and yelling at each other about these things.
You know, for all our phone. Like, what I love about this is that so many people complain about.
We get all isolated in our phones.
And one of the great things about
party games is they manage to turn that into a strength, right? The fact that we all have our
phones and we're looking at our phone
screens, but we're also cooperating and communicating with one another and playing something together. And that to me is, I think
one of the, the, you know, secret
weapons of the iPhone is the fact that you can all have these games and play them in a cooperative, communicative fashion.
You're doing something together with your friends or family. And so it doesn't really matter if you're staring at devices, you're still having an experience, right, with other humans.
Micah Sargent
And we love an experience.
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Micah Sargent
The next game is called Wavelength. And what's cool about Wavelength is that it was originally a wonderful board game. I've played this board game before and the idea is that you and other people are kind of trying to get on the same page. They call it, I think they call it like a mind reading game, but I don't know that it's quite that. Regardless, the way that this works is you have sort of a spectrum, right? Of a description. So for example, we could have. I'll go with the description or the example they have. Darth Vader is the clue. And the sort of spectrum that you're trying to figure out is, is a Wizard or is not a wizard, and what your job is, it's to take the little pointer and move it to suggest just how much of a wizard or how much not a wizard Darth Vader is. It could be also something like casual to formal. And then you would have a. A T shirt with a tuxedo on it. And so you have to decide, is it. Is it super casual? Is it more formal? And then the great part is other people try to guess where you placed the pointer on that spectrum. And so, yeah, they basically took what was a board game and made it into an app, because, yeah, you can do the same. Pretty cool.
Dan Morin
Yeah, I've played this board game as well.
I haven't played the iPhone version, but I played this at a. At the aforementioned gathering of friends.
And it was very interesting because it is so tricky to figure out how
to figure exactly where on that dial somebody is.
I think mine was, like, my clue was something like recycling, and it was like virtuous versus not virtuous.
And we were trying to figure out,
like, people were really upset with me that I argued that recycling was not as virtuous as they thought it was.
Micah Sargent
I love that. Yes. Now, hold on. I thought we were on the same page.
Dan Morin
Yeah, it's a fun game, and I'm. I'm glad to see There is a
iOS version of it, because I feel like that, again, it feels like a thing that you could easily play rather than having to explain here is we're
gonna set up all these pieces and do this. Just get. Just get the fun set up.
Micah Sargent
Yeah, Very easy to go.
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And crank.
Dan Morin
That's fun. That's fun. It's nice and tactile there.
Micah Sargent
And now the. The final one that I'll mention here for party games. It's one that I actually came across in researching for this episode. I had not heard of Go, Go, Go, the party game, but it's literally called Go, Go, Go, the party game. So it is a party game, and in it, you start by setting up the players that you have. I have handily named them BL and Leslie Favorites. Yeah, blurp is pretty cool. Klorg and I don't get along, but Leslie and I are besties. So anyway, you can add, you know, another player, add several players, and from there you make a choice on what you want to play to. So we'll go with five points. Game mode, we're gonna go with choose from list and difficulty. We'll leave it at medium. Do I have a pen and pep pepper? Yes, I have a Pen and a pepper. I also have pen and paper and it says, can you be silly? Yes, I can be silly. So Blurp is going to sit out of this round and is in charge. And here is the choice for Blurp to choose a game. There's a game called spin around as fast as you can. There's one called hold the phone steady while striking a pose. And there's one called list them, which is where you list as many things in a category as you can in a time. So I'm going to go with balance. And so here are the rules. Hold the phone steady while striking a pose. Choose a pose for players to strike while holding the phone steady. When the player presses start, the device will count down from three and begin measuring movement. And then you have to stay as still as possible, holding the phone in your hand. The more you move, the more the number goes up. So here we are sitting, and I'm going to see how this goes. So remember that Blerp is the judge. So Klorg is going to go first, and Klorg is going to strike a pose and then going to hit start. And so this would be Clorg holding, and I'm holding still. And remember that the number goes up the more that I move. Apparently I'm moving, but I'm trying not to stop moving. And then Leslie would go, and we'll do the same and we'll see who wins this. And. And we're trying. We're trying. Is this less movement? Is it more movement? Wow. I didn't know I couldn't be a surgeon.
Dan Morin
Well, don't play the party game. Keep talking and nobody gets credible.
Micah Sargent
So Leslie won that round. Of course, this would be more fun when you have actual people playing together and when you're kind of passing it around. But, you know, blind draw. Redraw an image without seeing the image pinpoint. Press as close to the dot as you can with your eyes closed, and then tap the screen as many times as you can. What I like about this app is that it mixes physical things with things that you can do on your phone. And when you're doing them on your phone, you can sort of. It makes use of the sensors and the stuff that's built in. So I think that's pretty cool. That, folks, is a look at some of the party games that you out there can download to your devices and make use of. Of course, as I always remind you, if there are party games that you think are great that we missed, please do let us know. IowaD WWIT TV is how you get in touch. Moving along. Dan, did you see that Apple has made some changes to the podcasting experience that apparently there's gonna be better video than there ever has been before in the entire world or universe.
Dan Morin
I did this.
I wrote a quick piece about this
on six colors when they announced it. My understanding is, you know, so obviously
people ask like, wait, haven't their video podcast been in Apple podcasts forever? And it's like, actually, yes, but what's different about this is that it actually unlocks the ability to stream video, the video portion of the podcast, as opposed
to just being a downloadable file that you have to download. A downloadable file that you have to download. Yep.
No notes there. But it leverages their HLS technology to
basically provide high quality streaming that can adjust on the fly depending on what kind of connection you're using. So if you're on like a, you know, not as good cellular connection, then you can still get a pretty reasonable video.
And then the other ability it adds
is the ability to swap between video and audio seamlessly. So if you just want the, the audio part you can just toggle back and forth and it will keep your place essentially.
And that's, you know, handy for people who, like I maybe, you know, listening
to a video podcast, but I can't watch video right now. I'm in the car or I'm walking around or something like that. And then you can sort of move back and forth seamlessly when you are able to watch video again.
So somewhat minor updates, but I think, you know, feels to me like, and you do more video podcasts than I do, it feels to me kind of
like a shot across the bow of
YouTube which obviously is currently the biggest
place in the world to get your podcasts and largely focuses on video podcasts.
Micah Sargent
Yeah, I, that, that does seem to be kind of the point here. I. Apple is, is I feel like I'm always seeing Apple tout its HTTP live streaming thing and every year I'm kind of like, should I care more about this? And I just really don't. Yeah, if like, am I missing anything?
Dan Morin
I think it's a good technology.
I think the main limitation is adoption from, you know, people supporting it. And one of the challenges here is I think you need to use a, a provider for your podcasts that supports this and that is an added complication. So I don't know.
I don't think it's necessarily a thing that individually you need to care about.
It's good that technology exists. But Apple's really playing catch up in
the video department, despite having had video podcasts for years.
I mean, it's just not the place people go to watch video podcasts. And increasingly, a large number of prominent podcasts do have a video component.
One of the other things they mentioned
here too is I think for the first time, it will allow them to do dynamically inserted ads that have video, which is again, a, you know, big competitive competition advantage for things like YouTube. And I think Spotify do video podcasts. I think they do.
So you'll be able to do that here as well.
But of course, Apple will take a cut. They will require a fee, and some people I know are not very excited
about that as a possibility, but I'm not really sure, not being into that
market, don't know how that compares to things like YouTube.
Micah Sargent
Okay, well, yeah, we, you know, as, as I always say, we'll keep an eye on how, how everything shakes out. Of course, you know, this doesn't make a difference. This won't make a change negatively when it comes to your video podcasting experience. Dear listeners, everything.
Dan Morin
And watchers.
Micah Sargent
And watchers, most importantly watchers. In that case. All right, moving right along. It is time feedback segment. And this week's feedback comes in from Sandra, who writes in to say this. I often go for walks with my dogs and says see attached pet tax and longer walks on my own for exercise. During these walks, I frequently ask Siri via my AirPods for word definitions from books I may be reading or for other various questions. After returning home, I often want to review the questions and answers. I spoke to Siri on Wednesday walk. I'm wondering if there's a way to go back and see the Siri history requests that I've made. This functionality is standard in the Chat GPT app, so it seems like a strange omission on Apple's part, unless I'm simply missing it. I would greatly appreciate your help in this matter. Thank you for your time and consideration. Kevin, do you have that pet tax ready? If not, then I'll move. Oh, look at those ears. So cute. We've got an adorable little dog and oh my goodness, just perfectly groomed little brownish golden dogs. And then there's also a photo of them going on a walk with their little hoodies on. So thank you for paying the pet tax, Sondra, and thank you for your question. I have some bad news.
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No,
Micah Sargent
the best you could do is to turn on type 2 serial, and then when you typed to Siri, you could see some of what you just recently said to Siri there, as far as I can tell and in everything that I've looked into, there is not a way to go back and just see all of your Siri history with the answers also provided. Apple seems to be like, I don't know, Dan, to me, seems like maybe there's an argument for it being a privacy implication.
Dan Morin
Yeah, I, I think there is potentially, I, I think a lot of it.
More of it is about the way the series architectured right now versus, you know, chat, CBT and obviously Claude. All those other AI assistants and, and apps have made that a standard part
of it because it's part of the
whole interface of the chat thing.
They remember and they talk series memory
for of all not great. And I just think that the, you know, history of Siri and the way it was built, this is not something that they ever really thought was necessary because they imagined it be much more ephemeral in terms of like, you ask for a thing and it does it
and then you don't need to worry about that again.
Right. They didn't really consider engineering it with much of a memory in there.
But I agree it would be super helpful because, for example, you know, you
and I, I'm sure Micah and lots of other people have often wondered why
did Siri do something that we didn't expect and we want to go back and see what did it hear when we said, you know, oh, turn on
those lights and it turned off the
light somewhere else or whatever and we're like, what do you think? I said it would be great to be able to go back and scroll through and see what it thought it heard.
But that feature, as far as I know, does not exist now.
Weirdly enough, I think Apple does have, you know, this stuff gets sent a
lot of times if you opt into analytics and diagnostics, presumably that information is somewhere, although anonymized and not attached to your profile.
But it feels like that information does get stored.
It would be great if it were stored on our devices and we could go look it up, but I'm not aware of any way to do it either.
Micah Sargent
Yeah, that's unfortunate. But you know, Sandra, the, the other suggestion that I had is if you've got a newer phone, this isn't, this isn't, you know, I don't love this. But if you've got a newer phone, so it has action button, you could set the action button to trigger one of the, you know, available popular chatbots and ask your questions that way and then at least you would be able to go back and look at your history because it would be coming from one of those AI chatbots instead of coming from. From Siri. But again, because these are requests that you're doing regularly and you also want to make sure that at least you know, with Siri, as it currently stands, it is looking at real things like a set of dictionary entries and also doing, you know, web searches versus a chatbot, which could just be making things up. So, yeah, it's a tough one to solve here, unfortunately, and it would be nice to be able to kind of look back at your history just to see.
Dan Morin
See.
Micah Sargent
All righty, folks, we are nearly to the end of this episode of iOS today, but that is it is not the case that it is the end. Therefore, we will be heading into our final segment for today. Our app caps. These are the apps or gadgets that we love that we think you might also enjoy and want to share with all of you. I will start because I have actually mentioned this before, but I did not have it yet. It was not out and it is now out and I am very excited. Spigen made a an iPhone 17 Pro case. It's for the pro and the Pro Max, that is. It's called the Classic LS Magfit and it looks like a classic Mac. It has that beautiful sort of light brownish tannish, taupe plastic. It has some fun texture built in. It's got a little rainbow logo in the corner. Over here there's a place for a lanyard. I have become a lanyard person when
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it comes to my phone.
Micah Sargent
I love having a little lanyard on there. It has a capacitive action button which is. Or excuse me, a capacitive camera control button, which is cool. And one of my favorite things is that the sleep wake button let me get the camera to not see my eyes. The sleep wake button has the word hello etched on it, which is also quite delightful. It is mag safe, usable, and in fact, it has built into it the alignment magnets. So it's fully locked in and good to go. I've also put my wallet on the back of it with no problem. And it does protect the front of the device as well. I kind of like that it squares out the phone as well. And so yeah, it's. It's a. It's a fun case. Certainly a little sort of statement piece. And I think that. Or it's available for $40 $39.99. I think that it's a good case. I do find myself really liking the simplicity and fit of Apple's case, which of course would make sense given that, you know, it's first party. But this is a fun one and if you're looking for this cute little design and you want, then I think this is a pretty good case. So good for speaking. All right, Dan, what's your app cap?
Dan Morin
My app cap for this time is a, an app that is incredibly powerful and clearly useful.
And I don't use it as much as I should, but I love that I always have it at my disposal. And that is Ferrite.
Ferrite is an excellent app for app for iOS and iPadOS which is basically
a full fledged audio editor.
It's really targeted at podcasts, people making podcasts. It's incredibly useful and incredibly handy and incredibly capable. Like it can, you know, replace if you're somebody who puts together podcasts and
use Logic or something like that. Fair. I can pretty much do everything that Logic does. I love that it is really, you know, designed for Apple's platforms. Obviously it has great Apple pencil support on the iPad side. That's one of its big attractions.
But like, you know, used to be people would argue the, the eternal argument
about how much work can you really do on an iPad.
And for years like editing a podcast was something that was kind of challenging. But Ferrite makes it super easy. And what I really appreciate is that
it has tools that Logic, you know, essentially is a, you know, very expensive at least previous to the recent creator suite, you know, kind of kept it apart from something like GarageBand which was free and, and Ferrite makes that available as part of its package. Now it does have a free version in, in app purchase to unlock all of its features. I think it's like 30 bucks though for a like license for the version,
which is pretty good again for something that's a professional level audio editor. So I, I really think this is
just a truly amazing app and the fact that you can run it on your phone and it can do all like multi channel recording. If you have a, you know, audio interface that has multiple inputs, you can plug it into your phone. If it's like a USB interface and it'll work and record on all those different channels, it's kind of bananas to think about. You like with this and a, you know, an iPhone or an iPad, you've got yourself a full like recording and editing studio for, for podcasts. So I, I love it. It's great. Again, I don't use it as much as I should because I just don't edit as many podcasts as I used to. But if for me like you know, it means that if I'm carrying an iPad around with me me, I don't have to worry about whether or not I could do this work on it. I absolutely can.
Micah Sargent
Yeah, that's I. I've heard of a lot of people who make use of of of Ferrite and seen really cool, you know, like videos of people using Ferrite and I think it's a pretty nifty tool. So very, very nice folks, that means that it's time for us to say goodby. Remind you all about Club Twit before we go. Twit TV Club Twit. That's where you go to sign up. $10 a month, under $20 a year. When you join the club you gain access to some awesome benefits. All of our shows ad free, just the content. You also gain access to our special feeds that include behind the scenes, before the show, after the show, special club events. As well, you will gain access to our feed that has live commentary of tech events and our feed that has our shows like Minecrafting, Core Corner, Stacy's Book Club and so much more. If that's not enough, well you can also join the Discord, a fun place to go to chat with fellow club Twitters and those of us here at Twit. The club is so much fun and we would love to see you there. So please do consider joining us. And yeah, that means it's time for Dan to tell us. If people are looking to follow you online and check out all the great work you're doing, where should they go to do so?
Dan Morin
Why? Why are you following me?
Stop. Stop following me. No, you can find me on most social media networks at D Morin, most
active on Mastodon and Blue Sky.
But if you want to buy my
books, which you should, and find links
to all the podcasts that I do, including clockwise, which I do with Mike every week, go to dmorin.com and you'll get links to all of those things
DeleteMe Advertiser
and more and more.
Micah Sargent
More. If you're looking to find me online, I'm at Micah Sergeant on many a social media network. Or you can head to Chihuahua Coffee, that's C H I H U A H u a Coffee where I've got links to the places I am most active online. Thank you all for being here this week. We'll be back again next week with another episode of iOS today.
Dan Morin
Bye bye.
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Micah Sargent
Oh, sorry.
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Release Date: February 19, 2026
Hosts: Micah Sargent, Dan Morin
This lively episode of iOS Today celebrates party games you can play on your iPhone or iPad—whether in-person with friends and family or to spice up a gathering. Micah Sargent and special co-host Dan Morin break down their favorite tech-aided party games, highlighting apps to get everyone engaged, laughing, and maybe a little competitive. They also discuss the shifting landscape of podcast video streaming on Apple devices and field listener questions about Siri's capabilities. The vibe is fun, candid, and full of practical tips.
[02:47] Dan Morin: Opens up about using technology (iPads, iPhones) for party games especially during yearly friend gatherings:
"Most notably, my wife has a lot of her friends from college. ... One of the key events that we do there is playing games. ... A lot tend to be more physical board games, but we have definitely played some tech party games of various ilks and I think it's fun."
Highlights:
[04:10] Micah Sargent: Cautions about the mood-killing potential if the wrong game is chosen but concedes tech games can be fun and inclusive when done right.
Type: Charades-style guessing game
How it works: Hold the phone to your forehead, a word is shown to others, they give you clues, and you try to guess. Flip device for correct/skip; timer included.
[06:51] - Replayability and Audience Fit
Micah: "It lacks some replayability... different groups of people will have been familiar with the game and will then remember some of the card selections that they've used before."
Dan: "One of the nice things about it is that it's like really easy and fast to do and again, it's pretty easy to explain. ... The rules are very simple." [07:12]
Type: Asymmetrical cooperative bomb-defusing game
[09:55] - Description and Why It's Great
Dan: "You as the person defusing the bomb, have the bomb in front of you, but your friends who cannot see the bomb have a manual about how to defuse the bomb. ... It's a good communication game, right? ... Also hilarious. ... I was shocked and a little disappointed to see that there is not a ... Vision Pro version. ... That feels like an obvious one." [12:15]
Type: Cooperative “shouting” sci-fi game
[13:23] - Fast, Silly, and Cooperative
Micah: "You play with other people and you are able to kind of join locally, wifi-wise and you work through to try and move along in your ship... they call it the cooperative shouting game."
Dan: "I have very fond memories of playing this with my cousin's daughters ... What I love about this is ... party games ... turn [everyone being on their phones] into a strength." [14:07]
Type: Mind-meld guessing (“mind-reading”) game
Gameplay: You get a prompt (e.g., "Darth Vader"), place a pointer on a spectrum (e.g., “wizard” to “not a wizard”), and others guess where you landed.
[17:09] - Board-to-App Success
Micah: "It was originally a wonderful board game. ... You and other people are kind of trying to get on the same page."
Dan: "It is so tricky to figure out exactly where on that dial somebody is ... people were really upset with me that I argued that recycling was not as virtuous as they thought it was." [19:20]
Type: Mini-game app blending digital and physical challenges
[19:54] - Blend of Phone and Physical Play
Micah: "It mixes physical things with things that you can do on your phone... it makes use of the sensors and the stuff that's built in."
On Traditional Charades vs. Modern Games:
Micah: "I don't like classic charades because of all the rules ... no one ever has the same set of rules and so then you spend so much time just trying to agree with the rule that for me is like, ugh." [08:52]
On Party Game Social Dynamics:
Dan: "It's more socially acceptable to ... hold the phone up to my head than it is, I'm going to act out a charade in a public place." [08:48]
On Phones at Parties:
Dan: "Party games ... manage to turn that into a strength, right? ... you're still having an experience, right, with other humans." [14:18]
On Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes:
Dan: "It's a good communication game, right? ... It is simultaneously one of those things that gets you really annoyed ... but at the same time is also hilarious." [11:33]
Dan:
"What’s different about this is ... [it] unlocks the ability to stream video, as opposed to just being a downloadable file."
"Seamless toggling between video and audio that keeps your place." [24:27]
Competing with YouTube: Apple leveraging HLS streaming for adaptive video quality, dynamic video ads.
Micah: “Apple is, is I feel like I'm always seeing Apple tout its HTTP live streaming thing and every year I'm kind of like, should I care more about this?” [25:08]
Product: Spigen Classic LS MagFit iPhone 17 Pro Case
"It’s a fun case. Certainly a little sort of statement piece. ... I have become a lanyard person." [32:56]
App: Ferrite Recording Studio
"It can pretty much do everything that Logic does, ... truly amazing app... with this and a, you know, an iPhone or an iPad, you've got yourself a full like recording and editing studio for podcasts." [36:00]
Hosts Online:
Catch you next week for more iOS tips, tricks, and app picks on iOS Today!