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iOS Today 803: Step Up Your Apple Watch Game
01:03:36
Power User Tips for Your Wrist
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- [00:03]
Rosemary Orchard
So good, so good, so good.
- [00:06]
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- [00:31]
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- [00:57]
Micah Sargent
Coming up on iOS today, Rosemary Orchard and I, Micah Sargent, have our Apple Watches at the ready. Yes, it's time to talk about stepping up that Apple Watch game. Stay tuned.
- [01:10]
Outsystems Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Outsystems, a leading agentix systems platform built for the enterprise. Organizations all over the world are building, orchestrating and governing agentic systems on the Outsystems platform and and with good reason. Architect deliver and scale governed agentic systems with agility and trust using one open and unified platform Power secure company wide agentic orchestration for core business operations. Teams of any size and technical depth can use Outsystems to build, deploy and manage AI apps and agents quickly and cost effectively without compromising reliability and security. With Outsystems you can rapidly launch ideas from concept to completion. It's the leading agentix systems platform that is unified, agile and enterprise proven, allowing you to accelerate growth, reduce operational friction and deliver real Enterprise impact with AI OutSystems build your agentic future. Learn more at outsystems.com TWIT that's outsystems.com
- [02:11]
Micah Sargent
TWIT
- [02:14]
Rosemary Orchard
podcasts you love from people you trust.
- [02:19]
Micah Sargent
This is twit this is iOS today episode episode 803 recorded Sunday, May 17, 2026 for Thursday, May 21, 2026 step up your Apple Watch game. Hello and welcome to iOS today. This is the show where we Talk all things iOS, iPadOS, WatchOS, HomePod, OS and all the other OSs that Apple has on offer. I am one of your hosts. My name is Micah Sargent and my
- [02:54]
Rosemary Orchard
name is Rosemary Orchard and it's wonderful to be here and let's keep our watches out. Oh, I don't really know how to do that as A pun. Sorry, Micah, I'm letting the side down. But we're here to talk about WatchOS today.
- [03:07]
Micah Sargent
We are indeed here to talk about Watch OS and it is an exciting time. You know, we've. I think many of the people on the show will have been part of the Apple Watch fam for a while, but this is one of those devices I think, can be kind of a fun addition if you have long been an iPhone user or maybe even an iPhone and iPad user. Maybe you're just a Mac user. Maybe you're, you know, sort of some combination therein. It is really fun to add an Apple Watch to the mix. I think over time. We've seen the Apple Watch go from this satellite device, right, that.
- [03:43]
Rosemary Orchard
That.
- [03:44]
Micah Sargent
That phoned home to your iPhone and did all that it could based on what your iPhone had. And that has changed the. The Apple Watch has become a far more powerful device and has become something that can exist on its own. Apple even changed the way that the Apple Watch setup process works so that you are able to activate and make use of an Apple Watch without needing to have an iPhone attached to it. Or in some cases, you can use one iPhone to set up multiple Apple Watches so that your child, for example, could have an Apple Watch without needing to also have a phone. So these, these devices, I think, have become more powerful over time and more independent over time, and it's so nice to see them out of the nest, living their best life. So, Rosemary, I think you wanted to give a shout out to kind of kick things off here as we talk about perhaps some of the more extreme ways that Apple Watch can be used.
- [04:52]
Rosemary Orchard
Yes, yes, I do. So I would love to give a shout out to Lights of Vegas from our wonderful club Discord, who wrote in and asked, does anyone use multiple Apple Watches? Because they are looking at upgrading to a series 11 from an SE2 for better health tracking, and they're wondering about how it works with having two watches connected to the same phone. They also work at a job where they don't want to wear their primary watch on a daily basis, but they would be okay wearing a secondary watch, which is a very interesting point. You know, some. Sometimes, you know, these, these little bits of hardware that Micro and I wear on our wrists, they are nice pieces of hardware, but they are kind of pricey. And yeah, if you work in a manual or physical job where things might impact your Apple Watch on a regular basis, then you. You may decide that wearing it is not a great idea. I personally am a software developer, so I Sit at my laptop all day and I type. That is about as dangerous as my life gets occasionally the dog bath type thing. So I don't have that concern, but I do know plenty of people who do. And you know, there, there are options out there, as Micah, I'm sure could attest to. If you want to go Ultra, you could go crazy. Ultra or. Yeah, just a secondary watch.
- [06:10]
Micah Sargent
Yeah, I definitely have my, my setup for sure with, with my Ultra Apple watch. I love my Apple Watch Ultra. I think it's, it's a fantastic watch. It's. It's large. I do have smaller wrists and so I to kind of get used to the idea that my whole entire wrist is made up of. Of watch. But I think that the band that it came with has helped make that a little bit easier. It's. It fastens. Well, Rosemary is currently showing off the sort of double situation going on here, which is fantastic as well.
- [06:46]
Rosemary Orchard
This is the smaller Apple Watch as well, to be clear, folks. And that is pretty much the size of my wrist. If I put the Ultra on, if I had the Ultra here, it is the width of my wrist. I, I do still own an Ultra because talking me out of the action button with the shortcut support, that was a hard sell. It did not work. I did buy it, but we'll get to that later.
- [07:06]
Micah Sargent
We will, yeah. So, I mean, for me, I have, I've stuck with this over the, the various iterations of the Ultra. I like, I like the look of it now. I like the feel of it. I, I don't think that I would go back to the standard Apple Watch, personally at this point, just because I think at some point it just, you just get used to what you have. And there are, there are some extra features, of course, that have come as part of the Ultra, but we've talked about that in the past. The main point I think here is just for me working upgrading to the Ultra in the first place and then just continuing on that Ultra train as I have, as Apple has come out with new versions of it and as I have, you know, become interested in some of the new features or what have you, has made it good. Now I'm. I felt like the Apple Watch is a device that is. It has an interesting upgrade cycle and for me, something that I think is interesting is how long they can potentially last. I have some Apple Watches that didn't end up getting traded in that I occasionally will charge just to make sure they're still alive and well and have passed some of those off over Time to friends and family. And I really kind of like that about the Apple Watch. It does feel like something that you can, you can share with other people. You can when you upgrade, you know, pass along one that you're no longer using. But Apple has had over time an interesting color story when it comes to the Apple Watch such that we've seen a green one, we've seen a blue one, we've seen all sorts of different colors of aluminum. And I think that it's an odd thing where you have this personal decision that goes into this accessory on your wrist. Right. And that can result in it maybe not being as resellable or swappable if someone's personal preferences were to get in the way of what you would have. But yeah, I don't know. Do you, when you get an Apple Watch, Rosemary, do you get it for you in the sense I want a special color or I want this specific finish, or is it more about the functionality that you can get out of it? Yeah, I guess. I'm curious, how much of a fashion item is the Apple Watch to you?
- [09:59]
Rosemary Orchard
So personally, when I'm picking a piece of hardware like an Apple Watch, I look for neutral as far as the colors go. Don't get me wrong, the blues, the reds, they're gorgeous colors, but they don't blend in with my day to day life. You know, as I mentioned, I'm a software developer. That means nobody takes me particularly seriously. If I turn up to the office wearing jeans and a T shirt and I'm wearing, you know, a giant Apple Watch Ultra with this ridiculous scrunchie wristband on it at the office, nobody is going to bat an eyelid. But there are some situations where I still want to wear my Apple Watch because I need to stay, you know, communicable. The other people need to be able to contact me, but I need to dress things up a little bit. So I, this is why I tend to go for the smaller Apple watches and then I just buy a variety of third party wristbands that, that fit with it. You know, Apple watch bands, you can get them from Apple. I've got one right here actually behind me in my office for my dad for his birthday. Don't worry, he's not watching live, he's on holiday at the moment. But you know, he was really enamored with the anchor blue that's in the latest collection of colors. So I bought him one of those because he loves it. He'll look after his watch bands and keep them. I have a huge Collection of just knockoff ones. Because I've been wearing the Apple Watch since the first version. The Apple Watch straps are still compatible. I had one strap break on me at some point where the pins got a little wonky or something. And I think that was actually an Apple one. And they replaced it for me. They were really good about it. I went in store and went, look, this is completely jammed, it's not coming out, something's wrong. The guy took it out and went, oh, wow, that's broken. And went and got one off the shelf and gave it to me and then went through and was like, I just take a couple of details, please. But, you know, they were. They were really good about that. But yeah, for me, there's a bit of fashion to it. But the other thing I have to keep in mind, or I don't have to keep in mind, but I do keep in mind is these are Modern Family heirlooms. This is my watch. When I'm done with this, it will become my dad's watch and then when my dad's done with it, it'll become my mum's watch and then it'll become my grandmother's watch. We pass these down through the family because, as you mentioned, Micah, they last a long time. You know, they're. It's not a piece of technology where Apple makes it completely obsolete the following year. You know, the driving principle with upgrading my grandmother's Apple watch last time was the active fall detection, which we have, and we've got turned on for her. But other than that, she didn't really need to upgrade. We actually ended up getting her a second Apple watch, also with fall detection, so that she can wear one all the time. So when she takes one off for charging, it's a hot swap situation. And we'll have to get to talking about two Apple watches in a moment because this is. It is a thing that can be very useful, especially if you're somebody who just. If you're not wearing it, then you'll never wear it again. I have been there, done that, got the T shirt. It is a very useful device, but I tend to go for something neutral that blends in. So at the moment I'm wearing silver. Previously I've had starlight, but I've just had starlight and silver and that's it. Because that works with my jewelry collection and I like them.
- [13:04]
Micah Sargent
Yeah, well, this is an episode about leveling up, right? Our Apple Watch game about maybe doing more than you would otherwise. And so, yeah, let's talk about why someone might want to live the two Apple Watch lifestyle. What would be the purpose of this? Obviously one of the ways is what the listener mentioned Lights of Vegas mentioned of saying I have what. What is it to have two watches connected to the phone. I work a job where I don't want to wear, as you read earlier, the primary watch on a daily basis but would be okay wearing an extra one. What's what are some other reasons for outside of being a developer that you might want to have the multi watch situation?
- [13:59]
Rosemary Orchard
Yes, and I will just mention for folks who aren't familiar, if you're a developer you'll be installing like the developer betas on your Apple Watch and from personal experience battery. I wish I knew her. So it is a thing and it's worth doing and downgrading the Apple Watch if you've upgraded it for the beta programs is tricky. So that's why developers tend to have two. I used to have two. And to be clear, when I went to the 2 watch lifestyle to start with, it was because I I bought a new watch and I kept the previous one much like Lightsabigs was talking about. And I did this because found that I was struggling to put my watch on charge at a time that then meant that it was charged enough to do sleep tracking for me in the morning. It wasn't so bad. I have MagSafe chargers with an Apple Watch dock littered around the home because that's just how I live my life. It is the best way to do it for me. I've determined if I've got a charger everywhere I can always put things on charge. So taking my watch off in the morning when I would sit down at my computer and popping it on charge, that wasn't an issue. But then I'd be away from my desk in the evenings, I'd be playing a game with some friends or watching a film or something and I just wouldn't put my watch on charge and then it would die sometime during the night and I wouldn't have sleep tracking and that would take forever to turn on in the morning. So that's why I originally did it. Battery life has got significantly better as has charging speed, so that is perhaps less of an issue now. But also you know, if for example you're somebody who needs an Apple Watch for your day to day life, but you also like to go diving, Apple Watch Ultra could be a really good shout out to but if it doesn't fit in your day to day life then maybe like this is a save up and wear for specific sports and outside of work and things like that, and keep your previous watch for your day job and things like that. But yeah, there's a couple of reasons out there. Those are the only ones that have come to my mind. Have any more come to yours? Micah?
- [15:56]
Micah Sargent
No, no, no. And I think that those are the main reasons that someone would want to do that. I have considered doing the day watch, night watch thing. I. Ultimately, for me, I just can't wear a watch to bed. I don't sleep well with it on my wrist. It's, it's, it's kind of unfortunate because I think if I hadn't thought about it too much, it probably would have been fine. But I've put too much thought into it so it becomes sort of this bigger, heavier anchor on my wrist the longer I'm thinking about it sitting there while I'm asleep or while I'm trying to sleep. And so, yeah, I, I kind of wish I would have just done it in the first place and not thought about it, but it's too late for that and so I am where I am. One thing with the multiple, multiple Apple Watch lifestyle that's interesting is Apple really kind of has made that something that people might do given that auto switch feature that is in the watch app, so that you can automatically swap between those watches and be able to access the settings therein. Now one reason again for that is if somebody's managing multiple Apple watches for family members, being able to quickly access the settings or the pairing process for an Apple Watch or another is all right there. One of the things that I'm always curious about when someone has an Apple Watch, I'll always ask them how, how do you have your apps screen set up? Because some people are list people and some people are, I don't know what the other one is called. Grid. The, the, the honeycomb.
- [17:51]
Rosemary Orchard
It is the app grid, right?
- [17:53]
Micah Sargent
Yeah, but what's your method?
- [17:55]
Rosemary Orchard
Rosie? Yeah, I, I'm a list person maker. Got, I've got to have it enlisted. I tried the grid, but similarly, the home screen of my iPhone is pretty basic because I use search and the app library to get to everything. So I, I personally don't find a, you know, I prefer to open up the list of apps and just scroll through because I know I'm looking for sleep or settings, both of those beginning with S, of course. But you know, I could be looking for Watch Smith or something like that. But it's easy to just, you know, use your, your Digital Crown as it's called the scroll wheel on the side to just scroll really quickly. If you give that a little whip, then it will, you know, it will scroll quite speedily and get through the list.
- [18:42]
Micah Sargent
Now something we are doing is something that anyone who has an iPhone, a modern iPhone, is able to do. The phone that is paired with the watch, and that is a little feature called Apple Watch Mirroring, which uses AIRP Play to display your Apple Watch on your phone. And so Rosemary and I are both rocking this tech and it gives us not. This is what's neat about this, typically, because Rosemary and I, as you can see right now, if you're watching, I am pointing at what is equivalent to my phone screen. We've, we've shown this before you. We show our phones on the, on the show. But what I can't do with this right now is move my mouse over what's displaying and interact with it. What's cool is this unique feature, this Apple Watch Mirroring feature does allow you to interact with. Whoops. The device. So let me pull that back up and show you that. Of course. See, I've had it paired the whole time. There we go. I am able to click the Digital Crown, scroll through my apps. I can click the side button to access our control center, and then I can also click the action button on the other side by tapping. So all of this functionality is available to me right here in the. Right here on my phone. So if you're having trouble for some reason, whatever it might be, interacting with your Apple Watch on your wrist, this is a way of doing it a little bit bigger as well, which is nice. And so I kind of like this. Now, Rosemary, you were showing. We'll switch over to you. You were showing us some of the, some of like the widget settings and things that you can do with your Apple Watch. Because this is this, this screen that you've just shown, which you can access by scrolling up with control or with your Digital Crown, has gotten a lot more powerful.
- [20:58]
Rosemary Orchard
It has indeed. So from the actual watch face, whatever you've got that set to, I'm currently using one of the Kaleidoscope faces. You can either swipe up with your finger from the bottom. You can, if you're watching, you can just about see something coming in there. Or you can scroll up with the Digital Crown, of course, tap on a widget there and this will show you the current day and time. So it says sun shot for Sunday, 17th May. And then it's got an analog clock, which I personally don't find particularly Useful because I, I, I've mostly got digital watch faces, but I picked the analog one for today cause it's fun. And I've got some widgets here. So I've got the mindfulness, I've got weather and I've got music, fitness and messages. But below this there's an edit. Uh, and then here you can see your widgets. You can add some more. And then you've also got widget suggestions where you can allow widget suggestions and if you allow them then you can show them in at the bottom of the smart stack and then you can just see. Okay, so for example for arms, allow all but buffer. I don't even know why I've got buffer installed on the Apple Watch to be honest. I should get rid of that, I don't need it. But now I've turned that off so the suggestions there won't show. And there are, you know, some really great widgets here. So widgets got a really big upgrade on the Apple Watch to start with. They were kind of complications and they were just the complications, the little mini Apple app interpretations that you can add to your watch face. Now these have kind of combined with live activities to an extent and so app developers can really take an advantage of this and reuse code that they're using in other places as well. So I've got two featured options here. One is from Omnifocus, show my forecast. So that is upcoming tasks. And then this one looks like it's probably from. I don't recognize that app icon to be honest. So I'm just going to move along. But then I can add something like from alarms, I can show my upcoming alarms or I can show all of my active alarms. There's ah, it was astronomy. There we go. So I can add things from my calendar. I could add my camera remote which is a feature that I always forget exists. So I'm sure I'm not the only one. And I can add that as a widget and you can change the order of your widgets as well. So you can pin it so it always stays at the top. Or I'm going to unpin it and then I'm just going to scroll down and see is there anything else now I should know? I'm going to pin this little widget to the top actually because I really like this, this1, this three icon widget I can actually customize so I can change that so I can remove music and I can tap and I could add carrot for example to it. I am actually going to put music back. Because since I finally started setting up my smart speakers in my new home, I can actually make use of this significantly more than I could. But, yeah, controlling the widgets that are in your dock is definitely something that I think everybody should do, and I think it's well worth going through. I'd actually recommend opening the Watch app on your phone. So there's an app called Apple Watch going through there and just removing all the apps that you don't want. So, for example, I don't want Buffer on my Apple Watch. I don't know how that snuck onto my Apple Watch because I'm usually pretty good about these things. But, yeah, go through. Remove the apps that you don't want so that then when you do open the list or the grid, whatever you choose to use, we still love you just the same. Please try the list. If you've not tried the list, please try the list. You can tap and hold tabs versus spaces. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's fine. Everything's fine. But yeah, I'd recommend going through and having removing the apps you don't care about, remove the apps that you don't want, and then go through and have a play. Similarly, I would also recommend be a little more mindful of your notifications. When I set up my Apple Watch Ultra again recently, as part of my preparation for the show, I realized I was getting notifications left, right, center, upside down, inside out, every sick, Every couple of seconds it felt like I was getting a new notification. And so I went through and I controlled those and I got rid of a bunch of them because I didn't want them or need them and they weren't making my life better. And the whole purpose about technology that is as personal as being on your wrist, where it can literally come along and tap you, you on the wrist at any time, is to make it work for you, not work within it.
- [25:21]
Micah Sargent
Very well put. All right, we're taking a quick break so I can tell you about Delete Me bringing you this episode of iOS today. If you've ever wondered how much of your personal data is out there on the Internet for anyone to see, and then you went and looked. It's probably more than you think. Your name, your contact information, your Social Security number, your home address, even information about your family members are all being compiled by data brokers and sold online. Anyone on the web can buy your private details, and this can lead to identity theft, to phishing attempts, to doxing, to harassment. But now you can protect your privacy with Delete Me See, as a tech insider and a show host, of course I'm aware of how little privacy we have online and how much personal information is out there that can compromise my safety, my security. I mean, went on and saw, holy cow, it's got all this information about my family members. I signed up for this. They did not. This being being extremely online. Well, that is why I personally recommend and use Delete Me to solve the problem and help keep me protected. See, Delete Me, it's a subscription service that removes your personal information from hundreds of data brokers. Because there are hundreds of data brokers out there. You can sign up and then you provide Delete Me with exactly what information you want deleted. And then their experts take it from Delete Me will send you regular personalized privacy reports that show you what information they found, where they found it and what they removed. And this is important. Delete Me is not just a one time service. See, it's always working for you. Constantly monitoring, constantly removing the personal information you don't want on the Internet because data brokers continue to gather it and collect it. So you need someone out there who is going and taking that data and doing something about protecting your privacy online. To put it simply, Delete Me does all the hard work of wiping your and your family's personal information from data broker websites. So take control of your data and
- [27:19]
Outsystems Announcer
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- [27:22]
Micah Sargent
up for Delete Me at a special discount for our listeners today. Get 20% off your Delete Me plan when you go to JoinDeleteMe.com TWiT and use the promo code twit at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to join delete me.com twit and enter code twit at checkout. That's joindeleteme.com twit code twit all right,
- [27:46]
Outsystems Announcer
let's get back to the show.
- [27:48]
Micah Sargent
One of the I'm pretty sure I have personally sold at least three Apple watches on one single feature and that is the ability to ping your iPhone when you have misplaced it. Of course, we know as well that if you tap and hold the Ping ping button in Control center on your Apple watch, it will also make the LED flash on the back of the phone light up so you can get a visual of where the phone might be, not just the sound over time, Apple has also added functionality if both devices support it to do nearby through Find My Functionality, the Ultra Wideband chips to help you locate it as well. Well, what people might not know Though, is that there's actually a reverse option. Now, I personally have never misplaced my Apple Watch because if it's not on my wrist, it's on its charger next to my nightstand. However, if you ever have misplaced your Apple Watch, there is a way to do so. Rosemary, how can someone find their Apple Watch if it goes missing?
- [29:09]
Rosemary Orchard
Okay, well, first of all, there's an option who just walked into the room. It's called getting a border collie and training them to play fetch and then asking them to fetch your Apple Watch. However, this is a significant commitment. On top of already having an Apple Watch, I would recommend it. He's very cute. But there's an easier way. If you open Control center on your iPhone, then you can customize it. And one of the options you can add is, is finding your Apple Watch, which, if you're watching the video, is the icon down here in the bottom left. It looks like a watch with sort of radar coming out the sides, if that makes sense. Uh, so if you then tap on this, it will then ping your Apple Watch. Now, something important to note. If you have two Apple Watches, it is going to ping the active Apple Watch. It's not going to ping your secondary Apple Watch. So you may need to do a little futzing around in the Watch Apple app, which I can show folks how to do, actually. So I will. I will tell you because. There we go. So in the Apple Watch app, if you tap on all watches in the top left, then you can turn off auto switch here and then you can select the Apple Watch that you're trying to find, which was very useful when somebody's tail that they don't have their license for yet. Might have swept the Apple Watch Ultra off my desk while I was pairing it the other day and it got buried in a pile of blankets. So thanks to this feature, I was able to find my Apple Watch Ultra again. And there we go. But yeah, worth knowing that it. If you are looking for a particular Apple Watch and it's not the currently active one, then you do need to manual select it. And then, bonus tip. Remember to turn auto switch back on, because it will make your life much, much easier.
- [30:51]
Micah Sargent
All right, the other thing to mention when it comes to having an Apple Watch is that you can actually use use it for proving your identity. And by that I mean that if you have a Mac, for example, you can use your Apple Watch to not just unlock your Mac, but also confirm purchases as well. The way that it works, or the thought is that when you you as a person, wake up in the morning. Let me do it from my perspective. When I, Micah Sargent, wake up in the morning and I put on my Apple Watch and I type in my code on my Apple Watch and unlock it, then in that moment, I am proving that I am me. I know my code. And so I have said, yes, this is me. Now, because the watch is on my wrist, and because the sensors on the back of the watch can tell that it is up against my wrist, what happens is if I take off my Apple Watch, these sensors go, you're no longer connected to a wrist, so you could be connected to someone else, or you might just be free floating around. And so it re locks at Apple Watch. That on its own is cool. It means that I'm the one or anyone who has the code is the one who can access the Apple Watch. But what's better is that that inherently then this is a device that has been authenticated at one point during the day and is stuck to you throughout the rest of the day. And the watch can tell that that's the case, and therefore it can give you the ability to prove that you're you to your Mac. So if you don't have a Touch ID Mac or you don't like using Touch id, then you can actually say, unlock my Mac with my Apple Watch. And what will happen is the Mac will make a little Bluetooth connection to the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch will say, yeah, I'm on Micah's wrist. And Micah type in the code so it's him. So let him into his Mac. Then if you make purchases on your Mac, the basically anywhere where you would use Touch ID to authenticate, you are able to then use your watch to do so. It also works the same way on Apple tv. If you buy something, your Apple TV will send a little ping to any nearby devices that are yours. So your phone, but also your Apple Watch. And then you can just double tap the side button, double click the side button to confirm that you want to make a purchase. So it's really handy to be able to do so. But there's also, again, a reverse. You can unlock your Apple Watch with your iPhone. And so what you do is you, you go into the settings, the watch settings on your phone and you say, yes, I would like to have my watch be unlocked by my iPhone. And so when I wake up in the morning, what actually typically happens is I put on my watch. What typically happens is I put on my watch and then I will face ID with my phone, swipe up do a couple of things on your phone and during that period of time up at the top, a little notification says unlocking watch with iPhone at any point if you want to, you can tap on that to cancel it. You saying no, I don't want you to unlock it, but I do. And so then from that point on my my Apple Watch is unlocked because the phone has proven to the watch that I am me. And then if I want to, I can also use my watch throughout the day for unlocking stuff that I need or proving my identity to other stuff. Really cool. And another I think added benefit of an Apple Watch for use. Anything else Rosemary that you want to mention to help step up the Apple Watch game? Before we move along to the news,
- [35:15]
Rosemary Orchard
I think that the only thing I would like to remind people of is your Apple Watch doesn't need your iPhone to work even without a cellular plan. You can for example play music from your phone to AirPods or any Bluetooth headphones or speakers, including AirPlay ones. So it is worth remembering that you know as much as your Apple Watch is to an extent an extent of what is on your iPhone. And I've realized I've used the word extent twice there, which is probably very confusing, but it is, you know, it can be used independently and I would encourage people to give that a go. You don't need to have a cellular plan on the Apple Watch, for example, to take it for a run. Now if you are going for a run, I will would, you know, please request that you be safe and make sure that you do have a way to get help should you need it or should somebody else that you come across need it or something else like an animal for example. But you can just take your watch and some headphones and go if you want. And yeah, it's well worth giving that a go because you might find that that enables you to pick up a new fitness habit or even just, you know, something that helps you get outside and enjoy yourself without feeling quite so connected in the best of ways.
- [36:32]
Micah Sargent
Nicely put. I think that really about covers it for ways to step up your Apple Watch game. But if there are features that you've enabled or apps that you've checked out or settings that you've changed that you think we missed that you want to share with other people. Email us iostodaywit TV is how you get in touch.
- [36:51]
Rosemary Orchard
Touch.
- [36:53]
Micah Sargent
Let us though move along to the news now. Apple recently with the latest rollout of iOS, the 0.5 update announced that end to end encrypted RCS messaging would start to be available. We talked about it during our last show where we covered 0.5 updates. But I wanted to mention a little bit more about this because Apple and Google of course have worked together to make this a reality. RCS stands for rich Communication services and it's sort of the step up from sms, those media messages and the messages that have just a little bit more involved with them. But up to this point we also talked about that this on the last show there was not full end to end encryption that is rolling out and so supported carriers as well as Android users who are on the latest version of Google message messages will be able to communicate with each other over RCS with end to end encryption. So what that means is that oh and I should mention this encryption is on by default and it does get automatically enabled over time for new and existing RCS conversations. So the idea is that you want this to be the case. End to end encryption is great. What it, what, what it means is essentially instead of just encryption one way both sides of the conversation, when it's sent and when it's received, it will, it will remain encrypted the whole time. So when it touches Apple servers or Google servers or your carrier servers or wherever it is, it's a string of characters that are are unable to be understood by that carrier or Google or Apple because those companies don't have the key to the message to basically translate it back into whatever the message is. So me sending something as simple as ha ha to Rosemary would be just as unreadable as someone sending their Social Security number to their cousin who needs it for some reason. I don't know, maybe be careful about sending your Social Security number to your cousin unless it's a really trustworthy cousin. I also wanted to mention and this is a link that will include in the show notes, Apple has a has put together a list where you can see if the carrier that you use is supporting RCS end to end encryption. So in Canada that's I've heard of Bell for example and it does support end to end encrypted messaging in the us let's go there next because those are carriers that we'll all be familiar with. AT&T supports end to end encrypted RCS messaging. Boost Mobile does as well. Let's see any other big names? Consumer cellular also does, which I'm surprised but also happy to hear. And then we'll keep going down the list. Mint Mobile, that's good. Metro by T Mobile will as well, and scrolling down until we get to Verizon and T Mobile. We seek that T Mobile does and will does Verizon right now. Come on, we're almost there. There's Verizon Wireless. Yes, it does so. So the major carriers are supporting end to end encrypted messaging and that's what's important. I think that it's very good that this has been slowly rolling out. You are able to turn on end to end encrypted messaging in your settings. So if you have not yet enabled that you can do so. I want to show you where that is, but I just have to be careful. Careful because of course we have the issue of our phone numbers being displayed. So let me just get to that section and see if we can find it without going in. Okay, so in your settings, if you go into the settings and you you in the search bar type in messages or you can scroll down to the bottom where you can see the apps and then find messages, you will see bottom of the settings for messages, an option that says RCS messaging. If I tap on that, you'll note that I have RCS messaging turned on and I have RCS business messages turned on as well. And from there it is of course the responsibility of your carrier to enable the end to end encrypted version. Apple says that you will see. Let me see, you'll see a lock. Now I've lost it. It says it somewhere. Did it support Android users when RCS messages. There we go. When RCS messages are end to end encrypted, they can't be read while they're sent between devices. Users will know that a conversation is end to end encrypted when they see a new lock icon in their RCS chats. So if you have an ongoing RCS conversation with someone, you should look for a lock icon in the chat that will show that the conversation is end to end encrypted. Now I've looked at my recent RCS message that I have, the most recent one I have, and it doesn't currently show that lock. So we'll see when that gets updated. But now I feel like I need to have more Android friends so I can test this out and make sure it's working for me as I do have AT and T. But in any case I should see that happen at some point and that is very good. All righty folks, it is time to move along to our next segment and oh, I. Yeah, I can hear the music. It's time for shortcuts, Corner
- [43:17]
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- [43:56]
Micah Sargent
This week's Shortcuts Corner request comes in from Jane, who writes, I'm new to writing shortcuts on my iOS devices and have been trying to figure out how to export health data. I'm trying to export my weight data for the last X months. I figured out how to display the data and wait, but I can't seem to export the data to a CSV file. As time goes on, I'd like to export other data for analysis outside of Apple Health. Can you help me with a simple script or shortcut? I don't mind updating it for different health data or times. Is there a good tutorial where I can learn how to write shortcuts? How do you share your shortcuts with others? Do you do it via email, via text message or and Jane has also provided did the pet tax as well and says thank you for your help. It's Jane from Maine, who I will also add as a Club Twit member. And we thank you so much Jane, not only for sending in your Shortcuts Corner request, but also for sending us a photo of your adorable dog, a very tall dog.
- [45:01]
Rosemary Orchard
That a doodle?
- [45:02]
Micah Sargent
I believe it's a doodle of some kind. Yeah. And I would say, oh so cute. Yeah, very cute, very regal looking and I think a little pensive, which I kind of adore. There's something kind of nice about a dog that's just sort of looking thoughtfully. In any case though, Jane, great question. I, I, I feel it's a great question. Rosemary, tell me, is it a great question and can you help out? Jane?
- [45:30]
Rosemary Orchard
I think it is an excellent question because there is a feature inside of Health Today export various things in various ways, but you often end up with like a PDF of your ECG or something like that, which you know is lovely to be able to give to a doctor who's a qualified health professional, but to just use for yourself. I mean I could print ECG graphs and stick them all over my walls. I don't think that's going to make Me physically a healthier person though. Whereas for some people creating a graph that they can display on other, you know, other places to show their weight trending in the right direction, that could be really useful or able to go, hey, I've noticed that my blood oxygen seems to be dipping at these points in time. I wonder why that is. And being able to actually like get that data and print that out or share that in some way can be really useful. I am of course going to add a minor disclaimer of if you're concerned about your health, please see a qualified professional. But you know, there, there is, you know, only so much we can do. But being able to give anybody else who you are working with for your health health a CSV or Excel sheet, which, you know, we can create using a CSV because we're smart people here, if you open a CSV file in numbers or Excel, you can save them as an Excel sheet or numbers as a number sheet as well, which can be very useful. So we're going to start. So we need to use health and we're going to use the Find Health samples. Now it defaults to using steps. It has previously had access to my steps data, but that's fine. So what we need to do is I'm actually going to start by changing this. So to use this you are going to have to allow access to whatever the data is in Health. However, it's shortcuts. It's going to do exactly what is written in the shortcut. If you download a shortcut from somewhere else that's using something like get contents of URL or something, then obviously maybe be a little wary and make sure you actually understand what it's doing. But if you're creating this shortcut with me or you download it from me me, I promise that data is not going anywhere you don't send it. So we're going to change our type here and we're going to go down to. I think it is no, not body weight. It should just be under W4 weight, waist, circumference. That is a great one to track if you are looking to, you know, lose weight or work on your personal health. But I'm going to allow access to weight. Now there is a thing in health where, because it also tracks fitness, it has start dates and ends dates. So if you're looking for something like wait, don't worry too much about the fact this is start date that is the same as wait. And I'm just going to say, hey, start date is in the last Seven months. Because Jaden mentioned they've already figured out how to get this data. They just don't know how to make it into a CSV. Now, your unit might default to kilograms because that's what I have my device set to. But we want to make sure sort by is going to be something start, date and we want oldest first because otherwise the first thing we're going to have to do when we open the CSV file somewhere else is resort the data. And that's a whole extra step that we can just solve right here and right now. Now what we're going to do is we're going to use a repeat with each underneath this. So we're going to go through each of the items and we're going to add a text into this. And then what I'm going to do is I am going to select our repeat item and I am going to get our start date and then I'm going to add a comma and then, then I'm going to go back in and I'm going to select our repeat item again and then I'm going to add our value. Okay. Which is what it defaults to. So now we are creating a line, just one line, which is start, date, comma, or the date rather, comma, and then your actual weight. Now, I've not included the units here. I'm hoping that that's okay. If you want to include the units, you can add it again as another repeat item and then you can add your units. I'm going to take that out because that will mess with some things when it comes to graphing the numbers. And then we want to combine these lines. So we're going to use a combined text. This needs to go after your repeat and then we're going to combine it in new lines. And then we're going to use a set name. And then set name here is we're going to set it to. No, I wanted to type in there. You just need to tap on it in the right spot. And I missed health data. And then very important here, dot, dot CSV. Then I'm going to expand this and tap, don't include file extension, which means it's not going to try to add dot txt to stand for text file automatically. And then when I run this, it's going to not do anything because I don't actually have any health data locked in here. I've just got some new batteries for my smart scale. But what I will do is I'm going to add a little share Action in here and then you're going to share this and then you'll be able to put put that file anywhere you choose. You can put it in icloud, you can put it in Dropbox, you can just airdrop it to another machine. You can open it in a particular application. Now, one thing to note, this shortcut will work brilliantly on iPhone. It will work wonderful on iPad. If you try to run this on an Apple Watch or a Mac, it is going to go because it does not have the health app and the data for it. And also, Apple Watch does not do sharing of files. So you'll need to run this on an iPhone or an iPad. But this is the option. Now, Jade also asked, how do you share your shortcuts with others? Now, for me, if I go to the share option here, then I can scroll down and I can go copy icloud link, which is how I share it with everybody in the show notes, because that's what we do here at iOS today. But to do this under Settings, Apps and Shortcuts, I have made sure that I've turned private sharing on and then advance. I've also made sure that I've allowed everything. Now, sharing, you shouldn't need to turn private sharing on. You may find that you need to. I did have that with somebody relatively recently where they were asking me, rose, why isn't this working? I don't understand. It turned out they didn't have private sharing on. They turned that on and then it worked and they turned it off and it continued working. So I think it was just a glitch for that particular person. Person. But, yeah, that's how you share. So you just copy the icloud link and that's it. That should be all they need. If you update that shortcut, then the next time they download it, it should be updated again. So that's it.
- [51:45]
Micah Sargent
Lovely.
- [51:46]
Rosemary Orchard
Hope that helps you, Jane.
- [51:47]
Micah Sargent
Yeah, I hope it does too. Fantastic recommendation there. And always, as always, one of my favorite parts of Shortcuts Corner, the demonstrations of how to create these shortcuts. So if you have a Shortcuts Corner request, you can send that to us by reaching out iostoday @twit tv is how you get in touch. Moving along to our final segment of the show, it is time for our app caps. These are the apps or gadgets we've been using for some time, or perhaps have been using for the first time. But we think you're great and want to share with all of you. Now, these, the product that I Want to talk about this week? MOFT actually sent me this. So full disclosure, I did not purchase this device, but I think it's a super cool one that many people might want to check out because it is the MOFT trackable wallet stand. Now MOFT has made lots of different cool magsafe stands in the past. In fact, I think we've shown one on the show before. And so you are used to the idea of being able to sort of thwack it to the back of your device and then use the included little stand which also has magnets to give you the ability to place it vertical horizontal. But this also serves as a wallet. I can slide little cards in here or a little bit of money if I want to paper money into this pocket and then it closes, closes up like so and good to go. That on its own is already nice, right? It's a, it's a nice sort of material, a pretty maroony red color and overall is well designed. But what's even better, the secret sauce here that MOFT has included is it's got Find My built into it. So this is actually a Find My wallet that, that has a little speaker that will sound out if you lose it and you use the Find My app to do so. So in the the app Find my, I am able to find the MOFT device and hit play sound on it and we'll see if it'll play or if it'll get eaten up by the zoom.
- [54:21]
Rosemary Orchard
I can hear that from here, Mike. Possibly, probably because it sounds like it's in I'm in your house, but it seems pretty loud in the best of ways.
- [54:29]
Micah Sargent
In the best of ways, exactly. So it is, it is loud and it is able to be, you know, heard over long distances. And I think that's something that makes this so great. Now there are lots of companies that are making Find My style devices. This is just one of those options. But it's just really cool to be able to have, have a little wallet that if you lose it, you don't have to actually lose it, you can find it and. Oh, oh. I don't think that I mentioned, but should have mentioned that it's not just magnetic so that you can thwack it to the back of your phone, it's also magnetic because you can recharge it. This is not a one time use device that lasts a year. No, it's recharging and that's important. So that's the MOFT trackable wallet stand which you can get at MOFT us it is 49.99. Yeah. 50 bucks is not bad for a nice. Oh, the color, I'm so sorry. I called it maroon. It is called BlackBerry and I can see why. It's a. It's a sort of deep purplish, red, burgundy sort of color. So that's my pick. Rosemary. It looks like you've got an interesting pick as well.
- [55:59]
Rosemary Orchard
Yeah. Maybe I was inspired by you, Micah. Maybe I had a last minute scramble to find my app cap and it was. This is within reach in my office because I'm currently using it again. I'm also currently on the Magsafe wallet bandwagon. I cycle through being on it and of it depending on my needs as the year goes. But I'm currently using the Spigen Tin Tap Magfit Magnetic MagSafe wallet. It's a bit of a mouthful, but it's pretty awesome. So it's got Magsafe on the back and on the front it's got Magsafe again. Why? Oh, so you can put your pop socket on it. So it's. You can still have your pop socket on your phone even though you also have a wallet on it. I love it. It's great. And the way that this works is it has a slider on the side. Now, I should know. I've got mine in a black and it's got kind of of a speckled finish to it, which is, you know, pretty nice. But then what you can do is it's got a lock here and you just slide that up and then when you push it, it pops open, which I'm failing to do because I'm holding it now. I've just thrown a card in here. It doesn't have any personal information, but it's got a band on this side, which is really nice for putting, you know, some. Some cash in there of some kind. You know, paper money rather than coin. Coins. You could probably put coins in here, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. I feel like they might just fall out every time you opened it. I've put my. What is this? Oh, I forgot the name of the company. Nomad. That's it. My Nomad Magsafe Rechargeable. Find my card in here and then I've currently got four cards in the other side, but there's space for more. I could fit at least one more card in here, maybe two. And I could definitely get some cash in here on this side. So this is a chunkier one. One. But I really like the fact that it locks. So that I'm not like if I drop it on the floor it's inevitable it will happen. Then I don't have to worry about, you know, losing a card or something. And yeah, I just really like this. I really love the addition of the extra magsafe on the back because this is my problem with a lot of magsafe wallets of I lose my popsocket, my beloved pop socket and I I'm somewhat addicted to pop sockets. I find that iPhones are just a little too large for my hands and it's nice to have a pop socket. The fact that they thought I ahead and made sure that as well as sticking this to your phone, you can stick something to the back of it as well, that makes me very, very happy. This is also it feels sturdy enough that you can just like chuck it in a bag of some kind, which is wonderful. And it does have some kind of weird, I don't know how to describe it but like a way that the the front notches into the back. I wouldn't necessarily say it's waterproof without checking the information, but it feels definitely like if it got some splash flashes it would be pretty it your your cards are going to be pretty safe and so should your cash be as well.
- [58:45]
Micah Sargent
Nice. Yeah that looks very. I I'm going fishing soon and have been sort of considering the protection that I need to do therein and something like this is seems really nice to to keep things safe. Now I of course I don't know about the water ingress of it but just that very hefty look and also the stunning color like that orange is really pretty as well.
- [59:16]
Rosemary Orchard
Oh yeah, I should have mentioned it comes in orange. It comes in like a couple of frosted shades, comes in June which is a cream and it's worth having a look if you are color agnostic when it comes to these things. At the prices at third party retailers such as Amazon. I noticed the June one on Amazon right now now is significantly cheaper than any of the other colors. I think this usually goes for around $35 but that the hinge on this is just so satisfying. You know if you, you press the button it just it pops open but it like feels like there's a spring in there pushing it open so that
- [59:50]
Micah Sargent
you just immediately get oh that's actually really nice.
- [59:54]
Rosemary Orchard
It's a really great fidget toy which is not its intended purpose and I have to stop myself myself from doing that. But I like the fact that there's a lock so that I can't just Be like constantly pushing the button if I've locked it.
- [60:05]
Lowe's Announcer
Wow.
- [60:06]
Micah Sargent
Speaking of fidget toys, this is not really related to anything, but I went to a little fair in, in Portland and they have these rings that are interwoven with multiple rings. And so this is five. And it is so fidgety, but it's quiet, which is really nice because they sort of roll across the finger. And so I'm walking around after I purchased this, I'm walking around the festival and this one stall, I was kind of looking at what the person was offering while I was fidgeting with this. And the gal sees what I'm doing and she goes, that just must be a dream for you, huh? I said, absolutely. So it was a really cool purchase. So, yeah, yeah, I feel the fidget of it. That's, that's, that's wonderful, folks. That is going to bring us to the end of this episode of iOS today. We thank you so much for being here with us. I want to remind you all about Club Twit at Twit TV Club Twit. When you head to Club Twit, which you can do by using the QR code in the corner there or by going to Twitter TV club TWiT, as I mentioned, $10 a month, $120 a year doing so. Joining the club gets you access access to some awesome benefits. Every single one of our shows ad free, just the content. You also gain access to some special feeds, our feed that has before the show, after the show and other clips. There's also a feed that has our live coverage of tech news events like on Tuesday when we'll be covering Google IE and WWDC in June. We also have have our special club shows that are published there. We just announced at Stacy's Book Club which will be in the in the feed as well if you don't have it yet. We just announced my new and upcoming media club where we will sort of be broadening the idea of book club so that you will be able to talk about media. There's a poll running right now in the Discord, which I'll talk about in a minute what the Discord is. But for those of of you who are already hip to the game in the Discord, I believe in the announcements section you should see a poll that has our info regarding the club shows and I'm having trouble finding where that feed is. Browse channels, there's announcements. Okay, I need to keep that one in my side bar. The options are between the top animated episodes for sort of like adult animation. So Futurama's Jurassic Bark, Rick and Morty's Total Rick all and Simpson's Marge versus The Monorail. So we'll watch all three of those and talk about them. There's also the Fifth Element. There's also Begonia, which is a movie if Fifth Element. I feel like everybody knows Begonia is a newer movie. And then Perfect Days, which is a movie from 2023. And so one of these it's currently between currently the animated episodes is the is the winner. But anyway, get in there and vote for our first Micah's Media Club conversation if that sounds good to you. Oh, so those were the three feeds you also gain access to to the Discord. It's a fun place to go to chat with your fellow Club Twit members and those of us here at Twit to watch those live shows that are for the club there and hang out and have lots of conversations. So thank you for being a member of the club. If you are, and if you're not, now's the time to check it out. Rosemary Orchard if people would like to follow you online and check out all the great work you're doing, where are the places they should go to do so?
- [64:04]
Rosemary Orchard
The best place to go is rosemaryorchard.com, which has got got links to books, apps, podcasts, various things that I am or have been affiliated with and it's got links to the social media. However, it does not have a link to my Discord handle because the best place to find me there is in the club Twitter live chat while we're recording the show or the iOS Today forum when we are off air. So I would recommend you check that out. It's a great place to ask questions and talk to your fellow iOS today nerds. Micah where can folks find you?
- [64:32]
Micah Sargent
If you're looking to find me online, I'm ikasargent on many a social media network where you find 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'm most active online. Thank you so very much for being here today with us and we'll catch you again next week for another episode of iOS today. Bye bye.
- [65:03]
Carrington College Announcer
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