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Get the latest iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple news every Friday. Tune in to this weekly podcast for in-depth coverage, product reviews, and analysis of all news surrounding Apple. Since 1997 AppleInsider has been a premier source of Apple news, leaks, and rumors. Hosted by Stephen Robles and the AppleInsider staff.
Stephen Robles:
Welcome to the Apple Insider podcast. This is your host Stephen Robles. And today we're going to talk about an updated control center that could be coming with iOS 17. Apple's weather widget was definitely broke for a while and there might be some alternatives that are better and you can now use chat GPT on any of your Apple devices natively in shortcuts. Thanks to Federico Vetticchi over at MacStories. We're going to talk about that too. This episode is brought to you by Notion AI and Collide and joining me and I'm going to try and convince them to use this chat GPT shortcut. My friend William Gallagher. How's it going, him.
Wiliam Gallagher:
This is not William. I am entirely chat GPT powered. In fact, it's a fake voice even. Have I got the accent right?
Stephen Robles:
Now
Wiliam Gallagher:
I'm not sure.
Stephen Robles:
William, have you tried any of those services where you can upload like a five-minute sample of your voice and then it will like you can then give a text and it will record the text in your voice and it sounds eerily accurate have you tried any of that?
Wiliam Gallagher:
No, but it reminds me of a Columbo episode here. I could be on the phone whilst
Stephen Robles:
Yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
going off murdering. I could murder the weak,
Stephen Robles:
took
Wiliam Gallagher:
while
Stephen Robles:
a dark
Wiliam Gallagher:
this is...
Stephen Robles:
turn,
Wiliam Gallagher:
otherwise...
Stephen Robles:
it took a,
Wiliam Gallagher:
oh
Stephen Robles:
why'd you go
Wiliam Gallagher:
yes!
Stephen Robles:
straight to murder?
Wiliam Gallagher:
Well, you know, I'm thinking, are these recordings, are they able to interact? If I ask a question, could it conjure up a new response?
Stephen Robles:
Listen, everything is sentient. Every AI is talking to each other. They're all doing it. Okay, you can't get around it That's
Wiliam Gallagher:
Okay.
Stephen Robles:
it. I want to put this link in the show notes and William I would love for you to try this although try at your own risk. It's called 11 labs dot I oh The reason why I say at your own risk is because you literally upload a voice sample of yourself Then you can type whatever text you want and it will produce an audio file of you quote-unquote speaking that text AI generated and it is it's freaky it's weird like it is that good I don't even I don't even know what to do I don't even know
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm... Hmm...
Stephen Robles:
yeah yeah well we're gonna talk about AI in a little bit too but because there are some positive use cases besides world domination but I'm gonna put that
Wiliam Gallagher:
Now
Stephen Robles:
in
Wiliam Gallagher:
hang
Stephen Robles:
shows lemonland
Wiliam Gallagher:
on, wait a second,
Stephen Robles:
yeah
Wiliam Gallagher:
I went to murder but in a creative way, you went to world domination! I
Stephen Robles:
Yeah,
Wiliam Gallagher:
feel this
Stephen Robles:
I mean.
Wiliam Gallagher:
speaks volumes to our personalities
Stephen Robles:
You know, and now
Wiliam Gallagher:
there.
Stephen Robles:
that I think about it, have you seen the Terminator or just read the script? That's what I want to know.
Wiliam Gallagher:
I honestly can't remember. It's one of those films where
Stephen Robles:
Oh, yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
you see it so often coming around on TV. I think I've seen all of it but out
Stephen Robles:
Right,
Wiliam Gallagher:
of sequence, which
Stephen Robles:
in pieces,
Wiliam Gallagher:
is
Stephen Robles:
yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
a bit timey-wimey, but it works.
Stephen Robles:
Yeah, exactly. All right, well listen, I have to get to our five star reviews because we have a bunch of
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
them this week. Four of them literally from your neck of the woods, okay?
Wiliam Gallagher:
Oh yeah.
Stephen Robles:
A full half of them are from Great Britain. And that is, okay, here we go. I'm gonna tell you these four names. You tell me if you know any of them, William.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Okay.
Stephen Robles:
Smittle Mists with about eight S's, Paolo G Tom from South Wales, and Phil Gloss UK. You familiar with any of them?
Wiliam Gallagher:
Well I know a middle miss with six S's. I
Stephen Robles:
Oh no, no,
Wiliam Gallagher:
don't
Stephen Robles:
this
Wiliam Gallagher:
know
Stephen Robles:
is
Wiliam Gallagher:
if
Stephen Robles:
a
Wiliam Gallagher:
that's
Stephen Robles:
different...
Wiliam Gallagher:
a different branch of the family presumably.
Stephen Robles:
Yeah,
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah,
Stephen Robles:
yeah, you got to follow
Wiliam Gallagher:
yeah.
Stephen Robles:
the tree all the way back. Yep, that's
Wiliam Gallagher:
Mmm,
Stephen Robles:
right. Also,
Wiliam Gallagher:
mmm.
Stephen Robles:
the Magnificent3 from Portugal. You got to be kicking me from Australia.
Wiliam Gallagher:
I'm going to go ahead and turn it off. I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.
Stephen Robles:
That's the username. I wonder if some of these people create usernames like this just so I have to read them on the air. I wonder if that's... That might be what they're doing.
Wiliam Gallagher:
I had to set up a new Google account for something else recently and I'd forgotten the tedium of that username has been kept, has been
Stephen Robles:
Oh yeah,
Wiliam Gallagher:
used or whatever.
Stephen Robles:
yeah,
Wiliam Gallagher:
And
Stephen Robles:
yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
in previous years I've just gone I've typed fruitless name search 99 and finally got in so I
Stephen Robles:
See,
Wiliam Gallagher:
think that's what's going on here
Stephen Robles:
you
Wiliam Gallagher:
yeah
Stephen Robles:
could use AI to generate Google Gmail emails, you know, just saying. Uh-huh.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Uh huh, yeah let's rush to do that, yes
Stephen Robles:
Yep.
Wiliam Gallagher:
okay.
Stephen Robles:
Sasha Jovanovich from Stockholm, Sweden and the Yek guy from USA, like tech but with a Y. Thank you all.
Wiliam Gallagher:
You don't think that was a typo. Somebody
Stephen Robles:
No.
Wiliam Gallagher:
distracted the tech guy at a key moment, and they're
Stephen Robles:
Yeah,
Wiliam Gallagher:
locked into this forever. Okay.
Stephen Robles:
that exactly.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Okay.
Stephen Robles:
Yeah, he's now the YEC guy. All right, we got some stuff to talk about here, William. iOS 17, there's been a rumor now that one of the big feature updates that will be coming is an updated control center. It is the 10-year anniversary of the control center on iPhone this year, and it might be receiving some love. When I saw this news, it made me think, I actually don't remember the last time Apple has even talked about the control center in a keynote.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Mm.
Stephen Robles:
and left pretty much unchanged for years.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yes,
Stephen Robles:
I mean, I
Wiliam Gallagher:
that's
Stephen Robles:
can't.
Wiliam Gallagher:
right.
Stephen Robles:
Yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
I, I do not know when it came in even.
Stephen Robles:
Yeah,
Wiliam Gallagher:
I remember
Stephen Robles:
was it?
Wiliam Gallagher:
with the iPhone 10 trying to work out how do you get to it. That's the last time I thought about it. It's just been normal since.
Stephen Robles:
Well, this is why I'm curious. There's been no details about what these updates could be. I am slightly apprehensive because I think the control center is one of the most obscure or obtuse user interface interactions
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
that common users just don't know it's there. I feel like anytime I start telling someone how to do something and if I say open control look like I don't know what that is and I think it's because on any face ID iPhone you know there's like what a half inch gap between the notch and the top right corner where you swipe down and access it
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
and I feel like since it moved up there as opposed to a swipe up from the bottom it's become much less discoverable do you find that
Wiliam Gallagher:
Well I suppose I use it quite a lot so I don't think about it but
Stephen Robles:
But when you're helping
Wiliam Gallagher:
I do...
Stephen Robles:
friends and family,
Wiliam Gallagher:
Not true.
Stephen Robles:
do you see people regularly using it?
Wiliam Gallagher:
No,
Stephen Robles:
Or,
Wiliam Gallagher:
actually
Stephen Robles:
yeah,
Wiliam Gallagher:
I don't.
Stephen Robles:
yeah, I don't think so. I don't think so. So I'm a little, this is why I'm apprehensive. So if one of the updates is moving it out of the corner of the phone and maybe consolidating it with the today view, which is that home screen to the left
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
of your main home screen where you can put widgets. You can do other things there. Like I have my battery widget there. I have a bunch of shortcuts. I hope they don't do this. I hope they don't take the control center and move it over there so it's more discoverable. I feel like more people will accidentally swipe to the left than swipe from the very top right corner. But I also
Wiliam Gallagher:
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Robles:
don't want that. I want them to be two separate things. I like that they're two different things. I'd rather they just add features to control center, like give developers API tools to build stuff in there, or maybe make it support certain kinds of widgets or complications, like from watchOS. I don't
Wiliam Gallagher:
Maybe
Stephen Robles:
know.
Wiliam Gallagher:
just a less dull colour? It's grey on black, isn't it? So...
Stephen Robles:
It is, yeah, it is very monochrome. I mean, colors change when you activate certain buttons, like
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
rotation lock turns
Wiliam Gallagher:
Oh
Stephen Robles:
red.
Wiliam Gallagher:
true, yes.
Stephen Robles:
You know, HomeKit devices are really convenient there, but you can't choose what HomeKit devices show
Wiliam Gallagher:
No,
Stephen Robles:
up in the control center, which
Wiliam Gallagher:
and
Stephen Robles:
is
Wiliam Gallagher:
the
Stephen Robles:
annoying.
Wiliam Gallagher:
whole tough half is tough. You got these no matter what,
Stephen Robles:
Yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
including the music one, which I go into a lot to change to headphones, AirPods and things. And actually even this morning it was just refusing to do it, so I got quite irritated with it today.
Stephen Robles:
Yeah, I feel like that now playing widget in the control center could use some love because the control other speakers and TVs is actually a very powerful button in that control center. Wes helped me with that actually a number of weeks ago, where if you want to escape from controlling whatever home pod is near you, which happens a lot of you have home pods around the house and your nearby one that will start playing by someone else, that whatever's playing on that home pod will just like show up on your phone.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah.
Stephen Robles:
now playing. And in order to escape that, you have to go to the control center, hit the little AirPlay symbol, which doesn't really make sense because you're not AirPlaying, you're not playing, and then you tap control other speakers and TVs and devices. And I feel like that would be better served in the main area of control center rather than buried three taps deep, but I don't know.
Wiliam Gallagher:
On the other hand, I realized I could not remember what I had on the widget. The swipe to the left. I can't remember what I had there. I've just looked and I have a widget and it's not even telling me which one it is. I think it's Otter, which I never seem to use as a widget. I use as an app.
Stephen Robles:
Yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
So I'm the other way around from you. I have put nothing there. I forget that it's there.
Stephen Robles:
Well, that's where I put all my shortcuts to run, because I don't want to take a
Wiliam Gallagher:
That's a good
Stephen Robles:
main
Wiliam Gallagher:
idea.
Stephen Robles:
home screen real estate, and I put my battery widget over there. I also have Home Cam. So if you have HomeKit cameras, you can use the app Home Cam and actually see previews of your cameras right there,
Wiliam Gallagher:
Oh, that's a good idea. Ooh,
Stephen Robles:
which
Wiliam Gallagher:
I'm having
Stephen Robles:
is nice.
Wiliam Gallagher:
that.
Stephen Robles:
Yeah,
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah.
Stephen Robles:
and there's actually specific widgets that apps have made available in the Today view that are actually not available as widgets for the home screen, because it's like a different API those things. It's very strange and I guess both of these things could use love. I just don't want to see one go away. I don't like, I don't want the today view go away. And I do want to ask you, because I always get confused about this, William, if you are trying to tell someone, swipe a direction to get to that today view, do you say swipe to the left or swipe to the right?
Wiliam Gallagher:
I said it to you as I realised you could go either way. I was automatically thinking swipe to the left, but actually that means put your finger at the left and swipe across to the right. So this is do what I do, not what I say, isn't it?
Stephen Robles:
Well, yeah, because I always hesitate to tell someone swipe to the left because I want them to look at the home screen that is physically to the left of what they're looking at. But the swipe is a left to right motion
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yes.
Stephen Robles:
and they might interpret that a swipe right. And I know like Tinder, like the dating app, which I know you are intimately involved with William, you know, they say swipe right. And I think it is that motion. They're saying swipe the thing to the right. I don't know approve a love interest. I don't know how it works. You'll have to tell
Wiliam Gallagher:
Oh,
Stephen Robles:
us
Wiliam Gallagher:
right. I only know people just swipe to the left with me then. So that's that's
Stephen Robles:
And not
Wiliam Gallagher:
that's
Stephen Robles:
on
Wiliam Gallagher:
all
Stephen Robles:
this
Wiliam Gallagher:
that happens.
Stephen Robles:
show. On this show, everybody swipes right on William. You
Wiliam Gallagher:
Right.
Stephen Robles:
just read
Wiliam Gallagher:
Are
Stephen Robles:
those
Wiliam Gallagher:
you
Stephen Robles:
reviews.
Wiliam Gallagher:
telling me something here? Because I mean, I'm
Stephen Robles:
Well,
Wiliam Gallagher:
flattered, but OK.
Stephen Robles:
this is why half of our five star reviews come from the UK and Great Britain. Because it's all William all the time over there.
Wiliam Gallagher:
OK,
Stephen Robles:
But,
Wiliam Gallagher:
I'll
Stephen Robles:
so,
Wiliam Gallagher:
take you seriously. I'll believe you. OK,
Stephen Robles:
it
Wiliam Gallagher:
yeah.
Stephen Robles:
is true, just take a look. So I'm excited for updates to the Control Center. Hopefully it is, again, not removing a feature like the Today View, but rather improving both. this in the past as far as what we are hoping for for iOS 17, my list has actually gotten shorter since
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah.
Stephen Robles:
the last time we talked about it because I really just want bug fixes. I really just
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yes.
Stephen Robles:
want the OS to work. I really want screen time. I know I harp on it every week. I should probably file a radar or whatever the official term
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yes.
Stephen Robles:
is to tell Apple there's
Wiliam Gallagher:
You
Stephen Robles:
an
Wiliam Gallagher:
mean
Stephen Robles:
error.
Wiliam Gallagher:
you haven't? Oh.
Stephen Robles:
This is my radar,
Wiliam Gallagher:
Well...
Stephen Robles:
William. This podcast is my radar, okay?
Wiliam Gallagher:
If you don't write to Santa, how can he know what to give you? Yeah?
Stephen Robles:
Yeah, I mean that is true. I mean, I would hopefully it has to be known. I mean, surely there are people inside Apple that actually use screen time. It
Wiliam Gallagher:
You
Stephen Robles:
can't
Wiliam Gallagher:
do
Stephen Robles:
be
Wiliam Gallagher:
wonder
Stephen Robles:
just me.
Wiliam Gallagher:
sometimes about it. I have the impression that Apple Park must have the most astoundingly fantastic Wi-Fi because whenever you're in a place that isn't, things do fall apart. Like the whole thing of
Stephen Robles:
Oh yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
offloading apps that you're not using.
Stephen Robles:
Right.
Wiliam Gallagher:
There was this section where there's one app I use only when I go to London, and it decided you don't want this, you're not using it. You have it in London for six weeks. I go there, I really need it. A tube navigation thing. But I couldn't download it because the signal was so bad.
Stephen Robles:
Oof.
Wiliam Gallagher:
That was quite frustrating. I had to use like
Stephen Robles:
Next.
Wiliam Gallagher:
maps on the wall and everything. Just,
Stephen Robles:
Wow.
Wiliam Gallagher:
oh, you know.
Stephen Robles:
Yeah, I don't do that offload thing for that very reason.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah.
Stephen Robles:
But those kind of bug fixes screen time, I still want, I'm going to keep saying it because this is my radar, standalone password app with the ability to share logins with family members. I think that would be huge and I have been using iCloud Keychain more and more as like my default because it just fills things in so fast. It fills things in so fast plus like two-factor authentication numbers I feel like Just love
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
it. So would love that standalone password app Especially on the Mac like getting to the passwords in system settings on a Mac is quite laborious
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
I'll just say that so that's all for is anything what's the big one that you're hoping for is there some some earth-shattering feature?
Wiliam Gallagher:
It's big in the sense that I really want it but it's tiny. I want shortcut support so that I can turn the lock screen, what's it called, the thing that locks after a few minutes or something.
Stephen Robles:
Yes.
Wiliam Gallagher:
I want to be able to change that to never when I'm recording certain things and then back to 30 seconds when I'm not. And you cannot do this in shortcuts at all. Quite frustrating.
Stephen Robles:
Hey, that is... Now wait a minute, now wait a minute.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Oh, if you have a workaround,
Stephen Robles:
Well,
Wiliam Gallagher:
I'm eating this.
Stephen Robles:
no, no, no, no, no, hold on. I'm looking now. You see, they added all these always on display shortcut
Wiliam Gallagher:
I look a point,
Stephen Robles:
actions.
Wiliam Gallagher:
I don't have an iPhone 14, I forgot that that had changed. Does it give a
Stephen Robles:
No...
Wiliam Gallagher:
control? It must
Stephen Robles:
No!
Wiliam Gallagher:
be a focus mode option or something, or can you just, well, always on isn't quite the same as what I need.
Stephen Robles:
No,
Wiliam Gallagher:
Is
Stephen Robles:
you want
Wiliam Gallagher:
it?
Stephen Robles:
the screen to... yeah,
Wiliam Gallagher:
I want
Stephen Robles:
I know
Wiliam Gallagher:
it
Stephen Robles:
what you mean.
Wiliam Gallagher:
doing it, yeah.
Stephen Robles:
That would be amazing because I have a focus mode specifically for filming and it changes my home screen to something nondescript and easy to see on camera and all that so I'm 100% in agreement. I think that would be welcome. It's surprising that's not a feature. They put always-on stuff in there before the sleep
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah.
Stephen Robles:
timer, you know, for the phone. But also, last bit on iOS 17, compatibility. a few devices that have been compatible with iOS 16 like the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, maybe even the iPhone 10, first-generation iPad Pro, and the first-generation 12.9-inch iPad Pro, 9.7 and 12.9. Then we received a tip at Apple Insider that maybe not, maybe it still will support the iPhone 8 and iPhone
Wiliam Gallagher:
Thanks for
Stephen Robles:
10,
Wiliam Gallagher:
watching!
Stephen Robles:
but I don't know, you know Apple I feel like is just outstanding updating the OS for like older OS versions with security and patch fixes like iOS 15 is still getting updates even today alongside iOS 16.4 so Apple does a great job with that iPhone 8 I feel like it might be time yeah it's probably fine
Wiliam Gallagher:
I mean, I had that 12.9 inch original iPad Pro.
Stephen Robles:
Yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Wasn't that 2015? So practically a decade ago and they're still there. But
Stephen Robles:
Yeah, yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
when I heard that Apple was definitely, definitely going to drop support. And before we heard that, no, it definitely wasn't. I was thinking there were all these stories of iOS 17. It was not going to be that big an update that it would just be quite small. supported. Maybe that was proof that there actually was going to be something big here. And now I just don't know.
Stephen Robles:
right? Well, and if, and you were totally right, the first gen iPad Pro was 2015.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Goodness.
Stephen Robles:
Nice call. Yeah, very nice. That's why you're the popular one. Everybody's swiping right. If Apple...
Wiliam Gallagher:
If we've got that swiping right and left wrong, you know, this is going to ruin my day. I'm
Stephen Robles:
No,
Wiliam Gallagher:
going to have to go look up and check which way is good, which way is bad, but... Okay.
Stephen Robles:
I think... I think I got it right. If Apple does happen to announce the headset at WWDC,
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
don't get as much stage time due to less features than maybe years past but we'll see I'm still 50-50 on this I feel like you know Mark Gurman is very much coming this year it's definitely happening you know other people like me I don't know where are you at William what's your over under on the headset
Wiliam Gallagher:
Well, I mean, you've got to factor in the car as well, haven't you? And the blue paint job.
Stephen Robles:
Sure.
Wiliam Gallagher:
There's a lot going down next Tuesday with Apple. Yes.
Stephen Robles:
Uh-huh. Oh,
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah.
Stephen Robles:
oh, I see. Wow, that's quite
Wiliam Gallagher:
Something
Stephen Robles:
a prediction.
Wiliam Gallagher:
like that. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:
I think you're 0 for 107 right now, but sure. Sounds
Wiliam Gallagher:
But
Stephen Robles:
good.
Wiliam Gallagher:
you wait
Stephen Robles:
Mm-hmm.
Wiliam Gallagher:
until the day I'm accidentally right. You heard it here first and possibly only. But
Stephen Robles:
Right?
Wiliam Gallagher:
there we go. Yes.
Stephen Robles:
Life changing. Now I need to ask you over there in the
Wiliam Gallagher:
Oh.
Stephen Robles:
UK, has Apple's
Wiliam Gallagher:
Oh.
Stephen Robles:
weather widget been broken for weeks for you?
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yes, I picked up my iPhone the other day. I don't know that it's been weeks. Sorry, as soon as I say that, I'm remembering Police Squad and Saul Weeks. You don't know that sequence
Stephen Robles:
I have
Wiliam Gallagher:
at
Stephen Robles:
no
Wiliam Gallagher:
all.
Stephen Robles:
idea what
Wiliam Gallagher:
So
Stephen Robles:
that is, no.
Wiliam Gallagher:
anybody who does Google Police Squad Interrogation, and you'll know where my head goes. Every
Stephen Robles:
Okay?
Wiliam Gallagher:
time it's a perfect piece of comedy. I mean, immensely perfect piece of comedy writing. Just in the last few days, I have a widget on one of my screens. It's a rotating widget. One of these things that it shows you to know when and I pay no attention to it at all but I happened to pick it up and it said I'm not showing you the weather I don't
Stephen Robles:
Yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
know anything and that was the first I'd seen of the problem. Though today it's working again, is it still off for you?
Stephen Robles:
Well, I switched to a third party weather widget, which we'll get to in a moment,
Wiliam Gallagher:
Oh.
Stephen Robles:
but I feel like I've been seeing this for several weeks. I would just, because I have a weather widget right on the front of my home screen and it's just showing no weather data for the past couple weeks and there was a known outage that happened earlier this week. It was, you know, actually in the news, but I feel like I've been seeing a broken weather widget for a few weeks. Supposedly it was fixed. very soon and there'll be a fix for the weather in that software update but since it's been kind of meh I've been experimenting William with some third
Wiliam Gallagher:
Thanks for watching!
Stephen Robles:
party weather apps and do you use any third party weather apps?
Wiliam Gallagher:
Well, I did use Dark Sky, of course, like everybody
Stephen Robles:
Yeah, so did
Wiliam Gallagher:
else,
Stephen Robles:
I.
Wiliam Gallagher:
but...
Stephen Robles:
Dark Sky was the best. I wish they would have just kept the app around because it's so good.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah. I think I know where this is going. I sense the word carrot is coming
Stephen Robles:
well
Wiliam Gallagher:
in my near future.
Stephen Robles:
yeah
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yes.
Stephen Robles:
yeah i feel like that is a that is a wise prediction that is the widget that i had replaced the default weather widget on all my home screens i'm looking at it right now carrot weather it's pretty great you know i tweeted what weather widget should i use there were some other suggestions that i had not heard of like weather mate pro that was from zed
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
was on twitter i'll put a link to that app in the show notes i had not used that before i know people like weather
Wiliam Gallagher:
I've tried
Stephen Robles:
Yeah,
Wiliam Gallagher:
that.
Stephen Robles:
yeah, yeah, I mean,
Wiliam Gallagher:
Oh, I tried Accurator as well at some point. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:
there's a lot of really good ones out there for sure. But care weather is the overwhelming suggestion. Like whenever you ask about weather widgets, everybody's like, oh, carrot, gotta do carrot. Everybody's gotta do carrot. And there's a little bit of like, don't want to play into the zeitgeist feeling from me.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Robles:
So I don't try it. But this time I tried it, William. I
Wiliam Gallagher:
Oh,
Stephen Robles:
did the
Wiliam Gallagher:
so
Stephen Robles:
carrot.
Wiliam Gallagher:
hang on. This is because you're a rebel. You won't try that app. You will smash up your Apple Watch. All this stuff. Yeah. No one's going to tell me to take care of my
Stephen Robles:
That's exactly
Wiliam Gallagher:
app choices.
Stephen Robles:
right.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Okay.
Stephen Robles:
That's right, I'll use the weather app I want to use. You
Wiliam Gallagher:
Right.
Stephen Robles:
know what I mean? I don't care it. So,
Wiliam Gallagher:
But
Stephen Robles:
but yeah, I broke down.
Wiliam Gallagher:
the thing with carrot is I keep hearing how great it is that it's sarcastic and maybe I'm just in the UK enough with sarcasm. Is it actually good as a weather thing?
Stephen Robles:
So, yes, one of the cool customizable things about Carrot, which what people recommend alongside saying the app name, is you can choose the source of information that
Wiliam Gallagher:
Oh.
Stephen Robles:
the app displays, which is basically you can have whatever weather app you want. If you like it displayed, how Carrot does it. So you can use Forca, like F-O-R-E-C-A. So Carrot will just show you exactly what Apple's weather would show you. AccuWeather, Media Group, there's a couple other ones. The NOAA, National Oceanic for Atmospheric something. Ah, I thought
Wiliam Gallagher:
What about
Stephen Robles:
I was gonna...
Wiliam Gallagher:
the Met Office from the UK?
Stephen Robles:
I thought I was going to nail that, William. I thought I
Wiliam Gallagher:
I'm
Stephen Robles:
knew the
Wiliam Gallagher:
sorry.
Stephen Robles:
acronym.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah, you took a run at it,
Stephen Robles:
National.
Wiliam Gallagher:
you missed. But okay, we can applaud the effort
Stephen Robles:
Yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
and I don't know any better, so...
Stephen Robles:
Thanks for rubbing it in. Well, I know the the NHCC is the National Hurricane Center or the NHC because here in Florida, we got to be up on all that a lot. The National Oceanic.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Sorry, why have you got to be up on that in Florida? What goes
Stephen Robles:
What?
Wiliam Gallagher:
on there?
Stephen Robles:
Why?
Wiliam Gallagher:
Florida, yeah? Do I just not understand?
Stephen Robles:
You don't know
Wiliam Gallagher:
Florida's
Stephen Robles:
that, I mean,
Wiliam Gallagher:
just sunny all the time, isn't it?
Stephen Robles:
well, not during hurricane season.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Okay,
Stephen Robles:
I
Wiliam Gallagher:
well,
Stephen Robles:
mean,
Wiliam Gallagher:
it's just true. Mm. Mm.
Stephen Robles:
it's sunny and then it's not, and then you have a category four hurricane above you. You
Wiliam Gallagher:
So
Stephen Robles:
gotta
Wiliam Gallagher:
it's
Stephen Robles:
know what's
Wiliam Gallagher:
one
Stephen Robles:
coming.
Wiliam Gallagher:
or the other, really. So
Stephen Robles:
It is one or the other.
Wiliam Gallagher:
you don't need fine gradations of weather prediction. Just stay or run. It's
Stephen Robles:
Basically.
Wiliam Gallagher:
fight or flight. Okay.
Stephen Robles:
Have you ever been in Florida in like August or September?
Wiliam Gallagher:
I cannot remember. I've driven through Florida and I couldn't tell you when in the year it was because it just looked like summer all the time
Stephen Robles:
Yeah,
Wiliam Gallagher:
whenever
Stephen Robles:
well it'll take
Wiliam Gallagher:
it was.
Stephen Robles:
you it'll take you a year to drive through Florida too because it's a long state people don't
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah.
Stephen Robles:
realize Yeah, it's a long state. Also noaa national oceanic and atmospheric administration
Wiliam Gallagher:
Oh,
Stephen Robles:
That's
Wiliam Gallagher:
of course.
Stephen Robles:
what that's called.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Right.
Stephen Robles:
I was close-ish Uh, here's the thing about florida, especially in august and september we get a thunderstorm every day at 3 pm without fail All right
Wiliam Gallagher:
How
Stephen Robles:
in
Wiliam Gallagher:
suspicious.
Stephen Robles:
august august and september not even it's just what the climate is. It'll be sunny. It's 2 pm starts getting real dark and cloudy. We get a thunderstorm for about 10, 15, 20 minutes. It's over, then it's sunny again. This happens every day in that season.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Right.
Stephen Robles:
And what's amazing is you could literally
Wiliam Gallagher:
you
Stephen Robles:
be in your car looking ahead of you and it's blue skies, sunny, and you look in your rear view mirror and it's a literal thunderstorm, dark sky, like terrible. And that's just how Florida is. It's just how we do it. Yeah, that's the kind of thing you can enjoy here. I'm sure there's TikToks about it. But anyway, so you can use whatever weather source you want in carrot weather You can choose the sarcasm level and I do like a good sarcastic little bot here So that's fun and really customize
Wiliam Gallagher:
Let's see,
Stephen Robles:
the layout
Wiliam Gallagher:
how sarcastic can it be? Oh, like it's raining again, or you're looking at me again. There needs to be a limited scope for sarcasm conversations
Stephen Robles:
Well,
Wiliam Gallagher:
in
Stephen Robles:
right
Wiliam Gallagher:
this.
Stephen Robles:
here, maybe you'll enjoy this. Right now I'm looking at the app. It says, Aristotle invented the pseudoscience of meteorology. Very funny.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Is it a pseudoscience? Pseudoscience sounds like astrology.
Stephen Robles:
Astrology is just bollocks,
Wiliam Gallagher:
Just, okay,
Stephen Robles:
as you guys
Wiliam Gallagher:
oh,
Stephen Robles:
would
Wiliam Gallagher:
fair
Stephen Robles:
say in
Wiliam Gallagher:
enough,
Stephen Robles:
the UK. Yeah,
Wiliam Gallagher:
as we would, that's true. Yes, yes.
Stephen Robles:
yeah, pseudoscience is... Well, I don't want to get into it. I don't want to offend any of our listeners
Wiliam Gallagher:
Thanks for watching!
Stephen Robles:
who might be using crystals and stuff. But anyway, that's more pseudoscience. But you
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
can up the snark level, and sometimes it's very funny. If it's like really sunny, like it is in Florida, it'll say, you know, hope the sun burns, whatever, you're... It's funny, okay? I'm not doing a good representation of it right now, but you should try it. It's very funny.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm. Okay.
Stephen Robles:
Here's the one thing, here's the one thing that I'm just not sure about carrot. The color of the widget, it is a very vibrant blue and for whatever reason I feel like it doesn't match the rest of the icons on my home screen, and I know this is really strange, Like i might be the only one that thinks this but it's the one thing I don't like about the widget Honestly, the app is great. Customization is great data is good It's just the the color scheme. It just seems a little more saturated Than the rest of the home screen and it makes me it makes it feel like out of place. I don't know. That's
Wiliam Gallagher:
Well,
Stephen Robles:
the only
Wiliam Gallagher:
uninstall it this minute.
Stephen Robles:
No,
Wiliam Gallagher:
If they
Stephen Robles:
that's
Wiliam Gallagher:
can't
Stephen Robles:
the
Wiliam Gallagher:
even get that right, what
Stephen Robles:
Thing
Wiliam Gallagher:
is the point?
Stephen Robles:
this is the only qualm. Oh, here's another sarcastic comment Want the leathery skin of an aging trophy wife tanning every day for a year of LifeHacks.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah, you're not selling it to me
Stephen Robles:
Okay,
Wiliam Gallagher:
on that.
Stephen Robles:
all right,
Wiliam Gallagher:
You
Stephen Robles:
I'm not seeing
Wiliam Gallagher:
nearly
Stephen Robles:
it yet.
Wiliam Gallagher:
had me there on the widget.
Stephen Robles:
Yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
I'll tell you something I do like, I don't use a weather widget. I suppose I don't check the weather that often, but I like Apple's background wallpaper, the one that reflects whatever the weather is where you are now.
Stephen Robles:
Yes, that is
Wiliam Gallagher:
I
Stephen Robles:
nice.
Wiliam Gallagher:
think that's gorgeously well done. And that's enough for me. I tap on the phone to do something. It tells me it's raining. I look out of the window. I think, oh, I've got a window. This is outside world and it's raining in it. I'll carry on working. That's my day, really. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:
Yeah, so I mean, again, I really like the app. I guess depending on your wallpaper and what app icons you have, you
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
might, you know, like the widget color scheme, that's the only thing. And it's not bad. Like it's a very nice blue and it's a nice looking widget. I like his iconography. That's the only thing. I just, it feels like it doesn't match as well as the Apple weather widget. If I'm crazy, please let me know listeners, but that's just
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah,
Stephen Robles:
how I feel.
Wiliam Gallagher:
let let you know that you're crazy about this one thing. Nothing else. This is yeah. Okay. Sorry. I've just uh
Stephen Robles:
Yeah,
Wiliam Gallagher:
have
Stephen Robles:
thanks
Wiliam Gallagher:
the things to check. This is the one.
Stephen Robles:
Uh-huh
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yes. Okay.
Stephen Robles:
Anyway, and let me know if you have other weather widgets that I did not mention You know, I know whether underground mate pro carrot weather There's other third-party weather apps that you guys like out there. Let me know and I would love to try them some maybe And we'll see. Yeah All right. I want to talk to you about chat GPT in series shortcuts right after this break William, did you see the news from Federico Vetticci over at Mac Stories about his new GPT shortcut? Did you see this?
Wiliam Gallagher:
for a headline where he said he'd done something and I think you have to pay
Stephen Robles:
Okay,
Wiliam Gallagher:
for it
Stephen Robles:
okay.
Wiliam Gallagher:
and I kind of saved it in the read later because he is always interesting but it's going to take a while. What have I missed so far?
Stephen Robles:
Okay, so Chad GPT is I know listen, I feel like people are getting AI fatigue. Do
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
you feel that William? Do you feel like AI fatigue where you just don't hear about it anymore?
Wiliam Gallagher:
I'm having so many meetings it comes up as a serious issue that I'm a bit fed up of it and
Stephen Robles:
Yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
also I would just like it to be better
Stephen Robles:
Well...
Wiliam Gallagher:
Apple inside it is a monthly review of what went on with apple and it's suddenly I write it and I'm suddenly going to be late on march The 31st. Why don't I just ask chat gbt? What did apple get up to? This is in the last six hours on march the 31st and it said apple hasn't released anything this month yet Tuesday so look out for something on the 21st the 23rd and the...
Stephen Robles:
It's not good. It's not good at current date like Current news happenings and sometimes it'll just tell you I'm only trained up until the last you know until two years ago So don't ask about like current events and stuff like that
Wiliam Gallagher:
Oh, what about the thing where Google's Bard says that it's trained on Gmail and Google says, no, no, no, no, no, it isn't,
Stephen Robles:
Well,
Wiliam Gallagher:
it isn't,
Stephen Robles:
there's
Wiliam Gallagher:
no.
Stephen Robles:
been some weird things too, like Bing's AI chat assistant was making some like forward remarks relationship wise to people and that was very awkward. So anyway,
Wiliam Gallagher:
Oh, okay.
Stephen Robles:
okay, so Federico Vettici, what he did is there's an API for chat GPT where you can incorporate chat GPT in apps and other services. There's lots of website services using it. Sorry, there's a lot of acronyms.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yes, this must spell out a word, you gotta re-jig this or something.
Stephen Robles:
Yeah,
Wiliam Gallagher:
But yes.
Stephen Robles:
it spells William is always right. Now the shortcut, you basically can run the shortcut on any of your Apple devices, your iPhone, your iPad, your Mac, and you can interact with ChatGPT from the shortcut without ever going to the website for ChatGPT or using an app. So it's basically the power of ChatGPT in a shortcut. multiple prompts like you can have a conversation. Federico set up the shortcut where you can like ask follow-up questions, you can save the whole conversation, save the last input, like anything you can do in the ChatGPT website you can do using this shortcut. So it is like the first native ChatGPT integration on the iPhone because if you want to use it straight you have to go to their website. So it is a shortcut now William
Wiliam Gallagher:
you
Stephen Robles:
and you can do incredible with this shortcut. Now,
Wiliam Gallagher:
you
Stephen Robles:
I'm going to explain how I've incorporated it into one of my shortcuts. Are you ready?
Wiliam Gallagher:
you? Well, probably not, but brace to myself, yes.
Stephen Robles:
So I have a shortcut for this podcast where all the links that me and you are looking at right now in our shared Apple note. I select all the text in that note and I run a shortcut. It gets all the URLs from my clipboard. It formats those URLs by getting the article title from like using the Safari reader stuff, makes
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
it into an HTML link list. So all the articles are nicely formatted for show notes. So if there's ever a repeat sponsor, which happens a lot, I can just select their name from a list and they get automatically and put it into the show notes. It asks me who my co-host was this week. I'll click William and then it will include your Twitter and Mastodon info for that week's show notes. And now the one part that I couldn't automate from the shortcut was give me an episode title and an episode description to use for this show. And so that's the one manual process that I would do. Well now, I've incorporated Viteche's shortcut, and when I run the shortcut to format all the show notes, a little menu will pop up and I've had it, and it will prompt me to choose which headlines to feature in the description or episode title. So I could just check a couple boxes, choose the top stories that I want to use in the title and description for this episode. It runs that through ChatGPT, and the prompt I've used is basically, episode description and give me a 15 word episode title for a podcast based on these headlines and will automatically pull those headlines that had already automatically pulled using my earlier parts of the shortcut and then chat GPT will just give me an episode title and an episode description included in all the show note formats that I've used and then I can just paste that and have everything for the show title and description generated links and sponsors, host contact info, everything, and it's all automated in a shortcut and Chat GPT powers the title and description. I mean, come on, that's pretty nuts, right?
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah, but more nuts than you think because I have a shortcut that undoes everything you've just said and puts it back into
Stephen Robles:
Yeah, sure. But now let me now so let me ask you this I'm gonna try and make this real for you and I'm trying gonna encourage you to try it. I imagine when you make a video, you probably have some bullet points or notes on what you want to talk about in that video, correct?
Wiliam Gallagher:
No, I'm a scriptwriter. I write the script actually
Stephen Robles:
Oh,
Wiliam Gallagher:
for
Stephen Robles:
even
Wiliam Gallagher:
it.
Stephen Robles:
better.
Wiliam Gallagher:
So,
Stephen Robles:
So you have an entire script. So imagine
Wiliam Gallagher:
yeah. Yes.
Stephen Robles:
you can create a shortcut where it pulls the entire script. You can either copy it to your clipboard or just use the share sheet. And you can create a chat GPT prompt that says, write me an SEO optimized YouTube title for this video based on the script. And it pulls the script you already have and it will write an SEO optimized title for you.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm
Stephen Robles:
Give me five choices for an SEO optimized title and then you can also ask it about the description for the video And you can even ask it for tags to put into YouTube and you can have it Format those tags being comma separated and if they're comma separated you can literally just copy and paste those tags into the YouTube Tag window and it formats it all properly for you all of that in seconds automated by AI Does that tempt you at all?
Wiliam Gallagher:
I
Stephen Robles:
Huh?
Wiliam Gallagher:
like the tags one, because I'm a bit lazy with tags, but the title, the description, I'm probably wrong here, but I believe that's where I get to be creative with it. I wouldn't like to give that to someone else alone to chat,
Stephen Robles:
Well,
Wiliam Gallagher:
GPT,
Stephen Robles:
no, but even
Wiliam Gallagher:
but.
Stephen Robles:
even if you don't use it verbatim, so like I actually used the shortcut For today's show notes, which is why I sent it to you before we recorded and it
Wiliam Gallagher:
Ah,
Stephen Robles:
threw you
Wiliam Gallagher:
I
Stephen Robles:
off
Wiliam Gallagher:
was wondering about it. Yes, I thought, if I missed the recording, did you just go on ahead without
Stephen Robles:
No, no.
Wiliam Gallagher:
me? And I even said to you people would be happy with that, they'd just hear your voice, you'd get through the news quicker,
Stephen Robles:
No,
Wiliam Gallagher:
that
Stephen Robles:
no,
Wiliam Gallagher:
would
Stephen Robles:
no
Wiliam Gallagher:
work! But
Stephen Robles:
No,
Wiliam Gallagher:
no.
Stephen Robles:
I sent you the show notes early because I use this shortcut that I just made so I will say The title and description I do doctor it a little bit. I don't use it verbatim So, you know as you see the title for this episode and the little description paragraph in the show notes You can know that AI generated like 80% of that and like I Edited the other 20% because just to make it more natural more human I guess you could say
Wiliam Gallagher:
you
Stephen Robles:
But it did it for me. And even if you don't take it verbatim, you can ask it for five ideas. Give me 10 episode ideas. Give me 10 video title ideas. And then you can pull the best from all of that. And that is still you being creative. It just gives you a like word bank or a pool to start with, which could generate ideas even more that you didn't have before. Maybe you don't use what chat GPT gives you at all. But you have a resource for brainstorming that can give you suggest like infinite suggestions based on what you already wrote. I mean, isn't that nuts? And then, oh, and
Wiliam Gallagher:
When
Stephen Robles:
yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
this works well,
Stephen Robles:
Yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
and I mean, when it has improved further than it is now, then I do see this as another tool in our toolbox, that it is not a replacement for us, it's a new paintbrush, it's a new pen.
Stephen Robles:
Right.
Wiliam Gallagher:
But right now, I feel like it's being oversold. There's some scary stuff going on. I don't know if I can tell you about this, because it's Writers Guild
Stephen Robles:
Oh?
Wiliam Gallagher:
stuff, but
Stephen Robles:
Oh
Wiliam Gallagher:
there
Stephen Robles:
boy.
Stephen Robles:
listeners, we just cut out William told me something top secret and it's wonderful
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah
Stephen Robles:
or not wonderful. It might be terrible. I don't know yet. So
Wiliam Gallagher:
Ha ha ha ha ha
Stephen Robles:
we'll see. But let me give you. So one other thing
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah.
Stephen Robles:
based on the script that you already wrote for your video, you can ask chat GPT for five tweets based on that script and it will give you five social media you know, attractively or eye-catchingly or whatever. And again, you can doctor them, you cannot use them all, but it can make social media posts for you too. And it's wild.
Wiliam Gallagher:
I haven't torn with that one because I mean I learnt headline writing at BBC News on C-Fax where you had really really tight constraints. I mean I can't remember the numbers now but it's something like headline had to be 76 characters long not 75 not 77. So you've got all of this stuff and you got used to fashioning things like that so when Twitter and things came along and all sorts of media it seemed so easy and I kind of enjoyed crafting something like that. But I have just done a project where I've had to write something like. the 80 social media prompts that are going to play out over a few weeks and I did get mightily sick of it by around the third of the 18 ones I had to do.
Stephen Robles:
Yeah, I mean, I've just I found it because it's now integrated with shortcuts like one of the rubs have been how can I get the content that I've created or written here into an AI tool to actually help me and then back into the app that I'm using. It's
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
one of the reasons again didn't play in this but notion AI is actually a sponsor this week. platform. But this shortcut, because I already have so many shortcuts that deal with links and article titles, and maybe it's making like descriptions and titles for videos, it all my shortcuts could do all of it, except for the quote unquote, creative work of thinking of a title and description, which is like you said, usually, when you are creative.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Mm.
Stephen Robles:
And for me, if I've done editing a podcast or a video, you know, once you hit publish on that thing, Trying to think of a title and description a lot of times, like it's hard to have the steam to like finish that little process because your creative energy has been spent. And so using AI to kind of jumpstart that creativity, that brainstorming by giving you just, you know, buzzwords, keywords that you can then just manipulate or move around. Like it's the words you probably would have used already, but it's in a format that is so close to being done. It takes some of that friction out of the last mile. which is like an expression in cabling and all that kind of stuff. It helps
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
with that last mile task when you might be running out of creative juice. So that's why I'm excited about it.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Don't you think that we should reach a point where AI creates the words and then another AI reads them for us so we don't have to bother with any of this?
Stephen Robles:
Well, William, again, I will point you to that link that I put at the top of the show notes, which is the 11labs.io, and you can have it speak in your voice if you...
Wiliam Gallagher:
No, I meant not bother with any of the material at all. Just let the AIs talk to each other, have a good time while we get on with something
Stephen Robles:
Oh
Wiliam Gallagher:
else.
Stephen Robles:
sure, but I think that's how you get Skynet. I think that's the problem.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Okay.
Stephen Robles:
That's what happens. But anyway, I'm excited about this one use case
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
and I do think, you know, in thinking of like videos and stuff, you know, YouTube has done a great job of now adding multi-language support in a single
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah.
Stephen Robles:
video where you can actually get subtitles in other languages, but also you can upload audio tracks in other languages and viewers can literally it while watching the video without ever leaving it.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Now I did not know that that's superb!
Stephen Robles:
It is amazing
Wiliam Gallagher:
Oh right!
Stephen Robles:
and Mr. Beast actually did an interview with Renee Richie about it. There's a video of them talking about it and before Mr. Beast had channels for every language. You know, he was overdubbing his videos in like Russian, Japanese, like many different languages. All those channels had millions of subscribers, but now he doesn't have to manage all those channels. He can literally just have his main channel and in the little gear icon where you choose your You can actually choose your audio language, and you can just hear your language right there on the same video. Now,
Wiliam Gallagher:
nice.
Stephen Robles:
think about this, William. Imagine if AI could translate everything you said in your video into Spanish or Arabic in your voice, because this tool, like 11 Labs, can do spoken content in your voice, even though you haven't
Wiliam Gallagher:
you
Stephen Robles:
spoke it. Now, people can listen to your videos and it's all done by AI.
Wiliam Gallagher:
I was once interviewed on the BBC World Service Russia end of it. And it did one of those things where the listeners heard me for a few seconds. And then they heard an interpreter saying my words. And everybody preferred the interpreter that said he was so sexy. Can we have
Stephen Robles:
Hehehehe...
Wiliam Gallagher:
him back, please? It
Stephen Robles:
Ahhhh!
Wiliam Gallagher:
was miserable for me, in fact.
Stephen Robles:
Uh, well that is, that would be unfortunate. But listen, then you won't have that problem because it's your voice. They, you
Wiliam Gallagher:
Mm.
Stephen Robles:
know, if they like how the Spanish person sounds in your videos, it's you just speaking Spanish.
Wiliam Gallagher:
I do get the appeal of managing things. I have a Patreon service now that means I do different versions of videos and just keeping track of which version is ready when and that it's out, it's finished and that the different things have happened. Even with only two, I'm finding that
Stephen Robles:
Yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
it's taken a lot of thought. So something that would remove that and let you concentrate on the creation of the material that hopefully is what that... Yeah, interested, interested.
Stephen Robles:
Yeah, I mean, I guess I am. Before I was intrigued, but didn't care as much about AI because it was so far removed from my processes. And now that there are tools like Notion AI and now, especially the shortcut. Oh, my goodness. Now that there's a shortcut that can incorporate AI into the automations I already use now, kind of like getting excited about it. I also think it's incredibly dangerous and scary, and I don't know what's going to happen in the future. But for right now, in this brief moment, I think there are viable use cases for it, even on any level. And yeah, I don't know. I'm curious to see where it goes. I am. Because it's progressing so fast, I feel like that is the main hesitation that I have is like it is already improved so quickly just in the last year. What is going to
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah.
Stephen Robles:
happen over the next five years kind of thing?
Wiliam Gallagher:
I have
Stephen Robles:
I don't
Wiliam Gallagher:
a
Stephen Robles:
know.
Wiliam Gallagher:
concern with my Writers Guild hat on about people who are creating material being paid when
Stephen Robles:
Yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
a chat uses it and there are lots of issues around that. But there have been similar issues, mind you, similar issues with just internet use. They haven't been solved yet. So I'm kind of interested in a new tool for us, but you're just wary of... I don't think things need to be thought through on the application as well as the applications if you see what I mean. So,
Stephen Robles:
Yeah,
Wiliam Gallagher:
yes,
Stephen Robles:
no, I
Wiliam Gallagher:
yeah.
Stephen Robles:
understand. Yeah. Well, anyway, if you want to try chat GPT in a shortcut, I'll put a link to the MacStories article. You can download the shortcut. It's for free there. Like Fetiche just gives these shortcuts away, which is amazing. Incredible. So you can just download the shortcut. If you want to incorporate and actually use it in your shortcuts, you do have to pay for API access. So you actually have to like put in a credit card. You can set a maximum spend limit per month. So you can put like want to spend more than $20 or $30 on this API. But I will say, trying to incorporate it into my shortcuts yesterday, I was running it like multiple times an hour, like probably 5, 10 times an hour. And even after using it all day yesterday, it charged me a total of one cent,
Wiliam Gallagher:
Oh
Stephen Robles:
like
Wiliam Gallagher:
right.
Stephen Robles:
one penny, which I don't know what that is in pounds. I don't know if that's 30 pounds. I don't know if it's 30 pounds to every penny US dollar.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Well,
Stephen Robles:
I don't know.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Brexit's done all sorts of things to currencies.
Stephen Robles:
Right, right.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Ascent is probably worth about £60 now, something like
Stephen Robles:
Oh
Wiliam Gallagher:
that.
Stephen Robles:
wow,
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah,
Stephen Robles:
okay,
Wiliam Gallagher:
yeah, yeah.
Stephen Robles:
that's a good exchange rate.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Definitely
Stephen Robles:
You're
Wiliam Gallagher:
a time to come visit Britain if you
Stephen Robles:
right.
Wiliam Gallagher:
can get through the border issues we're having. That's definitely another topic. Okay,
Stephen Robles:
Wait, wait, wait,
Wiliam Gallagher:
so...
Stephen Robles:
wait, what was that? Like you can't get into the UK right now?
Wiliam Gallagher:
Well, there's been problems with the bank holiday weekends. We have people trying to get away because Brexit has implemented all the controls that Brexit said it would. And people are now objecting that it's causing delays that it was always going to cause. So I'm laughing because I'm not in a car waiting to get across to France, but you know.
Stephen Robles:
Wait, you can take a car to France?
Wiliam Gallagher:
gallwch ddryf, yw'r un pethau, fel ymlaen, mae yna ddysgu car,
Stephen Robles:
I knew there was the Eurostar. Okay,
Wiliam Gallagher:
gallwch ddryf ar y bach o'i. Yn oedd y term Amharic? Nid oeddwn i wedi'i ddweud hynny am y pethau.
Stephen Robles:
autotrain. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have auto trains like a ut o like automobile auto trains
Wiliam Gallagher:
Uh huh.
Stephen Robles:
Honestly, the first 10 times I heard that phrase. I was like auto train. What's automatic about it?
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yes!
Stephen Robles:
It's a train But no, it's like automobile train anyway
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
Uh, see this is why ai is going to take over. I don't even know what auto train means And ai is over here. Just I don't know generating
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm. Okay.
Stephen Robles:
And that's enough. That's enough AI. A quick little news bits, and then I want to hear your thoughts on Apple Classical Review.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
I want to hear your
Wiliam Gallagher:
Oh,
Stephen Robles:
thoughts
Wiliam Gallagher:
good.
Stephen Robles:
on Apple Music Classical, the app. PayPal, though, is adding Apple Pay for small business payments. I'm excited about this because so many times I've seen PayPal integrated into the online point of sale when you're trying to check out on a website, and there's no Apple Pay. It's like PayPal or credit card. Well, pretty soon you'll be able to see Apple Pay there. So all those places you saw PayPal Apple Pay should appear alongside it, which is exciting. I like using Apple Pay.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Robles:
Do you remember the days when Apple Pay wasn't anywhere? Like you had to go to like that one store that had the NFC reader? Or was
Wiliam Gallagher:
Actually,
Stephen Robles:
the UK
Wiliam Gallagher:
no, I don't because it was never like that here from the minute upper pace switched on it worked everywhere Because we had NFC we had it in all the places It was just another flavor of that so right from the moment you could use your watch I always paid on the watch I don't know why America took longer and I need lots of different banks and negotiate with but there wasn't the issue here So no, it was a great idea. Suddenly it worked. It's everywhere. Love it Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
See, when Apple Pay first came out over here in the States, it was like Walgreens. Walgreens was the one place you could scan for Apple Pay, and that was it for a long time. And I think it was because there is that fee for Apple Pay transactions for the vendor, if I'm not mistaken. It's like some
Wiliam Gallagher:
It's
Stephen Robles:
very,
Wiliam Gallagher:
incredibly
Stephen Robles:
very s-
Wiliam Gallagher:
small, but it is there. I mean, it adds up to billions for Apple, but each and, I mean, this whole thing of, do you have this thing in the States where you get cash back in supermarkets if you use a debit card, not if you use a credit card. Do you have that?
Stephen Robles:
No, they don't give you any cash back. No.
Wiliam Gallagher:
It's quite well really it's I mean it's a long story But I was fascinated to find out why debit cards not credit cards if you go to supermarket in the UK you pay on a debit Card you can say you want 20 pounds, please and yeah, they add it to your bill But they give you the cash for it. They will
Stephen Robles:
Oh
Wiliam Gallagher:
do it. Do you have that?
Stephen Robles:
We can get cash back, but it's not like at a discount like you
Wiliam Gallagher:
No,
Stephen Robles:
can
Wiliam Gallagher:
no, no, no, I use a port and that's what, yeah, Apple calls cash back when they give you a cut, don't they?
Stephen Robles:
Right.
Wiliam Gallagher:
No, but the reasons behind why they do it and things, it's all to help the store get around fees that it's paying. So
Stephen Robles:
I
Wiliam Gallagher:
there are already fees, they're just more for certain things. And I would have thought Apple Pay would have been less, deliberately less than any of them. But you're right, that seemed to be the thing that stopped people.
Stephen Robles:
Well, Walgreens, I guess you would call it like a pharmacy or drugstore, but
Wiliam Gallagher:
Oh right.
Stephen Robles:
it has like you can also buy ice cream and paper plates
Wiliam Gallagher:
Well
Stephen Robles:
and
Wiliam Gallagher:
what
Stephen Robles:
stuffed
Wiliam Gallagher:
more
Stephen Robles:
animals.
Wiliam Gallagher:
could you want then?
Stephen Robles:
It isn't everything. Some Walgreens also have like the liquor section. So it's quite a variety of things. I
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm.
Stephen Robles:
will say now in the US, Apple Pay is pretty much ubiquitous and you can do it anywhere. grocery stores like Publix did not take PayPal before the pandemic, but now they do. But I went to get a tire changed the other day and this was a very like, how would you describe it? Like it was a very side of the road. We're going to change your tire in 10 minutes. We won't ask you any questions. You don't ask us any questions.
Wiliam Gallagher:
This is so suspicious.
Stephen Robles:
It
Wiliam Gallagher:
I
Stephen Robles:
was
Wiliam Gallagher:
mean...
Stephen Robles:
a little shady. It was a little shady. I'll be honest. Like I called the phone number on the building and said phone disconnected. Like it was very like, I literally had to just show up in person to see if they would actually changed my tire but they did and it was they literally changed my tire in ten minutes it was great but the point of sale like many places here in the US it was like one of these small little point of sale things for the card you know insert your card for the chip but a lot of those have the NFC built in now and so I paid with my Apple watch I did Apple pay with my Apple watch and the guy was like I've never seen
Wiliam Gallagher:
Whoa.
Stephen Robles:
someone pay with their watch before and I was like well you can do that now yeah it's pretty cool
Wiliam Gallagher:
Hmm
Stephen Robles:
and that was it I in 2023 paying with your watch. People still
Wiliam Gallagher:
at the
Stephen Robles:
like
Wiliam Gallagher:
side
Stephen Robles:
it.
Wiliam Gallagher:
of the road for a dodgy
Stephen Robles:
Yes.
Wiliam Gallagher:
tire swap.
Stephen Robles:
It was
Wiliam Gallagher:
Look at
Stephen Robles:
super
Wiliam Gallagher:
looking
Stephen Robles:
dodgy.
Wiliam Gallagher:
back for any any cops in view. Yeah. Yeah. Wave your watch here. Nobody's looking at you. OK. Right.
Stephen Robles:
Yeah,
Wiliam Gallagher:
You're
Stephen Robles:
it's...
Wiliam Gallagher:
building a whole world picture for me here. Yes.
Stephen Robles:
You wanna watch? Yeah. Yeah, even the scalpers for tickets probably take Apple Pay Now outside concerts.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yes
Stephen Robles:
Literally, because you can do Apple Pay Now just directly with your iPhone. You can like square payments. You don't need even like a device, a third party device. You can just do it right on your iPhone.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah, but there's probably still a limit, which means you couldn't get Taylor
Stephen Robles:
Yes,
Wiliam Gallagher:
Swift tickets, for example.
Stephen Robles:
well,
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah.
Stephen Robles:
I
Wiliam Gallagher:
No,
Stephen Robles:
don't think anybody's
Wiliam Gallagher:
okay.
Stephen Robles:
scalping those tickets. I think those are yeah, but anyway Apple will be opening its first store ever in india It keeps teasing its mumbai store and not a lot of details like when it's opening or what it's gonna be We just kind of have a concept outside picture of the store
Wiliam Gallagher:
you
Stephen Robles:
or it's not it's not a concept. It's an actual picture. I think Is an actual
Wiliam Gallagher:
I think
Stephen Robles:
picture?
Wiliam Gallagher:
so, yeah. Or
Stephen Robles:
Yeah
Wiliam Gallagher:
very photorealistic photo because it's real. But, don't! Okay.
Stephen Robles:
That's probably what it was. But yeah, first Apple Store in India. That's pretty big news. That's
Wiliam Gallagher:
It's
Stephen Robles:
pretty cool.
Wiliam Gallagher:
astounding that it can have taken this long.
Stephen Robles:
Yeah, that was pretty
Wiliam Gallagher:
I
Stephen Robles:
wild.
Wiliam Gallagher:
mean, India, huge. Mumbai isn't the specie, another one coming in New Delhi as well. And you would have just automatically assumed that they'd always been there. But, you know,
Stephen Robles:
Yeah,
Wiliam Gallagher:
good.
Stephen Robles:
that's the first one. I also, like, I don't think there's any Apple stores in Israel, as far as I know. So that's another country. I'm sure there are other stores.
Wiliam Gallagher:
And
Stephen Robles:
Oh.
Wiliam Gallagher:
yet they can have five in New York City. What
Stephen Robles:
Listen,
Wiliam Gallagher:
are they doing? I don't know.
Stephen Robles:
even here in Florida, we have, you know, pretty close together. We have a bunch of Apple stores. So all right. But right before Apple Music Classical, I do want to mention Apple TV Plus as a bunch of releases coming soon. Keanu Reeves and Jonah Hill are coming to Apple TV Plus. I'm excited about that. I also started watching the second season of Schmigadoon.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Schmigadoon, yes.
Stephen Robles:
Did you did you watch that?
Wiliam Gallagher:
I ate up the first season and I was looking forward to season two, but it dropped on this, the Wednesday. And I'm so used to Apple TV being out on Fridays that it kind of caught me by surprise. And I only found out at the end of the night. It was like, there's no time to enjoy this now. So I'm going
Stephen Robles:
Yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
to watch it on Fridays, I think. But yes,
Stephen Robles:
We're good.
Wiliam Gallagher:
is it as good as it looks in Schmigadoon?
Stephen Robles:
It is is a different vibe. You know, it's you have to think Chicago the musical and
Wiliam Gallagher:
I like
Stephen Robles:
it's
Wiliam Gallagher:
Chicago the Musical, yes.
Stephen Robles:
Okay. Well, then I think you enjoy I do really enjoy the the main actors and It's one of my favorite like the first season of that show was one of my favorite Apple TV plus shows
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah,
Stephen Robles:
I mean, it was just
Wiliam Gallagher:
same here.
Stephen Robles:
wonderful. Yeah, so
Wiliam Gallagher:
There's something, the very opening note of
Stephen Robles:
Yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
the very first episode, I was smiling at it. And I don't know why, it just, things I didn't realise I knew so well. It lovingly parodies, or it did in the first season. Now it sounds harsh and serious.
Stephen Robles:
Well, but it is it is still very like true to life and enjoyable and funny. So did you trigger series on that? What are you doing over there?
Wiliam Gallagher:
Oh funny, I just had a little thing on my watch that vibrated and I tried to stop it, but hmm.
Stephen Robles:
Uh huh, I think AI is listening to you. Anyway,
Wiliam Gallagher:
Okay.
Stephen Robles:
but all right, lastly, Apple Music Classical, you had some thoughts, William. Talk to me, what do you think?
Wiliam Gallagher:
Well, first of all, just tell me if I'm normal here. Previously,
Stephen Robles:
No.
Wiliam Gallagher:
okay,
Stephen Robles:
Oh, sorry,
Wiliam Gallagher:
thank
Stephen Robles:
go ahead.
Wiliam Gallagher:
you. That's revenge for the thing
Stephen Robles:
Yeah,
Wiliam Gallagher:
about
Stephen Robles:
yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
are you crazy for. There's always music in my head, but usually it's pop or rock or folk or whatever. And it always seems to be a few bars of it or maybe the main riff, just a little bit. But since I've been back listening to classical music with this new app, there have been a 10 minute run over and over.
Stephen Robles:
I'm going to go ahead and turn it off. I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Is that just what classical does to you or is this a cry for help?
Stephen Robles:
I think so. I actually, I saw a TikTok video of Leonard Bernstein talking about Beethoven's 7th symphony, second movement, talking about the melody line and how it's just, it's an extremely simple melody. The harmonies are simple, but somehow how Beethoven constructed it, it is just super compelling. And so of course I had to listen to it.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Mm-hmm.
Stephen Robles:
I just saw this video. I was like, now I want to know what it sounds like or remind myself what it sounds different recordings of it which I love about the classical app where you can go to the work see popular recordings the editor's choice I listened to it a bunch of times and then it was stuck in my head for the next three days so
Wiliam Gallagher:
Okay,
Stephen Robles:
I agree
Wiliam Gallagher:
the
Stephen Robles:
I
Wiliam Gallagher:
whole
Stephen Robles:
think it does
Wiliam Gallagher:
thing.
Stephen Robles:
do it to
Wiliam Gallagher:
Good. Okay.
Stephen Robles:
you yeah yeah
Wiliam Gallagher:
How many
Stephen Robles:
yeah
Wiliam Gallagher:
minutes of this are you going to do?
Stephen Robles:
that's it that's
Wiliam Gallagher:
Okay.
Stephen Robles:
all I'll do that's all I'll do I wish I still wish you could share playlists from Apple Music classical
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah,
Stephen Robles:
and actually opens in the app. That'd
Wiliam Gallagher:
it
Stephen Robles:
be nice.
Wiliam Gallagher:
does seem peculiarly clunky. Anyway, it's the app is not a music playing app, although it does play music. It's really it's a search engine. And you can then toss the results over to regular Apple Music where you can form playlists, where you can download music and that that back and forth seems a bit weird to me.
Stephen Robles:
Yeah.
Wiliam Gallagher:
I don't like that. It seems like it's done down classical search and regular music. I tried Siri the other day me. I asked for Siri on Apple Music Classical and it said no such app. What are you talking about? Going on. Yeah good luck. Yeah
Stephen Robles:
Oh, that's terrible.
Wiliam Gallagher:
so little bits aren't right but it does seem to have a great engine for it. It does seem to find things well. I've been deeply enjoying the music I'm listening to so on the whole it's like a great but. No that sounds rude.
Stephen Robles:
Wait, what?
Wiliam Gallagher:
Yeah it's
Stephen Robles:
Sorry.
Wiliam Gallagher:
great yet. There we go. Great
Stephen Robles:
Oh,
Wiliam Gallagher:
yet.
Stephen Robles:
oh, oh,
Wiliam Gallagher:
not
Stephen Robles:
oh,
Wiliam Gallagher:
as great
Stephen Robles:
I see. Like...
Wiliam Gallagher:
as it could be. Great however. Right, am I blushing? Anyway,
Stephen Robles:
I see. No, I got it now. You're
Wiliam Gallagher:
yeah.
Stephen Robles:
on Tinder. That's how you're thinking. That's alright. Uh huh.
Wiliam Gallagher:
Right, seriously, gotta check out the whole right left thing. You could be doing bad things to my ego here and I don't even know it. Okay.
Stephen Robles:
No, no, I think I got it. But anyway, listeners, let us know if you're using this chat GBT shortcut and you have some really cool use cases. I would love to hear about it. Hope you enjoyed hearing about it. Just or just let me know if you have a or let us know do you have AI fatigue, or just you're intrigued. I don't know. Let us know. womenize Twitter and mastodon handles are in the show notes. Of course, you can support the show get an Apple Podcasts. As always, thank you for listening. We'll catch you next time.
Wiliam Gallagher:
All
Stephen Robles:
Boom.
Wiliam Gallagher:
right, recording done.