In the 83rd episode of the iPhone Life Podcast, the team shares highlights from Apple's Q2 earnings report and discuss why analysts' gloomy iPhone X projections were all wrong. Sarah and Donna also share their favorite high-end headphone recommendations and weigh in on whether you can use emojis in place of punctuation marks when texting
Click here to listen and subscribe. If you like what you hear, be sure to leave a review. And remember to tune in every other week to hear our editors share with you the latest Apple news, best apps, iPhone tricks, and coolest accessories.
This episode is brought to you by Antenna 79 and Fanatic Software. The radiation-blocking alara case by Brink from Antenna 79 never interferes with your cellular connection, blocks 67 percent of your cellphone’s radiation (the most that’s reasonably achievable), and protects your phone from drops up to six feet. You need an app that can do it all—a one-stop place for reviewing everything on your to-do list and in your schedule, easily. Informant 5 from Fanatic Software is that app.
This episode was recorded using high-quality mics from Blue Microphones.
Question of the week:
Do you have to follow an emoji with punctuation when you use it at the end of a sentence in a text? Or is it acceptable to use emojis in place of punctuation when texting? Email podcasts@iphonelife.com to let us know.
Articles referred to in this episode:
- How to Use Business Chat on iPhone with iOS 11.3
- Top Tips for Battery Life on iPhone or iPad (Workshop Replay)
- Join the iPhone Life Facebook Group
Apps & gear referred to in this episode:
- Libratone Track+ ($199)
- Audioquest Nighthawk headphones ($898.20)
- Launch Center Pro ($4.99)
Useful links:
- Join the iPhone Life Facebook Group
- Become an iPhone Life Insider
- Sign up for the free Tip of the Day Newsletter
- Email the Podcast
- Subscribe to iPhone Life magazine
Transcript of Episode 83:
Donna C.: Hi, and welcome to episode 83, of the iPhone Life Podcast, I'm Donna Cleveland, editor and chief of iPhone Life.
David A.: I'm David Averbach, CEO and publisher of iPhone life.
Sarah K.: I'm Sarah Kingsbury, Senior Web Editor at iPhone Life.
Donna C.: Each episode, we bring to you the best apps, top tips, and great gear in the iOS world. This episode we have a new announcement, we have a Facebook group that we just launched, and we think you should join.
David A.: Yeah.
Sarah K.: Definitely.
Donna C.: David, do you want to tell us more about it?
David A.: Yeah, definitely, well we launched it a couple weeks ago, and it's been so much fun. Basically, it's just a place for anybody's whose a part of our community to come ask us questions, ask each other questions, and just have a conversation about getting the most out of your iPhone, iPad, any Apple products. We have over 200,000 people in the group already, really active conversation. Make sure you check it out, we'll put a link to it in the show notes, if you go to IphoneLife.com/podcast, or if you want to just go to Facebook and look for iPhone Life Group.
Donna C.: iPhone Life Group.
David A.: You'll find it that way as well, also a second announcement, we have started doing live workshops, which we're also really excited about. We had our first live workshop last week, and we will link to that so you can watch the replay if you want. If you go to iphonelife.com/podcast, you can watch the replay. We've got two more workshops coming up in the next month, so make sure you stay tuned for those. All of our workshops are free right now, emphasis on the right now.
Donna C.: Yeah.
David A.: They're really fun, our first one was on battery saving tips. Connor and Sarah walked through all sorts of battery saving tips, we answered a ton of questions live on the show so in the workshop make sure you tune in live for the next one so you can ask your questions but also you can enjoy every else's question if you watch the replay.
Donna C.: That included helping you figure out whether you need to upgrade the battery in your phone or whether you can just tweak your settings and that would be fine and I know that's a point of a lot of tension for a lot of people so that was a really great thing with this workshop. Our upcoming workshop, we're going to go over iCloud photo library versus Google photos and help you figure out how to manage your photos which is another point that I know a lot of people struggle with, so it would be a good one.
David A.: All right. Well, let me talk about our sponsor. Our first sponsor her is Alara Brink case. This is a great case because not only an affordable, sleek protective case. It looks nice, it's a black protective case, reasonable price. It also protects you against iPhone radiation. If you are someone who is concerned about the radiation from your phone and the potential damaging effects of that. This is a really awesome solution. It's really scientifically backed and there's a lot of research showing how this case deflects the radiation away from your face so we will put a link to this in the show notes as well. The name of it is Brink. The name of the company is BRINK. The name of the case is Alara. You can go to iPhonelife.com/podcast to get the link for it.
Donna C.: Even if you are not worried about radiation. The design of the Alara case is really nice.
Sarah K.: It's really like slim but protective.
Donna C.: Yeah.
Sarah K.: I was using it at CES and I dropped my phone and the phone survived and it was also just not too bulky to carry around all over the show floor.
David A.: Yeah.
Donna C.: Yeah.
David A.: The two things I like about it is that you don't have to compromise on the look of the case.
Donna C.: Yeah.
David A.: It looks nice, it's also affordable, the other thing that I really like about it is that there's a lot of solutions in the space that are not very scientifically backed. This one, they've done a lot of lab research to not only make it work but also show conclusively that it does impact deflect the radiation.
Donna C.: Yeah.
David A.: That gives me a lot of trust.
Donna C.: Next stop, we want to talk to about our tip of the day newsletter. If you go to iPhonelife.com/dailytips, you can sign up to get a free tip that teaches you something cool. You can do it in your phone in one minute every day. This week, we want to tell you about a tip for iOS 11.3. We've covered a lot of the big ones but some people don't know about business chats which is a feature that we're rolling out so not many businesses will have this yet. If you search for a company in Safari. Already sometimes you'll see the best name and a phone number but now you will also see message icon if it supports. If that business supports the business chat feature and that let's you tap on it to start a text message conversation with that company. Usually this would be some sort of chat bot or something like that to answer basic questions but it's just another way that you can get the information you need without having to make a phone call which at least I hate making phone calls. Nobody wants to talk to anyone these days.
Sarah K.: Yeah.
Donna C.: Please don't make me get on the phone.
David A.: Do you guys use Safari or Chrome? I'm curious.
Donna C.: I use Safari. I use Safari.
David A.: Okay. I'm a Chrome person.
Donna C.: Whenever we've had this conversation, I've been like, "Oh I probably should switch to Chrome because I use Chrome on my Mac and I really like Chrome." For some reason, Safari is the default one and I haven't had any problem with it so I'm just like, "Why fix it?"
David A.: Apple has done some cool things with Safari on the iPhone that makes it actually load pages faster. They actually give Safari access to ... I can't remember what is that. I think it's Javascript rendering that makes it load faster that other third party browsers do not have access to on the iPhone. There are advantages to Safari but the problem is kind of what you use elsewhere. I use Chrome on my computer. I like having all my passwords and all of my bookmarks synced across devices.
Donna C.: See? That's why I use iCloud keychain so Safari is a good one for me.
David A.: I'm not a fan of iCloud keychain. I can never quite get it to work right for me.
Donna C.: Have you found ways to make it work?
Sarah K.: It works well enough for me in our next episode, the inside question we have is going to deal with iCloud keychain auto fill. Maybe that would help you David.
David A.: Maybe. Stay tuned.
Donna C.: Because I feel like at sometimes, it randomly kicks in and works but all other times, it's not. I'm not quite sure, why. I haven't really taken the energy to figure out why.
David A.: To explain a little bit, we record two episodes of the time. We are going to record he episode where we talk about that and you all have to wait two weeks and then you will hear all about it.
Donna C.: It's true. Yeah. This is back to business chat. That was her daily tip for this episode. If you want to sign up to get a daily tip like that every day, go to iPhonelife.com/dailytips.
David A.: Also, that's a great way to hear from us for all the other exciting new things that are happening. That's when we announce things like a Facebook group, or we announce things like a free workshop. We send it to that list. If you are wanting to stay tuned of upcoming iPhone Life things. We've got a lot of cool stuff in the pipeline for you all. That's a great way to do so because we only record this podcast every two weeks.
Donna C.: Yes. Exactly. Also we have a premium subscription called iPhone Life Insider. Probably a lot of you are already familiar with it, but you get not only a video tip every day but a video version of that tip. You also get video guides and a lot of comprehensive content that helps you really master your iOS devices. You're also going to be getting a full archive of all of our workshops now that we're launching that feature. That's just another reason that you'll love being an insider and this week, Sarah has an insider question. She's going to share with us because one of the features of our insider that people really appreciate is the tech help that she gives them so you can email in any specific issues you are having and she'll help you work through it. Sarah, tell us what insiders have been wondering.
Sarah K.: Well, so for this episode the reader I heard from says, "The email address that comes in the from block in Apple mail is outdated. How do I change it to my Gmail address?" You can actually select a default email account for all your emails to go from automatically unless you type in a different email address. To do that, you would open settings, and go to mail, default account, then select your Gmail account in his case, or whatever account you wanted it to be. Then from then on, anytime you start composing a new email in your mail app, it would be from that address. I feel like David just waiting to be like, "Use Gmail."
David A.: No. I just have a complaint. Ready complaint.
Sarah K.: The second thing is, I would recommend deleting this iPhone email from your iPhone. It won't delete the account because it's on the web somewhere but you can delete it from your phone in settings, accounts and passwords and then you just tap on the outdated email account and then scroll to the bottom of the screen and tap delete account. That would remove it from your phone too. Now, David's got a complaint.
David A.: This is a bonus complaint because I have another complaint for later in the podcast but it annoys me that to my knowledge, you can only have one signature from your ...
Sarah K.: You're so wrong.
David A.: I am?
Sarah K.: Oh my gosh, you're so wrong.
David A.: This is turning to thing, I'm learning. Tell me about this.
Sarah K.: Okay, so ...
David A.: I knew I might be wrong. That's why like, to my knowledge ...
Sarah K.: Again, I believe you go to mail, the mail app in settings. You scroll down to signature. You tap that and you can select, all accounts and have your signature be automatically be added to all of your email accounts or you can do per account.
David A.: That's so cool.
Sarah K.: Then, you can customize it for each account which I have actually done.
Donna C.: Sarah has four different signatures.
David A.: Do you know this Donna?
Donna C.: No. I did not.
David A.: Okay. I feel less stupid.
Donna C.: No. You also, when you are replying to an email. If you are to a point where you already started an email and it's from the wrong address, can't you also like tap it and then change it to ... Tap from field and change it there for that just individual email as well?
Sarah K.: Yeah, you can always change it until you hit send.
Donna C.: Okay. Cool. Right. To get questions like thought answered by Sarah and all the other features we talked about, go to iPhonelife.com/insider. Next we want to get through some of the comments we had from listeners last episode. We had a few different good ones. I will get them out now. First, we had comment from Mary Ann. She responded to our question of the week, this is maybe not last episode but one of our last episodes. She says, "I have an iPhone 5 so I can't do anything about my battery. We were asking people who were replacing their batteries and how iOS 11.3 features, we're working out for them." She says, "I have an iPad Air. I never updated iOS after hearing David saying it slowed his down."
David A.: It is too.
Donna C.: Should I?
David A.: No, it's really slowing it down. In general as a kind of big picture recommendation, as your device age, you reach a certain point where it's probably not worth updating operating systems. What Apple does is they assume that you are going to have a newer device, they introduce new features that take up more processing power and so. I don't know. If your device is more than say three years old. You're taking a risk by updating. Let's put it that way.
Donna C.: I always recommend, especially if you have an older device. Wait a few weeks, see how it goes for other people that have the same device as you and if you don't hear people complaining it break their phone, then you can go ahead because sometimes, they deliberately make the update small enough that it can work on certain phones and sometimes, it's like a huge reworking of iOS and so it's going to take up more space.
David A.: There's the bricking of your phone which does happen, which is generally pretty rare.
Donna C.: Maybe exaggerating, but ...
David A.: Yeah, there's just a lot of in between cases where your device gets slower and slower every time you update and at some point, especially with iOS 11. To be honest, there weren't a ton of features that I was using when I updated it. It slowed my device down. I wasn't crazy about it.
Donna C.: To finish up what Mary Ann was saying, she said ... She's asking if she should update her iPhone 5. We answered that, then she says, "I can't decide. I also can't update my iPhone 5, either." If I'm correct. Same deal.
David A.: I don't know if you technically will allow you too. I will not recommend it.
Donna C.: You can't.
Sarah K.: I think it's iOS 9.3.5.
David A.: Wow.
Donna C.: She says, "I can't decide what phone to get since I won't use face recognition." She doesn't want Face ID. "I'm afraid I would hate using gestures." I assume she's talking about also what you use on the iPhone X.
David A.: Instead of the home button.
Donna C.: I mean, I would say to Mary Ann, probably checking out an iPhone 8 would be a good idea.
Sarah K.: Or even an iPhone 7 because I mean, I just ...
Donna C.: Yeah.
Sarah K.: Depending on how much you want to spend. It sounds like Mary Ann likes to keep her phones for a while. In that case, maybe get the newest, but at the same time. I don't think that there's a huge different in terms of features between the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 7.
David A.: The processors are [crosstalk 00:14:04].
Donna C.: Wireless charging.
David A.: Yeah, wireless charging is really cool feature. The other thing that I ... I have this kind of beef with the industry that I feel like the people, the journalist talking about tech tend to focus on the sizzle features, the cool exciting new things, where as the main advantages of each generation of phone are going to be the things that aren't exciting, like a faster processor, a better camera. Faster processor makes a big difference. It's in general ...
Donna C.: Yeah, but the difference between an iPhone 5 and an iPhone 7 is huge.
David A.: Yeah, but if you are going to keep it for several years, I think a fast processor matters. Obviously, budget is a really important thing. The last thing I will say is this a tough time to buy a new iPhone. If you can wait ...
Donna C.: Wait till the fall.
David A.: Wait till the fall, because then you can get the eight for cheaper or you can see there's new features. Yeah. As far as the 10 goes, the advantage and we talked about this a lot. The advantage of the 10 is it's a smaller form factor with similar size screen. You have the same screen size as an 8 plus but you have the smaller form factor. If you don't like the gestures, removal of the home button. If you don't like Face ID. It's probably not worth paying extra money for it. I support that part of the ...
Donna C.: Yeah, we hope that helps Mary Ann. We have a second question from a listener. This one is from Steve. He said, "I just watched episode 81 that had a conversation about Facebook privacy. Everything you discussed was pertinent and relevant. What you didn't mention though is that by default, if you download the Facebook app to your phone. You have to grant them access to your contact file. This means that if you have downloaded the app and, I have chosen not to use Facebook, but in your contact file, you have given my private info to Facebook without my permission." He talks about how even if you don't have Facebook, if a friend of yours has Facebook on their phone, they have shared your contact information with Facebook. I went in ...
Sarah K.: Did you went into your settings.
Donna C.: I was going to say, so I went in and I deleted and re-downloaded Facebook to try to verify this. I never got that screen that he's talking about, of asking to download the contact files. I don't know, because I already had Facebook installed. It seems like maybe I wasn't being led into the entire set up process but what I did do is I went online and found some information about this. Found a URL, you can go to in Facebook if that allows you to see which contacts Apple has access to and to delete all ...
Sarah K.: Apple or Facebook.
Donna C.: Sorry, Facebook. That is, we'll post it if you go to iPhonelife.com/podcast. We'll include the link there but I will give it to you now too. It's facebook.com/mobile/messenger/contacts. If you go to that link, you'll see first of all what Facebook has in terms of your contacts and with mine, they did in fact have my contacts and including all their phone numbers. You can delete it there.
David A.: To be fair, I at one point gave Facebook access to my contacts so that I can get all of there pictures. You may have done that at some point too.
Donna C.: With all these Facebook scandals, I've undone a lot of sharing that I did. There is a trade of inconvenience. I use a lot of apps as a way to log into different apps. Actually having Facebook have your contacts if convenient in a lot of situations, like messenger for instance. If they have all your updated contacts, that can be nice when you are messaging people but I do feel uncomfortable now. Also, in the messenger app, you would want to go tap your profile. Tap people then there you can choose whether or not I want to sync contacts. If you choose not to, it would delete everything from your contact book from the Facebook messenger app.
David A.: I think what Steve's complaint though which I think is very valid. If Steve is not on Facebook, he is not the one who is sharing his contact with Facebook. People who are trying to stay off of Facebook can keep their contact information off of Facebook are dependent on all of their friends going and doing this process, who unless they listen to this podcast may not know to do it.
Donna C.: I know, it's really true. Yeah. Sarah, it seemed like you had a ... When I was first bringing this up. You said, did you go into your settings.
Sarah K.: Well, I just wanted to know because usually you can go into your settings and see if you shared like your contacts or other information like your Facebook access to your camera often. Things like that. I was just wondering. I actually don't have the Facebook app on my phone and I access it through Safari.
Donna C.: That's what Steve recommended doing too ...
Sarah K.: I have messenger too so Facebook totally has all of my contacts information. Sorry, guys.
Donna C.: It was good to see, it was comforting to me to see that there were places to go in and undo that and still be able to keep the Facebook app without giving the access to those things. I hope that helps you. Thank you for writing into us because we definitely want to know and we're learning as we go as well. We appreciate it. Next want to talk about our news of the week. Apple just had their quarterly earnings report and that helped us answer the question of whether or not the iPhone 10 was a disaster or not. In the news, there's been a lot lately of speculation about that. It ended up the iPhone 10 was not a disaster.
Sarah K.: No, it was the most popular iPhone followed by the 8 and 8 Plus which really actually isn't that surprising. Apple sold over 52 million iPhones over all. I guess it was a record quarter for revenue. iPhones are 78% of its total revenue for this quarter.
Donna C.: Why do you say it's unsurprising that the 8 and 8 Plus would out sell the iPhone X?
Sarah K.: It didn't. The iPhone X, outsold them. That's not what I said ...
Donna C.: Followed by 8 and 8 Plus. Sorry.
Sarah K.: Right, because for me, it didn't feel surprising that all the things about iPhone X were so bad because like I can't remember. I had all these logic, all these reasons. I don't know. It just seemed all of a sudden, I guess, Apple did cut its orders for iPhone X parts and so maybe they didn't sell as many as they thought they would but they still sold a lot.
David A.: Yeah, it's always hard to tell because I think this is one of those areas where people try to predict how Apple sales are going by looking at manufacturing but there's a number of reason why you can adjust manufacturing throughout the quarter that might not be a good indication and anecdotally, just being out and about, I tend to see a lot of people with 10. It didn't feel like it was necessarily disaster but then again, you don't get to have a proper sample sized. Obviously I am surrounded by people who work at iPhone Life Magazine, so.
Sarah K.: Yeah, it definitely wasn't the phone that everybody got though. It was my experience that at least in my friend groups and also just from the interactions we have from all of you our customers, it wasn't something that like the iPhone X was so amazing that everyone felt like that was the new standard of iPhone, like we've had to be careful not to have to many of our daily tips be about the iPhone X and things like that, just because a lot of people are still using different iPhones and some of that might have to do with the price. Also people have mix feelings about Face ID and no home button and things like that.
David A.: Yeah.
Sarah K.: Speaking of seeing devices in a while, I've been seeing so many Apple watches.
Donna C.: I've been seeing so many AirPods.
David A.: Yeah, I've seen so many AirPods. I don't think I've seen that many Apple watches.
Sarah K.: I see them constantly.
Donna C.: I see them a lot. I was just flying, and a lot of the flight attendants had Apple watches, I was noticing.
Sarah K.: Yeah.
Donna C.: Something like that.
Sarah K.: It used to be like, I was kind of excited when I saw another person wearing them and now, they are just always there, which is not surprising because other products are up 38% year over year. That includes not just the Apple watch but also the Home Pod and AirPods and Beats headphones and things like that basically anything that's really an iPhone or an iPad. I bet a lot of that is the Apple Watch. They don't break those numbers out for us but ...
Donna C.: Then, some other interesting points was that services continue to grow. They are up 31% year, over year. Apple music still be doing well, which is cool to see. iCloud Storage, things like that.
David A.: I think from a really big picture perspective. I've read a few articles talking about kind of Apple's business strategy in all of this. My takeaway from this announcement is that Apple's strategies are working because basically Apple from 2008 until a couple of years ago, their primary growth driver was the iPhone, it grew year over year, every year they sold more iPhones, more iPhones, that has continued to happen obviously by the growth rate has slowed a lot. What Apple has tried to do to continue to grow their revenue while their growth rate are their primary driver is slowing is A, introducing new tier of iPhone that they charge more for so they can have better margins. B, make up the difference in the other products and services that they sell.
David A.: Both of those things have been really kind of, made questions of whether this is a correct strategy for them, whether Apple can be successful without releasing a revolutionary new product every three years, and the answer at least currently seems to be the strategies are working. The Apple services are starting to make up enough difference to make up for that slowing growth rate and also people are paying, willing to pay more for a new iPhone if they pack it with features.
Donna C.: It's interesting because I'm curious if you will agree with this but I feel like a few years ago, I heard a lot more rumors or like people questioning like has Apple lost it's edge? Are they on the verge of going downhill. It just seems like that's so not what's happening and you don't feel as any people even like posing that question anymore.
David A.: I think people got sick of talking about it. I mean, there isn't an argument that is happening because Apple was on a real hot streak in terms of introducing revolution in new products, the iPod was a huge breakthrough in terms of personal computing device.
Donna C.: Right.
David A.: Then, came the iPhone and then came the iPad. These were all like brand new genres of devices and Apple hasn't been able to do that since then. Even though we've seen the Apple watch in the while, it's more of an iPhone accessory than a necessarily the next revenue generator for Apple.
Donna C.: Isn't that pretty much the same ... I mean, the iPod, that's true. But with the iPhone, there are already other ... I mean, I guess it was very much superior to other phones out there.
David A.: Let's put it this way.
Donna C.: Other tablets though.
David A.: Yeah, yeah. It's true. Apple tends to refine an existing and make it way better.
Donna C.: Right.
David A.: The iPhone makes up 70% of Apple's revenue. The Apple watch is put in the category of other devices is an is a small part of that category. It's just not a huge revenue maker or huge product for Apple in the same way that the iPhone or iPad are.
Donna C.: Yeah, it did end up being as a essential as these other product categories are.
David A.: Yeah, exactly.
Donna C.: For people.
David A.: Or as ubiquitous.
Donna C.: Yeah.
David A.: Yes, you are seeing some Apple watches in a wild but how many iPhones do you see in the wild.
Donna C.: Nobody loves their Apple watches as much as Sarah does. For my, I love my AirPods until I lost them. To find my AirPods, it turns out isn't that helpful when your AirPods are dead. Okay. That pretty much covers up the quarterly earnings. The iPhone X was not a flap. Surprise. Now we want to talk about our sponsor, Fanatic Software. David, tell us about it.
David A.: Yeah. Fanatic Software, I love their app, the Informant 5.
Donna C.: Me too.
David A.: What I like to describe it is, it's the calendar app that Apple should have made. What makes it great, first of all, it's way more robust than Apple's calendar app. What they did is they combined the reminders and task with the calendar. You can have them all within one app and you can have them synced together and linked together because it's really confusing for me personally to have them separated. I never know if I'm using Apple system whether I want to schedule a reminder to remind me to do something next Wednesday or put it in my calendar. It makes more sense to put them together. It's also just a very easy to use, user friendly app. It's called the Informant 5. We'll link to it in the show notes. iPhonelife.com/podcast or you can check it out in the app store. It also is available for your computer as well and it syncs across platforms.
Donna C.: One thing I really like about Informant is the number of different views it has. I feel like people's minds work different in terms of organization and how they visually want to see what their day and week or month looks like. I found that Informant 5 has a lot of different good desktop and mobile views for that. That's one of the ways that it sets it apart but yeah, totally also bring together the calendar and reminders because I will constantly lose track of things being like, was it a reminder I set or was it a calendar appointment? Yeah. I am in full support of Informant 5. Next stop, our Apple complaints and learning. We'll share what we've been learning or features with iOS that we're frustrated by, I have one this week that actually was sourced from our Facebook group.
David A.: Oh, no. I think you'll steal mine. That's okay, I'll come up with another one. I got all the complaints.
Donna C.: One really great thing about our Facebook group is that people can crowdsource answers to their questions so people have been posting because people have specific different things happening that it's hard to find answers, either from our daily tips or Google or anything like that. This one is about do not disturb. Someone who was trying to see if they could set a different do not disturb schedule for the weekend as then for the weekdays because this person's son I think was having trouble wanting to not be interrupted at school but then in the weekends have a different schedule for that. Sadly, you can't set more than one ...
Sarah K.: So ridiculous.
Donna C.: [crosstalk 00:29:11] schedule.
David A.: I've been complaining about this for years, it drives me crazy.
Donna C.: Yeah, in a recent episode, LeAnne, who is a writer here was saying that there should also be location base Do Not Disturb, which I think would be great if you could just set Do Not Disturb, to your school and then that way, like for this specific person and that way they would get all their calls unless they are at school. Why doesn't Apple do that?
David A.: Yeah. They really could make it way more robust.
Donna C.: That's a feature we are hoping for with iOS 12, and it's also one that I have read some rumors about that Apple could be expanding it's Do Not Disturb functionality so let's [crosstalk 00:29:48].
Sarah K.: In a way, it's ... They have already kind of done it because you can enable Do Not Disturb to automatically turn on every time you start an Apple Watch workout. I don't see why it couldn't be customized in other ways because of course. I'm not actually like a software developer. I can just say, I don't know why they can't build these features.
David A.: They really should.
Sarah K.: They really should.
Donna C.: Sarah, what's yours this week?
Sarah K.: I guess have a complaint and a learning. My complaint is that I really want to be able to see the hourly weather on my Apple Watch. You used to be able to and now you can't. I think since Watch OS4? It's silly, then I have to pull up my phone to look at hourly weather and usually, if you are about to go do some specific time based activity, you want to check the weather if it's an outdoor thing.
Donna C.: Especially when you live in Iowa.
Sarah K.: Oh, yeah.
David A.: I'm so confused. I can see the hourly weather.
Sarah K.: What app are you using?
David A.: The Apple Watch weather app.
Sarah K.: Well, it's not a comprehensive one.
David A.: If you have ...
Sarah K.: It doesn't have the temperature.
David A.: Yeah, that is temperature. If you hard pressed. You can choose between rain, temperature. Oh, wow. See now? I'm getting back, we're learning on the [inaudible 00:31:08], rain, temperature and conditions.
Sarah K.: It would give you hourly for all of those things?
David A.: Yeah.
Sarah K.: Because I was looking at it before when it was a rainy week and I was like ...
Donna C.: Oh, David. We're so happy right now.
Sarah K.: But it's not telling me if it's going to be raining or not.
David A.: Well, yeah.
Donna C.: That's so cool. We need to make that into a daily tip, immediately.
Sarah K.: Yeah, that was very important discovery I just had.
Donna C.: Yeah.
Sarah K.: My second thing is that I bought the Rosegold Apple Watch because I wanted that light pink watch band that it comes with it but it got really gross looking. I've been wearing this one which I don't like as much. I am not going to tell you what brand it is because it's in my opinion has a fatal flaw. I found out if you get one of those magic eraser sponges, you can actually clean your Apple watch band and remove the grime so I did that and I can go back to using the nice band I wanted, except it's shiny now, if you are listeners know a different way to get the grime off that won't leave your Apple Watch band shiny, let me know, but in the meantime, that's what I've done.
Donna C.: Yeah, it's too bad even though it's kind of like a rubber finish to Apple Watch bands, sport bands. They do stain.
David A.: Yeah.
Donna C.: I hae the same one as yours, it just gets a little discolored over time. Not really like it's dirt on it necessarily.
Sarah K.: I think it got really bad over the winter, I think because I have a black winter coat and I think the rubbing of the sleeves, yeah.
Donna C.: The dye would get off on to it. Yeah.
David A.: Well, you did in fact steal my complaint of the week. I am going to replace my complaint of the week with a question for you all.
Donna C.: Okay.
David A.: As professional editors.
Donna C.: All right.
David A.: I am having to date with my girlfriend.
Donna C.: Okay.
David A.: I want you guys to settle this. Can you use emojis as punctuation or do ... if you put a smiley face at the end of the sentence do you also then have to put a period afterwards. Because I have a very strong opinion about this.
Donna C.: I think we need to discuss whether or not you should even use punctuation in text messages.
Sarah K.: I was going to say I feel like I have a different answer depending if you are like ... Yes, if you are worried about being really correct with your text messages, then we can debate this. I guess someone who I feel like there's a different code for texting. I don't feel, even though I am an editor, I don't feel worried about it when I am sending casual text to my friends but maybe I should be.
David A.: Well, if you have several. If you have several things you are saying, you presumably put a period between the things you say, right?
Sarah K.: Yes, yeah.
David A.: The question is, if you put a smiley face there, would you also put a period?
Donna C.: I usually do.
Sarah K.: I have, I think it looks weird and it ...
David A.: Yeah, see. I don't do it.
Sarah K.: Texting is an extremely casual form of communication if you are texting professionally, you probably should go easy on the emojis anyway.
David A.: This is true.
Donna C.: Yeah.
Sarah K.: Also, at least at the end of a text message, it's often considered unfriendly to put a period.
Donna C.: And to not have any emoji, you mean? Or just having period?
Sarah K.: No, to use punctuation basically at the end of what you are saying.
Donna C.: I know what you mean. It seems like to weirdly final. It seems like you are being stern or something even if you are just saying a sentence.
Sarah K.: Just kind of saying okay is considered rude, or if you really want to be rude to someone, just say one K.
Donna C.: Yeah.
Sarah K.: But you can send two Ks like, KK. Then it's like, it's nice.
David A.: There's a great article that we should link too. It's like ice cream fails to use exclamation mark at the end of thank you note. It's a funny article but I agree with you that because when you are texting, you can't convey any emotion with your voice or body language or anything like that. It's easy to misinterpret somebody's tone. Like if you just say, okay. And you don't put a smiley face at the end, are you angry? I don't know.
Donna C.: Yeah, I think it's a bigger concern to come off as unfriendly or having the tone that you don't want than it is to have a period that might be misplaced. I don't think most people are looking at that in judging.
Sarah K.: Yeah, the point of a text message really in terms of punctuation and emojis is to convey tone and so I think that you should air on the side of doing what conveys how you are feeling.
Donna C.: An emoji between to sentences with no period, I feel like in some senses, that could maybe make the meaning confusing. When there's a little bit of an issue there.
David A.: I feel ...
Donna C.: Let's hear your opinion.
David A.: I feel very strongly that we should all decide that emojis are also punctuation. If you end with an emoji, you don't need a punctuation.
Donna C.: I love that your girlfriend disagrees.
David A.: Clearly, she does.
Sarah K.: Okay. Here's my thing. The point of punctuation is to avoid confusion, right? Basically, if you can use an emoji without confusing the meaning of what you are doing, then as far as I'm concerned, leave the punctuation out but if it would be confusing as to the meaning of your text message, if you don't put the punctuation in, then you should use it.
David A.: I'm okay with that but I will say this.
Donna C.: Like a judgment call.
David A.: Typically, I tend to use emojis at the end of the sentence. I rarely open emoji midway through a sentence. It usually is saying this sentence is over.
Sarah K.: How many multi-sentence text you sent?
David A.: A lot.
Sarah K.: Really?
David A.: Yeah.
Sarah K.: Some people, I've noticed like my children tend to send a text message for each sentence basically, which I find really annoying because then I get like ...
Donna C.: It's like a barrage of text messages.
Sarah K.: It makes me feel very agitated, but so there's that method too which I think I would rather that you just abuse punctuation than do that to me. I want to ask you guys, have you ever deliberate sent OK to someone as a text message to convey to them like you are sort of cold feelings?
Donna C.: Yes.
Sarah K.: I have too.
David A.: Oh my god. You guys are what's ruining texting for me, because I'm like ... Okay. And then everyone is like, "Are you sad? Are you angry?"
Donna C.: I think I only use this with my husband.
David A.: I have not, but part of it with this type of problem in the pass. The Apple Watch preset responses has OK as one of the responses.
Sarah K.: You got to edit those and put exclamation points.
David A.: I know.
Donna C.: You can also go into your Apple Watch app on your iPhone and customize your preset responses.
Sarah K.: That's what I am saying, you got to customize them with exclamation points.
David A.: I did. That was good, that's a relationship saver right there.
Sarah K.: Yeah.
David A.: Okay. Let's make this a question of the week. Can emojis .. Let's crowdsource this. I want to prove my girlfriend wrong. Can emojis be considered punctuation?
Donna C.: Are you on Team Hannah or Team David?
Sarah K.: Okay, I just want to say ...
David A.: Don't bring it that way.
Sarah K.: I just want to say, David, you are losing whether or not you win this point or not. I'm just ...
David A.: Very good point.
Sarah K.: I know Hannah and I understand this dynamic and you have already lost but go ahead and ask this question.
David A.: Let's not make this about me and my girlfriend. Let's just say, answer this question objectively.
Sarah K.: Too late.
David A.: Team emoji or not. Podcast at iPhonelif.com or we're going to do the new thing where we post in the Facebook Groups so you can answer it there as well.
Donna C.: That would do that too. Just to remind you on Facebook, it's iPhone Life Group that you will be searching for. Okay. Apps and gear. I was thinking we are done, but as you can see, we have some beautiful accessories here to tell you about. I stole these from Ran's desk. Ran is on vacation right now. She's an editor here. They are the AudioQuest Nighthawk headphones. I put these on then I can't hear you guys. They are amazing, they are something like between $600-800 so they are really expensive but this is what she uses for video editing and I usually cannot wear it over your headphones because they all give me a headache. These have these like amazing suspension system that they really feel lightweight and like cushy on your head and the sound quality is incredible. AudioQuest Nighthawks.
David A.: I'm really jealous. Let me try them.
Donna C.: This is something you are wanting to use probably if it's for professional setting or if you are really invested in good sound quality and are willing to spend that kind of money on headphones, I highly recommend these.
Sarah K.: Well, I am also going audio route, these are Libratone Track Plus. They are adjustable noise cancellation wireless headphones, they just came out and when they sent me a review sample, I put them on and was enjoying. I have this like audio test playlist which isn't necessarily my favorite music but does kind of put a speaker or a headphones to their paces. I kind of got really absorbed in the music. Just to give you an idea of music I was getting. It was like Guns and Roses is on that play list.
David A.: You got to test audio with Guns and Roses.
Sarah K.: I enjoyed it, which is a first since I was in 6th grade. I forgot all about my lunch appointment and then when it was time to walk there with Ray Anne who is apparently the start of the year section. I was actually kind of annoyed because I had to take them off because the sound is amazing and they are so comfortable. Some of these ones with the little wings or whatever they come up with to keep them in your ear. They are kind of uncomfortable after a while, but these are not uncomfortable at all.
David A.: Are they noise canceling as well?
Sarah K.: They are.
David A.: That's cool.
Sarah K.: They are and so I can just shut you guys out, it's wonderful.
David A.: Perfect.
Sarah K.: I can like, at outside you can adjust it so that some sounds comes through or you can stop, make it as you can hear everything so you are not a jerk when you are in the coffee shop.
David A.: I do like that about Libratone's noise cancellation system. They haven't, after the companies, you can adjust how noise canceling because sometimes you want to ... Especially like saying, if you are walking down the street, especially because these are so portable. You want to be able to hear some noise and I like that it gives you that control.
Sarah K.: Yeah. Now the downside is that, this is a pretty substantial thing to have hanging around your neck.
David A.: I'm always skeptical with things like hanging around your neck.
Sarah K.: I don't know that I would go running in them necessarily. I really like the wireless ones for that, but these are fantastic. I highly recommend them. Will probably do a more in depth review on the website, but I just wanted to share them because I am really excited about them.
Donna C.: Awesome.
David A.: Okay. Well, sourced my app of the week from the Facebook group.
Donna C.: [crosstalk 00:42:14].
David A.: Yeah, I know. Hold on, let me open it up so I can get it for you. In the last podcast talking about widgets and how I don't use them very much, somebody on the Facebook who have talked about this app. It's called Launch. What it does is it lets you basically, you open the app, you customize it and then it has these custom widgets that go on your widget page and you can set, it gives you two sections, one is called launch center. You can have your most used apps or whichever apps you want to put there in the launch center. You can always just pull them up quickly which is really nice, especially for me because I don't always have my most used apps on my dock because I try to avoid having the apps I'm addicted to be like easily accessible to me.
David A.: This is kind of the happy medium. For example, I want to check my email, I always make ... I go search for the email, instead of have it be on my dock. Still, readily available to me but don't absent mindedly check it when I don't want to, but it also what I really like is you have quick actions. There's ton of apps that this works with. What I've done is I have a few text message groups that I have, like some of my friends are in text groups so I have quick action where I can tap and I can text. Open up that text chain and I can do it right away.
Donna C.: I will use this. That's awesome.
David A.: It's especially useful because I find that messenger does a terrible job or built-in Apple's text messenger has a terrible job at groups even if I search for them.
Donna C.: Even if you name them, and search for them.
David A.: Come on. Exactly.
Donna C.: That's so annoying.
Sarah K.: The family group so I can text my whole family, right?
David A.: It won't come up.
Sarah K.: If I type in family, nothing happens.
David A.: Sometimes when I ...
Sarah K.: We have, the Fam, text group in my family and it just ... I have to put every one's name in all over again.
David A.: Yeah, sometimes when you do it, it won't pull up the most recent from the chain, they would just be like from 2013.
Sarah K.: Yeah, what's this app called again?
David A.: It's called Launch. It's not free, I forgot to look at how much it cost but it's not free but I'm really enjoying it.
Sarah K.: Probably not more than a couple of dollars, right?
David A.: I think so.
Sarah K.: Sometimes, it's worth paying for an app if it really addresses certain pain points or just really makes certain processes like smoother for you.
David A.: I only complaint and it's not a complaint with the app but a complaint with myself is that I still forget that the widget center exist and so I always forget to go over there and use this app. I haven't used it as much as I should but it is very convenient.
Donna C.: All right everyone, this wraps up episode 83 of the iPhone Life Podcast. Thanks so much for joining us and don't forget to go rate us in the app store so more people can find us like you and we'll see you next episode.
David A.: Thanks everyone.
Sarah K.: Thanks everyone.
