I finally got around to creating a Personal Voice on my iPhone the other day. I had big plans for it, and was thrilled it only took 15 minutes of recording, and then one overnight of processing — I thought it’d take like an hour, and then days of waiting. Guess what, it’s pretty accurate, too!

If you haven’t heard of Personal Voice, it was introduced as a way for people with degenerative diseases like ALS to preserve their unique voice and use it to “speak” aloud with it using their devices. Apple happened to put out a Newsroom article about it today:

This fall, Apple launched its new Personal Voice feature, available with iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma. With Personal Voice, users at risk of speech loss can create a voice that sounds like them by following a series of text prompts to capture 15 minutes of audio. Apple has long been at the forefront of neural text-to-speech technology. With Personal Voice, Apple is able to train neural networks entirely on-device to advance speech accessibility while protecting users’ privacy.

Paired with Live Speech, another new feature from this fall, users can hold ongoing conversations in a replica of their own voice:

Live Speech, another speech accessibility feature Apple released this fall, offers users the option to type what they want to say and have the phrase spoken aloud, whether it is in their Personal Voice or in any built-in system voice. Users with physical, motor, and speech disabilities can communicate in the way that feels most natural and comfortable for them by combining Live Speech with features like Switch Control and AssistiveTouch, which offer alternatives to interacting with their device using physical touch.

The Newsroom article was more than just a reminder about Personal Voice and Live Speech, though. As an entry posted under the new Stories branding, there was an even more personal side to it. Apple spotlit Tristram Ingham, an accessibility advocate, who has a condition which “causes progressive muscle degeneration starting in the face, shoulders, and arms, and can ultimately lead to the inability to speak, feed oneself, or in some cases, blink the eyes.”

Ingham created his Personal Voice for Apple’s “The Lost Voice,” in which he uses his iPhone to read aloud a new children’s book of the same name created for International Day of Persons with Disabilities. When he tried the feature for the first time, Ingham was surprised to find how easy it was to create, and how much it sounded like him.

That children’s book is the subject of the short film, ‘The Lost Voice’, that Apple made to accompany this story, and, spoilers, Ingham narrates it using his Personal Voice and Live Speech.

It’s a touching film, and an especially relevant article to read this week considering it’s International Day of Persons with Disabilities this Sunday (a fact I didn’t realize until seeing the MacStories article about Apple’s Newsroom feature).

I’m not currently at risk of losing my voice, but I’m certainly sympathetic to those who are. Here’s Ingham on the importance of having a digital voice that captures your unique intonations and mannerisms:

“Disability communities are very mindful of proxy voices speaking on our behalf,” Ingham says. “Historically, providers have spoken for disabled people, family have spoken for disabled people. If technology can allow a voice to be preserved and maintained, that’s autonomy, that’s self-determination.”

I applaud Apple on having a guiding vision for this set of features. Certainly it’s fun for someone like me to be able to play around with an on-device voice model, but for many other people, it can be the difference between retaining part of their identity or having yet another bit of it snatched from them by the unforgiving jaws of a cruel disease.

Frankly, it’s astounding that we have the power to make a replica of our voice using nothing but the device that already lives in our pocket. I consider the marriage of microphone quality, software UX, machine learning models, and neural engine cores coming together to make this feature possible a true triumph.

Also, you never know when you might need it. I (also) encourage everyone to spend the few minutes it takes to have a replica of their voice ready, just in case.

Finish the job with your own apps, please, Apple

About those “big plans” for my Personal Voice that I mentioned earlier. For years, I’ve dreamed of automatically creating an audio version of my blog posts, read in my own voice. We talk about a writer’s writing voice being distinctive, but I think there’s something extra special about hearing their written words read aloud in their verbal voice. Ben Thompson has this dialed with his Stratechery articles released both in text form, and read by him in a podcast. I don’t have the time, tools, or bandwidth to record a bespoke podcast for each of my silly blog posts. But I could create a close approximation with Personal Voice and Shortcuts.

Or, at least, I’d like to, but Shortcuts lacks the ability to use my Personal Voice with its actions. I was so sure that my Personal Voice would appear as an option in the ‘Speak Text’ and ‘Make Spoken Audio from Text’ actions once it was finished processing. I even had a shortcut built out, ready to start producing narrated versions of my blog posts. Why was I so convinced? Because the Personal Voice pane in Settings provides a specific option to let other apps use your voice. Certainly Shortcuts, the first-party Apple app that has hooks into all kinds of settings and that is the poster child for extending Accessibility features into complex workflows that can’t be accomplished any other way, would be the first to request use of my voice. Alas, it appears to have slipped through the cracks.

My dream will have to wait. But getting this included is far more important than my inconsequential audible blog post idea. Shortcuts’ integration with the rest of the system features makes it way more powerful and able to handle nuanced situations.

Having some saved phrases in Live Speech is great, but imagine having dictionary full of common phrases you use, able to be contextualized and surfaced base on location, calendar events, or Focus mode.

Pasting or typing text into the Live Speech field is useful for ongoing conversations, but what if you wanted to save that favorite bedtime story, read in full in your voice, as an audio file that your granddaughter could listen to, again and again, long after you’re gone?

With Shortcuts and Personal Voice, those ideas could easily be reality, able to be harnessed by billions of people around the world.

In the meantime, I’ve laid out this case in a Feedback (FB13427747) to Apple and hope we’ll see Personal Voice get the extensibility it deserves very soon.

Shortcuts

Jess Weatherbed, reporting for The Verge on the terse words Robert De Niro had for Apple after part of his acceptance speech for the Gotham Awards was removed last minute:

Robert De Niro slammed Apple and the Gotham Film & Media Institute this week after claiming his speech for the Gotham Awards had been censored — allegedly by an Apple employee just minutes before the show started, according to Variety’s sources — to remove criticisms about Donald Trump and the entertainment industry.

Weatherbed goes on to say that a source claims this was a miscommunication and they didn’t know De Niro hadn’t approved the final draft. Either way, this is an unfortunate smear on the record for Apple and its high-profile Killers of the Flower Moon film. It’s not a good look, especially after similar censorship rumors continue to float around Jon Stewart’s show cancelation.

When a member of the cast or crew accepts an award on behalf of the rest of the studio, I do think that the studio should get some input on the acceptance speech to make sure it reflects the values they hold. But it should be a joint effort, and it’s certainly no compromise if the copy is edited last-minute without the knowledge or approval of the person actually making the speech.

Our concern that Apple executives would be overly involved in the creative production of Apple TV+ shows and films essentially dried up when we saw how “adult” their first releases were. It seemed like they trusted their creative partners to tell compelling stories without corporate oversight. I don’t know if that trust is eroding, or Apple is becoming more cautious as a company, but I fear that with these allegations flying around, talent and production partners are going to think twice about signing on with them.

Go watch De Niro’s speech in full.

Linked

If you’re the kind of person who likes to save articles to read later, you’re going to wonder how you lived without Play in your life. It’s a read-it-later app, but for YouTube videos! I’ve mentioned it before, and Play continues to be one of my very favorite apps across my iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV.

Today, Play’s developer Marcos Tanaka, introduced a major new release of Play, version 2.0, with some incredible features that will save you from having to delve into the YouTube app, maybe ever again. You should definitely check out the app’s website, the MacStories review of v2.0, and Devon Dundee’s blog post for a good rundown of the new features and its (pretty reasonable, I think) new subscription.

I don’t know if the headlining new Follow Channels feature — where you can now use Play as an inbox for new videos from your favorite channels and save the ones you want to watch — will be for me. I’ve used RSS for years to keep on top of new videos from channels I follow and I don’t think I’ll end up wanting a separate place to check for new stuff, but I can totally see how it would be great for anyone not as “all in” on RSS as I am. That said, I’m using the one week free trial to see if it’ll change my mind about that.

[Update: I made this shortcut to help with following all your existing YouTube channel subscriptions in Play all at once.]

But what I am super excited about when it comes to channels, and that actually came in a release earlier this year, is the auto-populating folders for each YouTube channel that you have at least one video saved from. So when I save videos from a shortcut or the share sheet, they show up in that channel’s list in the sidebar. I tend to binge stuff from a single creator, so it’s perfect for the way I like to watch videos.

The last thing I’ll leave you with is a couple of screenshots that show how I’ve set up Play-specific home screens. I love how I can jump right into a video without having to browse the app first. As of iOS 17, they’re even interactive so I can filter by tag or Smart Search lists.

The one shortcut icon you see next to Play is this one, my YouTube Launcher that presents a menu to jump directly into specific parts of the YouTube app, which prevents me from getting having to navigate throughout the app and risk distraction from my goal.

Congratulations to Marcos on a solid new release, and for earning not just a spot on my home screen, but multiple full home screens with this vital creation.

P.S. Once you’ve downloaded Play, go ahead and try two of Marcos’ other apps, MusicBox (it’s like Play, but for songs, albums, and playlists you want to listen to later), and MusicHarbor (for keeping up with every new release from artists in your music library).

Apps Reviews

In celebration of the cyberiest of Mondays (and because I’m apparently not dutiful enough to write full reviews for each of these), here are my brief impressions — née snappy summaries — of some stuff I’ve picked up over the last few months.

[Yes, most of these are affiliate links. But I think we know each other well enough by now that you understand I wouldn’t give a dishonest review of something in an attempt to make pennies off your click. I honestly don’t remember the last time I had an Amazon Affiliate payout.]

NOMAD Stand One MagSafe Dock

This thing looks so sleek on my desk, and works way better than the old Qi charging pad I was using. StandBy mode is pretty sweet too.

Get it →

MagSafe Battery Pack

It’s great for the iPhone mini and has saved my bacon a few times (especially while hiking), but probably not worth it for bigger phones. Because of all the special sauce it gets, I can’t believe Apple discontinued it without a replacement!

Get it →

Furnace Industries Ice Axe Drytooling Picks

Actually, I can’t tell you much about them because I haven’t installed them yet. I was so stoked to get these and use them to train up for ice climbing using my actual ice axe shafts, but then the weather turned cold and I can’t see the point of swapping my ice picks for them since I’m probably just going to start climbing real ice again soon.

Get them →

Mountain Equipment Firefly Jacket

A ridiculously expensive jacket that I could only afford because of my steep employee discount in our gear shop, but I can’t deny that it’s my new favorite shell. It’s so lightweight and svelte while being completely waterproof that I don’t mind carrying it around as an extra layer just in case of bad weather.

Get it →

Apple Watch Trail Loop Band

After wearing just the one Alpine Loop band for my Apple Watch Ultra for an entire year, I was pretty excited to have a second option. Somehow, it’s even more comfortable than the previous king-of-comfort, the Sport Loop bands, while also being more secure on the wrist.

Get it →

Anker USB Car Charger

I’ve had more need for charging bigger devices in the car, and my old no-name, off-brand 5W charger couldn’t keep up. This one can deliver 30W and doesn’t worry me that it has feeble innards that will either fry my electronics or catch on fire.

Get it →

Cafele 3-in-1 Retractable Charging Cable

I’ve been a big fan of 3-in-1 charging cables that let you power multiple devices at once, but I needed a USB-C one to go with the Anker car charger. With 100W capability and the retractable cable, I think it’ll meet my needs for many years to come and do so while not taking up much counter space or room in my car’s arm rest cubby (yep, I bought two of them).

Get it →

HOU iPad Mini 6 Keyboard Case Folio

I had such high hopes for this thing because it’s such a lightweight and unobtrusive way to always have a keyboard at the ready with the iPad mini. But the keys are just way too small and weirdly laid out that I don’t think I could get use to typing with them.

(Probably don’t) Get it →

Doqo iPad Mini 6 Keyboard Case with Touchpad

If this keyboard were made out of different materials, or dropped some features, to make it lighter, it would a runaway success — a true iPad Pro mini-maker. As it is, the typing experience is pretty good and the trackpad surprisingly excellent, but it’s so heavy that I don’t want to use it as a daily driver.

Get it →

Wemo Stage Controller for HomeKit

You get three functions for each of the three keys for nine(!) different devices or scene automations this remote can run. It’s pretty reliable and doesn’t require a separate app for setup or updates — I just wish it were a little bigger/more substantial.

Get it →

Hansabenne Dehumidifier

Our bathroom doesn’t have a shower fan, or an easy way to install one, so, after hours of research, I found this dehumidifier that (1) can auto-drain, (2) is small and unobtrusive, and, most importantly, (3) can monitor the active humidity level and automatically turn on when it goes above a pre-set level (i.e. when taking a shower). I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by its effectiveness at clearing out the humidity and preventing mold.

Get it →

Tatofy Magic Mouse 2 Grip with Wireless Charging

Such a clever device, trying to kill two birds with one stone: (1) overcome the objectionable bottomside Lightning charging method of the Magic Mouse by adding wireless Qi charging, and (2) give the Magic Mouse more (ergonomic?) substance. Everyone’s hands are different, so your mileage may vary, but mine tends to prefer the lower profile of the naked Magic Mouse even while I applaud their success on the charging mechanism.

Get it →

Continuity Camera MagSafe Mount

This is the gizmo that you didn’t know you needed, and, by golly, it’s flawlessly executed. Stick this thing on the back of your TV and you’ve given yourself a Continuity Camera mount so you can slap your iPhone on your TV for FaceTime calls, but then effortlessly hide it away when not in use.

(Definitely) Get it →

TubShroom Bath Tub Drain Protector

An Instagram ad that got me, but I’m glad it did. It makes cleaning up drain-clogging hair a breeze, even if it doesn’t let water through when “clogged” as effectively as you might hope.

Get it →

SinkShroom Clog-Free Sink Strainer

I saw they had sink versions when researching the TubShroom, and I’d say this version is even better. It does let water drain when when “clogged”, it looks good, and, best of all, food particles don’t get hung up on it’s edges when chasing them around this sink with a stream of water.

Get it →

DrainShroom Tub and Sink Snake Auger

Are you catching the theme here? This supposedly easy and efficient drain snake was a big disappointment and I don’t recommend it; just get the real deal instead.

(Really, don’t) Get it →

Hoto Cordless USB-C All-in-One Screwdriver

[Full disclosure, I added this one after publishing because I remembered it after I saw on The Verge that you can get it for 55% off (just $36) right now.]

Where has this screwdriver been all my life?! It houses all the bits in its carrying case, is charged by USB-C, has plenty of power for household screwdriving needs, has a built-in light, and fits in tight places where a traditional drill won’t — what are you waiting for?

Get it →

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Great! I got more of my opinions out onto the internet! Just what the world needs. Anyway, that was actually kind of fun to write. You should try it and send your reviews to me. My rampant consumerism hasn’t be sated by Capitalist Hellscape Week, so I need to know what you found that totally, definitely has been (or will be) the missing link to eternal happiness.

Reviews

A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, but often not.

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1️⃣ Indie App Sales has a list of over 300(!) apps that are providing some sort of discount for the Black Friday shopping event/week. I have a feeling that my digital wallet is about to get a bit lighter… [🔗 app.indieappsales.com]

2️⃣ I’ve enjoyed following along with Matt Birchler’s 365 Albums Project this year. I didn’t often listen to a full album he recommended, but I have been rocking out to the compilation playlist lately. In the moment, I didn’t appreciate his custom header images for the albums. Check out this retrospective post for some superb examples. I’m considering doing something similar next year… [🎵 Matt Birchler // birchtree.me]

3️⃣ I promise you that I do not climb like this. But the sheer audacity of this 9000-foot traverse, not to mention the manner by which these guys completed it, is jaw-dropping in every sense of the phrase. (Oh, and this crag, The Gunks, is kind of in my downstate backyard. I’ve been there a couple of times this month!) [▶️ Well Good Productions // youtube.com]

4️⃣ The thing I love about Chris Sharma is how unassuming his demeanor is. If you can subscribe to Reel Rock to see the full version of this video, I highly recommend it. You see him tackling this bleeding edge climb at the highest difficulty, while also balancing being a father and business owner. It’s so inspiring to see someone do it all. [▶️ REEL ROCK // youtube.com]

5️⃣ My wife and I have been loving Lessons in Chemistry on Apple TV+. Brie Larson is undeniable as Elizabeth Zott. Now Apple has put together a site with key recipes from the show! We’re gonna have to give some of these a try. (Oh my god, there are even premade ingredient carts for Instacart!) [🍽️ Apple TV+ // lessonsinchemistryrecipes.com]

6️⃣ I can’t disagree with any of these sources of awe, and in fact, I agree with all of them. [😮 @pratik // microblog.pratikmhatre.com]

7️⃣ Great, now I have a new pet peeve. Maybe skip this one if you don’t want a new thing to be bothered by. [😤 Mike Crittenden // critter.blog]

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Take a Chance

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Thanks for reading 7 Things. If you enjoyed these links or have something neat to share, please let me know. And remember that you can get more links to internet nuggets that I’m finding every day by following me @jarrod on the social web.

7 Things

I wasn’t going to say anything about Apple’s traditional holiday short, but after reading Andy Ihnatko’s dissection of it on Six Colors, I realized I wasn’t the only one put off by it. They’re usually heartwarming, heartfelt, and sweet, but this year’s short fell, well, short for me this year. Andy did a great job summing up the myriad of things that felt off about it. You should go read his whole post, but I’ll call out a few points that stuck out to me as well.

The protagonist’s revenge stop-motion film seemed over the top for the grievances her boss performed against her:

How many weeks did it take her to complete just one of those humiliating scenes? She designed and constructed dolls, props, and sets; she invested lots of money and ingenuity in doing the lighting and rigging; she animated each shot one painsaking frame at a time; and then did all of the editing.

You must agree with me that this is an utterly psychopathic amount of work. It’s very correct to witness this behavior and then fear for that man’s safety out in the real world.

One of those “grievances”:

I’ll also point out that one of the little things the boss did that annoyed and angered her was that he noticed that she was very late for work. He communicated his disappointment in a quick, low-key way that drew no attention from the rest of the office. Close examination of the previous scene reveals why she was late that morning: she’d gotten so wrapped up in her whole Torture My Boss By Wooly Proxy project that she’d lost all track of time.

And then, her empathy was far too forthcoming for the supposedly deep-seated dislike she held for him, just because he (wishy-washingly) handed her a handmade gift (that he also gave to the rest of the office), and then she saw him eating alone.

It just felt like too little for her to completely change her mind about the man, after she had clearly spent weeks (months?) imagining his painful humiliation. Andy seems to have felt the same way:

So when the lady in the “Fuzzy Feelings” video exercises her empathy only conditionally, after she comes to pity her boss (itself a form of dehumanization), it comes across as… well, not wrong, but definitely odd.

A real gem in Andy’s piece is this declaration about human empathy:

Well, whatever. Empathy is the point of today’s sermon. Empathy requires each of us to never ever forget that we should treat fellow humans like human beings and not human-shaped objects. No exceptions and no excuses.

Simple? Oh, sure. But holy cats, it’s hard to get a consistent grip on the thing, isn’t it? It’s easier to know that we’ve misplaced our empathy than it is to be sure of what we should do with it.

So good that I copied it to my quote journal!

But I don’t really buy Andy’s theory that the protagonist’s capacity for empathy is influenced by the fact she she uses Windows at work and Apple products at home:

So maybe the lady’s capacity for empathy is intact… but her ability to access it is influenced by her environments. When she’s in the office and her boss gives her a gentle rebuke for a legit HR infraction, her proximity to a Microsoft operating system influences her to choose a path of (needle-felted stop-motion) violence.

That’s a little too “grasping at straws” for me, but the manufacturer of her work tools was an interesting detail that I hadn’t noticed.

Apple’s had a good run of theses warm and fuzzy holiday shorts. I’m not faulting them too hard for one flop out of many years. I guess I’m just a little surprised that literally the fuzziest one of all didn’t land so well.

Linked

This post has been sitting in my drafts folder for months. Nobody was asking for it, but I feel like I need to end the two-part saga.

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All my worries yesterday in July were for naught. The “nuke and pave” went very smoothly, certainly as well as anyone could have hoped.

Erasing the Mac was quick, thanks to the encrypted data technology in modern Macs. Getting booted back up into a fresh install of macOS Ventura had but one small hiccup: I needed to do an extra restart for the Mac mini to kick its Wi-fi chip into gear and notice my network. Signing into iCloud to get it to start downloading all of my files and photos was seamless. But the star of the show, for sure, was my ‘Setup a New Mac’ checklist.

Between all the apps I use on a daily basis, the keyboard shortcuts I’ve built into muscle memory, and long-standing preferences I’ve fine-tuned in System Settings, there were just too many things to trust them to my feeble human memory.

So I’ve been curating a list (Apple Note link) of things to set up first when doing a fresh install of macOS. It’s got screenshots of preference panes, links to little hacks, and everything I need to do to make my Mac feel like my Mac.

Since starting fresh, I can say that I’ve noticed an increase in general speediness, and a decrease in app hang-ups, bugs, and general weirdness. It’s not been a dramatic difference, but enough to have one fewer thing nagging at the back of my mind. So…thumbs up, I guess?

Oh, and I haven’t once had to go back for a file in Time Machine. Knocks on wood.

Tips

Heyo, it’s so good to be back for my third episode of Clockwise in a row! Has any other guest ever had such an honor?

I’m getting pretty used to the idea that you all just ignore my answers, and you know what? I can just roll with it! Let’s hop to it.

⏲️⏲️⏲️

Mikah Sargent: If you had to choose between noise cancellation or excellent audio quality — you can’t have both! — which would you choose and why?

This is an easy one. My hearing is so poor that high-fidelity audio is lost on me. Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate good audio, and I love how my AirPods Max sound, but when we start talking about lossless audio, I don’t think it would make a difference to my ears.

But noise cancellation is something that makes a big difference for me. I use it when vacuuming or doing other loud chores, or just when I need to block everything else and concentrate. Our house doesn’t offer much in the way of noise isolation — at this very moment I can hear my wife’s phone conversation while she’s down in the living room and I’m upstairs in the study — so having the ability to shrink down my world for concentration is key.

⏲️⏲️⏲️

Doc Rock: If you could have an unlimited supply of one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be and how would it change the world or your life? Money and time are off the table.

I’m going to go with a potentially boring answer here: clean, fresh water at any temperature of my choosing. I’m cheating a little bit here. This was a similar ice-breaker question that I was asked at my run club earlier this fall, except, in that scenario, the unlimited supply of whatever we chose would shoot out of our fingers. I spend a lot of my time as a mountain guide thinking about when, where, and how I’ll next get clean water for drinking and cooking. And water is heavy to carry. If I could have an unlimited supply of water that appeared on demand, I could save mental energy, ache on my back, and all the time it takes to filter it in the backcountry.

Honorable mention (but potentially disqualified) answers:

1️⃣ Cash. Have you ever realized that you could get each denomination of US dollars to shoot out of each one of your fingers to make exact change every time?

1. Hundreds
2. Fifties
3. Twenties
4. Tens
5. Fives
6. Ones
7. Quarters
8. Dimes
9. Nickels
10. Pennies

Coincidence? I think not!

2️⃣ Silly String. Come on, that would just be fun!

3️⃣ Spaghetti and sauce. I could eat that for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and always be happy.

⏲️⏲️⏲️

Dan Moren: Will Apple’s adoption of RCS change anything in the world of cross-platform messaging, or is this just lip service to avoid litigation from large governments?

I do think that RCS on iPhones will improve the quality of inter-platform chats. People flee to other services when they don’t get the features they want. If RCS delivers on its promise of better group chats, higher-quality media messages, read receipts, and the assurance that messages do get delivered, I think that there will be less need for a fractured chatting environment. Maybe more people will be able to rely on the default Messages app.

Or maybe folks have already been trained to go to other messaging apps to meet those needs and nothing will change. But I can’t imagine that RCS will make anything worse, there’s only upside.

⏲️⏲️⏲️

James Thomson: Have you bought anything or seen any particularly good deals (from Capitalist Hellscape Week) that you would recommend to our fine, discerning listeners?

I haven’t been much of a Black Friday shopper the last few years, and I haven’t kept up with any major deals so far this year. What I have done, though, is save a couple of shopping carts on Amazon and elsewhere online to check for discounts tomorrow on items I was already going to buy. I had been ready to pull the trigger on some Lutron Caseta switches for our home earlier this week. But I remembered, just in the nick of time, that there might be some deals to be had on Friday. 🤞

Oh! I almost forgot, there’s an amazing site cataloging indie apps (over 300!) that have huge discounts this week: app.indieappsales.com

⏲️⏲️⏲️

Bonus Question: You have been chosen to represent your country in a global competition. What sport, talent, or activity are you doing?

Hard to say. I might place well in the ‘most side tangents and distractions explored while trying to complete a simple task’ event.

⏲️⏲️⏲️

My Question: What’s your go-to discovery method for new music?

I don’t typically go to the Music app itself for new music discovery. I know there are some great genre playlists and radio stations there, all lovingly organized by the Apple Music human curation team. But most of my discovery comes from recommendations I find from friends and acquaintances. If someone recommends a new album, it gets saved to MusicBox for me to check out later. But I also get good usage out of my automatically-generated Friends Mix playlist for songs that are out of my usual jurisdiction. It’s refreshed with songs that people I follow on Apple Music are listening to each week.

If I do find an artist that piques my interest, I’ll seek out their Essentials playlist on Apple Music to get a better look at their discography. Those are pretty great.

⏰⏰⏰

These topics are always such brain ticklers. It’s so much fun to explore new ideas with you all. Thanks for having me on, and I’ll see you next week!

Crashing Clockwise Podcasts

I went into the Taylor Swift Eras Tour movie expecting something along the lines of Hamilton. A well-produced video capture of a live event. And, I suppose, that is what I got. But what I hadn’t anticipated was the awe-inspiring, mind-boggling creative production that was this concert — if you can even call it a concert.

Taylor Swift is at the top of her game. It was quite the thing to be reminded of the breadth of her discography. Her mastery of songwriting has only grown over time, and she’s an intricate wordsmith. These are things that I already knew, but re-appreciated during the film.

I hadn’t realized what a commanding performer she is. That stage was all hers from the very first beat. Every movement was measured, rehearsed, and then executed with extreme precision. It was almost uncomfortable at first being confronted with something so obviously calculated. It felt somewhat antithetical to the idea of seeing a creative artist live. But then I realized that this is just what Taylor Swift does. She sets a goal and then pursues it relentlessly until it is perfect. Why would her self-funded, self-distributed show be any different?

In the end, I came to enjoy watching and being amazed by such a precise performance. The details of its production were astonishing. The seamless costume changes and transitions. The elegantly-styled microphones that matched each Era’s theme. What I wouldn’t give to see a rundown of the logistics behind this show.

What I think I enjoyed most, even beyond the absolutely top-tier and cutting edge production, was that it was so obvious that Taylor was having fun from beginning to end.

She’s set a new bar with the Eras Tour. And I can’t even imagine who could top it.

Music Movies

Kev Quirk and I did our latest exchange with for the PenPals project this month. You can follow along with our conversation here, but you owe it to yourself to see the awesome email styling that he’s done over on his site.

Here’s a peek into our second exchange, as summarized by ChatGPT:

In this exchange, Kev and Jarrod cover a range of topics. Kev shares insights on his blog hosting choices, preference for Blot and Kirby, and his diverse interests like watches, animals, and blog writing. Jarrod discusses his experience as a Mountain Guide and Scout Camp Director, revealing aspirations for owning and operating a climbing gym and doggy daycare. They delve into the challenges of managing a Scout group and the joy of parenting. The conversation extends to the addictive nature of smartwatches, syncing multiple watches, and blogs and podcasts they follow. It’s a rich dialogue spanning personal experiences, hobbies, and future goals.

Read the entire conversation →

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If you’d like to be a penpal for this project, please reach out! I’d love to get you on the schedule.

PenPals