657: Time to Check the Rhonda-grams!

It's time for episode six hundred and fifty-seven of the Clockwise Podcast from Relay, recorded Wednesday, May 20th, 2026. Clockwise, four people, four tech topics, thirty minutes. Welcome back to Clockwise, the tech podcast that's more regular than seasonal allergies. My name is Dan Morin, and I am joined across the internet.

Not today, by Micah Sargent, who is on assignment, but sitting in for him is podcast co-host and app developer Extraordinaire, the one and only Lex Friedman. Welcome back to the show, Lex. Hi Dan, happy to be here and happy to have authority over Molt. We're getting there. Uh, because this is of course the show where we invite on two fantastic guests.

to talk about four type topics. To my left this week it is producer and reporter at the Texas Standard, host of the Lions Towers and Shields podcast, author of iOS Access for All and contributor over at Six Colors, it's Shelley Brisbane. Welcome back, Shelley. Hello, I'm not sure if Dan, that means you have authority over me. Uh is that how that works? I mean limited authority in that I control this podcast. It's my honor to introduce.

Uh, podcast host and six colors contributor and my personal friend John Moltes. Hi John. Lex, I'm I'm always happy for you to have authority over. I really appreciate that. I really need the help. I was gonna say someone should.

Well, we've got thirty minutes. We got four TikToks. Let me kick things off with this one. I feel like I use fewer apps on my iPhone than I used to. Like I I there are a few that I use regularly and then many, many, many I never use. Um, I'm curious if there's an app you've given up, either like you've abandoned it entirely, or you've switched to using that in a different form like on the web, or you've even switched to doing something you used to do on your phone, analog.

Is there something like that that that sort of fills that slot for you? Shelly, we'll start with you. This was really difficult for one for me and I I have to cheat a little bit because I've probably used fewer apps on my phone, not because I've given up on a particular app, but just maybe I've stopped doing those things in

app form uh so so I'm my cheat is that I'm gonna say uh on the Mac, I'm I'm a big fan of RSS and I do a lot of RSS scanning on the Mac. And instead of using one of the many fine RSS apps out there. I use the Feedbin website because it looks almost exactly like the app and it just it works. I mean if it didn't work, if it was an electron thing and it was annoying, I wouldn't use it.

But uh feedbin does what a website should do. It just does its work and stays out of my way and that makes me happy. Well, I would say I I also struggle with this a little bit and my answers neither of them make me feel great about the world. But the the two apps that I thought of that I used to use a lot and now never use are the Washington Posts and Twitter.

Um for reasons. Uh but it's not just that I um don't use them. I literally have them, you know, uninstalled and don't ever allow them to enter my brain space. I will say that when I removed those apps I put apps that uh I thought could make me be a better human or be happier with my choices in their spots.

So like for a long time I had um the Kindle app in the spot where the Twitter app had been. So every time my brain was like, Hey, let's go to that dopamine hit of opening Twitter uh instead I uh would read a book for a few minutes and that was good. So I I think that it was a turn for the positive, but it's mostly companies that I have grown to despise that I removed from my phone. Yeah, my answer's pretty much the same.

Yeah, because I've stopped using Twitter and I've also stopped using Instagram, which was mm boy, that was harder. I think I've been able to replace Twitter with uh Mastodon and Blue Sky. There's really no good replacement for Instagram, unfortunately, so mostly I just don't look at pictures. on online anymore. Um Pixel Fed where you and I post pictures and nobody else does.

Right. But i but even you and I don't post that many. So it's like it it is I check it rarely now. I was like doing that a lot for a while and now I'm just not I think one of the th the other things though it Uh we sw once again, we switched uh health insurance companies at the beginning of the year and my wife is a big fan of using the health insurance company apps.

And I can't stand it. I always want to use the web on my Mac instead of either the app on my iPhone or the web on my iPhone, just because the screen is so much smaller and I just have a much better

you personal usage experience on the web. Um and that is just something that she's constantly trying to get me to do. And I'm like, no, I'm gonna go to the web and use it because I just find that I want the real estate. So Th I mean there's good answers and I think um yeah, I mean uh the Twitter was kind of the obvious one, but the uh the one I was thinking about was I do still read the New York Times, but I don't use the app anymore.

I just I read via the web and I often I mean, honestly, most of my New York Times consumption is via their morning newsletter because that's kind of how I envision like, all right, you know, I go read through the headlines there and I I tap through to, you know, stories I want to read from there. Um a and that's true with some other new stuff. I do still use RSS for a lot of my very specific to like, you know, tech writing and tech journalism stuff, but like

For other things I I read on the web mostly. I don't know. I just uh I've never found like a good solution. You know, Apple wants to push everybody to Apple News. I think that app is terrible and I never want to use it. Um and I feel that way about a lot of the other apps that were made by media companies. I feel like the web is is a much better fit in most cases for what you want to do there. Um the other thing I was gonna mention was I play a narrower a narrower

style of games on my phone, I think in general. Like I tend to play puzzle and word games from various sources. Uh Are people making puzzle and word games these days, Dan? But I don't know. I knew somebody who did that.

I don't play as many I felt like in the early days I was like downloading all sorts of games. You know, they ha there were platformers and there were adventure games and all this stuff. It's like I really don't have maybe this is about more about me than what's out there, but I really don't have the time or patience or inclination to play many of those style games.

on my phone in the way that maybe I used to. Maybe I don't know, it just feels more time wasty than than anything at that point. At least with puzzle games. I'm like I can tell myself I'm developing my brain. Uh thank you all for your thoughts on that. Let's go to our second topic, which comes from Shelley.

Quickly I w agree with the rest of you. I don't have Twitter either. I forgot about it. It's been so long ago. So uh to Apple is celebrating twenty five years of retail this week and my question for you is how often do you find yourself in an Apple store and why do you go when you do? I This is I I love this question.

I very rarely go to the mall, and that is the only Apple store near me. When I go to the mall, I always go by the Apple store, even if it's not on my route for whatever I'm doing at the mall. I like to see it. Makes me feel happy. And I feel this weird relationship with the Apple store where it's like Uh I mean it's probably a little bit jerky, but I'm like, I know about all the things in there.

I I have some real expertise with these things. Um, but I almost never go in. Uh the only times I actually go into the Apple store are if there is something brand new that I really want to see. Um Or on the rare occasion where it makes more sense for me to be doing a trade in there or to be buying a thing.

Um I do not love the Apple Store retail experience. I'm amazed that people like the Apple Store retail experience. I like seeing the cool stuff. I like if there's a thing I want to play with, I like that it's there. But I do not like the the there's a a feeling to me of the way Apple trains its employees um that

We are we are cattle that Apple is herding through their store and there's to me a lot of waiting and I I do not love that vibe. I cannot believe I mean, I think the stores are successful because of what Apple sells. I do not love Apple's approach to how they handle those stores. That's my uh that's my unpopular opinion. John?

Yeah, I don't I don't go there much. I mean it used to be years ago when they first started we would go to the openings. I mean I remember driving up to uh to Bellevue and to Seattle when they opened stores up there. just to to hang out because it was such a an event at the time and now I hardly ever go. The only like if I do go to the mall sometimes I will stop by um to hold the uh the new iPad pros because It is a device type. will never buy.

They're like baby chicks that John's like petting and like oh that's okay and he puts them back down and they're like It's like it's like going yeah, like back when you know, pet stores used to have puppies and stuff like that. Uh uh yeah, it's just like oh man, I really want one of these but I'm probably never gonna be able to buy one because they're ridiculously expensive now.

But uh the only other times that I've ever needed to go there for, you know, an actual reason uh for hardware repairs, um I think my son ha cracked a screen or something like that a f couple of years ago. And um I think I years ago the the previous one was me. I think I changed a battery out on an iPhone that I had for a long time. Um so yeah, I don't don't tend to go there uh very often.

Um Lex, I don't know how often they turn over the um the Macs there, but you could o you could always go in and put um put sh put a link to your game sites on all the Macs. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure they do, but I don't know how long. Often it happens. Um probably every day. I liked

Uh Shelley, I like the original phrasing of your question uh where you said why do you usually find yourself there? It's uh because I just enjoyed it like I I don't know, but I come to and I'm in an Apple store and in some sort. I hate you. Yeah. Uh I I I've been recently uh more times than usual. I think I because I bought an an a MacBook Neo for my my wife to use, which I previously documented, and then I had to return said Mac Neo af MacBook Neo after she decided she was done with it.

And I helped my mom buy a new iPad recently. So within the last few months I've been there more than average. But I would say my my experience is kind of pretty much akin to Lex's like. If I go to the local mall where the Apple store is, I will go by the Apple store. In fact, there's very little other reason for me to go to that mall. Um

And so, you know, I make a point of it. And if I'm in a city and like I'm walking like there happens to be one there, like I'll often walk by or check it out if it's like a particularly interesting one. I think a lot of the ones in like Europe they've integrated with some of the existing buildings and stuff there that are kind of cool architecturally. Um

But like Lexa, I get myself frustrated oftentimes with the experience there. You know, I'm standing around waiting for somebody to help me sometimes. Like and if you decline that first offer of help, it's like impossible to get anybody to help you again. They're all off doing other things. Um, so I I do like to just walk in and like check out the new product.

when they've arrived, I think that is, you know, it's nice to have like a like a showroom style thing there. Um, but I rarely find myself like, you know, actually buying things there. But I've been to I went to the grand opening of the flagship store in Boston. years ago, uh and I interviewed Ron Johnson at the time, I remember. It was very it's very weird. The mayor was there. It was a really weird experience. But I think it's less like that these days now that there are so many of them.

Uh why don't you wrap us up? Yeah, I'm not a fan of the experience either for the reasons that Lex and Dan mentioned. Also, it's way too bright in there and it just feels too scattered like I want to go to a counter and ask a person for help. I have to look for this person with the right device in their hand and the right shirt on and hopefully I'll get help. It's it's it's like I say it's too bright in there, it's too crowded. But I go when I have some specific reason. Like last time I went

Uh it was because I was about to go on a trip and the AirPods too had j air tags to had just come out and I needed some. I decided I wanted to put them in my luggage and so it was quicker to just go to the Apple store and buy some. And it went fine, but it was one of those experiences where I was

sort of standing around just waiting for a person to help me'cause I actually needed help. I couldn't just go and pick up air tags and go to the back of the store and buy them, which would be for me a simpler experience. Uh, and I ha do occasionally go to look at something new, like, oh, a MacBook Neo, which looks a lot like other MacBooks, but it's a MacBook Neo, so why not?

You know, those are good excuses for a field trip, but uh my two Apple stores that I have access to, one is in a mall that's quite far south of where I live, one is a very uh upscale shopping center far north of where I live that I don't usually like going because It's a little too uh designery and too hipstery up there. So uh sort of the surroundings intimidate me, I guess.

All right, two topics down, two topics to go, which of course means it's halftime here at Clockwise in this week's episode is brought to you by Steam Clock. You probably have opinions about app quality. You know the difference between an app that feels right and one that feels off.

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Visit steamclock.com slash clockwise to get in touch. That's steamclock.com slash clockwise, our favorite clock themed sponsor here on Clockwise. Our thanks to Steam Clock for the support of this show and all of Relay. All right, halftime is over. Lex, what is your topic?

I'm curious what is the first thing you do or the first things you do, plural, when you grab your smartphone each day. I think on this podcast, on this episode it's all iPhones, but what's the first thing you do when you grab your uh your phone in the morning, John? Uh check to see if it's happened. Um and then

And then after that I uh probably go to Duolingo. Uh oh actually no, first they do I have um several movie themed games that I play in the morning. Um uh framed and then the framed has a one frame uh shot game and and then I also play Cinequote, which plays audio clips from so I I try I try to s ease into the day basically. And and then and then I go to do a lingo and I'm I uh you know, usually try and complete the day whatever the daily challenges are so that I can get the uh

the times three bonus for the next day. Um and'cause sometimes I'll be able to play, you know, before I go to bed at night too, but sometimes I won't. So I like to get it out of the way in the morning. And it's also just like, you know,

I'm not thinking about like not thinking too much about things that I don't want to think about. I'm just starting the day with something nice and then after that I I play a playlist of of like, you know, upbeat songs so that it, you know, helps me get out of bed. Those two things I do while I'm still in bed, so I wake up, I stay in bed for at least fifteen minutes. Um I had to just laugh because I was like, Is there a single serving website for has it happened yet? And I found even better.

Has it happened yet dot WTF, which is an app that just monitors for has it happened yet? Uh wow. Anyway, vodka Dan. Come on. Um so I guess it depends on when is the first Like what will you consider the first thing you do with your phone? Because oftentime oftentimes I wake up at like four or five in the morning and I need to get back to sleep and the thing I do first is put in my AirPods and turn on uh dark noise.

to listen to like some white noise until I fall back asleep. So that's like the very first thing I do many days. Um, but when I wake up in the morning, uh the first thing I generally do actually the first thing I do is not on my phone, I turn on the radio. I know,'cause I'm like from the nineteen forties. Madman. I know. Um but I pick up my phone. I probably check my email first because

I don't know. I've got like a few things that come in in the morning like that are on like automated lists or um you know if I'm playing in Learned League, which is a trivia league, then the last night's game results are up. You know, those things. Um, and then I often I have like a few like comics I read. Like that's kind of my one of my first things I do in the morning is I'll like launch my little shortcut that launches the web comics and other comics I read and I'll go through those.

Um and then I probably then devolve into checking like Slack or Discord or sometimes Mastodon just to see, you know, what's going on overnight. So I feel like that's very similar to the kind of stuff I've been doing basically forever on my phone when I wake up in the morning. Charlie, what about you? Honestly, the first place I go and this is gonna horrify you, but I'll explain it is Slack for all.

And the reason is that I don't really pick up my phone for the first half an hour I'm awake. I get up. Uh our radio is already on. It's tuned to our public radio station where I happen to work, but I listened to it before I did. So I get my news without having to touch a phone. Uh, and then I go make breakfast and feed the cats and talk to my husband and all those things and about thirty, forty five minutes later, I go pick up my phone and the uh executive producer of our program each morning

produces a Slack message which is basically the updated rundown of the show. And one of the things you learn from that rundown is whether you need to assist with some segment that you didn't actually produce because sometimes Somebody's away or something like that. And her name is Rhonda. And so I affectionately call those rhondograms. And so when I go to pick up my phone, I say, time to check the rhondograms. And that's like my first phone interaction of the day.

Amazing. So uh I start um first of all I look at my notifications because I'm a bad person who has many, many notifications, all of which are muted while I'm asleep. And uh I see if there's anything that I feel like needs my immediate attention from Slack or Discord or email or whatever. Uh but then before I'm willing to get out of bed, I have to solve uh the New York Times' whirle and connections puzzles. And then I typically play.

Can you not like physically can't get out of bed? Like it's like a trap. I'm unwilling. Not like a physical not like you're in some escape room. Yeah. And then I typically play test one or two of my games each day just to make sure that everything is working in my own Lexic Games app. Um

And I it's a habit that started early when it would often not be working. No, it's almost always working, but like I still like to check and make sure, hey, where is there any typo? I don't have an editor. It's just me. So I I l look at the two or three most popular ones. Um sometimes I'll wake up and Casey Liss always gets up extremely early and he loves my game Lexicogs, and if there is ever a typo, he will tell me.

Um uh or if he does very well, he will send me a screenshot of his score. So I I look at all those things before I'm willing to get out of bed. Um it's uh I it is amusing to me that my wife and I still play Wordle and still send our scores to each other each day. I do it first thing and she does it last thing in the day, and that's uh it's a habit. John, we have one more question. Take us home.

Okay. Well, in an age of AI and the metaverse and

Tech companies seemingly coming out with these products that no one is actually super enthused about. Um, it can be sort of surprising when you get something that is like just sort of exciting and fun and and works really well. And so I bought a product. Um it's these E Inc fridge magnets I'll talk about when we circle back to me, but um Yeah I was wondering what was the last tech product that you bought that surprised and delighted you with its whimsy or fun or joie de vive?

I need some Joie de Viv. I need some E Joie de Viv. Is it a s is it a subscription service to get Joie de Viv? Unfortunately, yes. Bummer. Uh I think for me, uh I bought one of those uh X D Inc X four little tiny ebook readers. And I really enjoyed even though I don't find myself using it all the time because I still predominantly use like my Kobo for reading.

I love just playing around with the firm the custom firmware that there was like is still constantly in development, this third party firmware called CrossPoint, which is just I love the fact that there's this community out there that has become like super dedicated to producing this firmware that's even better that way better, way better than the firmware that's included on the device. And so far they're unstoppable in Facebook. Unstoppable. Which is

I love that takes me back to like my favorite part of sort of the hacker ethos from the eighties and nineties. It's just like we can do this and we're gonna keep doing it. And I I just really enjoy that and playing around with it and loading books on it and I have used it to read. I've carried it with me on a few different occasions when it's like, Oh, I could just slip this in my pocket and go.

Um, it's just a fun, beautiful, easy to use little device and it has brought me much, much joy. Shelley? Well, I had to think about this. I need more whimsy in my life because you you can tell since the first thing I do is check my work slack. Uh but I Shows the El Lago AirPods cases. There are many designs. There are some that are designed to look like an old Mac. There's one that looks like an old cassette tape.

They're just so much fun they're cheap as they can be. So I could see uh despite the fact I I am not somebody who ever collected Apple Watch bands because they were ridiculously expensive, but these little El Lago AirPods cases are fifteen dollars. I can see myself uh collecting a little um army of them because they're so cute. Yeah.

I I really struggled with this question and I was trying to think of like what what is something that actually satisfies this answer? Uh or satisfies you know, what's a good answer, basically. I really was debating and then I realized, um, almost inspired by your question and the thing you're gonna talk about, which I'm intrigued by.

Yeah, it's it's an older purchase for me. I got it for Father's Day, I think a not the most not the one a year ago, but the one two years ago. But my aura frame that my family gave me. I love. I thought that digital picture frames were silly. I didn't really get the point. And I have one here in my office and I add photos to it all the time. It has this enormous library of photos.

And it often shows two at a time. And I literally sometimes take snapshots of the frame and send it to my family for some of the photos that show up on there. It's wonderful. Like, I do think a lot about all these digital photos that we take'cause I think I think we take more photos now than in any other time in human history, right? Especially from before cameras. But um uh finding ways to service them and I I

Uh the only other answer I had was was photo related and really was an app and not hardware. But I I love the um Was it whose name I can't think of. No yes. Uh I love On This Day, um, which is an app that does a really nice job on iOS of surfacing your uh photo memories from that day. And I look at it every day. Um and it's uh uh great. So I think I I love the devices that are giving me Joy are the ones that r help me um indulge my nostalgia for Uh the fact that we're all shuffling.

Wow. Okay. Well that got that got dark. It was really happy and then suddenly it wasn't. Those are those are still good answers and Lex's is uh rel related to mine because I I saw this on The Verge and it's Vita Bay E Ink fridge magnet and um these are it's like this the screen's not huge but i the it's in this sort of shape of a Polaroid picture. And so it's a little bit, you know, uh the picture is actually a little bit towards the top. And it's only like, I don't know.

Two and a half inches diagonal, three inches maybe? No, it's more like probably three. Anyway. Um These are NFC uh devices and you you download their app and you know you ca and it it respects iOS's, you know, like you can just load one picture in if you want to, which I was I was I was afraid it wouldn't, but it did. and you just hold it up, hold the device up to your phone and it transfers to

transfers the picture to the device and there's no battery or anything. It's just um the the picture it flickers a few times and the picture shows up and then you can stick it to your to your refrigerator. Um and I thought that was just so it worked.

You know, basically seamlessly after I downloaded the app, I was confused the first as how to get it to work, but and then but it was perfect. And uh we've got these pictures up on our our refrigerator now. Um and you can change them anytime you want to. And I and like and I don't have to worry about charging.

Um, which is super cool. The the you know, the picture quality isn't the best in the world, but I don't think it really has to be. I mean it's it's just like it's being able to look up there and seeing some memory that makes you smile. And it was it was really neat and I was happy to get'em. It's very cool. I was actually answering those. I wish my refrigerator were magnetic'cause then I would get that. Yeah. It is on the side of the refrigerator because the front is not.

Yeah. Same. I I got a new fridge and the front isn't magnetic, it's too much. What's the point? Anyway, I guess keeping your food cold. Who's making the difference? All right. That's four topics down. Uh we have just enough time for a bonus topic before we get there. I'll remind everyone out there that if you'd like to support the show, you can go to clockwise.social to check out all of our great

swag, shirts, hats, mugs, stickers, the whole nine yards. So go there, pick up something, and uh we appreciate your support. All right. Bonus topic time. Summer is very nearly here, Memorial Day, just around the corner in the US.

What is your go to ice cream slash frozen treat order, Shelly? Amy's Ice Cream in Austin, Texas, a wonderful ice cream place for all your needs, but my go to order is a dark chocolate tiny Amy's ice cream. My go-to default flavor is always going to be chocolate peanut butter, flavors that Dan does not like. But I'm a huge fan of chocolate peanut butter. My second favorite ice cream flavor is cinnamon. I think uh cinnamon is underappreciated as a standalone ice cream flavor and it's a black.

Um, I can't remember what they're called, but it's like there's there's those ice cream bars that are chocolate with like a crunchy thing on'em. Oh like a chocolate of Claire. Yeah, like a I guess like a chocolate eclair. Um it's uh it's more crumbles, right? It's like there's a there's a strawberry version of some but I like the chocolate. I like the chat. Those are, those are.

Um I don't know why like I say I don't like those flavors. I love chocolate. It's my favorite flavor. I still like peanut butter. Uh so my go to is a a chocolate ice cream cone. Usually in a cone, preferably a waffle cone, if you can get it, fresh, even better, uh with chocolate sprinkles. That's that is to me the perfect ice cream. There's nothing wrong with it.

Uh all right. If you would like to get ad free episodes with an extra unwound episode every single week, you can become a member of Clockwise, just go to relay.fm slash clockwise and sign up for just seven dollars per month or seven dollars a year and you'll help support the show. And with that, we have reached the end of this week's episode. All that remains is to thank our fantastic guests. Shelly Brisbane, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for making him want ice cream, Dan.

Yeah. And John Moltz, thank you for being here. I I see that this show is fifty-eight episodes ahead of Rebound, but I don't think we're gonna catch it. Well, you never know. Sabotage goes a long way. That's right. And Lex Reeman, thank you so much for being here and sitting in for Micah this week. I really appreciate it. My pleasure. Uh and we will be back next week with Micah's returned and we remind everyone out there listening, watch what you say. And keep watching the clock. Bye everybody.