Starting a business can be overwhelming. You're juggling multiple roles, designer, marketer, logistics manager, all while bringing your vision to life. But for millions of businesses, Shopify is the ultimate partner. Shopify is proud to power many sources of UK e-commerce, from brands like Mattel and Gymshark to new entrepreneurs. Build a stunning online store with Shopify's ready to use templates.
Boost content with AI-powered product descriptions, page headlines and enhanced photography. Marketing is easy with built-in tools for email and social media campaigns. Plus, Shopify simplifies everything from inventory to shipping and returns. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business idea into with Shopify on your side. Sign up for your £1 per month trial today at shopify.co.uk slash try. Go to shopify.co.uk slash try. Shopify.co.uk slash try.
A factual data creation facility production. any other way somewhere from within the mountains of Appalachia. Don't wait Welcome to episode 268 which I'm calling Mother's Day Happy Mother's Day to all those mothers out there. My wife was satisfied with my gift to her. all is well at the end this week I have some tech stories which includes the end of sky I welcome a new piece I cover some changes to YouTube and more. What do you say? Tech News. Do you use what's called an authenticator app?
If you're not familiar with this sort of app, let me explain it to you. Okay. An authenticator app is an app that will generate a code that you would use for two-factor authentication, better known as a 2FA. I was forced to use one of these apps while still gainfully employed back in what is rapidly becoming The day. That's because the US government runs on Microsoft 365 which requires 2FA.
I, of course, chose Microsoft's own authenticator app for two reasons. I would be using it for Microsoft products and it was free of charge. There are plenty of these types of apps out there and many charge for their services, either by a one-time charge or a monthly subscription. According to an article from AndroidPolice.com, Microsoft is deprecating their authenticator app. Deprecating was the term used by the author of the article.
meaning to strip away some features from the app. I just love those college liberal arts degree words, don't you? Yes? No. I don't know. In this case, removing the password manager part of the app. This feature only works with Microsoft's own Edge browser and more people choose other than that web browser for use these days. For those that do use the Edge browser, well you'll be able to migrate your passwords over to that browser or any password manager of your choice.
I don't use the Edge browser now that I'm no longer gainfully employed. Preferring to use Apple's own Safari browser for its integration within the Apple ecosystem and for privacy sakes, I never knew that a password manager existed within Microsoft Authenticator app. I only keep the app around for the odd login for the few Microsoft apps that I do use. Skype has left the call. Officially shutting down today is the headline from May 5th on 9to5google.com.
The day has come and gone for the death of what was the first common voice over internet protocol, better known as a VoIP app. Which truly did revolutionize long distance and international calling. Skype fell victim to apps like Zoom, iMessage, and mostly Microsoft, which purchased Skype for $8.5 billion back in 2011.
At that time, Microsoft was already cooking up its Team app at the time, and probably bought Skype in order to get rid of a major competitor and to serve as a bridge until Teams was up to speed. Skype started as a peer-to-peer communications app and almost single-handedly got rid of the abhorrent cost of long distance and international calls.
My children used Skype to place calls before smartphones arrived on the scene. Microsoft converted Skype to a centralized data-powered app, and as a result, performance suffered. Not to mention all the so-called upgrades Microsoft released for Skype, which users universally hated. To sum it all up, Microsoft took a simple to use app and after degrading its performance, made it too complicated to use. The old if it ain't broke fix it until it is method.
Not even the pandemic could save Skype. While apps like Zoom, Google Meet, and others saw great growth during that time period, Skype only saw moderate usage gains. Microsoft brags about the gains in users that Teams has saw, but how many of these users are government users who were still and are still forced to use it? I would wager a lot, if not most. Though I stopped using Skype when Windows Phone met its demise years ago. I keep Teams around for those times I might need to use it.
Those times are becoming less and less likely to happen as my retirement enters its fourth year. With all of my family now firmly within the walled garden of Apple's ecosystem, iMessage and FaceTime rule, So long, Skype. You became the latest victim of Microsoft's acquisitions program.
In an apparent follow-up from an article on AndroidPolice.com that I reported on last week, which was about Generation Z preferences being catered to by the Android mobile operating system, One of the claims made by the author of that article was, Google should leave universal messaging alone because communication is fragmented by platforms. This article is basically a rehash of the original one, this time leaving out the Gen Z correlation.
Since Apple stole the idea of a universal messaging app from Blackberry, Google has tried to get in on the game. The closest the Big G has gotten to this ideal was with Hangouts, which in my opinion was their best attempt at this. Allo and Duo replaced Hangouts and were themselves replaced by Google Messages. Skype was supposed to be the universal messaging app for the now-defunct Windows Phone operating system.
Every mobile operating system has attempted to have their own, quote, universal, unquote, messaging app. I don't agree with what the author seems to believe is the definition of such an app. For mobile operating systems, they wish to provide a way to send and receive normal text messages, RCS messages in their own proprietary method.
hence Nokia Message, Blackberry Messenger, and iMessage. Google has since given up on having its own proprietary messaging solution and instead has leaned into the RCS text messaging protocol. I guess you could say that Google Chat is proprietary. Google is not presently trying to have a universal messaging app, nor are any others You know, it must be nice being a writer that can just recycle articles. I hope they're getting paid by the word count.
Android Authority.com has a headline which got me excited for a split second. At first, I thought that smart ring leader Aura, which I use, had added blood glucose monitoring ability to its smart ring. This would have shook up the whole tech industry. Apple has made this capability for non-intrusive glucose monitoring its holy grail. Well, Aura has not added this capability to their hardware. No, they added it sort of to the companion app for their smart ring.
You'll still have to manually test for glucose and add the results to the app manually. Speaking of recycling, you'll have to use the Dexcom Stello biosensor to get those readings for entry into the Auras app. If you recall, late last year, Aura had announced this partnership with Dexcom. The difference this time is that, well, wait for it, AI will analyze the results. Well, what do you know about that? Move along, there's nothing to see here.
According to 9to5google.com, Microsoft has launched a 12-inch Surface Pro, which is their de facto iPad competitor, and a 13-inch Surface laptop, both powered by Snapdragon X Plus chips. along with the Snapdragon powerful NPUs, a custom design for running Copilot, and that's just Microsoft's name for its AI. The Surface Pro starts at $799 and the Surface Laptop starts at $899.
I'll wait until the head-to-head performance videos which pit them against the MacBook Airs and Pros before I make judgment. I remember the time Surface laptops were highly regarded. I don't know if that's still true these days. Also, Windows on non-X86 CPUs were a bust in previous iterations. For interested buyers of these computers, I hope that's greatly improved. 9to5Mac believes that Apple wants to take control of the chips in your iPhone and provides a roadmap for them to do so.
Right now, Apple Silicon serves as the iPhone's CPUs, GPUs, and NPUs. The C1 modem was introduced with the iPhone 16e and is rumored to be standard in the upcoming iPhone 17 Air. The C2 modem will debut across the iPhone 18 lineup in 2026 and for future iPad models in 2027. The C3 modem will appear in 2027, first equipping the iPhone 19. A new Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip is slated to appear this year in updated HomePod minis and Apple TV streaming boxes, as well as some iPhones.
Next year's iPads will also get this so far unnamed networking chip. For the future, Apple will integrate its modem chips into the main Apple Silicon chipset. I believe that the reason, well, the main reason for these homebrew chips is Money. Apple will save a bunch of money by bringing these assorted chips in house. I hope these chips are good. I'd hate buying a piece of hardware which contains these chips, only to find out they weren't as good as those they aim to replace.
Continuing with 9to5mac.com, sales of the Apple Watch have been in a significant decline for two years now. This according to a new market intelligence report from an outfit named CounterPoint. The Apple Watch had an increase of year-on-year sales until 2021, with 2022 going flat. 2023 saw a 10% fall, with 2024 sales falling some 19%. The reason for this fall is a lack of reason to upgrade. Yes! I discussed this from a personal point of view in the Tech I'm Using section.
I feel Apple needs a redesign for the Apple Watch. A real major redesign. That and a significant addition of features. features like semi-accurate blood pressure monitoring and, if attainable, non-intrusive blood glucose monitoring. In my opinion, the Apple Watch has been stale since the Series 5. An article from MacRumors.com which quotes elite supply chain analyst none other than Mr. Ming-Chi Kuo that the iPhone 19 Air will feature a larger screen than this year's incoming 17 Air.
What's interesting here is Mr. Kuo refers to the iPhone Air as the iPhone Slim. No specific dimensions were disclosed. The incoming iPhone 17 Air is expected to come with a 6.6 inch display, so I guess that will increase to 6.7 or maybe 6.8 inch display for the 18 Air. Mr. Kuo also stated that Apple will release its first foldable phone in late 2026, followed by a second generation in 2027. Well, 2027 is also the 20th anniversary of the iPhone.
And Mr. Quo predicts that at least one model of the iPhone will have a truly edge-to-edge display. And that's just in time for me to upgrade my anticipated iPhone 17 Air. According to a report, no organization that was responsible for this report was named by AppleInsider.com, where this is from. Apple's smart glasses will arrive by Christmas of 2026. What? Of course, what's being referred to here is Apple's augmented reality spectacles that I've been yakking and lusting about for years now.
Oh wait, I just found out that the report was from Bloomberg, so it carries more weight than some anonymous report. I've reported that these glasses are the top priority for Apple CEO Tim Cook, to the point where he doesn't want to hear about any other Apple product. While I'd really like this report to be true, seeing is believing. Pun intended. Check I'm using! Well... I did it! Oh no! What have you ordered now?
More importantly, did you obtain the proper permission from the one who must be obeyed? You know me so well. I ordered myself a 13-inch M4 iPad Pro, complete with a new keyboard case for it. And yes, I obtained permission from the one whom must be obeyed, a.k.a. my lovely wife. I traded in my M2 11-inch iPad Pro towards it, which slightly eased the amount of shekels that were required to purchase this new iPad.
I ordered it in space gray which is in reality the color black and got the black keyboard case to match. I was leaning towards the 13 inch M3 iPad Air, but I couldn't bring myself to compromise on the display. I've gotten used to the 120Hz Pro motion screen of my current iPad Pro, and I'd probably miss it if I wound up getting the iPad Air. Do I really need the power which the M4 chip brings? No! Or do I really need the fanciness that the new keyboard case attachment brings? No! Of course not!
However, I think the M4 chip gives me longevity, which is important because I'm not planning on buying another iPad until the Air models catch up to at least this current model of the M4 Pros in regards to features. The keyboard case attachment and display are sort of more important to me than the powerful M4 chip is. Though I mainly write on my Mac Mini setup, I often find myself editing the things I write on my iPad. I find the iPad more conducive for this task.
As far as the display goes, I try to never compromise with that. These old fart eyes aren't getting any better as I age, so the better and brighter the display, the better everything is for me. Now you may be wondering what spurred on this hasty purchase, knowing that a new model M5 Pro iPad is inbound shortly. Well last week I happened to be in a local Sam's Club, which is Walmart's version of a Costco.
If you don't know what those are let me explain. Costco is a large warehouse type store that sells food and other household items in bulk. Costco also has a large electronics department. Alas, the closest Costco location from where I live is about an hour and a half drive away. Sam's Club is much closer, but this particular one is more like a stripped-down version of a Costco.
Anyway, while my wife was doing some shopping at Sam's Club last Tuesday, I perused the paltry compared to Costco's electronics department. Well, Costco sells about all of Apple's products. Sam's Club just sells Apple Watches, but not the ultra model. Apple TV streaming boxes, AirPods and iPads, and that's about it. Sam's Clubs happened to have both the 13-inch iPad Pro and 13-inch iPad Air on hand so I could make a comparison. Well, there was no comparison, actually.
The bezels on the Pro iPad were much thinner, as well as the thickness of the chassis. What really took the scale over to the iPad Pro was the display. Compared to the iPad Pro, the iPad Air display seemed like it was washed out. After saying this for myself, I just couldn't commit to the iPad Air. I made my decision on the spot. Tracking my wife down in the store and putting in my request for the purchase a few minutes later. Having just bought her two expensive pieces of jewelry last week,
Well, this helped make her more agreeable towards a request since she usually would have been. Hey, you have to strike while the iron is still hot. Yeah. To my surprise, after placing my order on Wednesday, the new iPad and keyboard case arrived the very next day. Wow. It usually takes a bit longer for things to arrive at in my semi-rural area. First impressions? I had a problem while attempting to set up the new iPad using my old iPad as a source.
This method just stalled out at the iPad OS update. I decided to restart the setup process, this time using iCloud. This worked well and within a few minutes the new iPad was ready to go. Besides the larger size of the new iPad, the thinness of the bezels in comparison to the old iPad really stood out to me. Haven't you already said that? I realize this.
That's how stunningly thin they are. Besides, this time I was comparing the new iPad bezels to the M2 iPad Pros, not the new Air model. Oh, okay. Anyway, they're about half the width of my old iPad's vessels. The biggest difference is the beautiful display of the M4 iPad Pro. Though both iPads are pros, there's just no comparison between them. The blacks are truly black, not grayish black as they were on the old M2 Pro.
The new keyboard attachment is not as big a leap forward in my opinion. It does have better construction using metal instead of plastic of the older attachment. The keys have a different feel, but I think I prefer the old keyboard attachment better. That's just me. The new keyboard attachment also has an F key row, but that's something I could have done without. It's more of a nice-to-have option. I'll report more on this new toy of mine next week.
While looking at iPads at Sam's Club that faithful day, I also came upon a mechanical keyboard and mouse set from a company called Keychron. The keyboard was striking with its wooden accents along its sides and the keys seemed to be more comfortable to type on than my current Logitech MX board. Then again, I didn't try out the Keychron keyboard for that long of time.
The mouse was, well, a mouse. Wireless like my ExtraFi. The price for both was a reasonable $144. Making the pair cheaper than what my son paid for the Logitech and ExtraFi separately. The one drawback was the color of both the keys and the board and the mouse. I prefer the color white because it matches the Apple aesthetic and is easier to see in the dimly lit rooms I often find myself working in. And no, I am not considering getting this keyboard.
In light of the report about the fall in sales of the Apple Watch, I thought I'd give my personal experience about an upgrade from the Series 7 to the Series 10 Apple Watch. The tech press led me to believe that the Series 10 would have a major redesign. Well, as we all know, it didn't. The main reason I did upgrade was because of the deteriorating battery life of my Series 7. I've experienced nothing but boredom with my new Apple Watch Series 10.
Nothing about it gives me any excitement. Size A, very slightly bigger and brighter display. There's not much difference between it and the Series 7 it replaced. Actually, my Series 7 had the blood oxygen monitoring feature. That's now missing from all US-sold Apple Watches due to fights over patents, which are still raging in the courts. No worries though, my aura ring fills that gap quite nicely.
Pondering this, yes, my retired life can get boring sometimes. I've decided that I won't be upgrading my Apple Watch until I can truly depend on it while traveling around without having to lug around my iPhone with me. If that time ever arrives, I'll probably go with the Ultra Series in Black. Supposedly the Series 3 of the Ultra will bring blood pressure monitoring, kind of. The watch will monitor your blood pressure, but not precisely.
Instead, it will warn you if you are in a state of hypertension. I'd rather that than inaccurate readings. Another feature is optional 5G cellular service. I don't know why Apple hasn't done this by now. And finally, satellite texting will be available via the watch. The latter is one step closer to freeing the watch from the iPhone. Is this enough for me to consider upgrading? No, I'll probably wait for what the Series 4 brings. Time will tell.
Starting a business can be overwhelming. You're juggling multiple roles, designer, marketer, logistics manager, all while bringing your vision to life. But for millions of businesses, Shopify is the ultimate partner. Shopify is proud to power many sources of UK e-commerce, from brands like Mattel and Gymshark to new entrepreneurs. Build a stunning online store with Shopify's ready to use template.
Boost content with AI-powered product descriptions, page headlines, and enhanced photography. Marketing is easy with built-in tools for email and social media campaigns. Plus, Shopify simplifies everything from inventory to shipping and returns. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business idea into with Shopify on your side. Sign up for your £1 per month trial today at shopify.co.uk slash try. Go to shopify.co.uk slash try. Shopify.co.uk slash try.
Entertainment news. YouTube is the largest video streaming service in the world. At least audience-wise. YouTube is also one of the biggest cash cows for parent company Google behind only online advertising and maybe cloud services. That might all change if the recent antitrust judgments against the Big G that were recently handed down from a federal court are upheld. Knowing that, Google has been making changes to YouTube.
most likely to make the service even more profitable. One of the many changes Google has made with YouTube is with its premium plans. A premium subscription to YouTube gets you ad-free viewing of all content on the platform. The price has increased over the last couple of years causing complaints from users Google's response to this is the slow rollout of pricing tiers for premium.
The first to be rolled out was premium light, which gives you most of the features of premium, but ads will be shown only if you searched out a video or watch a music video. You also don't get YouTube music and background playback like you do with the full premium subscription. An article on AndroidAuthority.com describes a new tier being tested, which is a two-person plan. This new plan includes everything included with the premium subscription family plan, but just for two people.
The price for this two-person plan is estimated to cost just $4 more per month than the single premium plan. Wow! If this plan turns out to be true, that will be a tempting deal. I'm a premium subscriber and my wife uses my ad free account in order to watch videos from her old country without the ads. The problem with this is that her searches and viewing habits mess up my algorithm on the platform.
I would go with the premium light tier because I don't really use YouTube music nor do I need background playback. However, I do watch music videos and do quite a lot of searching for particular videos on the platform. For me, this new two-person tier seems to be the way to go, if it ever does become reality. And speaking of YouTube, I use its television app the most with YouTube's iPad app Second. A while back, Google announced that changes to the television app were being rolled out.
One of those changes has recently arrived and I absolutely abhor it. Before, you would go to your subscription list, click on one of them and be presented with its library from newest to oldest. That's still the same, but a row of YouTube shorts has been added to the top row. For some of the channels I've subscribed to, this is not a problem because they don't do shorts type videos.
For those channels that have embraced the shorts format, just edit a row that blocks off the regular content. And that's the content I want to see. This causes me to scroll down all the rows of shorts until regular content is revealed. I know, first world problems again. While seemingly trivial, for me it's just plain inconvenient. This has me dreading other changes that may be rolling out for the YouTube television app over the rest of 2025.
Podcast news. There appears to be trouble over at Spotify regarding podcasts with large audience numbers. Well, that's not a worry for this particular podcast, now, is it? Unfortunately, no, it isn't. These shows generate most, if not all of their money from advertisers. Spotify doesn't use the industry standard metrics measuring tool in order to drive audience statistics. Right now, the standard bearer is the IAB, and that's short for the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
Many show hosts have been complaining that their podcasts on Spotify have been losing advertisers. Because of this, in response, Spotify has introduced plays, which is a new metric that reflects the number of times people actively watched or listened to any episode on the platform. While this might be a more accurate way to measure audiences, it's still not an IAB certified method to do so, and the IAB is industry standard.
The short-term solutions these large shows have arrived at is to leave the Spotify platform. And that's not good for Spotify's business in the long term. What I dislike about Spotify is that even if your podcast isn't monetized, A listener using the platform to listen to your show will still hear advertisements with none of the revenue going to the creators oh no you don't oh yes they do how dare you besides that spotify and to a lesser degree
Google have declared war on the open source RSS feed distribution method and are trying to replace it with their own proprietary distribution method. We'll see where this all leads. Edison Research has released this list of the top 50 podcasts for the first quarter of 2025. Joe Rogan still rules as the JRE podcast comes in at number one. Reading over the list, I realize that I listen to none of the podcasts on this list regularly.
Perhaps this is due to the demographic I reside in, which is the old demographic. Yes. Now I'll listen to Joe Rogan if the guest is of interest to me. The same goes for the Megan. Kelly podcast. Not so much for the guests, but for the coverage of certain political events. What surprises me is the popularity of the Call Her Daddy podcast.
Though the show has, well, let's just say, matured a bit since its debut, it's still basically a show where the host describes various sexual acts she's performed over her lifetime. In other words, girls talking dirty. The list is dominated by true crime podcasts, which I also don't quite understand.
I remember when this genre was first starting out. The standard format for these podcasts usually featured two females drinking wine while reading a Wikipedia page verbatim about some heinous crime, usually a murder. Though a humble start, even back then these podcasts were a big hit. You know, I wish I had thought about going down this road when first starting a podcast instead of a tech-themed show.
Would you like to know how many tech podcasts made the top 50 list? Okay. Well, that would be none, zip, nada, zero. The good news is that Those blockbuster big-money-to-celebrity-hosted podcasts which saw their rise during the lockdowns have all but faded away. Yay! Also, national public radio backshows don't dominate like they once did. The worst news I derive from this list is that I could find no truly independent podcast on it.
Last week I dusted off the old Electrovoice RE20 microphone for episode 267. While I was pleased with the results, I've decided to go back to the Heil PR40 for this episode. Can you hear a difference? Yes. No. Yeah, most likely not. I hear a difference while recording and editing and upon playback in the car and iPhone.
PR-40 sounds brighter and more radio-like to these old ears. Going forward, I'll be switching between the PR-40 and Neumann TLM-102 to these battered old ears. Both of these mics sound similar. Do you actually hear any differences? I know that I should decide on a particular signature sound for the OFNT podcast, but I just can't make up my mind. The music has played. this beautiful spring enjoyed this episode. Can you know?
And you know, he can all He podcasted I enjoy hearing from Remember, don't listen to what specialist tomorrows Mom out. Starting a business can be overwhelming. You're juggling multiple roles, designer, marketer, logistics manager, all while bringing your vision to life. But for millions of businesses, Shopify is the ultimate partner. Shopify is proud to power many sources of UK e-commerce, from brands like Mattel and Gymshark to new entrepreneurs.
Build a stunning online store with Shopify's ready to use template. Boost content with AI-powered product descriptions, page headlines and enhanced photography. Marketing is easy with built-in tools for email and social media campaigns. Plus, Shopify simplifies everything from inventory to shipping and returns. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. Turn your big business idea into...
With Shopify on your side. Sign up for your £1 per month trial today at shopify.co.uk slash try. Go to shopify.co.uk slash try. Shopify.co.uk slash try.