Level Up Your Life: A List of Helpful Apple Features, Apps, Software and Must Reads

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December 7, 2023

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Instead of our usual discussions, I'm excited to share some recent tech discoveries that have caught my attention. These recommendations, I believe, can truly help you level up a few parts of your life. I've been exploring some fascinating Apple features, like stunning screensavers from Apple TV on Macs, widgets on the desktop, and a game-changing contact-sharing feature on iOS 17 that simplifies exchanging info at events. I highly recommend two impactful books: 'Unreasonable Hospitality' by Will Guidara for exceptional service and 'Essentialism' by Greg McKeown for efficiency in work and life. For software, Airtable stands out as a powerful cloud-based platform that could replace costly CRM systems for many companies. The iPhone health app surprises with a nifty at-home hearing test using the Mimi app. Lastly, I've come across two travel gadgets that have made big differences for me—a versatile Anchor portable charger and the AirFly dongle for seamless AirPods connectivity on flights.

I hope you find these recommendations useful. Thanks for tuning in, and catch you next week for more insights!

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TRANSCRIPT (this is an automated transcript):

Welcome, everybody. I'm Mark Peter Davis, managing partner of Interplay. I'm on a mission to help entrepreneurs advance society, and this podcast is definitely part of that effort. Today I was going to take a little bit of a right turn. As all the listeners know, we usually interview folks or talk to partners about geopolitical issues or startup issues.

We thought we'd do something a little different today, and I'm going to do a quick review of some of the apps, features and hacks. tHat I have been into over the past six ish months, maybe this year, we're getting towards the end of 23. And hopefully hand off a couple of tips that might be useful to you.

So first off, I'm going to jump into some Apple features. I am an Apple nerd, Apple file, if that's a word for those who don't know me well. tHere's a couple of things I just wanted to flag, but I'm realizing not everyone knows about that I use already and I'm the guy who's constantly trying to update his applications every day.

And when there's an operating system download, I probably updated too early. I'm aware of what is going on in the Apple feature universe. And there's a couple of things that are really noteworthy. So first thing is on the actual Mac, if you have a computer, the new operating system update comes with a completely new screensaver concept.

What they took is all of the visuals from Apple TV that are screensavers. If you're familiar with those. And they've brought them to the laptop. Why it's a big deal is you get these beautiful, stunning, kind of awe inspiring screensavers that also automatically become the background. So for those who are looking for the slight ways, small ways to have a reprieve and an emotional experience throughout our busy lives, it is a great add.

Another thing that's significant is they've enabled widgets on the desktop. Background on the computers. So now I've got weather plugged in. I'm always OCD about how charged my devices are. That's all easily visible. So the dash, the background has become a sort of dashboard. Which I find to be very helpful at a glance.

And the last one, which arguably the most important is I spend too much time out meeting folks at different events and talking and listening and learning. And when we go to exchange contact information, I have found that very few people, even at startup events. Have updated their iPhone to iOS 17, and here's why you need to do it, if you haven't done it already.

If you're using a paper card or a QR code, you are generationed out for contact sharing. With iOS 17, you merely touch the top of the two phones together. You have to unlock both phones. That's the one twist. And with the new feature name drop, the phones will have a seemingly magical experience where each counterparty's information will show up, both parties click approve, and the contact information is now in your contacts.

It's seamless. This is actually probably a throwback to an app called Bump that was out, I want to say 10 years ago that didn't make it, but it's now a feature in the latest release. The one flaw in this feature, and I'm guessing it's going to come out in subsequent rollouts. Is that it only allows you to share one email address or phone number.

That's pretty limited. When I share my contact information with someone, it might include the office address, my title, all different sorts of information. So right now it's very limited down to just like a phone number. So you do have to do this extra step of going and messaging people afterward. Your contact information or clicking share via the messaging app.

So there's a two step right now, but, the hope is with subsequent versions, that'll get down to one step. And it's pretty much a game changer because that's a lot fewer steps and a lot less complicated than the existing QR code applications, I suspect from a product perspective. Those QR codes are difficult by design by Apple, so that they encourage people to adopt the name drop but it is worth it.

It is awesome, and it's a great party trick. So if you're walking around the event and you bust that out everyone looks over the shoulder and gets excited about it. Okay, a couple of books 2 books this year that stand out and they're actually required reading for new team members at Interplay.

One is Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guadara formerly of Eleven Madison Park. This book gets to the essence of thinking about exceptional service at a level that I think very few companies, probably in the country and globally, think about. It is such a good book that it was referenced in the TV show The Bear.

So if you've watched that, you probably already saw a little shout out to it. If you're in any type of business outside of hospitality where there are other humans involved, pretty broad, I recommend you read the book. It is helping to guide our language and process internally at Interplay as we think about delivering an exceptional customer experience to entrepreneurs, investors, other service providers, families we support.

reFrame language and standards. Now, if you're trying to level up, you don't get more time in life. You have to be more efficient with your time. There's another book I recommend called essentialism by Greg McCowan. Now this book really is about helping people avoid wasting time on things that they're already doing, probably not even thinking about it.

It's about cutting more than adding and about being systematic about it. Frankly, when I read the book. I felt like I was being preached something I was already doing, which I love. I'm super hyper organized on this type of behavior. So this was very validating and very much in line with how I currently operate.

And I think if you're trying to, if you're wanting to have some people, it feels are in 5th gear and you're stuck in 3rd, this might be the. Book that explains the difference in how they operate. And it's something that we all can be doing now, as far as software two things I wanted to flag one is a unicorn that everyone should already know about.

But if you don't, you're behind the times air table, I feel like this keeps coming up in conversations with other executives, particularly people who are not in tech and they don't know what it is, if Google sheets is the modern version of Excel in the cloud air table is the modern version of Microsoft access.

It is a multidimensional database. But they've taken all of that baseline, put it in the cloud, put APIs and features on it. And I believe it is the type of platform you can run most information based companies off of. So I want to go far enough to say, it is so powerful with a drag and drop interface, you don't need to know how to code, that for many organizations, I think it could replace your entire Salesforce CRM operating system.

aNd it's a hell of a lot less expensive and you don't have to hire developers to customize it. So if you are not paying attention to Airtable worth getting some training and checking it out and no, we are not investors, but I wish I was another one for you is something that I'm doing as I don't know, trying to pay attention to my health and level up on that.

I turned on all of the iPhone health app features and I had never done. And I realized one of the things I constantly have a debate with my wife is I feel like she mumbles and she says, I'm deaf. So I put it to the test, Mimi hearing test. It's an app you can download and you can do an at home hearing exam.

And for the record, it turns out my hearing is great. You hear that? My hearing is great. So if I don't hear what you're saying, you're probably mumbling. That's a little tidbit for one particular member of our audience who will eventually listen to this. All right, a couple more things. Consumer products.

So there's a couple of nerdy things that I've gotten into. I've been doing a lot of traveling this year, and there are 2 travel products that I highly recommend, if you're always struggling to keep your phone charged because you don't have access to outlets. I carry charges on me, but let's say you're on the go.

You're an airplane. Some of these crappy old airplanes don't have the right outlets. The problem goes on, check out the anchor, however you pronounce it, a N K E R portable charger. It's on Amazon. It's 30, 40 bucks. It's small, it can fit in your pocket. It does a charger too, depending on the size you get, but the best part about it is actually the user experience, the product format, it's got a magnetic front.

So it plugs in MagSafe to your phone, which means it's easy to stick on the back and keep going, but also they built in this wonderful little stand system where you can have it stand and prop your phone up vertically or horizontally. So it becomes the TV stand for my movies on my phone on flights.

Love it. Another one. I saw this. I saw someone using this on a flight and I immediately took a picture of his product and copied it a little dongle called air fly. If you're frustrated because you can't hear, you can't get the air pods you're wearing to connect easily to the screen in your, on your airplane, air fly is a solution.

It has an analog, old school, headphone jack that plugs into the screen or the hand, wherever the device is, the outlet is on the air on the airplane chair. bUt then it actually Bluetooth pairs with your AirPods, so you can plug your air. You can use your AirPods while watching a movie on a flight.

Very cool. And apparently there's a version where you can do 2 sets of AirPods. So you and a loved one can enjoy the movie together, but you can't do very easily on flights usually. So that is a wrap of me just geeking out very hard publicly, which not my favorite. But hopefully it was helpful to some folks.

Maybe you found a tip or two in there that's useful for you. And again, thanks for listening and we'll catch you again next week.