Stop trying to sign into your Apple ID using your Apple Watch’s micro keyboard. Your finger is probably way too big for this. Here’s the better way to get the job done.
I don’t like messing with my Apple Watch. I’ve set it up to do what I want, and I usually don’t dig in to change the settings. The screen is so tiny. Yes, its interface is clever, but it’s not much bigger than a postage stamp.
And that’s fine. It’s a watch… not an iPhone.
Sure, it’s similar to iPhone in certain ways and is best tethered to one. And I can easily interact with it using the Digital Crown and side button.
But please don’t ask me to type anything into my current Apple Watch Series 9. That’s absurd. Yes, you can call up a cute micro keyboard to use. But come on… My index finger takes up 30% of the entire surface of my Apple Watch.
Update Apple ID Account Settings on your Apple Watch But that exactly what my Apple Watch sometimes asks me to do after a software update. I’m supposed to log back into my Apple ID account. And then my Apple Watch presents me with its tiny keyboard. Are you kidding?!
My finger’s surface area can press onto 3 keys easily… so tapping away gives me about a 30% chance of keystroke success. (And the tiny scribble pad? That’s no better.)
So recently, after failing to sign into my Apple account after multiple miss-tapping sequences, I looked for another way in…
Use your iPhone Instead If you think your iPhone can help, you’d be correct. Strangely, I couldn’t quickly solve this tech challenge by Googling it, but eventually I found the clue. Here’s how it works:
You simply need to activate your sleeping iPhone right after your Apple Watch prompts you to micro-tap your password.
Immediately, your iPhone will come to the rescue and open a thin text-prompt window on its own screen for you type into.
And as you do that, your password will magically mirror onto your Apple Watch’s screen. Done.
So obvious, right? (The solution is already baked into the Apple Watch/iPhone relationship.)
No More Micro Tapping Perhaps the whole world already knows this trick. And if it’s just you and me who’ve finally caught on, so be it. (I won’t tell anyone.)
But now, my finger will never again attempt the absurd micro-tap dance on my Apple Watch.
You can frame a cool photo of New York City right from your seat on Amtrak. If your train is traveling at sunset, just look out your window. It’s a spectacular view. Here’s how to optimize that photographic opportunity.
It’s hard to miss this famous skyline as your Amtrak train nears or leaves the Big Apple. And sunset is a particularly special time. So, it warrants trying to take a photo or two…
The weather conditions have to be right. Plus, there’s only a six-minute stretch when the train is close enough and oriented correctly with its windows directly facing the east side of Manhattan.
The Best Views of New York City Then, take out your smartphone. Press it as close to the window as possible to avoid reflections from the inside of the train. (The fact that your phone’s lens effectively lies flat with the phone’s body will protect it from accidental bumps into the glass due to your train’s jerky movements.)
And then start snapping away.
As much as I always want to zoom closer with my iPhone 15 Pro Max’s 2x or 5x lens to better frame the skyscrapers, the wider shots are better. I think you need that foreground in the shot to help tell the visual story. Plus, the train’s motion is less of a problem for your phone’s camera if you’re not zoomed in.
Just Another Bonus for Taking the Train Yes, it’s an amazing vista to take in, but you should temper your expectations for your photos. Remember, you’re shooting through glass, and the train is moving.
Still, it’s worth a shot.
I go for it whenever I’m on Amtrak’s Northeast Regional or Acela heading back to Connecticut from Washington, D.C. (These photos are from my recent trip.) In the old days, it would be when I was heading out of New York City back to Boston. (So, I’ve been at this for a while.)
And yes, I do prefer taking the train vs. a plane between these destinations. It’s much more convenient and relaxing. (The door-to-door time comparison is similar after you bake in the extra hours spent at the airport.) But I digress…
Enjoy the Show Sunset isn’t the only time to try to capture these photos of New York City. (Shooting directly at the sun can really confuse a camera and isn’t especially great for its sensors. But a few brief clicks shouldn’t play too much havoc with the electronics.)
These magic sunset minutes always call out to me as the deep orange light bathes the landscape.
It’s both unearthly and entirely natural.
And you’ve got one of the best vantage points of this city a photographer could hope for.
I invited Google’s NotebookLM to create “deep dive” podcasts based on a few of my blog posts, and here are the stunningly good results.
The written word, though certainly enduring, has plenty of competition out there. We all consume information in different ways. But quite frankly, photos, videos and podcasts are often more compelling and clickable.
Barrett’s Podcast? I’ve occasionally thought about creating a companion At Home with Tech podcast, but that takes a fair amount of work to maintain. (It’s enough of a challenge for a busy dad to pump out the written version every week.)
That said, I did create this pilot podcast episode some years back.
How to Create Your Photo Archive in the Cloud: The Podcast
It was great fun to do… but too big of an ongoing lift.
ElevenLabs Last year, I revisited the idea and considered applying a different solution using A.I. to more quickly generate my podcast. How?
I first cloned my voice by digitizing it through ElevenLabs’ website. Then, I simply copied and pasted my blog’s text into ElevenLab’s interface to magically create a spoken version with my cloned voice! It was certainly much quicker than doing the voice work myself… not that I can’t do that.
Yes. Text to voice… BAM!
Here’s that pilot:
Should You Clone your Voice to Help Preserve your Legacy?
While certainly simpler and faster, I still didn’t greenlight my own podcast series. (I decided to stick with my core product.)
But I haven’t stopped pondering the challenge… and opportunity.
NotebookLM A few months back, a friend of mine showed me a nifty Google trick using A.I. to magically create an audio podcast. Google’s tool is NotebookLM. He put it to work and generated an authentic sounding A.I. conversation about my career by simply loading my LinkedIn profile.
Within minutes, a breezy 10-minute audio podcast appeared on his iPhone with two relaxed A.I. personalities chatting about my awesome life to date.
It was flattering, but also a bit weird to hear ‘people’ talking about me in this way. And beyond marveling at this parlor trick, I felt it wasn’t usable in a broader sense. (I wasn’t going to post this over-the-top publicity anywhere.)
I can Now Create my Podcast in One Click! But I thought about NotebookLM again recently and navigated over to the URL: notebooklm.google to see how it’s been evolving.
I realized this virtual research assistant actually has plenty of uses (like summarizing marketing plans, course reading, research notes, meeting transcripts and sales documents).
And then, I spotted the ‘Audio Overview’ section in the top right of the page. That’s the place where you generate the A.I. conversation about your topic. And there are any number of ways to feed in what you want the A.I. to absorb and then talk about (websites, PDFs, Google Docs and even simple text).
So, I uploaded a link to my recent blog post, and within a few minutes, my podcast was ready. Click. I listened to the likable pair of podcast hosts effortlessly discussing the detail from my blog.
My jaw dropped. It all felt like magic. I immediately downloaded the file. Here it is:
Yes, I’ve done a bit of light editing to it using GarageBand. I’ve also trimmed out a few sentences where the A.I. rambled on in a few places. (I reserve that luxury for myself, thank you very much.) Then, I added in some music at the top and back. But that was it. Easy.
The Voices Sound So Real NotebookLM’s A.I. voices are remarkably life-like. The casual banter spoken between this virtual woman-and-man team seems especially friendly and so authentic.
The result speaks for itself. That said, as incredible as this may appear, some of the ‘summarizing’ occasionally offered additional ‘thinking’ that fell slightly outside of my core perspective. (I suppose a real person could also do that.)
Still, I think this auto-generated podcast could be a nice companion piece that offers an alternate way to consume the essence of my blog’s content.
Will You Enjoy Listening to This? We’ll see if I add in this A.I. podcast as an ongoing feature to my blogging. It’s hard to know if everyone (anyone) wants to regularly listen to two virtual coffee-talk personalities doing a deep-dive exploration of my blog.
But for now, I’ve got to admit… NotebookLM is much more than an amazing parlor trick.
At Home with Tech 