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Mac Geek Gab — Apple Tips, Tricks, and Troubleshooting

Why Your AI App Matters, What's Draining Your iPad & How TSA Digital ID Works

Mac Geek Gab — Apple Tips, Tricks, and Troubleshooting

Dave Hamilton, Pilot Pete & Adam Christianson

Tech News, Technology, How To, News, Education

4.8 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 13 April 2026

⏱️ 82 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Why Your AI App Matters, What's Draining Your iPad & How TSA Digital ID Actually Works – Mac Geek Gab 1137 episode image

You’ve got quick tips galore this week: if your iPad battery’s draining mysteriously, your Apple Pencil might be the culprit, so pop it off when you’re not using it. Want custom emoji? Now you can create your own. LaunchBar fans, there’s a slick way to jump straight into System Settings, and if you’re self-hosting Bitwarden, the guys walk you through adding a local server with Cloudflare Tunnels. Pilot Pete also breaks down getting your digital ID working at TSA — and makes a compelling case that it’s actually more secure than handing over your physical license — plus there’s a look at TSA’s new Touchless ID system.

On the AI side, if agentic browsing still makes you nervous, Dave and Pete have practical advice for easing in, and they dig into why the app you use matters just as much as the LLM behind it — including a look at Claude’s upcoming Mythos model. You’ll hear how to tighten your AI agent’s security awareness (Don’t Get Caught slipping on that one), use Comet to become the ultimate “Reply Guy,” let your LLM tell you which apps are available in Setapp, and even have your chatbot generate QR codes . Wrapping up, there’s a fix for Mail not seeing updated Contacts Groups, a cost breakdown of building your own 2026 27-inch iMac, and an honest conversation about whether Plex is getting worse. Press play and enjoy learning at least five new things, folks!

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

It's time for Matt Geekab and listener Ian brings us our quick tip of the week in response to a conversation we were having last week where we were talking about Randy's iPad Pro having battery life issues.

0:12.9

Ian says one thing that might be going on that took me a while to realize on my same model iPad is that it could be the Apple pencil draining the battery.

0:23.7

If you're keeping the pencil on the iPad, it is continuously wirelessly charging the pencil.

0:30.8

And that has seemed to tank Ian's battery life.

0:34.5

And maybe yours and Randy's and everybody else's too.

0:37.2

More quick tips like this. Plus, your questions answered today on MacKeecab 1137 for Monday, April 13th National Scrabble Day 2026.

0:48.4

Music Greetings, folks, and welcome to Matt Kekad, the show where we share quick tips like that.

1:10.7

We share cool stuff found.

1:12.1

We share questions and sometimes, hopefully, answers or at least interesting thoughts that might help us troubleshoot the problem, all in the interest of ensuring each of us learns at least five new things every single time we get together.

1:31.3

Our sponsors include Clean My Mac.

1:34.9

I'm wait, but there it is.

1:36.1

There it is, Pete.

1:38.8

Our sponsors include Clean My Mac at CLNMY.com slash Mac Geek, where you can try that for seven days

1:45.8

free using our code Mac Geek for 20% off. And then pocket hose is you got to, in order to get your,

1:55.8

for a limited time, you can get a free pocket pivot and their 10 pattern sprayer with the

1:59.5

purchase of any size copperhead hose. But you have to text MG to the number 64,000. So we've got all of that in the show notes, by the way. Any of the stuff from our sponsors, it's always in the show notes. You can just click from there. And also, you can get it in your email if you visit macgeekab.com. And that way you get all the show notes with all the links, not just to sponsors, of course, but all the things we mentioned. So make sure you do that. We'll talk more about our sponsors in a little bit. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton. And here in Torpedo Bay, no, Perdito Bay, Pettito Key, Florida.

2:36.1

It's Pilot Pete.

2:37.5

We first got down here 10 years ago.

2:39.4

My son was much younger.

2:41.1

Sure.

2:41.3

Hadn't heard the word Perdito before, so he called it Torpedo, Torpedo Bay.

2:45.2

I think today might be my first time hearing the word Perdido.

...

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