Vintage 3.5” floppy disk wallet is for the nostalgic in you.

There’s a 2-month wait, but it’s perfect for the sling carrier, purse wearer, fanny packer, or backpack trekking individual.

Too impractical for the pants pocket, unlike the Untitled Folder Wallet.

It would be the perfect way to carry your SD cards or a tiny storage drive since it fits the theme perfectly. Buy it here in either black, beige, or orange (not an affiliate link).

My first Apple product that I used - Apple IIe.

At the time (5th-6th grade), these weren’t too exciting since game consoles were superior gaming devices. We never owned one, but we had them in our school’s computer class and in that environment, they were exciting because anything is more exciting than textbooks.

Our class was a particular challenging group of youth, and we did not treat the equipment with tender care and love. I distinctly remember floppy disks being thrown around like frisbees. It was still a step up from just a few years prior. In 2nd grade (same school), we had a computer class that had a single computer, and we would learn the anatomy of a computer - the keyboard itself was a challenge since we had to learn “complex” controls such as TAB, ENTER, CAPS LOCK, and SHIFT. Only in the last part of class did each student get a turn to play Pac-Man. You literally got one chance, so if you died in 5 seconds, then you only got 5 seconds to use the computer. Imagine giving a new piece of technology to someone for only 5 seconds. What a tease!

For a more visual experience, this picture was the closest thing I found that mimics my 5th grade classroom environment.

Trying to read “Apple: The First 50 Years,” in bed.

David Pogue’s historical book is quite the monstrosity from both a content and size perspective, and from a physical point of view it is a proper textbook. I thought the only way to read this beast was on my desk, but I am able to read it comfortably (enough) while lying in bed. All of the book’s weight is on a pillow on my chest, making it easy on my arms while elevating the book for a good reading angle.

Apple Books and Kindle are cheaper options for digital readers, but I know I would get distracted and start doom scrolling. With a physical book, I am focused in on one task, and within 20-25 minutes (regardless of which book I’m reading), it is lights out for me.

When one MagSafe car mount is not enough.

I have a dual MagSafe setup in my car, but for my wife’s car, the one that gets significant highway miles and travels to the pothole capital of the world (New York City), we needed something more than just a simple MagSafe setup:

We needed 3 different MagSafe mounts. Technically we could get by with 2, but the 3rd one on top was necessary for entertainment purposes so the kids in the 3rd row could still watch YouTube. It’s the opposite of being addicted to YouTube, but also not quite torture since you can still make out the contents if you squint hard enough. You have to get the dopamine dose just right.

The triple threat.

The one on top is my new favorite accessory by LISEN that so far has been promising. It has a motor that makes the suction really tight, and will self-activate if it notices the suction getting weaker, giving you peace of mind. We didn’t have any falls or loss of suction over an 8 hour driving period. It also allows for a landscape orientation whereas the bottom two are too tight together to allow for landscape.

On the bottom right we have a standard Apple MagSafe puck hooked into a CD slot holder, primarily used for charging of course. The bottom left is a Moment MagSafe Wall Mount that I permanently attached to the archaic infotainment display. Blocking the display wasn’t an issue since we always keep it on the bluetooth player setting. The Moment mount is my go to for navigation and when driving on bumpier roads since it has really strong magnets. Plenty an iPhone hath fallen when placed on the MagSafe charger, and I just don’t need that in my life anymore. The magnets on the LISEN are similar to the Moment mount and can withstand even the worst potholes. All three mounts have a purpose, and strategic placement throughout long journeys between charging and bad road conditions means I don’t have to think about my phone falling and can concentrate on driving.

All audio is routed via Bluetooth, making this hot mess actually very seamless and manageable.

Does the MacBook Neo collect a lot of fingerprints like the Midnight Blue MacBook Air?

I haven’t wiped the exterior surface of my MacBook Neo since I got it 9 days ago, and here is a comparison vs an M2 MacBook Air in Midnight Blue, known to be a fingerprint magnet. The Neo will get fingerprints, but it won’t turn into a grime fest that is Midnight Blue.

I felt like taking a shower after touching this M2 Air.

If I was a case kind of guy, I would get these Spigen Macintosh throwback cases.

Andrew Clare on X has some great photos showing an iPhone 17 Pro case, MagSafe wallet, and AirPods Pro 3 case that scream nostalgia, reminding me of those days in computer class where we would play Where in the World is Carmen San Diego on some Apple IIe computers.

Once again the love for the iPhone Air is so grand, so magnificent, that Spigen also didn’t see the need to release this retro case for the most durable and most loved device by Apple.

It’s unheard of.

The most bipolar Mac setup that you shouldn’t have.

A buddy of mine got the Studio Display XDR and I thought - why not pair it with one of Apple’s new computers released last week.

Which computer you may ask?

Well the MacBook Neo of course.

No one, I mean no one, should have this setup. For the love of God, your monitor should not have more RAM and a stronger processor than your computer.

MacBook Neo in Indigo - what does it look like in different lighting scenarios?

If my memory serves me correctly, the Midnight Blue MacBook Air was darker than this Indigo color, making the Neo a bit more pleasing to the eye. Anyway here are the photos:

In low, warm light.

Morning productivity.

It is a fingerprint magnet.

Near a window, with overcast skies.

Logo is matte finished instead of the usual glossy finish.

Outdoors in overcast skies. Wasn’t planning on snow today…

Dorm room, warm, low light simulation. Almost looks like the iPhone 14 Pro in Deep Purple.

I like the color matched keyboard, and I think the Indigo has the most colored keyboard out of the bunch. You really notice the lack of a backlight. Speaking of…

In complete darkness, you get some light on the keyboard from the screen, but not enough to compensate for no backlight.

Dave2D finally answers my most important question about MacBook Neo.

When the MacBook Neo was announced, I wanted to know if Apple cut a corner on the hinge, since the price point was so low:

The only unanswered question on my mind - can you open the lid with one finger?

That is a signature Apple feature, and it doesn’t surprise me that Apple kept it. The one-finger lift is a sign of premium build quality, and any laptop without it automatically is a deal breaker for me personally. Even when I was a Chromebook user, I only bought the best.

Professional laptop reviewer Dave2D not only confirmed it, but he gave it some screentime, emphasizing the importance of what many would consider an insignificant feature.

The “miracle” weight loss drug only works if you can withstand taking it for life.

Fast Company:

The impact of GLP-1 medications on weight loss is undeniable, but emerging research suggests the results may only be temporary. A growing body of evidence shows that when patients stop taking GLP-1 drugs, much of the weight they lost returns—and so do the medical complications that may have prompted treatment in the first place. 

“The only way that they work is if you keep taking them,” Scott Isaacs, an endocrinologist at the Grady Health System in Atlanta, told Market Watch. “And when people stop taking them, they have a lot of weight regain, and the medical problems that went away tend to come back.”

New research from the University of Oxford found that weight is projected to return to pretreatment levels within about 1.7 years after stopping medications. Improvements in cardio-metabolic markers—including blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes-related indicators—also trend back toward baseline within about 1.4 years after cessation.

It’s not a surprise that any medication for weight loss needs to be taken indefinitely, especially since personal responsibility takes a backseat. From personal experience, I take a cholesterol pill everyday, knowing full well that this might be a lifelong pill, and yes, it makes one eat a little less responsibly at times knowing that the pill will take care of my bad decision to eat a greasy burger with fries and soda, followed by some ice cream.

At least I know what to watch out for in terms of side effects, but anyone taking a medication for lifestyle improvements needs to realize wholeheartedly what they’re getting themselves into. Don’t just follow the fad and look at the positives, but look at the negatives as well.

Quranic rendering for the digital age.

Tarteel.ai:

A few decades ago, navigation meant paper maps stored in your glove compartment. When GPS devices and smartphones emerged, the obvious next step might have been to digitize those maps; to scan them, store them as images or PDFs, and allow users to pan and zoom.

Instead, modern navigation tools look nothing like paper maps. They automatically detect your location, incorporate live traffic data, provide contextual insights, and reroute you dynamically. You can travel from point A to point B without ever touching the device.

Now consider how we engage with the Quran digitally. We moved from physical mushafs to images of their pages on a screen, still flipping page by page. Some enhancements such as search and audio playback have been layered on, but fundamentally, the experience has barely progressed. We are still changing the medium, not rethinking the experience.

At Tarteel, we are reimagining how Muslims engage with the Quran from the ground up. Doing this well requires solving a problem that most digital products never face: rendering a sacred text with absolute textual fidelity, deep interactivity, and strict spatial consistency, all at once. This post explains why existing digital approaches fall short and how we built a new rendering system to overcome those constraints.

Very nerdy but cool process for bringing the Qur’an into the digital age with more functionality, while keeping spatial consistency. A must read for design and font enthusiasts.

The drug cascade that is becoming the norm in children.

From The Wall Street Journal (paywalled link; Apple News+link):

“The best scientific evidence suggests that it is very rare for two or more medications in kids to be helpful and there are concerns about safety, because there can be additive adverse effects of different types of medications,” said Dr. Javeed Sukhera, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and chair of psychiatry at the Institute of Living at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut.

A child on several medications at once often hasn’t had a comprehensive evaluation by a child psychiatrist, Sukhera said. Stimulants can cause side effects that can be mistaken for an additional disorder. “When a young person shows up with anxiety after starting a stimulant, that doesn’t mean that they have an anxiety disorder,” he said.

Many adults say that ADHD medications vastly improved their lives, and some scientific studies show that medicating reduces risk of other potential problems such as juvenile delinquency and subsequent mental-health disorders.

Still, side effects of the ADHD medications on young children can be severe and unpredictable, sometimes pushing parents to accept additional pills to address them.

All too often, under pressure from preschools and elementary schools, many parents seek help from pediatricians or psychiatric nurse practitioners—who frequently lack in-depth training in pediatric mental health—rather than wait months or even years for appointments with behavioral specialists or child psychiatrists.

Alexandra Perez, a clinical psychologist at Emory University School of Medicine who works with young children on Medicaid and private insurance, said she has seen children as young as 4 on multiple psychiatric medications. Many have experienced adversity or trauma and have behavioral problems as a result that get labeled as ADHD, said Perez, who practices Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), a method that has been proven to reduce behavioral difficulties associated with ADHD.

“Children are quickly diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed medication,” she said. “That doesn’t tackle the root causes. We are putting the Band-Aid of medication on, a temporary fix.”

So much more to unpack here, but the best form of therapy really is more time spent with parents who take an active role in being present with their children. This is especially true for mothers who have been tricked into thinking that parenting and being a stay-at-home mom isn’t worth anything, when Islamically and even from other religious perspectives, it is the most important and honorable act a woman can do - raising future generations of humanity.

Powerbeats Pro 2 can also integrate with the Fitness app and help you close your rings like AirPods Pro 3.

When Powerbeats Pro 2 were released back in February, you had to use a third party fitness app on iPhone in order to log your heart rate, calories, etc. Now with iOS 26, you can use Apple’s own Fitness app and track your heart rate with a workout.

The fine print in AirPods Pro 3 press release:

Heart rate sensing with AirPods Pro 3 and Powerbeats Pro 2 during workouts is available in the Fitness app on iPhone with iOS 26, iPad with iPadOS 26, and Apple TV with tvOS 26 when also paired with iPhone or Apple Watch. Apple Fitness+ requires a subscription.

The Powerbeats Pro 2 got a lot of flack from the fitness community due to its woes with accurate heart rate monitoring and lack of consistency in getting readings. It worked better on Android for God’s sake.

AirPods Pro 3 are a signature Apple product, and it needs to work well all the time in order for people to take its heart rate sensing capabilities seriously.

Red Apple Watch faces that are easy on the eyes when sleeping and maintain your visual acuity (in-depth guide).

For a simple watch face when going to sleep, you could use the Sleep Focus and get a minimal watch face, but the problem is you have to tap the screen to see the time, which defeats the purpose of an always-on watch, and maybe your just overpowered by sleep and moving your other arm feels like a real drag in the moment.

The next best option? Minimal red watch faces.

Having a minimal watch face is always the best choice when going to bed, since blue light can strain your eyes and disrupt your sleep. Depending on which Apple Watch you have, you can use different watch faces with a minimal appearance that won’t launch apps with accidental taps and sear your eyes.

There’s nothing more scary than checking the time at 2AM because you hear some sounds, and now you’re blinded by your watch face. The moment you gain some ability to see in the dark again, you see your child almost right up against your face letting you know they leaked themselves.

Now that makes two of you.

To avoid further leaks, use these watch faces.

Note: All these watch faces are red to the naked eye, maintain your night vision, and give off significantly less light than Apple’s Sleep Focus watch face.

Apple’s Sleep Focus watch face.

A quick tip before we get started - when you select the default red color, tap the red color circle and turn the digital crown to make the red as dark as possible.

All the colors above the dash mark can be edited this way.

Apple Watch Series 3

If you’re still stuck on the Series 3, you have two choices for an all red watch face:

Modular - The Series 3 stopped getting updates after watchOS 8, keeping the older Modular watch face. This has a special advantage since you can change the color of the time, something no longer available with the new Modular watch face. Simply disable all complications, choose red as your color option, and you have the most minimalist, least distractive watch face.

Since you can change the color of even the time, just get rid of all complications…

to get this minimalist watch face that’s easy on the eyes.

X-Large - The X-Large watch face in red is another solid option. You get one spot for a massive complication, still giving you time in big font on a single line. The Series 3 version of X-Large on watchOS 8.8 has a unique problem because none of the complications are static, meaning touching the massively sized complication will open its respective app. The Moon Phase complication for example is actually a static complication in later versions of watchOS, but in watchOS 8.8, it opens the World Clock app.

The only option is to turn off complications and keep the huge font.

The regular X-Large face is the way to go. As neat as the complication looks, it’s not ideal for sleep since the touch target is huge.

Apple Watch Series 4, Series 5, SE 1st generation

These three watches were updated to watchOS 10, giving them an advantage with the X-Large face, but taking away the Modular watch face as we knew it. The new Modular watch face becomes more modernized with an extra Date complication and rounder fonts, but now the time can only be had in white, disqualifying the watch face since a truly red watch face cannot be achieved.

Bummer.

The new Modular watch face has multiple colors, but the time is always white when the background color is turned off.

X-Large - The X-Large face gains more complications in watchOS 10, with the key feature being static complications. These static complications don’t interact to touch and don’t open any apps, making it impossible to get any white light exposure. You can choose from two different static complications that are all red in the Astronomy category:

1. Moon

2. Solar System

Depending on the Moon phase, you could get a brighter image, which is why I recommend the Solar System complication for the least intrusive look.

The Moon and Solar System widgets work as static complications, but Solar System is the better option since it’s almost invisible.

Apple Watch Series 6 thru Series 10, SE 2nd generation

X-Large - on watchOS 11 and later, you get three static complications:

1. Earth

2. Moon

3. Solar System

Earth can get bright if you’re a daytime napper in a blacked out room like myself, so once again, the best complication is Solar System.

Solar System wins every time, but Earth and Moon still give off way less light than the Sleep focus watch face.

Photos - the Photos watch face in watchOS 26 gives you the ability to put any photo as a wallpaper, and more importantly, you can select the color of the time, just like the old Modular watch face on the Series 3. Selecting the time color is not always an option depending on the photo but for our purposes it is.

Use the following process to get an all-black watch face:

1. Take an all-black photo (or just use this sample).

2. Select Create Watch Face.

3. Select the Photos Watch Face.

4. Select your preferred Time Size.

5. Pick your font.

6. Pick your Numerals.

7. For Style, pick Natural.

8. For Time Color, select the red time color and slide the gradient to dark red as described earlier in this article.

9. Turn off all complications.

Note: For whatever reason, you can only change the color of the time on the iPhone and not on the watch directly.

Take a look at how similar it is to the original Series 3 Modular:

Original Modular (left) vs new Photos (right).

Photos watch face with small, medium, large and X-large time sizes.

I will admit I do cheat a bit with the Photos watch face and add a complication on top. It is such a small touch target that I have never activated it by accident. The Top complication does make the time even smaller, making it closely resemble the original Modular watch face on the Series 3:

Original Modular (left) vs new Photos (right). That complication is Wind Speed if you’re wondering. And yes, it matters a lot to me.

Apple Watch Ultra and Ultra 2

These watches get watchOS 26, so they will benefit from the X-Large and Photos watch faces, but with two additional Ultra-exclusive watch faces - Modular Ultra and Wayfinder. Not only are these exclusive watch faces, they are also the only watch faces that support Night Mode, making everything turn red.

Modular Ultra - Simply remove all complications, and pick how you want your time to be displayed. Either select the red color or activate Night Mode to ON to have a big beautiful red clock (or small) with no distractions.

Wayfinder - Once again, remove all complications, and turn ON Night Mode to get an all-red analog watch face.

Wayfinder (left), Modular Ultra (right).

Source: MacRumors

Honorable mentions

There are a few other watch faces that get honorable mentions, but they don’t meet my strict criteria of solid red color with no active complications. They still shine too much light compared to the red watch faces I mentioned above, almost equivalent to Apple’s Nighttime watch face.

Numerals Duo - The top number in the darkest red isn’t a true red, shining white light at you.

Meridian - If you select the Fall 2021 (PRODUCT) RED color, you get a fully red dial, but the hour and minute hands are outlined in white.

Close, but no cigar.

Even the Digital Time complication is all red, making this one receiving the highest honorable mention.

Typograph - Similar to Meridian with the standard red color.

Will Apple gatekeep Night Mode to the Ultra lineup?

It’s hard to say what Apple will do with the Series 11, because if they open up Night Mode (which I am all for), it would change the whole dynamics of having the perfect bedtime watch face. Many more watch faces would qualify with an all red look, but we’re only a few weeks away from finding out.

How to disable headphone safety notifications on iPhone and Apple Watch.

Normally this isn’t good advice, but I had to get rid of these safety notifications for my sanity. My background noise sleep setup coupled with earplugs is my ultimate sound proofing system for working the graveyard shift, and there’s nothing worse than your speaker warning you about loud volumes along with your watch vibrating with the same notification during a deep sleep session.

These can be disabled only in certain regions, but thankfully the US is one of them. The settings are buried, but on iPhone:

1. Go to Settings.

2. Accessibility.

3. Audio & Visual.

4. Headphone Notifications.

5. Toggle OFF.

On Apple Watch (or your iPhone’s Watch app):

1. Go to Settings.

2. Accessibility.

3. Headphone Notifications.

4. Toggle OFF.

If you’re in a region that doesn’t allow you to toggle Headphone Notifications off, and you are in a similar situation where you need loud white noise and use ear plugs at the same time, you can try and re-categorize your Bluetooth speaker:

1. Go to Bluetooth.

2. Select your device’s settings by clicking on the blue “i” logo.

3. Click on Device Type.

4. Select Other.

I think this will work. Logic would say, since your devices are technically no longer connected to headphones, you shouldn’t get any Headphone Notifications, right?

I don’t know exactly what the “other” category does, but audio still plays through my Bluetooth speaker.

For my hardwired devices such as my Bose SoundDock XT, I was able to change the settings so the audio levels are not recorded under the Health app.

Toggling this feature OFF should not give you Headphone notifications.

If you have a lightning to headphone jack or USB-C to headphone jack adapter connected to an external speaker, you can change the settings to (hopefully) avoid getting headphone notifications:

1. Go to Settings.

2. Sound & Haptics.

3. Headphone Safety.

4. If you have an iPhone with a lightning port, you will see the words Lightning Adapters on the bottom. If you have a USB-C iPhone you will see the words USB-C Audio Accessories on the bottom.

5. Click your option, and toggle OFF Connected To Headphones.

Wired reviews the best hearing aids, and it’s no surprise which ones are the best dual-purpose hearing aid/Bluetooth earbuds.

It’s no surprise that the best hearing aids cost thousands of dollars, with the top rated one being the Jabra Enhance Select 300 at a whopping $1,700 a pair, which is cheap compared to the Edge AI RIC RT’s $4,000 asking price. The best budget hearing aid? The JLab Hear at $100 that also doubles as wireless earbuds.

The overall best hearing aid and Bluetooth earbuds combo? AirPods Pro 2 with USB-C. They’re always on sale for $169, making them an excellent value with a low barrier of entry.

Here is Wired’s take:

OTC hearing aids have been around for more than three years now, but it might be Apple that really kickstarts this market into gear, now that hearing aid features are available on its AirPods Pro 2 wireless earbuds (8/10, WIRED Recommends). A software update is all you need to turn your existing earbuds into hearing aids, giving them a second job of helping you hear better, even when you’re not streaming.

All the expected features common to OTC hearing aids are here and more, including the ability to upload an existing audiogram to tune them to your specific needs. The units quickly and effectively shift between hearing aid mode and streaming mode, and—unique to Apple—iOS now automatically applies your hearing aid settings to streaming media, which can make a difference to the clarity of dialog and other sounds. For the most part, they do the job as intended.

Mind you, AirPods Pro 2 aren’t perfect as hearing aids, and they may not be the best choice for everyone. There’s a lingering hiss and some audio artifacts that need to be ironed out, and the built-in hearing test feature needs some work. With just six hours of battery life (plus 24 more in the case), they aren’t a great solution for people who need uninterrupted hearing help all day long. But the big news is that, at $249, Apple is now producing some of the least expensive products in the category, a position in which it rarely finds itself. As a first step toward investigating a solution for hearing loss, the price alone makes them worth strong consideration, presuming that you have an iPhone.

Also, former MythBuster Adam Savage who personally uses AirPods Pro as hearing aids had this to say:

I think Apple turning the AirPod Pros into a substitute hearing aid is one of the best sub-features I've seen out of this consumer product in a long time. Having been a very public hearing aid wearer for 15 years, I have been sent a lot of people’s versions of earbud-hearing-aids and I’ll, I’m not naming any names but everything I have tried sucked. Everything I have tried had a very bad user experience in the calibration, in the testing, in the integration. These (the AirPods Pro 2) were really really just as advertised by Apple, straightforward, simple to understand, fast to execute, and awesome to use […]

If you have people in your life who need hearing aids, this might be a great gateway drug to hearing aids, given that it is a lot less expensive and it carries a lot less of the, stigma of hearing aids. One of the rhetorical flourishes I gave people a few years ago that a lot of folks have told me worked on people in their lives, is to explain that no one who ever got hearing aids thought to themselves, “well that was a bad idea.”

REEVUS water bottle is great for workouts

I was too lazy to go upstairs and try to find my iPad for working out, so I decided to just use my iPhone and prop it up with the MagSafe compatible lid on the REEVUS water bottle and get the job done. I knew I would get side tracked if I went upstairs so I just had to grind it out on the small screen.

Quick access to water without having to open a lid.

Cap stays clean + phone stays in place = happy runner.

The best water bottle for iPhone users.

Great landing page for the REEVUS Insulated Stainless Steel Bottle. Everything here makes sense and shows its capabilities well. I’ve been using this bottle for over two months now, and I have some points I would like to add for anyone who wants the perfect water bottle:

It really is very minimal with a cap, a bottle, and a Find My tracker. That’s it. Cleaning is simple and the wide mouth swallows even the biggest ice cubes with ease.

The diameter of the bottle is the same as the width of an iPhone 16 Pro Max. It is as tall as a 16 Pro Max and a pair of AirPods Pro vertically stacked on top of each other.

You see, the iPhone also has a measuring tool!

For car cup holders, it should fit most modern vehicles, but your mileage may vary. If your Pro Max device of choice fits your cupholder vertically, so should this bottle.

The landing page shows the phone on the MagSafe lid as a place for both creating and watching content, but it is also usable with the lid detached. This makes more sense since there’s nothing worse than having messy hands while watching content, only to realize you have to remove your phone, and open the lid to get a drink. Just remove the lid before eating, and now you can get your dose of YouTube (and your drink of choice) uninterrupted. The lid is on its side when watching content this way, so it won’t get dirty and contaminate your drink.

Watch content while keeping your lid clean.

The REEVUS tracker doesn’t have a replaceable battery, but it lasts 300 weeks (almost 6 years).

The MagSafe handle also works well for keeping your MagSafe compatible AirPods Pro 2 or AirPods 4 in a safe spot.

Comes with a spare magnetic ring that you can apply to your device or case, with neat little diagrams showing you exactly where to place the magnet depending on what phone you have.

The circular handle is just as sturdy as it was on day one which is assuring for long term durability.

Putting the tracker on and off the lid is my new fidget toy.

It’s taken some serious falls onto concrete but it only gives it more character and fits into that “journey” lifestyle.

Sure, it’s $90, but it is well worth it, especially since Journey is (seemingly) always running some sort of promo to give you 15-20% off. A much greater quality experience with useful features compared to those overhyped Stanleys.

If I were to buy this again, I would get the black bottle with the white and yellow cap. Just fun contrast with a hint of sunny side up eggs.

Background Sounds do not work on the HomePod mini.

Background Sounds are great for white noise, but they won’t play over a HomePod mini. If you want to use Apple’s built-in white noise to help you sleep or stay asleep, you would need to use another Bluetooth speaker or hardwired speaker.

I use the Bose SoundDock XT which is connected to my iPhone via an aux cable and USB-C to headphone jack adapter, and it simultaneously plays both YouTube and Background Sounds.

Same thing happens with my Anker Bluetooth speaker, where all sound is routed to the speaker.

If I turn off the Bluetooth speaker and select the HomePod mini as the source, the YouTube audio transfers over but the Background Sound stays on the iPhone. What’s even wackier is if I have my Anker Bluetooth speaker connected, I can play the YouTube video on the HomePod mini, and the Background Noise on the Anker speaker.

I know the HomePod mini uses both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth so it should be able to play both audio sources, but it seems Apple has prevented Background Sounds from playing on the HomePod mini, and I presume the regular HomePod as well.

Background Sounds in iOS are great for White Noise

I play YouTube videos as my background noise when going to sleep, but I found a way to prevent any hiccups in case the YouTube app crashes for whatever reason (which it does).

Ladies and Gentlemen, introducing Background Sounds.

This isn’t a new feature by any means, but it provides redundancy to my background noise should my main source of background noise (YouTube) stop working. Every once in a while, the app crashes, and there’s nothing worse than waking up earlier than expected.

With Background Sounds ON, I can still have white noise playing, keeping me sound asleep. The great thing is you have 8 different sounds to choose from, and you can control the volume of Apple’s background noises separately from your main source of volume.

Go to Settings > Accessibility > Audio & Visual > Background Sounds. From here, you can adjust the volume along with whether or not you want to stop Background Sounds when the iPhone is locked.

You can do this easily by adding a Control Center widget as well.