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55: Your Watch is Full

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:08   from relay FM this is upgrade episode 55 today's show is brought to you by smile

00:00:15   go to meeting and fan duel my name is Myke Hurley and I am joined by Mr Jason Snell

00:00:21   hi Myke welcome home oh thank you so much yes I am I am back in jolly old England now

00:00:28   When last I saw you, of course, we were in Portland, Oregon, and we recorded episode 54

00:00:32   across a table from one another, and now you're, you know, a week plus later and

00:00:38   you're back, you're back home and dealing with jet lag presumably, but that happens.

00:00:43   Yeah, I am very jet lagged. Today I am feeling a lot better than I have previous days,

00:00:50   but it has been an interesting couple of days, to say the least, as jet lag always is for me.

00:00:55   Always the third night is the one that is the worst and it was and I was awake until 6 a.m

00:01:00   That is how these things tend to go for me. I think you're right. I think I think that happens you get you get adapted

00:01:06   where you're going to sleep at the right time and then something happens and

00:01:11   Your body like rebels and tries to say no. No, wait. Wait, what about that other time zone and

00:01:16   Yeah, go trips to Portland are much easier for me than they are for you is what I'm saying. Yeah, I can imagine

00:01:23   Well, I mean, I think your trip to Portland took longer than my trip to Portland though

00:01:28   Well, I mean it depends on how you count are we are we talking about me leaving my laptop at home again?

00:01:34   Yes, I got to I got to come home and sleep in my own bed. I mean that was actually pretty nice

00:01:39   I just didn't take the trip that day

00:01:41   That was a cute

00:01:43   About the time I suppose an extra day. I suppose but the jet lag was just brutal with the I

00:01:51   I could have driven it in less time, but I decided to stay home and not do that.

00:01:57   There's a lot going on, Myke, this week. Lots, lots. We're in the crazy time.

00:02:02   I got a piece of feedback about Clockwise last week that was like, "Why do you talk about Apple so much?"

00:02:06   It's like, well, one, we're kind of Apple-focused people, and two, right now everything that is happening.

00:02:11   It's just like Apple wall-to-wall insanity.

00:02:14   So, which is great.

00:02:15   That is just the news in tech right now, is Apple news, for good or bad.

00:02:19   - They're killing it. I mean, this is when all of this stuff happens. And I don't know. I mean,

00:02:24   the XOXO thing was an extra complication in this, but like since... Yeah, I mean, I've been working

00:02:30   day and night and weekends and for, you know, whatever the last couple of weeks and probably

00:02:37   for the next couple of weeks too, because it is that busy. It is totally crazy time for all the

00:02:43   Apple stuff that's going on, which is great. I mean, it gives us lots of things to talk about.

00:02:47   So we're not spending August talking about what kind of colors we'd like, and what tree

00:02:52   we would be, and things like that that we probably would, because that's August for

00:02:56   you.

00:02:57   Yeah, this is August, September, October, like the end of August, and then September

00:03:04   into October is all Apple time, which is good because we have an Apple-focused show, so

00:03:11   it gives us some stuff to talk about.

00:03:12   It is good.

00:03:13   Although we're going to be going all the way up until November with the iPad Pro, so...

00:03:17   - I know, yeah, no, this is extending way out there too.

00:03:20   - Yep, I am very happy.

00:03:21   - At some point, not this episode, but at some point

00:03:24   I wanna talk about Amazon a little bit

00:03:25   'cause there's some fascinating,

00:03:27   there's six-pack of tablets. - Why don't we just start

00:03:29   with that before, let's eschew our format

00:03:32   and just tell me. - I'm not prepared.

00:03:34   I'm not prepared to talk about it.

00:03:35   I need to do more, 'cause I've been writing so much

00:03:38   about iOS 9 that I need to do some more reading on that

00:03:42   before I wanna talk about Amazon.

00:03:44   But Amazon, you know, did a crazy product release thing

00:03:46   and a six pack of tablets and they've got a new,

00:03:49   well they've got a new Fire TV and yeah,

00:03:53   there's, I mean, it's,

00:03:55   there's some interesting stuff going on there,

00:03:56   but we'll talk about them, I think maybe next week.

00:03:59   - The six pack thing is fascinating to me though.

00:04:02   - I love Amazon.

00:04:04   - It's a low price,

00:04:05   they've announced a bunch of different Fire tablets,

00:04:07   isn't they?

00:04:07   But this one is a lower priced tablet.

00:04:09   They announced some ones that had like a better specs

00:04:13   and color backs and they're like a few hundred dollars

00:04:15   whatever but they announced a low price $50 tablet with lower specs and you can

00:04:22   buy it in a six-pack.

00:04:24   [laughter]

00:04:27   Oh that's just hilarious.

00:04:28   But it's you buy five and you get one free and it comes in a six-pack.

00:04:33   But you think about it $50 each that's a stocking stuffer like you could

00:04:38   walk into Christmas with a six-pack of tablets and hand them out to all of your

00:04:42   cousins like that is a genius move this is whoever came up with this and was

00:04:49   able to pull this off they should get a raise because there is no doubt that

00:04:54   this these things aren't gonna sell well like that I mean whether they'll make

00:04:57   any money on it I mean they'll probably make money on the services right which

00:05:01   is why they're doing it I'm sure this is sold as close to cost as possible but I

00:05:07   just think that's a very very smart smart move six-packer tablets and even

00:05:10   comes in like a little six-pack holder thing made out of cardboard.

00:05:15   And then every tablet is like in an envelope basically.

00:05:18   It is the commodification of tablets.

00:05:20   I mean this is like Apple's trying to say tablets have value, tablets can do a lot of

00:05:25   things and Amazon is saying, "Hey tablets are cheap and you can watch videos on them

00:05:30   and play games and here they are."

00:05:32   And I think both of those approaches are valid.

00:05:34   It's interesting because you've got Apple and Amazon both at either end now.

00:05:37   is basically saying the tablet is a dumb screen to display our content and to

00:05:44   allow you to shop in our stores and yeah Apple is saying the tablet can be a

00:05:50   device for a professional and it can replace a computer and it seemed like

00:05:55   with the iPad Pro right they're pushing right far basically Apple have pushed as

00:05:59   far as you can go in one direction and Amazon have pushed as far as you can go

00:06:02   in the other and I think that's fascinating yeah and then they are the

00:06:06   new Fire TV, they've got a 4K model now for people who've got 4K TVs, which I have. I

00:06:11   don't know if I'm tempted to get this or not, but it's an interesting idea. And support

00:06:16   for a higher efficiency codec so that standard HD takes less bandwidth to download, which

00:06:23   is interesting. And then they also got the Alexa functionality in there. So you can do

00:06:26   your Amazon equivalent of Siri using the Fire TV to ask it questions and have it do things.

00:06:36   So interesting.

00:06:37   Yeah, Amazon.

00:06:38   >> Unfortunately, Dan Morin is not currently in the chat room, otherwise I would have added

00:06:41   Marshmallows to his shopping list.

00:06:43   >> Yeah, I know.

00:06:44   Next time.

00:06:45   >> He's not there.

00:06:46   Next time.

00:06:47   I'll get you next time, Morin.

00:06:48   >> I'm fascinated by the crazy stuff that Amazon does, so we should come back to that

00:06:52   at some point.

00:06:53   But yeah, so it's not just Apple making announcements, because everybody's gearing up for the holiday

00:06:56   season.

00:06:57   This is a huge, you know, it's not for people out there who are grumpy and don't like holidays

00:07:02   and think this is stupid, whether it's because they don't, you know, they think that it's

00:07:05   overhyped or whether they think it's the commercialization of the holidays. The fact is that so many

00:07:13   of these companies succeed or fail based on how they do in the holiday season. And if

00:07:17   you look at Apple's numbers, Apple is an incredibly seasonal company. They make a lot of money

00:07:23   every quarter, but the fourth quarter is by far the largest. And so, you know, this is

00:07:29   the time when all of these companies are dropping new products or putting together deals or

00:07:34   in the case of Apple adding colors and bands to the Apple Watch, that's all to get people,

00:07:39   you know, that's to prepare for the onslaught of the fourth quarter, which is starting in,

00:07:46   you know, a week and a half. We're already there.

00:07:50   >> Should we do some follow-up and out? >> Yeah, I think that's a great idea.

00:07:55   >> So we both have podcast projects. >> We do.

00:07:59   >> We would like to point people to-- >> Long gestating and coming to fruition this

00:08:03   week. Indeed. So the one that I am working on is a project with Dan and Tom of

00:08:09   Studio Neat who are the makers of the Glyph and the Cosmonaut and the Neat

00:08:12   Ice Kit. They've just announced today a new Kickstarter project called OB which

00:08:17   is a smart laser toy for pets. It's quite fascinating. I'll put a link in the show

00:08:22   notes to the Kickstarter page and Dan and Tom have been working with me for

00:08:27   about six months and they have been recording all of the conversations that

00:08:29   they've been having during this time while they've been developing the

00:08:33   product and designing the product and I have been talking with them too over

00:08:36   this time and we've been planning a new podcast series which is basically going

00:08:40   to be going through the development and design and manufacture of a Kickstarter

00:08:45   project and what it takes to do that. So you can find the first episode available

00:08:49   now which is talking about kind of where the idea for the product came from a

00:08:53   little bit and introducing kind of the show and its concept and then I have

00:08:58   been talking to them a lot today because obviously they launched their project

00:09:02   today and we've been recording a bunch and we're talking to them even throughout the

00:09:05   evening and late late into the night to kind of gauge their opinions and to so you can

00:09:11   as a listener get an idea as to how it feels to when you launch a product on Kickstarter

00:09:17   after all this work and already it's been a high emotion throughout the day so you can

00:09:23   tune in now and you'll get that episode next week so yeah it's called Thoroughly Considered

00:09:27   is the podcast, and I hope that you'll enjoy it. It's at relay.fm/tc.

00:09:32   If you've got that enjoyed, my Behind the App series, I think you're gonna like this.

00:09:37   I think it's interesting too from a, not to get too insider-y, but as we all talk about

00:09:42   ad blockers and things like that, which has happened over the last week, and where commercialism

00:09:48   falls, where money transactions happen and how they relate to content, how they relate

00:09:53   to things that you read and that you listen to and all of that, that they're really considered

00:09:56   is an interesting kind of integrated thing where it is the story. It's an interesting

00:10:01   story about how Studio Neat does what it does and their entire creative process. And so

00:10:07   people who are interested in creativity and making products will find it a really interesting

00:10:11   thing to listen to. At the same time, you know, they have a Kickstarter and it can,

00:10:17   you could view it as ancillary material to the Kickstarter and as a, as a, another venue

00:10:23   to promote Studio Neat and to promote this product. And that all kind of like works together

00:10:28   and you know, this is different from what we think of, is it advertising, is it editorial,

00:10:34   what is it? And the answer is it's something different and I think that's cool, I think

00:10:39   it's a cool experiment.

00:10:41   Yeah, it kind of is interesting because it sits in the middle, I think. So it's a project

00:10:46   that we've been working on, they're not paying me to do this, this isn't an advertisement

00:10:51   that they've paid for. We have direct support that we're doing for this show

00:10:56   which we've not done for any show. So on the Kickstarter page that you can

00:11:00   support the podcast. There's a $25 limit and a $5 limit and they will go to help

00:11:06   support the podcast which will allow us to do things like you know we want to

00:11:10   maybe we'll go traveling with the guys at certain points to record some of

00:11:14   their conversation to manufacturers and stuff. It's a very different type of

00:11:18   a show and I think that it's something worth checking out because I'm hoping that we're

00:11:24   doing something a little bit different with it that people might enjoy but it is interesting

00:11:28   because it does fit in a very interesting space that for us we haven't got anything

00:11:32   else that occupies.

00:11:33   Right, no it's very interesting.

00:11:36   I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes.

00:11:39   Yeah, yeah.

00:11:40   It's a cool idea.

00:11:41   What have you been working on?

00:11:43   Oh, well, other than the iOS 9 and watchOS and El Capitan and, you know, preparing for

00:11:50   the new iPhones and all that stuff, other than that, in the background, I'm working

00:11:57   on the incomparable radio theater, which is going to drop the episode one this week. And

00:12:03   that's going to be a, I believe, 12 week run of original radio drama slash comedy. It's

00:12:11   really meant to be funny it's not just we call it radio drama but it's you know it's

00:12:16   not it's somewhat dramatic and also somewhat comedic and that's been a project that has

00:12:21   been going on I don't even know how you you start measuring it we started recording in

00:12:27   like March so it's been a huge project and and this started with if people don't know

00:12:36   know, we did a couple episodes. In fact, I talked to you after one of them. We did a

00:12:41   couple episodes of The Incomparable that were completely off format and it was an old time

00:12:44   radio drama sort of thing and sort of parodying current pop culture stuff as well as like

00:12:50   old time classic radio from before the television age. And because it's podcast, it's audio,

00:12:57   you could do that sort of thing. And we did one for April Fool's Day a few years ago and

00:13:02   then we did another one at Christmas of I want to say 2013 and and so we've been planning

00:13:10   since actually since last year because we did a little promo on Christmas Day of 2014

00:13:16   saying that in 2015 we do a season of the radio theater so this has been going on for

00:13:20   almost a year now that we've been talking about this and recording and editing and David

00:13:25   Lohr has been writing these scripts and you know I've been collecting audio from various

00:13:31   people for cameos and we've been doing recording sessions and all of this and so many sound

00:13:36   effects I have to build all these crazy soundscapes but yeah so so later this week episode one

00:13:44   of the season will be available and people can subscribe now if you go to the incomparable.com/radio

00:13:50   there are some episodes already there that are sort of season zero there's we basically

00:13:55   took the two incomparable episodes that we did and chopped them up into almost like proof

00:14:01   of concept like this is what a season would sound like and that's season zero and then

00:14:05   there's a live show that we did at the Layers conference that Jesse Char put on next to

00:14:11   WWDC so that's in there but you can subscribe to that and then the episodes will start dropping

00:14:17   in beginning in the next day or two.

00:14:19   I'm so excited for this I absolutely fell in love with the first one and then

00:14:26   you've done two of them right on the Uncomfortable. They're both in there.

00:14:30   I remember I think it's the only podcast that I've ever listened to twice back to

00:14:37   back. When the first one dropped I was just I'd never heard anything like it

00:14:41   and I hope that people go and check out what's currently in the feed because

00:14:46   it's all great stuff and I'm very very excited for the first episode to drop later this week.

00:14:52   I'm glad. Yeah if people haven't heard that stuff before then there's a lot of material,

00:14:59   all that stuff that's in the feed now is that stuff. That's our complete output basically

00:15:03   up to now is the stuff that was in the feed. I didn't want to make people kind of chase

00:15:07   it down later so we put those in there. So primer.

00:15:10   Yeah exactly and then from here, you know, I think the plan is to do, like I said things

00:15:15   could change because it's not like every single episode is locked and done. It's not like

00:15:19   Netflix where we can drop them all at once but the plan is to release them weekly through

00:15:25   sometime in December so I think I think 12 episodes there may be a we may break for Thanksgiving

00:15:30   week but yeah so it's gonna in the end it will probably be about four hours of original

00:15:36   audio you know fiction so it's a lot so I hope people like it.

00:15:42   Oh, let's talk about the Six Colors redesign.

00:15:45   I think, yeah, speaking of things that I was doing this last week, in addition, because

00:15:51   I stupidly decided to have my long-term radio project and also the redesign of my website

00:15:59   drop in September as well, on top of all the Apple stuff.

00:16:03   No, it's the best time, it's the best time.

00:16:05   It's when people are paying attention, and for the radio drama I really wanted to be

00:16:10   out in 2015. I didn't want to delay it until--you could delay it forever, so we're going to

00:16:14   do it and get it out before the end of the year. And for Six Colors, it was a year on.

00:16:18   I mean, I was--before I even launched the site, I was thinking about how I would hire

00:16:24   a designer to actually give it a design, because the site design was by me, and it was sort

00:16:30   of aggressively not designed. It was as generic as I could possibly make it. And since the

00:16:37   spring I've been talking to Krista Murgen about designing it and she designed it over

00:16:42   the summer. And I wanted it to go up on the one year anniversary of Six Colors, which

00:16:47   was September 16th. And so that's what I did. On the 16th, as the OS 9 update was rolling

00:16:52   out, I pressed the button and pushed out the new version of the site, which is -- and then

00:16:58   spent the next -- Krista and I spent the next like four days debugging the CSS, because

00:17:03   there were little quirks here and there.

00:17:05   Some of which were because of how I implemented it

00:17:09   in my CMS, 'cause I did that part on the 15th and the 16th

00:17:14   and then some of it was just weird edge cases

00:17:17   that we hadn't really planned for.

00:17:19   So, but we did it.

00:17:21   So it's up and it's got some interesting features

00:17:26   like a hypnotic nav bar that I know that you like.

00:17:27   - I love that, thanks so much.

00:17:30   With all my heart, love that nav bar.

00:17:32   Because the first time where you look at it and you look away for a few minutes, you look

00:17:36   back and say, "Oh, the color's changed."

00:17:37   And you just look at it for a moment and you're like, "Are my eyes going weird?"

00:17:41   And then you realize that there is this beautiful transition between all of the six colors.

00:17:46   All the colors.

00:17:47   And it makes me very, very happy.

00:17:48   Yeah, yeah, that was something Krista invented.

00:17:51   I didn't even ask, and it's great.

00:17:53   And so, yeah, if you don't pay attention, what you'll notice is that the nav bar is

00:17:56   different colors.

00:17:57   And if you pay attention, you'll notice that very slowly it is cycling between the colors

00:18:02   as you watch.

00:18:03   So you can just stare at it if you really want to.

00:18:06   So that was a really nice thing that she did.

00:18:10   And you know, the nav bar changes and the fonts and stuff change because it's a responsive

00:18:13   site.

00:18:14   The old one was too, but this one's a little, does I think a little better job of adjusting

00:18:18   to phones and tablet sizes as well as desktop sizes.

00:18:24   And the other big thing that I wanted to do is that we post so many different things on

00:18:29   Six Colors. So I post posts, right, and Dan Morin posts these posts that are just, we

00:18:34   wrote a story and here it is. So that's pretty straightforward. But then we also have links

00:18:37   that are offsite links, and that's a different sort of beast where you're basically pointing

00:18:41   at something somewhere else and saying, "Hey, this is interesting. You should read it."

00:18:44   Or, "This is interesting, and here's what I think of it." But it's primarily a link.

00:18:48   The link is the currency there more than what we've written. And so I wanted those to be

00:18:53   differentiated and they were somewhat differentiated

00:18:55   in the old design, but it was pretty limited.

00:18:59   And I wanted that to be a lot clearer.

00:19:01   And then on top of that, we had some other post types

00:19:04   that were not represented by different design styles.

00:19:08   So like when I thank the sponsor,

00:19:09   I wanted that to be marked as this is the sponsor,

00:19:12   this is the sponsor.

00:19:14   When I'm linking to my own work

00:19:16   or Dan's linking to his own work somewhere else,

00:19:18   I felt like that was different.

00:19:19   That was more like, hey, you came here to read us

00:19:22   and here's a thing you can go read elsewhere

00:19:24   that's still us.

00:19:25   So I wanted that to be a little different

00:19:26   than some offsite link.

00:19:28   - That has my favorite of the iconography.

00:19:30   It has the shuffle logo.

00:19:32   - It's got the little shuffle logo

00:19:33   and it's an orange, right?

00:19:34   And then there's a podcast one for when I post podcasts,

00:19:38   which I did create a rudimentary one of those

00:19:41   on the old site a few months ago,

00:19:42   but now there's a podcast style too.

00:19:45   So when you look at six colors,

00:19:46   if it's a link to a podcast or an offsite link,

00:19:50   you can tell immediately that that's what it is.

00:19:52   and I think I like it better having the differentiations between the different types of content so it's

00:19:59   clearer about what you're seeing. I like it a lot. And Krista redid the logo type as well

00:20:07   because I just did that in Helvetica. You know, again, let's get a designer in to look

00:20:12   at this. Yeah, it's excellent throughout. I'm happy that it was done. I didn't have

00:20:18   any problems with the way six colors looked before but now I'm looking at it now I'm very

00:20:24   happy that you made these changes and Krista did a fantastic job really really did.

00:20:31   Yeah she did a great job and some credit to Jay at the Cotton Bureau the story there being

00:20:39   that we also have this 6C logo that appears in some places that is like a 6 and a C kind

00:20:45   superimposed with the Apple style rainbow on it. And six colors as a word

00:20:51   mark just is really wide and like is there something that fits in like a

00:20:54   social media icon and all that and that that directly quotes the Apple logo

00:20:59   because the C has the shape that's very much like the bite out of the Apple and

00:21:04   the six has the top that's very much like the leaf at the top of the Apple so

00:21:09   So it's a nice kind of reference to Apple, but also six colors, 6C.

00:21:15   Jay at the Cotton Bureau and I were talking about doing a six colors t-shirt, which is

00:21:18   very hard because doing a t-shirt with screen printing in six different colors is really

00:21:23   expensive.

00:21:24   So we were talking about other ways to do it, and at one point he said, "I don't normally

00:21:27   do this, but I had this idea for a logo and it was the 6C."

00:21:31   And at the time I was like, "I don't really want to make a t-shirt with a logo nobody's

00:21:34   seen?"

00:21:35   And say, "Hey, everybody buy this t-shirt with a logo that you've never seen because

00:21:37   it's new."

00:21:39   seems wrong to me. So we just agreed to put it aside and because of the expense and the

00:21:42   issues with getting a do you get a six colored t-shirt or do you get a t-shirt with a one

00:21:48   colored logo that's available in six colors what are you what are your options there we

00:21:52   decided to table it for a while but when I was working on the design with Krista I said

00:21:55   hey actually there's this thing that the Cotton Bureau did that you should check out and then

00:22:01   so she took that and then redrew it and that is also on the site and in the Twitter icon

00:22:07   and all of that is this rainbow 6C.

00:22:10   So that was a fun little design bonus that you see next to the full posts.

00:22:15   That's the logo.

00:22:16   There's a link next to the links and the shuffle icon and the podcast icon and then there's

00:22:20   this 6C.

00:22:21   I like it all.

00:22:23   Thank you.

00:22:24   That's very nice.

00:22:25   Should we take a break?

00:22:27   Good idea.

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00:23:41   app that saves you from having to overwork your fingers or your keyboard. You can effortlessly

00:23:47   expand custom keyboard shortcuts into frequently used text and pictures. TextExpander is so

00:23:52   powerful I feel that it is essential for any Mac owner. I love it so dearly.

00:23:57   Smile has been such a fantastic supporter of this show since the very beginning actually.

00:24:02   I believe that Smile sponsored one of our first episodes, if not our first one, and

00:24:06   they did it sight unseen.

00:24:08   They have been awesome to this show.

00:24:10   And you can go and help support them and get yourself a lovely discount by going to Smilesoftware.com/upgrade

00:24:18   You can use, or you can use the coupon code upgrade at checkout.

00:24:22   These discounts are only available directly from Smile and not from the Mac App Store.

00:24:26   This discount does not apply to any of their ebooks or upgrade purchases, just to new purchases

00:24:31   of these products.

00:24:32   And don't forget this offer is only available until October 15th, 2015.

00:24:37   Thank you so much to Smile for their continued support of this very show.

00:24:43   They've sponsored episode one and two.

00:24:46   Look at that.

00:24:47   Yeah.

00:24:48   How about that?

00:24:49   One year ago.

00:24:50   I actually remember now sending a message to Greg and I said to him, I think I said

00:24:54   to him something along the lines of "I can't tell you what this is"

00:24:58   Well, it was a secret, right? Because we had a, we hadn't announced that it was happening

00:25:04   and we hadn't announced the episode because the episode was going to drop when the iPhone

00:25:09   embargo dropped. Yep. But I said to him, "You will want this."

00:25:13   And he was like, I hope that he trusted me enough to do it. And that was why he did it.

00:25:19   I assume he did, otherwise why would he have done it? But I don't want to assume trust.

00:25:23   But yeah, we love Smile, they're absolutely fantastic.

00:25:25   They've just been great.

00:25:26   They've actually been really great for us since the beginning.

00:25:28   They helped us out a lot when we were starting out.

00:25:31   Yeah, go support them.

00:25:33   So I want to talk about iOS 9, watchOS 2 a little bit.

00:25:38   iOS 9 is now out officially as is watchOS 2, we'll get to that in a bit.

00:25:43   Before we do that Jason, I would like to just grumble a bit about some of my current iPhone

00:25:50   woes that I'm having.

00:25:53   Partly to just get it off my chest and partly because I want to see if there's anybody that

00:25:59   can help with the problems that I'm having.

00:26:03   Oh that's fun, just looking at it now.

00:26:06   I picked up my iPhone, downloaded the watchOS 2 update and now the download has to start

00:26:12   all over again for a reason that I can't quite understand.

00:26:16   This has been a fun one for Apple I think so that will start again.

00:26:20   These are my current iPhone woes.

00:26:22   My iCloud backup is not working, it just fails every single time.

00:26:29   I was on the beta, it didn't work during the beta period, I have upgraded to the GM and

00:26:34   I cannot get it to update.

00:26:36   Nothing seems to be working, I have deleted all the previous backups from iCloud, so there

00:26:44   are no previous backups on my phone, but it just keeps failing.

00:26:48   There seems to be nothing I can do.

00:26:49   I've had it in a charging dock for like four hours

00:26:54   with the auto lock turned off

00:26:58   in the hopes that it would help it,

00:27:00   but it just hangs and then eventually fails.

00:27:03   So no iCloud backup for me, which is great.

00:27:05   Personal hotspot is not working from my iPad to my iPhone.

00:27:09   So like I'm trying to tether on my iPad

00:27:13   to tether the connection from my phone.

00:27:15   - Are you running the release version of iOS 9?

00:27:17   - On both, yeah, both from the GM.

00:27:19   - Huh.

00:27:20   - And personal hotspot doesn't work anymore,

00:27:23   which is awesome.

00:27:24   And I'm also having a bunch of iCloud syncing issues

00:27:27   with some applications, they're just not syncing.

00:27:30   - I sense some sarcasm when you keep saying

00:27:32   things are awesome.

00:27:33   I think they're not actually awesome, Myke.

00:27:35   I think you're upset.

00:27:36   - I am a little upset.

00:27:38   I expect that a lot of this stuff is related

00:27:41   to having run the beta, but it's not working.

00:27:46   And I'm currently in the mode, I'm not kidding,

00:27:49   where I'm thinking to myself,

00:27:50   I hope my new phone will fix this.

00:27:53   Like, the only way I feel like I can fix this

00:27:56   is by getting a brand new iPhone,

00:27:57   which I was doing anyway,

00:27:58   but it's like I just don't know what to do.

00:28:00   I could burn it all down and start again,

00:28:03   but I really don't wanna do that.

00:28:06   So this is my current thinking.

00:28:08   I have just over a week.

00:28:12   Or is it, no, is it just five days, right,

00:28:13   or something like that?

00:28:14   Yeah, five days I have.

00:28:15   until I get my new iPhone. I can live with this I'm just backing up my phone

00:28:19   to iTunes on my Mac so that's fine. The tethering stuff again I'm not

00:28:26   planning any trips so I'm at home or I'm at an office or somewhere that has Wi-Fi

00:28:30   so I don't need it necessarily for my iPad so I'm thinking maybe getting a new

00:28:36   phone will fix this. Now I am planning to run my 6 plus S 6s plus 6 plus s what is

00:28:45   it 6s plus? 6s plus I'm planning to run that from a backup of my previous iPhone

00:28:52   which I'll be doing on my Mac and I'm hoping that the new phone will fix it I

00:28:58   don't know why it would but I also don't know why it's broken if it doesn't fix

00:29:03   it and there's no other option then I will have to restore and just start all

00:29:08   over again but I really don't want to do that I feel like I've been here before

00:29:13   I really don't want to do that. I like to just go from backup to backup because

00:29:18   setting up a new phone from scratch is a pain and I would prefer not to. So

00:29:24   that's kind of where I am right now. It's frustrating. It's a myriad of

00:29:27   frustrations that I have and they all seem to be centered around iCloud. So

00:29:31   maybe I could try stuff like completely signing out of iCloud on my phone but

00:29:36   that really is a thing you should avoid. We'll see but that's where I am. My main

00:29:42   issues right now seem to all be around iCloud stuff, personal hotspot thing.

00:29:46   Yeah, my gut feeling is that that signing out of iCloud everywhere and

00:29:52   signing back in would be the first thing to try. Yeah. You know, because there

00:29:59   may be something very strange going on there. I've had that happen where it

00:30:01   seems like I'm signed in and I can do things and I can't do other things. They

00:30:05   fail inexplicably and it's like parts of the phone have signed out of iCloud and

00:30:10   other parts have not, or Apple thinks parts of it are signed in and other parts aren't,

00:30:15   and it gets in this weird half-in, half-out state where the best thing to do is to just

00:30:21   sign out and then sign back in, and it goes, "Oh, welcome back," right? It's like, "Now

00:30:26   it's all synced up again." So that might be—because even the personal hotspot thing, I think the

00:30:31   granting permission for the personal hotspot may be based on that it's a known device that's

00:30:38   logged in with your Apple ID. Yeah. So they may all be related to not being in

00:30:43   the in like a synced up state. Also if you're running the GM you should update

00:30:49   to the final just because I don't know if it's the same build or not but I was

00:30:53   able to update my devices. Oh I did I said when I said GM I meant the final I'm on the final.

00:30:57   You're on the final final okay. I got them both via OTA so after

00:31:02   putting the GM on them. Before you burn it all to the ground consider logging

00:31:07   out of your Apple ID and just logging back in everywhere and see you know on

00:31:12   those even if it's just on your phone and your iPad and see if that solves it

00:31:15   because that might be it yeah the iPad is majorly fine it's just the

00:31:20   hotspot thing which I still think is something with the phone I think it's

00:31:23   the phone I think it's the phone's fault so that's the iPad is up is doing an

00:31:27   iCloud backup correctly yeah okay it's your phone's fault yeah there's

00:31:32   something going on with my phone. Myke's phone was wrong.

00:31:37   Myke's phone was wrong. I was still right about my decision. I recommend that you get rid of that phone and replace it.

00:31:43   Good idea! I'll get right on that. This week, if possible. By the end of the week I want that phone dead.

00:31:52   I'm currently getting an error here whilst trying to download watchOS 2.

00:31:57   another one cannot download there is not enough available storage download train

00:32:03   line which is an app you can free up storage by deleting apps or by changing

00:32:07   storage settings for photos and music in the Apple watch app oh you filled up

00:32:12   your Apple watch I think it's downloaded the update twice to it this is this is

00:32:17   going great this is just a absolute genius thing everywhere I'm really happy

00:32:23   that this is happening. Let's talk about the fact that Apple can't do software updates anymore.

00:32:30   We're in the second hour of "Myke gets frustrated with technology."

00:32:35   Apple are really struggling with software updates, aren't they? This is the second year

00:32:41   in a row where something catastrophic has happened. This time around it was...

00:32:47   WatchOS 2 got pulled at the very last minute. Yes, because there was, and I know

00:32:52   know this I heard I've heard through the through my sources I've heard through

00:32:56   the same sources that may be in the chat room right now for all I know that there

00:33:00   was a bug found where there were watch OS 2 apps that were failing to launch

00:33:04   and the the logs suggested that there was a fair play problem a DRM problem

00:33:09   that was related to I think encryption and that got passed back by the

00:33:14   developers to Apple and Apple went oh no and watch OS 2 didn't come out for

00:33:20   almost a week because they had to fix that. So they seem to have fixed it now.

00:33:25   But you know I think Apple is trying to be better at this. I think one of the

00:33:29   great things about iOS 9 is that the update sizes are so much smaller that

00:33:34   the space requirements for these updates are a lot less than it was. They

00:33:38   obviously are putting some effort into trying to make this all more efficient.

00:33:44   But it's hard on these, especially on these devices where they're trying to

00:33:47   make it seem magical and not, you know, not complicated.

00:33:51   It's just, oh, we'll just update, just attach it

00:33:53   and it'll all be fine.

00:33:56   But it's hard.

00:33:57   And I mean, I have a hard time criticizing Apple

00:34:00   for delaying the release of watchOS 2

00:34:02   because they found a bug.

00:34:03   I think it's great that they did that

00:34:05   because the alternative would have been to release it

00:34:07   on their self-imposed deadline

00:34:09   and have a bug that was a terrible bug.

00:34:12   It is unfortunate that that bug was only found

00:34:16   at the last moment, kind of by accident.

00:34:18   That is true. - That's the criticism.

00:34:20   Like you look at iOS 8 and HealthKit, right?

00:34:25   It was the same thing there.

00:34:26   - Right, and it shipped and it was broken.

00:34:28   - Yep, so then they had to pull apps.

00:34:30   So you end up in the same situation again with,

00:34:33   like I've had, I've been getting errors

00:34:35   all over the place this week

00:34:36   because I have a couple of apps that slip through

00:34:39   with watchOS 2 updates to them.

00:34:43   - Yeah, okay.

00:34:43   And you know I have blank spaces on my watch right now and it's the same with healthcare

00:34:47   apps.

00:34:48   Some healthcare apps got through and it was, everything was broken and some just got held

00:34:53   up.

00:34:54   So I'm sure there are some developers right now who would have had their iOS 9 update

00:34:58   out already but they've had to wait.

00:35:00   I think the Omni Group might be part of that.

00:35:03   That some developers basically just have to wait because they have watchOS 2 stuff in

00:35:07   there.

00:35:08   Yeah Omni Group just tweeted that they now with watchOS 2 out they can release their

00:35:11   app update.

00:35:12   because it was held back.

00:35:14   But this app that triggered this got approved,

00:35:18   that apparently triggered it,

00:35:22   got approved even though it was carrying

00:35:23   a watchOS 2 app with it.

00:35:25   I don't know.

00:35:26   Yeah, it's kind of a mess.

00:35:27   Updating this many devices and doing auto updates,

00:35:30   it is hard, but you're right.

00:35:32   Apple is not running as efficiently

00:35:36   and as smoothly as they should be.

00:35:39   There's still a lot of,

00:35:40   I think on the report card,

00:35:41   we're going to say needs more attention, needs more effort.

00:35:46   But they have come--I mean, I like that they're obviously trying to pay attention to this

00:35:51   and trying to improve it, even if there are still hiccups, because the fact--like I mentioned,

00:35:56   the iOS 9 update is--it requires so much less space, so you don't have these 16 gig iPhones

00:36:03   that need 5 gigs of storage free in order to install, which is what it was with iOS

00:36:08   8.

00:36:09   That's just ridiculous.

00:36:11   So that's better now.

00:36:12   It's like 1.3 gigs or something free that you need.

00:36:16   But the other thing they've done is they've done the deferred install.

00:36:18   Have you seen that?

00:36:19   That now it'll actually say, "Hey, I downloaded iOS 9.

00:36:22   Would you like me to install it now, ask you later, or just do it overnight?"

00:36:28   And if you've got your iPad or your iPhone plugged in overnight, you'll just wake up

00:36:31   in the morning and it will have updated rather than having you -- you have to be there and

00:36:36   then at that point you can't use your device.

00:36:38   So you need to be present and then you were wandering around without that device because it's too busy updating

00:36:42   So like those are good features. Those are both really nice features that show that somebody at Apple is is paying attention here

00:36:49   it's just there are other places where this is

00:36:51   Problematic still I mean it is it's it's not that it's not a hard job to do. It's just that

00:36:57   There you know your frustrations suggest that there's a little more that can be done perhaps

00:37:04   Well watch OS 2 just isn't installing now. Well Apple CDN is the thing that blows me away to their content delivery network downloaded

00:37:10   Apparently I've downloaded it, but now we're just sitting here

00:37:14   I've seen a lot of people who have had problems like long download weights and when when iOS 9 came out there were a lot

00:37:19   of errors basically

00:37:20   Like I can't reach the server because they seem to be swamped with requests and that one kind of baffles me

00:37:26   The fact that Apple comm went down when the pre-orders were happening. It just went down for a while

00:37:33   that's all that's all weird to me you'd think that they would have built for

00:37:42   that peak capacity I know I understand building for peak capacity is hard

00:37:46   because you very rarely hit the peak and you don't know where the peak is and 99

00:37:50   percent of the time you're not at the peak so it doesn't matter but still it's

00:37:54   it's it's still surprising let's talk about watch OS 2 let's do it so you've

00:38:01   been using it for a bit you've been using the beta right?

00:38:04   Couple months I finally decided I needed to start using it I put that off for a little

00:38:10   while when they first did the betas because I thought once I do this my watch is gonna

00:38:15   be potentially weird and buggy and but I needed to at some point I just said okay let's do

00:38:20   it and it's actually been a pretty good experience there have been occasional quirks but I've

00:38:27   had a good experience with it, especially the nightstand mode, I have to call that out,

00:38:32   I think that's actually a great feature, the idea that when you attach the phone to a charger

00:38:36   and you've got the nightstand mode setting turned on, I'm not sure if it's turned on

00:38:39   by default or not, but it basically displays the time and what your next alarm is, rotate

00:38:47   it 90 degrees, so you can basically lay your watch down on the side of it that has no buttons

00:38:53   and read the time because it's rotated 90 degrees and use the the crown and the button on the top as a

00:39:00   snooze and an off for the alarm in the morning and I actually unplugged my clock radio thing that I

00:39:08   had by my bedside and replaced it with my Apple Watch and I've been using that for the last month

00:39:14   and a half as my... Were you using the Apple Watch as an alarm before this? Oh no, no, no,

00:39:20   - No, I was absolutely not using it as an alarm before.

00:39:24   - Is it loud?

00:39:25   I've never used it.

00:39:28   - I wouldn't say it's loud.

00:39:29   I'd say that it is a pleasant sound.

00:39:34   If you're one of those people who needs a blaring alarm

00:39:36   in order to wake up in the morning,

00:39:38   maybe it won't work for you, but it works fine for me.

00:39:40   And actually one of the features

00:39:43   that I think is really clever,

00:39:44   so it doesn't stay lit all night

00:39:46   because that can be really annoying in a bedroom,

00:39:49   but it is listening, it is feeling for any slight jostle.

00:39:54   So even if I bump like the nightstand,

00:39:56   trying to reach for the watch to tap it,

00:40:00   or it'll come on and show me the time.

00:40:02   And I don't need to tap the screen.

00:40:04   Any kind of movement will light up the nightstand mode clock,

00:40:09   which is kind of nice, but otherwise it's off.

00:40:12   But in the morning, if you ever had that moment

00:40:13   where you think your alarm is probably about to go off,

00:40:17   but you're not sure what the time is.

00:40:19   And so you look to see, you know, is it 6 45?

00:40:21   No, it's 6 42, but it'll be going off in a minute.

00:40:25   They did a clever thing, which I think it's about five,

00:40:27   it's five or 10 minutes before the alarm goes off,

00:40:31   the screen does come on.

00:40:33   So it's like ready for you to look at it

00:40:36   and check to see if it's about to go off,

00:40:38   which I love that feature.

00:40:40   I think that's a really clever feature

00:40:41   that when it's close to going off,

00:40:43   it will start to come on and show you what the time is.

00:40:47   So I like that feature a lot.

00:40:50   I suppose it's not for everybody.

00:40:51   I've got the nightstand dock from Elevation,

00:40:56   which works with this mode because you kind of dock it.

00:41:00   It's a little silicone thing

00:41:03   that you stick the little charger puck in,

00:41:05   and then you can attach the watch to the front of it,

00:41:08   and it sort of lays there in essentially

00:41:10   the proper orientation for this.

00:41:12   And so I've been using that,

00:41:13   but you can also just lay it on its side on your,

00:41:17   on your bedside stand and it'll work that way too.

00:41:20   I like that feature.

00:41:21   It's fun.

00:41:22   - I don't know how often if ever I wake up

00:41:26   before my alarm goes off.

00:41:27   And I am definitely one of those people

00:41:30   that needs loud alarms.

00:41:32   - Well, see what it does.

00:41:34   Give it a try and see what it does for you.

00:41:37   I never, I've never used my iPhone

00:41:38   except when I'm traveling as an alarm clock.

00:41:41   I'm not one of those people.

00:41:42   certainly not the Apple Watch, but I have been using the Apple Watch in this context

00:41:45   and it's nice. It's nice. And then I put it on and go about my day.

00:41:50   Yeah, my iPhone is my only alarm clock. Interesting. Yeah, I had a little thing on

00:41:57   my nightstand that I took off and now I don't have it there anymore and my nightstand is

00:42:01   that much clearer. It's nice. And the little charger stays there, which is also good. I

00:42:07   I mean there are a bunch of other things in watchOS too.

00:42:11   So many of them are hard to talk about

00:42:13   because they really require third-party apps

00:42:15   that aren't out there yet.

00:42:17   Like the new standalone apps should be really good

00:42:20   and much more responsive than the kind of tethered weird apps

00:42:24   that we have now.

00:42:25   But I didn't really get to test any of them.

00:42:28   - Oh, okay, huh.

00:42:30   - And likewise, the third-party complications

00:42:32   I have not been able to test

00:42:34   but I'm really looking forward to those.

00:42:35   I just haven't seen them.

00:42:36   And there's some other stuff.

00:42:39   There's new watch faces, these like photo watch faces,

00:42:44   which are not really my bag, but for some people,

00:42:46   they're gonna be very excited about those.

00:42:49   But I think, yeah, I think the better third-party apps

00:42:54   and the complications that come along with it

00:42:57   are gonna be a huge thing.

00:42:59   And we're just gonna have to see how that goes

00:43:01   'cause we really need to see how well those apps perform

00:43:06   when they're running on the watch and it's just,

00:43:07   it's too early.

00:43:09   As we are talking, there are probably apps going live

00:43:12   on the store with updates that support this

00:43:14   and then more will come over the next few weeks.

00:43:16   And I think that'll make a big difference

00:43:18   into the usability of the Apple Watch.

00:43:20   'Cause the first generation Apple Watch apps are just,

00:43:23   you know, they're just not all there

00:43:24   and they didn't work very well.

00:43:26   And I'd almost rather they hadn't been there at all.

00:43:29   And I have high hopes that these new ones

00:43:32   will be a lot better.

00:43:33   And the complications thing,

00:43:35   I really want to see custom complications

00:43:37   'cause most of the complications Apple offers

00:43:39   don't really interest me,

00:43:40   but there are apps that I can imagine

00:43:42   providing complication data

00:43:45   that I would want to put on my watch face.

00:43:47   So I'm really hoping to see some of that.

00:43:49   I actually pinged Weather Underground today on Twitter

00:43:51   and said, "Are you guys gonna update your Apple Watch app

00:43:54   to do a complication with the weather

00:43:57   from your weather stations?

00:43:58   'Cause if they do that,

00:44:01   I can actually have my weather stations temperature

00:44:03   from my backyard on my watch at all times,

00:44:06   which I think would be kind of awesome.

00:44:08   And they replied and said,

00:44:10   they're gonna make an announcement

00:44:11   and it sounds like, yes, they are gonna do that.

00:44:13   And Major League Baseball undoubtedly will have an update

00:44:15   that I can put the like score the Giants game on my watch.

00:44:18   And that stuff is really cool.

00:44:19   And that stuff that Apple's never gonna do itself,

00:44:21   that the third parties are gonna be able to rush in there

00:44:24   and that should be great, but it's too early for that now.

00:44:28   - Outside of changing my calendar complication

00:44:33   to the fantastico complication if they make one

00:44:35   rather than the standard one.

00:44:37   I can't think of any custom complications that I want.

00:44:41   It doesn't mean I wouldn't use them.

00:44:43   Maybe I just haven't seen them yet,

00:44:45   but like I just can't think of any that I want.

00:44:48   - Well, I mean, so as a sports fan,

00:44:51   I say something like being able to put the current score

00:44:54   or when the next game is for my favorite baseball team

00:44:57   on there, I would do that.

00:45:00   Like I said, a better weather source,

00:45:03   in my case, weather underground,

00:45:05   that's something that I would consider

00:45:07   'cause Apple weather,

00:45:08   and part of this may be a watchOS one problem

00:45:12   where the data doesn't get updated,

00:45:14   but Apple's weather source isn't that accurate

00:45:16   for where I live, so I don't use that.

00:45:18   And there are others like a flight tracking app

00:45:20   that could actually at a glance show you the status

00:45:23   of your flight.

00:45:23   - Yeah, maybe I could see myself changing them

00:45:27   at certain periods of time.

00:45:29   Like when I'm on holiday or whatever, when I'm away, I change my watch.

00:45:35   So I usually have the activity rings on the top right, I have the New York time zone on

00:45:40   the top left, and I have the... because I use the simple face I think.

00:45:48   And I have my calendar on the bottom.

00:45:52   But when I go away I have weather on the bottom and I change the time zone to London.

00:45:58   it so I keep it quite quite sparse because the thing is like with the watch face that

00:46:03   I want to use there isn't one you know there's only like three complications or whatever

00:46:07   you can put on it.

00:46:08   Well I'm using utility which similarly there there's one big space and then there are a

00:46:13   couple little small spaces and most of the time right now I just have the date and the

00:46:17   day and the date and then I have the activity rings up in the corner which are colored now

00:46:21   which they weren't in watchOS 1.

00:46:22   I don't know how I feel about that.

00:46:26   I like it but I can understand that persnickety people might be persnickety about it.

00:46:30   To put this into context I change, so I can't remember what the, I think it's utility, whatever

00:46:35   the one is where you can change the color of the second hand only.

00:46:38   Yeah.

00:46:39   That's the face that I use.

00:46:40   Whatever one it is, simple utility I'm not sure.

00:46:42   I changed the color of, because I have like five sport bands, I changed the color of my

00:46:47   second hand to match the sport band.

00:46:50   Right.

00:46:51   Sure.

00:46:52   very specific is the word I'm looking for about the choices of the way that my

00:47:00   watch looks and now there's gonna be a bunch of color in there which I'm not

00:47:05   I'm not I'm not jazzed about that Jason I must say I've seen what it looks like

00:47:09   and I'm I probably have to live with it for a bit but I don't like the colored

00:47:15   activity rings I can see the utility of them because most of the time I can't

00:47:19   work out which one's which, right? By looking at the the complication but I

00:47:23   would still prefer to have it one color myself. That is something that I

00:47:28   prefer over the the utility that you get out of it. Do you have anything else

00:47:35   on watchOS 2? I might have more to say next week if I can ever get it to

00:47:39   install. We're on attempt three now, Jason. Well they have these animated

00:47:44   watch face that's actually a tie-in with the live photos thing

00:47:49   that's going to be in on the iPhone 6s and 6s plus. So I'm looking forward to trying

00:47:54   that out just as a as a thing but again you know I'm not sure photo watch faces are my

00:47:59   bag but I understand you know everybody has their own options and it's nice to have more

00:48:05   options I wish I wish watch OS 2 had more watch face functionality than it does the

00:48:15   ability to move things around, have maybe more watch faces that are heavy with information

00:48:22   like the modular face.

00:48:25   I would use modular, but they need to fix—or, not say fix—they need to give me the ability

00:48:30   to move where the clock is, because I think the clock should be in the middle.

00:48:34   I—yeah, we're together on this, and that seems to be a limitation of how they've

00:48:39   built the watch UI, the watch face UI, is that the clock goes where it goes.

00:48:45   And I think the answer there would be make a variant of modular where the clock is in

00:48:50   the center instead of sort of toward the top.

00:48:53   But they didn't do that.

00:48:54   So maybe sometime they'll do that.

00:48:57   The time travel feature, which we haven't talked about, I mean this is a watchOS2 feature

00:49:01   where you can roll the time forward or backward and see the data change.

00:49:07   So for my baseball example, I might be able to roll the time back and see what last night's

00:49:13   score was or something like that, or roll the weather forward and see a forecast for

00:49:18   what it's going to be like later in the day.

00:49:21   And Modular works really well with that because it's so information dense and you can have

00:49:24   lots of data on there and you can see it all.

00:49:28   And it'll be interesting to see again how that stuff gets adapted because on some of

00:49:32   these watch faces, the time travel feature is kind of pointless and actually kind of

00:49:36   gets in the way, you move the crown and you go, "Oh, no, no, no, I didn't want to do that."

00:49:42   But on some of the information dense screens, it can actually be potentially very interesting.

00:49:46   And again, it comes back to the third parties, I feel like, to support that timeline in a

00:49:51   way that makes sense. But yeah, checking on what your next calendar event is, I think

00:49:55   the prime example there is you roll forward until you see, you know, what's after this

00:49:59   meeting and you can roll forward and see, "Oh, then this next meeting happens," or, "Then

00:50:03   then I go to lunch or whatever.

00:50:05   - Just had an idea that I may set up a second watch face

00:50:09   with four different time zones on it

00:50:11   and use it as a time zone converter.

00:50:13   - Yeah, your podcast watch face thing.

00:50:18   I think that's a good watch tip in general

00:50:20   is set up different, even of the same face if you want,

00:50:23   set up different watch face settings

00:50:26   and you can have them all accessible.

00:50:28   And you have one when you're at work

00:50:29   and one when you're at home or one for the weekend

00:50:31   or when you go on a vacation or something like that

00:50:33   and that's, you can do that all with the Apple Watch,

00:50:37   which is nice.

00:50:38   - iOS 9, I don't have a ton more to say about iOS 9

00:50:44   than I have already, other than the fact

00:50:46   just to comment on apps on the iPad, I think.

00:50:49   'Cause that's the thing, 'cause apps on the iPhone,

00:50:53   not major additions really, I mean,

00:50:56   the kind of the universal search thing is interesting,

00:51:00   I can see that being useful if I remember to do it.

00:51:03   you know, like searching within apps and stuff like that,

00:51:06   you know, it could be good.

00:51:07   I have found that I am very much enjoying

00:51:13   split screen on the iPad.

00:51:15   My only thing about it now is I am desperate

00:51:20   for a few of the apps that I use frequently to be updated.

00:51:25   - Yeah, this was my whole summer, right, was,

00:51:28   oh, this could be so great if it wasn't only the Apple apps

00:51:31   that use these features.

00:51:33   - See I felt that way when beta testing it as well,

00:51:35   but it didn't feel, I didn't feel as desperate

00:51:38   than when I have some apps, right?

00:51:41   When it was none, it was like okay there's none,

00:51:43   but now there's some, it's like it makes it worse,

00:51:46   for the ones that you want aren't there.

00:51:48   So like for me, I need Google to update their stuff,

00:51:51   like all the Drive apps, and I really need Mailbox

00:51:55   to update, and I mean Tweetbot is just like whatever,

00:51:58   like that, you know, you're not even gonna get into that right now.

00:52:01   >>Twittorific works great in split screen and-- >>I've been using it in split screen,

00:52:06   but Twittorific has other fundamental problems.

00:52:09   >>I know.

00:52:10   >>We won't get into this now, this is a conversation for another day.

00:52:12   >>It says to you, Myke was wrong.

00:52:14   Yes.

00:52:15   Everybody loves Tweetbot, I'm just, I just, it doesn't work for me.

00:52:18   I don't, don't write, don't write me.

00:52:20   I'm aware of everything about Tweetbot, I just, it doesn't work for me.

00:52:23   That's not, it's about me.

00:52:24   It's not it, it's not Tweetbot, it's me.

00:52:26   That's what I'm saying.

00:52:27   It's good to know, Jason, that there is still not enough available storage to download Trainline

00:52:32   on my watch.

00:52:33   What is going on here?

00:52:35   What is Trainline?

00:52:36   Turn off Trainline.

00:52:37   It's an app.

00:52:38   It's already turned off because it's a watchOS2 app.

00:52:40   Oh.

00:52:41   So it's...

00:52:42   But I'm just getting...

00:52:43   It's "cannot download" box just pop up and then the watchOS2 thing won't install.

00:52:49   Maybe I'll try turning the watch off.

00:52:51   I feel like I just filled it up with attempts to update now.

00:52:54   the story is just full up with just updated temps.

00:52:57   Your watch is full.

00:53:00   Oh I'm just angry today.

00:53:01   I can tell.

00:53:02   I can tell you're very frustrated.

00:53:04   Yeah Apple are really upsetting me.

00:53:07   So I love the split view with the side by side apps on the iPad Air 2.

00:53:13   I do very much.

00:53:14   It's very nice.

00:53:15   I think Slide Over, although it felt in the demo when it was announced that this was like

00:53:20   the sort of sad feature for the iPads that couldn't do the full-on side-by-side, but

00:53:25   I think SlideOver maybe is better than Split View in a lot of cases because the question

00:53:34   is how often are you using two apps, and I wrote about this in six colors, we'll put

00:53:37   a link in the show notes, I wrote like 3500 words just about, I didn't write 40,000 words

00:53:41   like Federico, but I did write several thousand words about various features that I cared

00:53:46   about including the iPad productivity stuff. Split view you really need to be, I feel like,

00:53:53   committed to using two apps simultaneously. Like, it's because they're both narrow, they

00:53:58   both get squished when they're both on screen at the same time. So you really need to be

00:54:01   like I'm doing something that requires both of these apps to be here. And there are use

00:54:07   cases when that's true. But I feel like there are maybe just as many or more use cases where

00:54:12   what you really want is the app that you're using and then momentarily you want to use

00:54:17   another app and then you want to go back to the first app. And that's not the same as

00:54:21   feeding, you know, switching back and forth and back and forth between two apps. And SlideOver

00:54:29   is really good for that. So you're, you know, you're writing something and then you slide

00:54:33   out Twitterific or you slide out Slack and you see what's going on and then you slide

00:54:38   it away and then you keep working as opposed to like I'm writing a Microsoft Word over

00:54:43   here while I see Slack over here or for me the cocktail of productivity murder which

00:54:50   is half my screen is Twitter and half of it is Slack and I will never get anything done

00:54:56   at that point I will fall into a bottomless pit of time wasting as I read Twitter and

00:55:02   and I talk on Slack.

00:55:03   But so anyway, I think SlideOver

00:55:06   should not be disparaged.

00:55:09   I think that there are a lot of cases

00:55:10   where it's actually a nicer thing.

00:55:12   It's also a lot less intrusive

00:55:13   'cause what happens is if you switch apps,

00:55:15   you go to a different app that,

00:55:17   and you're in split view,

00:55:18   that app on the right side stays there.

00:55:20   It's not like they're kind of like paired.

00:55:22   So if you're saying, "Oh, I'm getting a lot of work done

00:55:25   "and I've got Word or Pages or whatever on the left side,

00:55:28   and I've got, I've got, I don't know,

00:55:31   Slack on the right side,

00:55:32   and then you go and you switch to some other app,

00:55:34   just something innocuous that is totally different,

00:55:37   switching to Safari to read something.

00:55:39   Well, that thing on the side just stays there,

00:55:41   and you're like, oh, you're still here?

00:55:43   And then you've got to like take your finger

00:55:44   and drag it away and go into the single app mode again.

00:55:47   And, you know, SlideOver doesn't do that.

00:55:50   It's only there when you want it.

00:55:51   So, yay, SlideOver.

00:55:55   Side-by-side is really nice.

00:55:56   And then picture-in-picture is the other thing

00:55:58   that's fantastic. I don't know if your apps... Hulu's been updated for it, Major League Baseball

00:56:02   got updated for it, Netflix, who knows what they're going to do, but it would be really

00:56:06   nice if Netflix would do it. And Apple's Videos app supports it already out of the box. And

00:56:11   FaceTime too, so you can actually be talking to somebody using FaceTime while you're looking

00:56:15   at an app without like the screen going black and being told that they've been paused. And

00:56:22   that's... those are all great, so you can sit there and do some work and have a little

00:56:25   video playing in the corner of the screen and that's awesome and you can actually have

00:56:28   that happening during a split view session so you can have video playing and two apps

00:56:33   running and that totally works.

00:56:36   YouTube.

00:56:37   Yeah, did they update YouTube?

00:56:40   No.

00:56:41   No they haven't done that, well they need to do that, that's on the list.

00:56:43   YouTube and Netflix need to get with the program.

00:56:47   I'm not convinced that they will do it, I mean because they already do their own version

00:56:51   of picture in picture within the app. I don't think they want you leaving the app and watching

00:56:55   the video. Yeah, they've got this custom, you know, custom player controls and stuff

00:57:00   too, so they may not be able to do it is the other thing, because you may have to use Apple's

00:57:04   streams. But the interesting thing is, Hulu did it. Hulu does it, and it works fine. Were

00:57:09   they using their own custom player before? I think so, because they have to insert their

00:57:13   commercials and stuff. So, we'll see. I mean, it's not like it's handing it off to the system.

00:57:21   app is still doing the video itself in the background. So I think if Hulu can do it,

00:57:25   Netflix could do it, and we'll see, and Amazon too. So we'll see what happens. But I think

00:57:30   Picture-in-Picture is a fantastic feature. Fantastic. I'm very excited about it. So I

00:57:38   want everything that does video in any form to support it because it's really nice to

00:57:42   be able to look at that video on your iPad while you're doing something else. And you

00:57:47   know, like with the FaceTime preview, you can pinch it to make it bigger or smaller,

00:57:50   you can move it to any corner of the screen.

00:57:53   You can even slide it off the edge

00:57:54   so that the audio is playing and you can see that it's there

00:57:56   but it's temporarily out of your way.

00:57:58   It's a really well implemented feature.

00:58:00   I'm very excited about it.

00:58:02   So that's my favorite stuff in iOS 9, honestly,

00:58:05   is the iPad stuff.

00:58:07   Although I do love low power mode.

00:58:09   Low power mode is great.

00:58:12   - Yeah, I've used that a bunch.

00:58:13   - I use that at XOXO.

00:58:14   It was a 20%.

00:58:16   It says, oh, you're at 20%,

00:58:18   do you wanna go into low power mode?

00:58:19   and it just stopped.

00:58:21   I think it maybe went to like 18%.

00:58:23   It was amazing.

00:58:24   In fact, what it suggested to me is that I've got some apps

00:58:26   that really need to not be given background authority

00:58:30   because they're draining my phone battery.

00:58:32   But I lost so much battery anxiety

00:58:35   once I went into low power mode and realized that,

00:58:38   it's like the extra gas tank in like a Volkswagen

00:58:42   where you run out of gas and then you pull this thing

00:58:45   and the secret reserve kicks in

00:58:46   and then you go for another five miles

00:58:48   until you can get to a gas station.

00:58:49   It's a little like that, that, you know,

00:58:51   when you get to 10% or 20%, you don't panic and think,

00:58:54   oh my God, I'm gonna run out of battery

00:58:56   and I need to call somebody later, how am I gonna do this?

00:58:59   You just put it in low power mode and it works fine.

00:59:02   It's not like it suddenly goes to black and white.

00:59:04   And I mean, it works fine.

00:59:07   It's just not doing a lot of stuff

00:59:08   in the background at that point.

00:59:10   - Just talking about YouTube,

00:59:12   I wanna give the upgrade listeners a great tip

00:59:15   that Federico gave to me on virtual.

00:59:17   I've put a link in the show notes to a third party YouTube app called YouPlayer and it

00:59:24   has picture in picture.

00:59:28   And it's a very good app, you can search for stuff but also if you copy a YouTube link

00:59:33   and open the app it's like "hey do you want to watch this video?"

00:59:35   It sees it on the clipboard and you can watch it picture in picture.

00:59:40   I don't really know how this app exists but it does.

00:59:44   But it does so...

00:59:45   Lots of interesting things happen.

00:59:47   Yep.

00:59:48   So there you go.

00:59:49   You can go and get that one if you want to.

00:59:50   And I will just keep sitting and waiting for mailbox and for Google Docs and Tweetbot.

00:59:56   Then I will be happy again.

00:59:57   Maybe.

00:59:58   And I'll also keep waiting for my Apple Watch to update and then I will be happy again.

01:00:04   I want to talk about something that might be upsetting you but I don't know yet.

01:00:08   But before we do that, let's take a moment to thank our friends over at GoToMeeting for

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01:02:17   week's episode. Jason I would like to know your thoughts on Apple news. So I'm

01:02:30   interested in your thoughts as a consumer and a publisher so I would just

01:02:36   like to have a quick addendum. Apple news is not available in the UK. There are

01:02:40   ways that you can make it available but I've decided to stop doing that. Like you

01:02:44   can change your region but I stopped doing that when Apple Pay came out

01:02:48   because I didn't want to screw with anything there. But it's currently not

01:02:52   available in the UK. There are reports and hints that it will be coming with

01:02:59   iOS 9.1 but currently it's not available outside of the US which I

01:03:04   don't fully understand why like I don't know if Apple is aware that the internet

01:03:12   is available across the world but it seems like not because it seems like

01:03:17   basically in 9.1 the reason that people think that it's gonna be in the UK is

01:03:21   that some UK publications are gonna be are in there like they're in there in

01:03:27   9.1 if you run in the beta but I don't fully understand why Apple think that

01:03:32   like wired and CNET like are they not international public? Anyway so I'm

01:03:38   interested what you think about using it and also what it's been like to try and

01:03:43   put your content into it. Apple news doesn't feel done to me it feels like a

01:03:51   beta it feel and I think I feel like I'm being generous I think I don't quite I

01:03:56   don't know I don't want to I don't want to come off as too harsh here but it

01:03:59   doesn't feel done. As a user, it seems kind of like a mess. I can't envision myself using

01:04:07   that as my source for news. It seems complicated and weird, and I don't understand some of

01:04:14   the ways it presents information. And because I have my own site, I can look at the content

01:04:19   from my own site and be baffled about what it's putting where and why, what images it's

01:04:25   showing. I'll have articles with good images attached to them and it will, those will be

01:04:30   like down on the page with only text and then I'll have articles with, that are just short

01:04:35   and have nothing in them and they'll use those with a thumbnail of the site logo which doesn't

01:04:39   make any sense to me. So I'm a little baffled by that. They have this Apple News, the documentation

01:04:45   is almost non-existent for what you feed as a publisher to Apple News so it's very hard

01:04:51   they've got my RSS feed and it's in there. There's this Apple News format for publishers

01:04:57   that on the day that they announced this, they had a sign up for, "Hey, you can sign

01:05:01   up and we'll let you know when we have that information. It's coming real soon." And,

01:05:06   you know, it still hasn't showed up for anybody who signed up for that. So they've got their

01:05:11   partners that they're working for or they're working with. I get the feeling that maybe

01:05:16   the partners are essentially beta testing this format and the reason that other people

01:05:19   don't have it is that it's gonna change and break and...

01:05:22   Can you explain what the difference is? Because your content's in there but you don't have

01:05:25   access to the tools.

01:05:27   Apple News format like Wired did that custom story that's got like some crazy art and stuff

01:05:32   on it about the architect of World Trade II in New York and that was an exclusive on Apple

01:05:40   News over the weekend and they're using a special format that is native to Apple News

01:05:47   that lets it do kind of fancy stuff.

01:05:50   Most of the other stuff in there

01:05:51   is just coming from an RSS feed.

01:05:54   So they're taking, you know,

01:05:55   six colors content in there.

01:05:56   I've given them the address of my RSS feed

01:06:00   and they suck that in and then display that in Apple News.

01:06:04   And that's what they do.

01:06:05   So there's these two tiers

01:06:10   and I'm happy to work on making my site

01:06:15   more friendly to Apple News, but Apple seems to not be ready for that yet. And I understand

01:06:22   that they're working on it, but it just it feels like they're still struggling to get

01:06:26   this locked down. And I've heard from people who know people who are involved in this that

01:06:33   that's true, that they're still, that it's kind of a mess and they're still working on

01:06:37   it and it's a work in progress. And I don't know, this strikes me as one of those apps

01:06:43   had to ship because OS 9 was shipping and they said it would ship with it but

01:06:47   it just doesn't it doesn't feel like it's it's all the way there yet and you

01:06:51   know hopefully we'll see updates that improve it but of course it's on the OS

01:06:55   install which means that I believe they can't update it except when there's an

01:07:00   OS update which is kind of bad I mean they can do things on the back end with

01:07:07   their servers but the app itself I don't know it's it's really good so give you

01:07:11   the tools though, right? Like the tools can come to you at any point.

01:07:15   Sure, unless they need to make app changes to support the format, but if they just are

01:07:19   changing the format or locking down the format and eventually they'll share it, that's fine.

01:07:23   I mean, I'm not too bent out of shape that I don't have access to that format other than

01:07:27   that I see my content and I'm like, "Is there something I can do to make this look better

01:07:31   and to make more sense in Apple News?" And I just, I don't know because I don't have

01:07:36   any of that information. As a user though, I mean, bottom line, as a user I'm baffled

01:07:41   by it. I don't think it makes a lot of sense. The keywords seem weird, setting favorites

01:07:50   seems weird. I mean, maybe if you're somebody who's just never used a Flipboard or a news

01:07:55   reading app or something like that, maybe there's a use case where you're just getting

01:07:59   basic stuff from it that it is a perfect fit for, but it just feels to me like it's, that

01:08:06   still figuring it out. And you know, that's fine. I think that's fine. But I wouldn't

01:08:14   say it feels like a finished concept. It feels to me like something that they're still trying

01:08:20   to figure out themselves and probably were struggling to get something that they could

01:08:24   ship and the version that's in 9.0. I mean, I can't, I only use it because I want to see

01:08:33   what Apple News is like so I can write about it

01:08:36   and I wanna see how my content is being displayed,

01:08:38   but it's not like I, I mean, I've opened it a few times

01:08:43   and just thought I would never open this app

01:08:45   were it not for the fact that as a publisher,

01:08:48   I should probably see what my stuff is looking like.

01:08:51   And as a person who writes about this,

01:08:53   I should stay informed about what's going on

01:08:55   with Apple News.

01:08:56   But as a regular user, I never look at it and think,

01:08:59   "Oh, this is great.

01:09:00   I had a great experience in Apple News."

01:09:02   That hasn't happened.

01:09:03   I can't fully understand why anyone will use this.

01:09:15   Well I think the idea is it's a super well first off the the Siri stuff integrates with

01:09:19   it so if you if you do a search or something and a news link appears now it opens in Apple

01:09:24   News I believe.

01:09:25   Yeah I turned that off.

01:09:27   So me and Grey were talking about this on Cortex and and there are some I mean it's

01:09:33   is some follow-up. There are some negatives to doing it. You lose some of

01:09:38   the search term stuff, like it doesn't do the Bing searches, it doesn't do sports

01:09:44   scores, like when you type that stuff into the search field is what we're finding

01:09:48   out. But both me and Gray have a pretty strict "I don't want to see the news"

01:09:52   policy and Apple kind of choosing to just put it in my face is kind of

01:09:58   frustrating and it's more frustrating that I can't just turn that part off.

01:10:04   Like there's a toggle for news but it doesn't actually do anything. You have to

01:10:09   turn off something called spotlight suggestions. So I'm happy that it's gone

01:10:14   and to be honest I don't think I care about the things that I'm losing. But in

01:10:19   regards to the Apple news I'm like I don't fully understand like why like

01:10:23   Facebook stuff, the instant article stuff, that I get because it's already in your

01:10:29   Facebook timeline anyway. It's just there and they're just making it

01:10:34   look nicer and load faster when you tap it. But I don't think I need another app

01:10:39   to check news in. And I'm wondering, the problem is, so if it's just

01:10:47   gonna take all of my favorite sites and just show me their RSS feeds, then

01:10:52   that sucks but then it's like these tours are gonna come out but I'm

01:10:56   wondering are you gonna want to format everything again and so then it's like

01:11:00   if nobody's gonna use it and then nobody's gonna format for it it just

01:11:04   ends up in this cycle where it's no one's ever gonna like I say no one but

01:11:07   like you know people that we know and the listeners of this show like are they

01:11:13   ever gonna use it I don't know I don't know I mean I would would I use Apple if

01:11:18   if people are using Apple news what I use the Apple news format to do a fan

01:11:22   fancy OS X review or a fancy iPhone review or something like that. Maybe. Maybe. You

01:11:27   know, day in, day out probably not, right? But for special stories maybe. You know, I

01:11:33   think the rationale is that normal people don't use a news reader. And so what if we

01:11:38   create a news reader for the rest of us? Just for normal people who are never going to download

01:11:42   a news reader of any kind in the App Store, maybe we'll do something for them. And it's

01:11:48   the typical thing where you think, "Oh, geez, here comes Apple. That's going to ruin it

01:11:51   for the third parties, but the fact is that Apple's implementation is never going to be

01:11:56   at the level of care of the third parties. And so there's always an opportunity around

01:12:00   the edges. This case, it feels like, you know, they're learning to crawl here. And that's

01:12:06   the thing, is if you look at every other app that's out there that does this sort of thing,

01:12:09   well, maybe not. There's probably some terrible apps there too, but I could think of several

01:12:14   apps that are out there now that do this so much better than Apple News. And yeah, it'll

01:12:18   get better over time unless Apple abandons it, it will hopefully get better over time.

01:12:23   But it is weird because there are other apps that do this and do it a lot better. And so

01:12:30   hopefully, you know, Apple's thinking that they're playing a long game here and the idea

01:12:34   is that they want to have news integration throughout and have this be a way for people

01:12:41   to read stuff that interests them. But it is weird, it is kind of outside Apple's comfort

01:12:45   its own and you know it's hard not to read it as being like Apple trying to

01:12:50   create a box for all editorial content on the web that doesn't require a web

01:12:56   browser and lives in a browser that they control and that they that everybody

01:12:59   monetizes with iad that you know while they're also doing content blocking on

01:13:04   Safari it is it is you know not that far to go to say that that's really what the

01:13:10   motivator here is, is not a grand conspiracy to drive people into news because content

01:13:18   blockers exist. I don't think that that's necessarily what's going on here. But I do

01:13:22   think that there is this feeling of like, we can create a better experience for reading

01:13:26   in our own app and then we'll let publishers make money by using iAd. And I'm not sure

01:13:32   that is a realistic scenario on any front.

01:13:38   Yeah, because publishers can still show their own ads, which aren't blocked by content blockers,

01:13:44   and they aren't using iAds, so it doesn't...

01:13:47   Whilst I understand the argument, it feels like Apple is still providing the same amount

01:13:51   of tools to provide the same terrible experience.

01:13:54   Yeah, it's weird.

01:13:56   It's a weird...

01:13:57   What it is, is it's a weird RSS reader.

01:13:58   It's a weird flipboard-like thing.

01:14:01   But it's from the platform vendor, which is why it's important.

01:14:04   But it's so weirdly built...

01:14:06   I don't know.

01:14:07   I really, I keep coming back to this.

01:14:10   It's just, I don't even know what to say about it

01:14:12   other than that, I feel like, you know,

01:14:14   to be charitable is to say it's a work in progress

01:14:16   and, you know, they need to keep on working on it.

01:14:20   But I didn't entirely understand it when it was announced

01:14:25   and seeing the final version of it,

01:14:27   I still don't think I understand why this was a good idea.

01:14:30   And yeah, I'm not ready to chalk it up

01:14:33   to being a complete mistake

01:14:34   that Apple should never have released it

01:14:37   because they may yet find ways to make it make more sense.

01:14:42   But right now, I just,

01:14:43   it seems like a weird potentially overreaching

01:14:47   kind of product that the world didn't really need it.

01:14:49   There wasn't really a crying demand for it from Apple

01:14:54   and yet Apple has decided to provide it.

01:14:56   So I'm not, you know, why, why do that?

01:14:59   It's weird.

01:15:00   - Sure, yeah, I think this is something

01:15:05   that I don't understand, I feel like it's probably

01:15:08   not for me, I'm not a big news reader guy anyway.

01:15:12   - Yeah.

01:15:12   - And maybe when the kinks are ironed out,

01:15:16   and like for example, you could publish a different version

01:15:20   of your iPhone review with fancy stuff,

01:15:23   it might make a bit more sense,

01:15:24   and then I might choose to read the articles

01:15:27   that I do read there, you know, maybe.

01:15:30   Like if you just say like, just click this link

01:15:32   and you'll get all of this stuff plus more,

01:15:34   I can see, okay, that might make sense

01:15:36   if it makes sense, right?

01:15:37   - It only really makes sense as a means to an end, right?

01:15:41   Like in Facebook, this is what you said,

01:15:42   in Facebook, I'm using Facebook

01:15:44   and then there's a link and I read it.

01:15:46   Or I'm doing, if you don't turn it off,

01:15:49   I'm doing a spotlight search

01:15:50   and an interesting article comes up and I tap and I read it.

01:15:54   That I can sort of see and that's why apps

01:15:57   that work that way make more sense.

01:16:00   But when it's like, hey, I'm gonna open news

01:16:03   and see what's going on, that's when I just don't see it.

01:16:07   - No, I don't get it.

01:16:08   If there was like, you know,

01:16:11   like with this deep linking stuff,

01:16:13   if there was a way to allow apps to,

01:16:15   I don't even, I'm not even sure what I'm thinking,

01:16:17   but some way that you could use,

01:16:20   like on Twitter you could select,

01:16:23   I would like to open these news stories in news

01:16:26   rather than in a web browser.

01:16:27   Like, you know, you can imagine, I don't know,

01:16:29   something like that with selected partners

01:16:31   that sign up for the service.

01:16:33   Or have a mobile safari look at a header URL in the page it's loading and discover that

01:16:39   there's a news version of it and say, "Would you like me to display the pretty news version

01:16:43   of this story?"

01:16:44   Then I would probably do that, right?

01:16:48   That makes sense to me and I think I would use it for that.

01:16:51   But as a news reader, it's basically impossible for Apple to build a news reader for people

01:16:59   that read news in a specific way because everybody has their own ways of wanting to read this

01:17:04   stuff.

01:17:06   And I feel like it's a real strange thing.

01:17:10   I can't fully get my head around why they're doing it.

01:17:15   Is it just because it's like a cold war with Facebook and Google?

01:17:19   Like is that what this is?

01:17:20   And if it is that, really?

01:17:24   That's not a user.

01:17:25   Well this is I think maybe why we're struggling to find out what the clear user benefit and

01:17:29   and the clear user demand is for this, is that there isn't one. And it really is about

01:17:34   everybody is trying to do something that is not on the web so that they can control the

01:17:40   content inside their own platforms. And that's certainly what Facebook is doing. And that's

01:17:47   sort of what Apple's thinking here. But that's a corporate strategy that I guess you could

01:17:53   get behind, but it's not a user-centric approach.

01:17:56   So like it doesn't even make sense to me like why Apple would try and fight it

01:18:01   like I get why Facebook would do it and I get my Google do it because it fits

01:18:04   within their wheelhouse because it's based around advertising like but I

01:18:08   don't get like the push for I add in all of this when I add has just gone down

01:18:14   the drain anyway like if you look at the ads that pop up there it does feel like

01:18:19   this is coming from the same kind of poisoned portion of Apple from which

01:18:26   the iAds strategy also emanates which is a broken weird part of part of Apple

01:18:34   that you know this this seems just as misguided in that way.

01:18:38   iAds ads advertise the same kind of shady and weird stuff that we complain

01:18:45   about in web ads they just do it in a constrained way in the bottom of the

01:18:49   screen but right like it's free to play games and stuff like that it's like I

01:18:54   I don't know. I'm angry today, Jason. Yeah, it's a grumpy Myke day.

01:18:59   Well, if there was ever anything to be grumpy about, I think Apple News would be

01:19:02   a good one because it, yeah, I don't, yeah, I'm not a big fan, gotta say it.

01:19:09   I was listening to ATP just before this and they had feedback that they were

01:19:14   being really grumpy in their previous episode and now I feel like I've just

01:19:18   done the same. I am happy to report that after a reboot of my watch, Watch

01:19:24   OS 2 is currently installing. Indeed, thank you everyone. I don't know... anyway, so

01:19:31   that's where we are with that. Grumpy mic. Let's do some Ask Upgrade, maybe that

01:19:35   will cheer me up. Jason, can you please talk to us about FanDuel? Alright, so Ask

01:19:39   Upgrade this week brought to you by FanDuel. If you are a human living in

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01:21:01   about the NFL.

01:21:03   I set up a league--

01:21:05   or I set up a team a couple of weeks ago,

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01:21:09   I think it's a fun intellectual challenge to figure out,

01:21:12   like, is that guy really worth that?

01:21:15   Do I wanna put all my eggs in one basket

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01:21:41   which I enjoyed. I finished in the middle of the pack. It was okay. I did okay. So here's

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01:22:18   That's the music. That's the theme song there. I liked it. During Fanduel

01:22:24   this week I saw that the Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple, with people

01:22:30   familiar with the matter, designates building an electric car as a

01:22:34   committed project and sets a target ship date for 2019. Yeah we will see Apple

01:22:40   we're all we're all getting Apple cars Myke whoo absolutely not me because you

01:22:47   know it might try to install an update whilst I'm driving and crash into the walls you

01:22:51   know who knows what will happen I'm being I'm I'm merely making jokes I don't have a

01:22:55   driving license yeah maybe I will by 2019 because I plan to learn to drive before I

01:23:02   have kids that's that's my thinking so good thinking good plan yeah I endorse

01:23:07   this plan good let's go to ask upgrade our first question is so it comes from

01:23:12   Jimmy why do podcasters use fancy mic setups but all these interview TV shows

01:23:17   get by on lav mics which are the lav lavalier mics or the little clip-on

01:23:21   microphones that you see like on somebody's tie or on somebody's shirt my

01:23:25   understanding of this stuff which I know very little is that they are way better

01:23:29   than you think they are.

01:23:30   And they are extremely expensive to get the good stuff.

01:23:34   You can buy a, you can buy, well, before Radio Shack went out of business, you could buy

01:23:37   a $30, $25 lav mic at Radio Shack that was battery powered and was okay.

01:23:42   But you can get, yes, very good, very expensive lav mics.

01:23:47   Also in a lot of those cases, they're in a studio environment, so they have complete

01:23:52   control over the audio in that environment.

01:23:56   Whereas a lot of podcasters are using microphones in echoey rooms of their house because they

01:24:00   aren't, you know, they can buy a better microphone more readily than they can build a studio

01:24:05   in their home.

01:24:07   But the stuff that you see on TV is, that's expensive stuff.

01:24:11   That's not the cheap stuff.

01:24:12   And the expensive stuff is really good.

01:24:14   So that's probably, you know, those lav mics are engineered very well and not cheap to

01:24:20   get that sound.

01:24:22   Bob would like to know, do you know of any way to keep an app out of multitasking on

01:24:27   the iPad? I have an iPad Air and don't want all of my apps in there, like tips for example.

01:24:32   I would say you're stuck, but if you rarely use an app it's going to stay at the back

01:24:37   and how likely are you to keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling? So I think Bob, don't

01:24:42   worry you won't see tips because it will stay right at the back of the queue and you just

01:24:46   never have to look at it.

01:24:47   I think that um, I think that interface is not going to hold up well.

01:24:51   No! No, no. The big icons with names that you have to scroll through to find an app

01:24:57   to put in split view or in slide over, it's not a very efficient interface. It's fine

01:25:04   when there are eight and less fine when there are eighty. But what I do really like about

01:25:09   that is if you have, for example, you have the Twitter app in the slide over view and

01:25:15   then you go back to the home screen and open another app, if it also supports multitasking,

01:25:19   It keeps the app that's in the mini view or on the right hand side, it keeps it in view.

01:25:29   Am I making sense?

01:25:31   So the app that you have on the right, if you go to the home screen and open another

01:25:34   app that also supports hyper multitasking, it keeps the app that was previously on the

01:25:39   right and just replaces the one on the left.

01:25:41   I think that is very smart and that is people using the device understanding how to make

01:25:46   it work.

01:25:47   this earlier while you were being frustrated by your Apple Watch I think.

01:25:50   Oh sorry. And my problem with it is that sometimes you don't want that and I

01:25:56   think that's one of the negative things about the split view is that you

01:26:00   switch to another app and you want a different context where you have the

01:26:03   whole app there and that doesn't stay you know the split view stays so there

01:26:07   are times when it's good and there are times when it's it's it's less good and

01:26:10   that's why I think slide over is potentially more interesting than

01:26:14   in split view just because the slide over kind of comes

01:26:17   and goes on demand, whereas the split view,

01:26:19   they're both in your face the whole time.

01:26:21   But it's, Apple has thought about how people

01:26:26   are gonna use it and now we'll find out

01:26:27   how people actually use it.

01:26:29   (laughs)

01:26:30   And then I think we'll learn a lot

01:26:31   and Apple will learn a lot

01:26:33   and then we'll see some tweaks to it, you know, next year.

01:26:36   - Next up on the list comes from Dean.

01:26:41   Will Jason share or does he even know

01:26:44   what I would ask, how many people visit six colors with a U versus the American spelling?

01:26:49   I don't measure it, there's a redirect that happens at the domain level and I have no

01:26:54   measurement on, I'm not intercepting the redirects and counting them. So my guess is nobody uses it

01:27:00   with a U because who would do that? Clint would like to know, why does Apple hate podcasts so

01:27:06   much? Specifically, why does the podcast that no longer support playlists or full screen videos?

01:27:12   So I am typically the first person to complain about the podcast app. I have

01:27:21   had an affair with it over time which has not been good, but actually in this

01:27:27   scenario there have been some big improvements to the podcast app in iOS 9

01:27:33   and Federico did a great job of summing those up in his review. I just think the

01:27:37   team that make this app are focusing in different areas rather than video

01:27:40   podcasts or playlists. They are making show notes and links a lot better and

01:27:46   they're supported a lot better and there's a much better view for those. The

01:27:49   unplayed list has been significantly cleaned up and enhanced. It has some good

01:27:53   stuff like it will show you it breaks things down into like time periods where

01:27:57   it's like you know in the last week or in the last month or in the last year

01:28:01   right so it shows you that which I think is really cool and also they have a new

01:28:06   mini player which looks like the music app. So when I look at this now I feel

01:28:10   like the podcast app is becoming the app for people that aren't obsessive. So like

01:28:16   when you think about it can you imagine how many Overcast users really need to

01:28:21   know if they've not listened to an episode of in the last year? Like but I

01:28:25   feel like for people that are not too heavy on this stuff that is more useful

01:28:29   in a way. Right like this was this is a show that was downloaded this month

01:28:34   because your list of shows is like four shows right not like 60 shows so yeah

01:28:42   it's it's a I think I think the writing is on the wall that most people who are

01:28:49   developing podcasting apps are viewing podcasting as very specifically audio

01:28:57   and like overcast doesn't even support video podcasts it's clear that Apple is

01:29:02   is not focused on video podcasts with this update.

01:29:06   And for people who watch video podcasts, that is frustrating.

01:29:10   Hopefully there are apps out there that still take care of you and that maybe you can use those apps.

01:29:15   But I think the general view in podcasting and Internet content creation circles

01:29:22   is that people are watching videos on YouTube and they're streaming videos

01:29:27   that downloading videos as podcasts is problematic.

01:29:31   It's harder to make money

01:29:33   if you're trying to make money off of them.

01:29:34   It's very expensive to pay for the bandwidth.

01:29:36   And so for publishers,

01:29:38   you know, a lot of them are using streaming services

01:29:40   to do this stuff.

01:29:41   And podcasts' great growth has been in the audio format.

01:29:44   So I feel like video podcasts

01:29:47   is a thing that is perfectly capable

01:29:49   and some people love it, but it's not as widely liked.

01:29:52   And when they're focusing on like, what is a podcast,

01:29:57   the video podcast tend not to be prioritized.

01:29:59   So yeah, I think Apple doesn't hate podcasts so much.

01:30:04   I think Apple is indifferent to video podcasts.

01:30:07   - So the next question comes in from Landon

01:30:12   and Landon would like to know,

01:30:13   "Do you think we'll see updated watch hardware in April

01:30:17   or in the fall to align closer to the iPhone's update cycle?"

01:30:21   - My gut feeling is that we won't see

01:30:24   and a new Apple Watch internals until at least next fall.

01:30:29   That's what I think.

01:30:32   I think when they're gonna get through this holiday season

01:30:37   I don't think they're gonna need a refresh

01:30:38   or even want to refresh before the next holiday season.

01:30:41   Assuming unless they like panic and feel like,

01:30:43   oh my God, we need to get new hardware out there

01:30:45   because this isn't going well

01:30:46   and we've got some great new hardware

01:30:48   that's gonna be great and people are gonna love it.

01:30:50   I think it's much more likely that they're gonna take it

01:30:53   slower, take a year and a half at least, but it's hard to imagine them getting

01:30:59   through another holiday season without some sort of a hardware refresh. So

01:31:03   that would be my guess. It's possible, I don't know about the odds, it's possible

01:31:08   that we'll get something in the spring, but I just think it's more likely that

01:31:11   that'll happen in the, you know, the late summer or in the fall just to get them

01:31:16   ready for the holidays, unless there's like a bandwidth issue where it's like

01:31:19   Literally, we need to start making these things

01:31:22   and announce it earlier because we can't do that

01:31:24   and the iPhone and the iPad and all of that.

01:31:26   But my guess is that everything that can be on a fall cycle

01:31:31   is on a fall cycle.

01:31:35   Also it's paired with the iPhone.

01:31:36   So being able to release it and the iPhone together

01:31:41   is I think where they want to be.

01:31:44   That's my guess.

01:31:45   What do you think?

01:31:48   I originally would have said April because I think there's too much in the fall.

01:31:52   And I know why they do everything in the fall.

01:31:55   I think eventually this is going to be a problem.

01:31:59   If they keep adding new products and keep only releasing them in September,

01:32:04   like that, I don't know that that seems like a really weird business,

01:32:09   but I guess it works for them because they make billions and billions and

01:32:13   billions of dollars every quarter.

01:32:14   But do you know what I mean?

01:32:15   It just feels like so much, right?

01:32:17   you're doing everything, you know, like they did everything in one event like a

01:32:21   week and a bit ago. I feel like if you had to add to add to add a new

01:32:27   watch hardware on top of that, like I feel like you are starving everyone for

01:32:34   attention and money by doing it all at the same time. But we'll see, we'll see if

01:32:38   it works for them. I would be, I would maybe be a bit more, I think it'd be more

01:32:45   likely that they would release in April and then do like what they did with the

01:32:51   iPad that time and then have a very very small update in the fall which then puts

01:32:57   them on a full release. Do you remember when they did that? They announced the original iPad

01:33:00   they were they would have they wanted to change the iPad schedule so did that was

01:33:05   it like the iPad 4 or the new iPad whatever they called it? It was one of

01:33:09   them was like basically just nobody bought it. It was the 4, well they did the 3 which was the

01:33:14   first retina one and then the next spring they did an update for it because

01:33:18   it was so underpowered.

01:33:20   Yep and they put the new connector on as well didn't they?

01:33:23   If I remember right?

01:33:25   You got it.

01:33:25   So I think they might do something like that. Maybe do the second one in April

01:33:29   and then maybe move it again either this that year or the year after.

01:33:34   That's my feeling.

01:33:37   Plus I don't know if there's a specific time that you want to be doing fashion products that aren't Christmas.

01:33:42   Yeah, it's true. Well, like I said, I think how they sell at the holidays is going to be an interesting indication.

01:33:49   Also, how many of these do they think they can sell and how often can they sell you a new one?

01:33:54   I think that's a real question. I think that...

01:33:58   This is... I'm probably wrong, but the contrarian in me wants to say I think the Apple Watch is going to be on a much slower hardware cycle,

01:34:08   because people aren't going to buy a new watch every couple of years.

01:34:12   So the refresh, like with the iPad, there's going to be a long lag, and that you're better off

01:34:17   making new, as we've seen, new body materials, new watch band materials, maybe even some new body

01:34:25   shapes without substantially upgraded features. And again, it wouldn't surprise me if they stealth

01:34:32   update the features where everything gets a little bit better, the battery life gets a little bit

01:34:35   better, but they don't tell anybody. It's just a slipstream kind of upgrade. It wouldn't surprise

01:34:41   me if they say well this this body is shaped differently it's got a little

01:34:44   different styling but it's essentially the same features inside that's

01:34:47   something I think they could do and and then when it comes time to do a second

01:34:52   Apple watch what features really make it stand out if it needs to be more than

01:34:58   just that sneaky slipstream upgrade what are you gonna do to make this that much

01:35:02   more impressive and what what features are those and are those ready yet and

01:35:06   are those gonna be ready I mean do you not bother doing another Apple watch

01:35:10   until you can put in a cellular radio? I don't know. But I think it's worth

01:35:16   asking that question like is this the kind of product that updates

01:35:20   incrementally and are those increments so small that it's almost like not even

01:35:26   worth discussing it? Or is this something that has a huge change every year or two

01:35:32   and can they sell those and will that will that drive sales and will that make

01:35:37   you know upset the people who bought the old one a year ago or not. I don't know

01:35:42   if I had if I had a bet I wouldn't bet a lot of money on it but I would bet that

01:35:46   Apple is going to either take it very slow or it's going to be sliding in like

01:35:50   little upgrades here and there and not doing the every year we'll do new Apple

01:35:54   watch with a new banner feature like an iPhone it just doesn't feel right to me

01:35:57   I don't think that's what they're gonna do.

01:36:00   Brian would like to know and and you mentioned it again today so now I'm

01:36:04   really intrigued that you're writing in Microsoft Word on the iPad and you had

01:36:11   really nice things to say about it could you discuss why you're doing this and

01:36:14   using it over some other applications? I was looking for a writing app that was

01:36:18   capable and Microsoft Word was available and so I used it and it was because I

01:36:23   have office 365 and running on iOS 9 at that point I had some betas of some

01:36:30   other apps that weren't working very well. I don't use pages, so Brian was

01:36:36   asking versus pages. I'll use it. I also like to try to use these things from

01:36:40   time to time just to see. I'm not a big fan of pages in any of its incarnations

01:36:44   so I haven't bothered with that. It was funny that I ended up in Microsoft Word

01:36:47   but you know it auto syncs to the cloud and then I can open it back on my

01:36:51   desktop and so I decided to go that route. I tried some text editor that was

01:36:56   saving to Dropbox and it ate some of my words and I was very unhappy with it and

01:37:00   I decided I would try a different app and I ended up in Word. You know I'm not

01:37:05   endorsing Word, I don't do all my writing in Microsoft Word on the iPad that

01:37:07   certainly doesn't happen but I did write that iOS 9 piece about multitasking on

01:37:13   the on the iPad in in primarily in Word with the Bluetooth keyboard.

01:37:18   Awesome. And Aaron wanted to know, I just like this one, for the love of all that is holy,

01:37:26   why isn't settings available in split-screen or slide-over? And there's a

01:37:31   bunch of Apple apps that aren't, which is surprising to me. But it's probably for the same

01:37:35   reason that there are still a bunch of apps on the 6 Plus that are Apple apps

01:37:39   that don't do landscape. I think, I think, yeah, part of it is that they didn't want

01:37:45   to do the work perhaps there's like too many other things to do and part of it

01:37:48   is philosophical maybe they're saying look productivity apps get get split

01:37:53   screen but you know why would you ever want to use settings and split screen

01:37:57   like you settings is meant to be entered you change your settings and you leave

01:38:00   it you don't keep it floating around now if you're somebody who changes your

01:38:03   settings all the time having settings and slide over actually kind of makes

01:38:06   sense to me but a split screen split view that seems weird to me but hey

01:38:13   "Hey, Aaron, if you want to do it for all that is holy..."

01:38:16   Yeah, that's my guess is that they didn't want to put the effort into it

01:38:22   because they had other things to work on and that they didn't consider it, you

01:38:26   know, a priority because it's not really a productivity app, the settings app, you

01:38:32   know, keep that... you keep it handy for when you need it but you're not like

01:38:35   flipping in and out of it all the time or at least theoretically you're not.

01:38:40   So as we draw this episode to a close, my Apple Watch is rebooting.

01:38:45   Yay!

01:38:46   It may have installed OS/2, it may not have, I don't know.

01:38:51   We'll guess I'll wait and see what happens when it comes back on again.

01:38:55   Yeah, exciting.

01:38:56   It's very exciting.

01:38:58   If you'd like to find show notes for this week's episode you can head on over to relay.fm/upgrades/55.

01:39:05   If you want to stay up to date with what Jason's doing online he is @jsnell on Twitter, J-S-I-L

01:39:10   and is over at the newly refreshed sixcolors.com and I am @imyke

01:39:18   I would really appreciate it if you checked out Thoroughly Considered

01:39:21   go to reada.fm/tc to do that and as we mentioned earlier don't forget to

01:39:25   keep an eye on The Incomparable this week for all of the lovely radio theatre drama

01:39:31   the radio theatre radio drama radio theatre theatre there you go

01:39:36   incomparable.com/radio. Oh, couldn't get better than that. Nice and easy to remember. Radio

01:39:42   on the internet, Jason. It is. It's the future. Thank you so much for listening. We'll be

01:39:47   back next time. And thanks again to our sponsors, Smile, Fanjul, and GoToMeeting. Say goodbye,

01:39:52   Jason. Goodbye, Episode 55, which is also a speed limit. Casey List, take note.

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