434: You Won't Believe This New Scam
00:00:00
◼
►
[MUSIC PLAYING]
00:00:08
◼
►
From Relay FM, this is "Connected," episode 434.
00:00:12
◼
►
Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace and FitBod.
00:00:15
◼
►
I'm one of your three co-hosts, Federico Vittucci,
00:00:19
◼
►
and it's my pleasure to introduce
00:00:20
◼
►
just one of the other two co-hosts, Mr. Stephen Hackett.
00:00:24
◼
►
Hello, Stephen.
00:00:25
◼
►
Hello, Federico.
00:00:26
◼
►
How are you?
00:00:27
◼
►
I am doing fantastic.
00:00:28
◼
►
but it's the two of us today.
00:00:31
◼
►
- It is, yeah, mic's off.
00:00:33
◼
►
This is the birthday week here at Connected.
00:00:36
◼
►
So mine is Saturday, his is Tuesday.
00:00:41
◼
►
I think he's doing like some pre-birthday stuff tonight.
00:00:44
◼
►
- Nice, very nice, very nice.
00:00:47
◼
►
Well, yeah, just us.
00:00:48
◼
►
We got, of course, kind of weird on the pre-show
00:00:53
◼
►
because I mean, we talked about like home renovation
00:00:56
◼
►
like type, you know, manual, real, you know, manual stuff for doing things around the house,
00:01:06
◼
►
obviously, which is new to me. It's a whole new thing to me, but it was good. So listen
00:01:11
◼
►
to the pre-show for that if you're a connected pro member. Otherwise, we can just jump straight
00:01:16
◼
►
into follow up and I see that we have some poems from people.
00:01:23
◼
►
We do. I made a comment on a previous show. Okay, you could leave this poem. So I've got
00:01:28
◼
►
a couple to read here. The first two are from Darren. Darren has been leaving us one every
00:01:33
◼
►
day, which is awesome, but I'm not reading all five of them. I'm just going to do the
00:01:38
◼
►
first two. So this is Darren. Haiku feedback form. New way to contact the boys. How can
00:01:45
◼
►
I refuse? Nice. Here's the second one from Darren. Haiku feedback time. How long till
00:01:51
◼
►
they regret asking us for this. Oh, I like this one better. This is the this is that
00:01:58
◼
►
time right here. Michael writes, love the new feedback. I was never on Twitter. This
00:02:04
◼
►
seems much better. Oh, it's even got the rhyme in there. Nice. Okay, very good. And then
00:02:10
◼
►
Mark said they're more of a limerick guy than a haiku person. So Mark wrote this. Myke Federico
00:02:18
◼
►
and Steven decided to keep coin flips even. Dice by Peacock worked well, much better than
00:02:24
◼
►
Snell, so that rule changed, they opted to leave in.
00:02:27
◼
►
Okay. That's good.
00:02:31
◼
►
This is very good. This is very good.
00:02:33
◼
►
So thank you everyone. If you do have feedback or follow up for the show, there is a link
00:02:38
◼
►
in the show notes and it's also on the website relay.fm/connected/feedback and we continue
00:02:45
◼
►
to improve that form so we've got some some new stuff coming to that here pretty soon.
00:02:49
◼
►
This feedback is for Myke who is not here but he mentioned on a previous episode about
00:02:56
◼
►
the you know the complications of like changing Apple ID addresses and I think even our friend
00:03:03
◼
►
One Two John said that he had something shipped to his old house like it seems like Apple
00:03:08
◼
►
keeps this in a different places but this is from Nick. Nick says that if you go to
00:03:13
◼
►
Apple ID dot Apple dot com. That's sort of the one true source of information
00:03:20
◼
►
about your Apple ID. So if you log in there and it's one of Apple's web pages
00:03:25
◼
►
that you can use like face ID or touch ID to log into if you're using Safari
00:03:28
◼
►
which is pretty cool. That is like the hub for your Apple ID. So you can change
00:03:34
◼
►
your address. I had to update my payment information actually just yesterday and
00:03:38
◼
►
this was in the show notes already. It's like, "Oh, I know where to go!" And you can also
00:03:43
◼
►
do things like see what devices are signed into your account and get app
00:03:49
◼
►
specific passwords. You know, some apps need those for iCloud, like a fantastic
00:03:52
◼
►
account needs it. And it's all there. If you haven't looked at your Apple ID page,
00:03:57
◼
►
there's a link in the show notes. I would say go check it out because it is really
00:04:01
◼
►
a very useful tool to see to see what's going on with your Apple ID.
00:04:07
◼
►
- All right, the one true Apple ID.
00:04:11
◼
►
- That's right, that's right.
00:04:12
◼
►
What's next?
00:04:13
◼
►
- Well, we have reviews of the new Macs
00:04:17
◼
►
that are launching.
00:04:20
◼
►
Are they available for pickup yet in Apple stores?
00:04:25
◼
►
So we have the new M2 Mac Mini and M2 Pro
00:04:30
◼
►
and M2 Macs MacBook Pros.
00:04:32
◼
►
We have reviews from those
00:04:33
◼
►
and I think the general consensus
00:04:36
◼
►
is that the MacBook Pros are speed bumps, unsurprisingly so,
00:04:41
◼
►
and the Mac Mini with the M2 Pro is a pretty big deal
00:04:46
◼
►
and it's a pretty lovely machine,
00:04:50
◼
►
especially with the price cut,
00:04:52
◼
►
much better performance than before
00:04:54
◼
►
in a tiny compact machine that sort of rivals,
00:05:00
◼
►
for some use cases, even the Mac Studio, I think,
00:05:03
◼
►
depending on your configuration.
00:05:06
◼
►
- And when I have links in the show notes
00:05:08
◼
►
to some of the reviews, obviously Jason Snell
00:05:11
◼
►
at Six Colors did two, both for the MacBook Pro
00:05:15
◼
►
and the M2 Mac Mini.
00:05:17
◼
►
- Yeah, Dan Morin did the Mac Mini one.
00:05:19
◼
►
- Dan did the Mac Mini one.
00:05:20
◼
►
- They're both great.
00:05:21
◼
►
I kind of feel bad for the Mac Mini,
00:05:23
◼
►
like it's kind of overshadowed a little bit
00:05:25
◼
►
by the notebooks, but the Mac Mini update's a big deal.
00:05:29
◼
►
- Yeah, yeah, I really think so.
00:05:30
◼
►
Like if I, I don't know, I keep thinking about it,
00:05:33
◼
►
just like it's a really lovely machine
00:05:35
◼
►
I cannot want to have it but I also know that I don't need it. So but if I were to buy a
00:05:41
◼
►
new one now that's like I would get it immediately but I have an M1 Mac minion it's fine for
00:05:46
◼
►
what I need to do. What I want to talk about is a couple of things. The first one is like
00:05:50
◼
►
this sort of new quote-unquote controversy that is happening with the MacBook Pro with
00:05:57
◼
►
the base model MacBook Pro and the speed of the SSD. So we're gonna link to an article
00:06:03
◼
►
9 to 5 Mac about how the 512 gigabit MacBook Pro with the M2 Pro has similarly to what
00:06:12
◼
►
happened with the M2 MacBook Air as a performance drop compared to the M1 Pro MacBook Pro, so
00:06:21
◼
►
the previous generation model, when it comes to read and write speeds for the SSD, which
00:06:28
◼
►
if my understanding of this is correct, is due to the fact that the new chip design is
00:06:34
◼
►
using a single NAND chip instead of multiple ones, and that while has resulted into higher
00:06:43
◼
►
capacities chips, using fewer of them, and please correct me if I'm getting this wrong,
00:06:51
◼
►
using fewer of them has resulted in slower speeds. I've seen some articles talk about
00:06:59
◼
►
this like, "Oh, the new Mac Pro is slower than before." But the thing that really pushed
00:07:05
◼
►
me into including this in the show notes this morning was I woke up to a WhatsApp message
00:07:11
◼
►
from a friend who's kind of into technology, but it's not the kind of person with a Mastodon
00:07:20
◼
►
account. You know, he's a video editor as a Windows PC, but he's keeping an eye on what
00:07:27
◼
►
Apple is doing with Apple Silicon. Another kind of person who uses, again, Twitter, Mastodon
00:07:32
◼
►
or RSS. And he sends me a TikTok video of an Italian, I guess, influencer. And the title
00:07:43
◼
►
of the video, and I'm translating, the title of the video was "You will not believe this
00:07:47
◼
►
new scam from Apple. Oh boy. And the video was about like how, yeah, it was that sort
00:07:53
◼
►
of like, oh, you will not believe what Apple is doing now. They have a new scam. Like that
00:07:57
◼
►
sort of, you know, sort of click baity style. And I watched the video and the video was
00:08:04
◼
►
about this. Like it was about the write and read speeds of the SSD. But to make it like
00:08:11
◼
►
in that TikTok video, like already like multiple thousands of views to reach my friend and
00:08:16
◼
►
and for my friend to send me this video,
00:08:18
◼
►
be like, "Hey, is this true?"
00:08:19
◼
►
And try and make this into a new Apple gate or whatever.
00:08:25
◼
►
I wanted to know what do you think about this, Steven?
00:08:30
◼
►
- I mean, on the technical side,
00:08:32
◼
►
it is a bummer that these SSD speeds are slower.
00:08:37
◼
►
- That was my reply.
00:08:38
◼
►
Like on the technical side, yes, it's a bummer.
00:08:40
◼
►
- Yeah, is it something that is a showstopper
00:08:45
◼
►
to buy one of these machines?
00:08:46
◼
►
I don't think so.
00:08:47
◼
►
I mean, the performance is still good.
00:08:49
◼
►
It's just not as good as the bigger ones.
00:08:52
◼
►
I wish Apple had done something differently
00:08:55
◼
►
'cause it's about, like you said,
00:08:56
◼
►
it's the number of NAND chips and the way, you know,
00:08:59
◼
►
they're using larger capacity but fewer individual parts.
00:09:02
◼
►
And I wish Apple was either much more clear
00:09:05
◼
►
about the differences here
00:09:07
◼
►
or they would just do it differently
00:09:09
◼
►
where they wouldn't run into this problem.
00:09:11
◼
►
Is it a scam?
00:09:14
◼
►
Is it, you know, the new gate around these devices?
00:09:18
◼
►
No, I don't think so.
00:09:20
◼
►
If you're looking to buy one of these machines
00:09:21
◼
►
and disk performance is really important to you,
00:09:23
◼
►
yeah, you should know about it.
00:09:25
◼
►
And it could maybe bump you up a tier
00:09:28
◼
►
if that's like in your hierarchy
00:09:29
◼
►
of what you're buying computer for, if it's a big deal.
00:09:32
◼
►
Most people, I really don't think it is.
00:09:37
◼
►
It's a bummer, but it's not a showstopper.
00:09:39
◼
►
That's kind of where I come down.
00:09:41
◼
►
- You also published an article
00:09:43
◼
►
about these new chips from these computers on 512.
00:09:47
◼
►
The title of the story is,
00:09:49
◼
►
"It was always going to be this way."
00:09:51
◼
►
And you referred to this article on Macworld,
00:09:55
◼
►
I believe, by David Price?
00:10:00
◼
►
- So they wrote a column on Macworld about like,
00:10:03
◼
►
basically the gist of the story is,
00:10:05
◼
►
Apple Silicon is now boring
00:10:08
◼
►
because we're not seeing these huge performance jumps
00:10:11
◼
►
that they promised, you know, with the first generation chip anymore, and the Mac Pro is
00:10:16
◼
►
still not here, and the fact that it's still not here somehow won't be a good deal for
00:10:22
◼
►
people when it eventually comes. And you really went for it, my friend here, quoting like
00:10:30
◼
►
every single paragraph of this story and bringing some really fascinating counter arguments.
00:10:37
◼
►
I saved some highlights that I want to mention.
00:10:41
◼
►
You said, "I agree that Apple comparing the new M2 Mac Mini to the old Intel is playing
00:10:47
◼
►
to the strengths of the transition, but most people aren't going to be upgrading from an
00:10:52
◼
►
M1 Mac Mini to an M2 model."
00:10:54
◼
►
Hey, that's me.
00:10:55
◼
►
"So I'm willing to forgive it."
00:10:57
◼
►
So this one refers to the fact that Apple is comparing the M2.
00:11:01
◼
►
Instead of comparing that chip to the M1, they're using some Intel Core i7 from a couple
00:11:08
◼
►
of years ago.
00:11:10
◼
►
And I follow some gaming websites, a bunch of people were making fun of Apple for doing
00:11:17
◼
►
this, like "Hey, Apple is comparing the M2 to an old i7 from like two years ago or something."
00:11:22
◼
►
But in the context of the transition, as you mentioned, it doesn't affect people who bought
00:11:31
◼
►
an M1 Mac Mini likely because they're not getting to an M2 anyway.
00:11:34
◼
►
Yeah, yeah, my biggest piece with this article and the reason I sort of deconstructed it
00:11:41
◼
►
was we talked about it on the show even like this is how transitions work.
00:11:46
◼
►
You get a really, really big jump the first time you do it.
00:11:51
◼
►
I have a screenshot in the article from Apple's old like, "Why are we switching to Intel
00:11:56
◼
►
It's like, "Oh, this computer is four to five times faster than the previous one, right?"
00:12:00
◼
►
The second and third, you know, Intel iMacs, the second and third MacBook Pros ever were
00:12:05
◼
►
not 40 times faster than the previous ones.
00:12:08
◼
►
It is always this way because you get that big jump because that's the reason you made
00:12:12
◼
►
the transition in the first place.
00:12:15
◼
►
And, and I think Apple at this point in the game, I think it's totally fair to compare
00:12:21
◼
►
the M2 to an Intel machine because most people are not going to upgrade from an M1.
00:12:27
◼
►
Now, if we're in 2026, and they're comparing the M4 or the M5 to Intel, okay, I call foul
00:12:37
◼
►
Like, then you need to pick something a bit more relevant to people.
00:12:41
◼
►
But the truth is, right now, most Macs out there probably are Intel machines still.
00:12:46
◼
►
And so they need to contextualize these announcements for people who are using an Intel Mac at their
00:12:51
◼
►
at their desk or in their notebook or whatever.
00:12:54
◼
►
So yeah, this Mac Word article gave me an opportunity to talk a lot about what I've
00:12:59
◼
►
been thinking about the transition.
00:13:01
◼
►
Again a lot of that we've talked about here as a group over the last 18 months or whatever.
00:13:06
◼
►
But just because this is a "spec bump" like it doesn't mean these aren't great machines.
00:13:12
◼
►
It doesn't mean that if you need a new computer now's a great time to do it.
00:13:17
◼
►
Like if you're hanging on to an Intel MacBook Pro and you've been budgeting or you're kind
00:13:20
◼
►
of ready to make a purchase, now's a great time to do it.
00:13:23
◼
►
These machines really look, really look impressive.
00:13:27
◼
►
At this point in the transition, it was always going to be a spec
00:13:30
◼
►
bump, and that's totally fine.
00:13:32
◼
►
It's a great upgrade.
00:13:33
◼
►
And if you have an M1, you're totally fine.
00:13:36
◼
►
You don't have to worry about this time.
00:13:38
◼
►
What's harder to forgive, and I'm quoting you again, is the obsession
00:13:44
◼
►
over process size that has taken over so much tech reporting.
00:13:49
◼
►
So you're referring to the fact that these chips are not built with a 3 nanometer process.
00:13:58
◼
►
Why do you think the tech reporters are obsessing over this?
00:14:03
◼
►
I think partially it's Intel's fault because Intel's been stuck on larger size processes
00:14:11
◼
►
for a while now and that's kind of been their whole problem.
00:14:14
◼
►
And one reason like the 2016, 17, 18 MacBook Pros were hot, there's a lot of conjecture
00:14:19
◼
►
that they were designed with a more efficient, cooler running chip in mind and Intel was
00:14:25
◼
►
unable to deliver it.
00:14:27
◼
►
There's a lots of asterisks and like hand-waving we have to do when we talk about process size.
00:14:32
◼
►
What TSMC calls 5 nanometer and what Intel may call 5 nanometer and what someone else
00:14:38
◼
►
may call 5 nanometer don't necessarily mean the same things.
00:14:43
◼
►
There are different ways of doing this and a lot of senses it's more marketing than anything
00:14:47
◼
►
else you know in some cases.
00:14:50
◼
►
I think because Apple's pushed it you know over the last couple of years I think in contrast
00:14:56
◼
►
to Intel I think if Intel wasn't in trouble with their process nodes then Apple wouldn't
00:15:02
◼
►
be like talking about oh the a17 is on this or that.
00:15:06
◼
►
Three nanometers gonna be great when we get it.
00:15:08
◼
►
I mean if it continues to follow kind of the plots, you know laid out previously
00:15:14
◼
►
it's gonna bring
00:15:16
◼
►
hopefully a big bump in efficiency and
00:15:19
◼
►
power while remaining cool and you know
00:15:22
◼
►
You stick it in a computer without a fan but just because the m2 still say it stays on the 5 nanometer process
00:15:30
◼
►
Doesn't mean the m2 is a failure by by any means I mean
00:15:35
◼
►
That was one thing I was a little bit worried about so I was glad to see in the reviews that oh
00:15:39
◼
►
It's they're just like the M once you can't get the fan to go unless you really punish it like in a way that is
00:15:46
◼
►
Not typical out in the real world. And so it's not the case that these machines are
00:15:52
◼
►
Struggling because you know Apple at some point thought this process was going to be smaller and they were unable to do it for whatever
00:16:00
◼
►
And the last kind of factor here is the m1 chips are based on the a series that there's a lot of shared DNA here
00:16:08
◼
►
the a series chip is
00:16:10
◼
►
I think they're at 4 nanometer now and the M chips are usually a generation behind on their the core design they use and
00:16:18
◼
►
So it was gonna be really unlikely that the m2 Pro Max
00:16:23
◼
►
You know those configs
00:16:26
◼
►
We're going to jump process size that they were gonna leapfrog the iPhone and be different in the base
00:16:32
◼
►
M2 as soon as the base M2 was announced at 5 nanometer
00:16:36
◼
►
the m2 Pro and Max were always going to be 5 nanometer because the way Apple builds these chips is
00:16:42
◼
►
They're basically like building blocks right if you look at the images Apple has
00:16:45
◼
►
Okay, here's the m2. Here's the m2 Pro. It's a little bigger. Here's the m2 max
00:16:51
◼
►
It's even bigger and assuming the ultra is like two maxes fused together like the m1
00:16:55
◼
►
Ultra is I'm not saying they won't ever change that but to date what we know so far about Apple silicon on the Mac is
00:17:04
◼
►
generational
00:17:06
◼
►
Architecture is the same
00:17:07
◼
►
No matter what level you're at in terms of you know number of cores and amount of RAM and that sort of stuff
00:17:13
◼
►
So I don't think it's a big deal. I don't think it's a big deal at all
00:17:16
◼
►
And lastly you said the Mac Pro is going last this time for the same reasons
00:17:23
◼
►
It went last in 2006. What are those reasons? Yeah, because Apple likes to make John's Syracuse a sweat
00:17:30
◼
►
No, I'm just kidding
00:17:32
◼
►
Same reasons
00:17:34
◼
►
Yeah, I've heard a thing on the Mac Pro a couple weeks ago
00:17:36
◼
►
And I was like as long as there's been a Mac Pro people have been worried about the next one and like I just had
00:17:40
◼
►
John's our cases picture in my mind
00:17:42
◼
►
The Mac Pro is
00:17:45
◼
►
last because it uses
00:17:48
◼
►
more of everything and
00:17:52
◼
►
At the same time sells less than anything else
00:17:56
◼
►
So if you roll back the clock to 2006 and the Intel transition
00:17:59
◼
►
The Mac Pro use eon processors where the other machines using core duo and core to duo, you know
00:18:05
◼
►
That's sort of different class of chip, but it was very clearly
00:18:08
◼
►
this is the most Intel stuff we can put into this tower and
00:18:15
◼
►
That's even a bigger deal now because apples in charge and apples driving this technology forward instead of Intel
00:18:22
◼
►
the pattern so far has been you start with the consumer chip you know the M1
00:18:26
◼
►
or the M2 and then we get Pro Max Ultra down the road. Yeah I don't know what the
00:18:32
◼
►
Mac Pro holds right I don't know if it's gonna have card slots or RAM expansion
00:18:35
◼
►
or anything I honestly don't know but whatever is coming with it it's going to
00:18:40
◼
►
be a super set of what we've seen elsewhere or it doesn't have a reason to
00:18:45
◼
►
exist and Apple starts at the low end and works their way up. They also do that
00:18:50
◼
►
because they sell I mean the ratio of MacBook Air cell to Mac Pros has to be a
00:18:55
◼
►
billion to one like I don't know what the actual number is but it's a massive
00:18:59
◼
►
difference and Apple is at the end of the day if you're a pro this you know I
00:19:05
◼
►
don't mean to hurt your feelings I'm a pro too but it's the reality Apple
00:19:09
◼
►
builds consumer products and the pro versions of those products are a smaller
00:19:14
◼
►
market and so Apple's got to go where the market is and then lastly oh
00:19:19
◼
►
the people who really do need a Mac Pro who really
00:19:23
◼
►
Depend and build their workflows around what those machines can do
00:19:27
◼
►
Those are the very people who are often last to make a transition
00:19:32
◼
►
And so in the power we see it into the days and I was around for that
00:19:35
◼
►
I remember really clearly a lot of professionals held on to g4s and g5s
00:19:43
◼
►
Software they used or you know drivers they needed to interact with some other, you know outboard hardware
00:19:50
◼
►
Or plugins for their you know audio editor, whatever it was
00:19:55
◼
►
they were waiting on all that stuff to to be ported over to Intel or
00:20:04
◼
►
Proven out that Rosetta could run it and the same thing is true now, right?
00:20:08
◼
►
I think about when the 2019 Mac Pro came out and there were a bunch of videos by people in audio
00:20:13
◼
►
Okay, I've stuffed all these cards in here and it's great
00:20:15
◼
►
like those people are gonna be the last ones to move to Apple Silicon because they have much more complex needs and
00:20:21
◼
►
so the Mac Pro is
00:20:23
◼
►
fine hanging out until for a little bit longer because those people aren't gonna jump to Apple Silicon on day one more than likely and
00:20:31
◼
►
So not a big deal that it's last again. It's how it was always going to be
00:20:34
◼
►
I don't really know why this was like put into this article because
00:20:37
◼
►
There are different things like what Apple's doing with the Mac Mini. What Apple does at the Mac Pro like very little bearing on each other
00:20:44
◼
►
Yeah, it is a bummer. We haven't seen the Mac Pro yet
00:20:46
◼
►
I bet Apple wishes it was out Apple said it was gonna be a two-year transition
00:20:50
◼
►
some things happened since since that was in the plans and
00:20:54
◼
►
It is taking a little bit longer than I think they wanted
00:20:57
◼
►
But I think what we're getting out of the transition is so fantastic. Like it doesn't bother me
00:21:02
◼
►
outside of the my curiosity about the product that we haven't seen an Apple silicon Mac Pro yet
00:21:07
◼
►
You're gonna buy a Mac Pro just a minor Mac Pro to run audio hijacker. I
00:21:12
◼
►
Can't I mean I can't judge
00:21:16
◼
►
I've got some some exciting news. Yes, we have new
00:21:20
◼
►
Merchandise at the relay FM store. So there's a link in the show notes
00:21:25
◼
►
It's right at the top and we've got a couple new shirts
00:21:29
◼
►
So we've got one called click wheel, which is the screen of an iPod
00:21:34
◼
►
But with some like funny relay stuff in it and then we have 90s
00:21:39
◼
►
Which is this like really colorful kind of you know early 90s rad kind of design and
00:21:46
◼
►
I'm super happy with both of these they're both on sale now and
00:21:50
◼
►
As are a couple of the previous shirts if a shirt that we had is that you wanted is no longer here
00:21:57
◼
►
It'll roll back on at some point. We're just kind of turning this over every few months and
00:22:01
◼
►
Really excited about these. Yeah, I mean the click wheel one is incredible. Good. I really love that design
00:22:08
◼
►
It's so good. Like it's the font and depend the battery indicator
00:22:12
◼
►
I know yeah, because you've been listening to some podcasts already
00:22:16
◼
►
So it's not a full battery because you've been using it. It's it's really good
00:22:20
◼
►
We got switch on in there. The font is the right one
00:22:24
◼
►
Obviously, I want to say that the rounded corners of the display are even consistent like that's yeah, very very nicely done
00:22:31
◼
►
Yeah, we work with really talented people JD really killed it on these shirts
00:22:34
◼
►
Yeah, no tiny head shirts this time last time Myke was gone. We did that but we promised not to do it this time
00:22:41
◼
►
Yeah, we we did not what did what expression did he use we was a betrayal. Is that what he said?
00:22:47
◼
►
Yeah, no, no betrayal this time
00:22:50
◼
►
This episode of connected is made possible by Squarespace the all-in-one platform for building your brand and growing your business online
00:22:57
◼
►
You can stand out with a beautiful website engage with the audience and sell anything products services. Even the content you create
00:23:04
◼
►
Squarespace has a lot of tools just built in so if you need to look at analytics and try to understand where your traffic or
00:23:11
◼
►
Purchases are coming from you can use their built-in SEO tools
00:23:15
◼
►
I'm a big fan of that because a lot of SEO tools are really complicated. Squarespace gives you just what you need and a really easy
00:23:23
◼
►
and easy to understand and easy to use interface. And if you do email campaigns, which you can send through Squarespace,
00:23:30
◼
►
you can bring over your site logo and colors into an email really easily. You also get all those analytics on the email.
00:23:36
◼
►
So if you send an email out to people who have signed up for your mailing list,
00:23:41
◼
►
You can see again all in one place how those emails are performing just a couple weeks ago. I had a friend of mine
00:23:47
◼
►
He was building a Squarespace site
00:23:49
◼
►
for his new business and he reached out to me with a couple of questions and
00:23:54
◼
►
One of my favorite things about Squarespace is as easy as it is to drag and drop things around and change typefaces and colors
00:24:01
◼
►
You can also get in under the hood with things like code injection into the header of the page
00:24:05
◼
►
You can do custom CSS
00:24:07
◼
►
And so he wanted to do some things that were a little bit unusual and we were able to knock it out
00:24:11
◼
►
Thanks to Squarespace's awesome tools head over to squarespace.com/connected for a free trial. There's no credit card required
00:24:19
◼
►
When you're ready to launch use the offer code connected to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain name
00:24:27
◼
►
That's squarespace.com/connected and the code connected to get 10% off your first purchase and to show you support for the show
00:24:35
◼
►
Our thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring Connected and Relay FM.
00:24:39
◼
►
All right, so we got a bunch of software updates.
00:24:41
◼
►
We got iOS and Apple 16.3, Ventura 3.2, and I believe as of yesterday,
00:24:47
◼
►
tvOS and HomePod software, whatever it's called.
00:24:51
◼
►
Is it called HomePod software? Is that the name? Or just HomePod?
00:24:54
◼
►
I think it runs iOS technically, but yeah, I don't know what to call it.
00:24:58
◼
►
I think it's got a name. Anyway, 16.3 on the HomePod as well.
00:25:03
◼
►
One of the new features in 16.3, which I am not touching, obviously, but it's not made
00:25:09
◼
►
for people like us, you can now use a physical security key with your Apple ID.
00:25:16
◼
►
You've seen those devices, probably like the YubiKeys, I believe one of them are called.
00:25:22
◼
►
These are, obviously, this more advanced security method is designed for, I think, for figures
00:25:32
◼
►
like journalists, political activists, politicians, individuals who are at the risk of like, you
00:25:42
◼
►
know, like the government agencies going after them or like cyber attacks, high risk individuals
00:25:49
◼
►
that do not qualify as three guys who do a podcast about Apple, obviously. And so these
00:25:55
◼
►
are not designed for us, but it's a pretty serious effort from Apple's part here to have
00:26:03
◼
►
like official, like proper FIDO certified security keys from the FIDO alliance, working
00:26:14
◼
►
all across the ecosystem with iPhone, iPad and the Mac with Ventura. So this is pretty
00:26:21
◼
►
cool if you believe you need this kind of security on your account. I would recommend going to the
00:26:28
◼
►
support document that Apple has and check out all the steps that you need to follow with your Apple
00:26:32
◼
►
ID. I think this is pretty awesome. Even though it shouldn't be needed because it's like... but
00:26:37
◼
►
you know now you have the option. Speaking of security stuff, Advanced Data Protection
00:26:42
◼
►
rolled out globally with 16.3. I still haven't done it. We know that Myke did it but it's not
00:26:51
◼
►
not here with us right now, this very moment.
00:26:55
◼
►
- It's so advanced, he can't talk on the show anymore.
00:26:57
◼
►
- It's so advanced, he disappeared from my message.
00:27:00
◼
►
We cannot possibly know whether it worked or not.
00:27:04
◼
►
So I guess Myke will follow up somehow with us
00:27:08
◼
►
as to whether advanced data protection in the UK,
00:27:11
◼
►
on his iPhone and either devices worked
00:27:15
◼
►
and if it worked well.
00:27:17
◼
►
- Yeah. - Yeah.
00:27:18
◼
►
I still haven't done it because I, you know,
00:27:19
◼
►
It's one of those things I gotta wait and see how it goes.
00:27:22
◼
►
- Well, there was a Zach in the Discord had found
00:27:25
◼
►
an article about if you're unable to update
00:27:29
◼
►
your HomePod software, then--
00:27:32
◼
►
- HomePod software.
00:27:33
◼
►
- HomePod software, then you can maybe turn off
00:27:37
◼
►
advanced data protection and then update the HomePod.
00:27:40
◼
►
- Ah, so there you go.
00:27:41
◼
►
- I have ADP turned on in my iCloud account
00:27:44
◼
►
and I could update my HomePods just fine.
00:27:47
◼
►
And so it's been okay for me,
00:27:49
◼
►
but if you do run into issues,
00:27:51
◼
►
we'll put a link to that article in the show notes.
00:27:54
◼
►
- For a second I thought you said,
00:27:55
◼
►
"I have ATP on my iCloud account."
00:27:58
◼
►
And I was like, "Wait, how do you have ATP
00:28:00
◼
►
on your iCloud account?"
00:28:01
◼
►
- Yeah, I have Casey answer all my messages now.
00:28:04
◼
►
- It should be.
00:28:05
◼
►
Also in 16.3, it unlocks through magic,
00:28:10
◼
►
sensors that were always inside the HomePod Minis.
00:28:16
◼
►
The humidity and temperature sensors in the HomePod minis
00:28:20
◼
►
are now working and reporting data.
00:28:23
◼
►
The problem is, well, a couple of problems.
00:28:25
◼
►
First of all, it seems that for some people
00:28:27
◼
►
it's not showing up immediately
00:28:28
◼
►
or like the data is not showing up immediately,
00:28:31
◼
►
I guess because like the sensors need to calibrate
00:28:33
◼
►
or something, it's probably gonna take a while
00:28:35
◼
►
to give you some data points.
00:28:38
◼
►
- I installed the update last night
00:28:41
◼
►
and I still don't see--
00:28:43
◼
►
- You still don't have it.
00:28:44
◼
►
- I still don't have it.
00:28:44
◼
►
So I assume there are temperatures and humidities
00:28:47
◼
►
in my house, but I don't know what they are.
00:28:49
◼
►
- Yeah, there must be a temperature.
00:28:52
◼
►
- Oh, surely. - In your house.
00:28:53
◼
►
- I mean, I hope so.
00:28:55
◼
►
- I guess, but also I've seen some people complain that,
00:28:57
◼
►
I've seen some folks on Mastodon and Discord and on Reddit.
00:29:03
◼
►
Give it a look.
00:29:06
◼
►
So some people saying that two homefought minis
00:29:08
◼
►
in a stereo pair, they report different values,
00:29:14
◼
►
even though they sit for like a meter from each other
00:29:17
◼
►
and they have different values for temperature and humidity.
00:29:20
◼
►
And I've seen some folks like ask for like,
00:29:23
◼
►
what about if you have a stereo pair,
00:29:25
◼
►
instead of reporting a total of four values,
00:29:28
◼
►
just give me an average,
00:29:31
◼
►
which I think is probably a good idea.
00:29:33
◼
►
Like if you have two HomePod Minis,
00:29:35
◼
►
but then as I say this, I also realize,
00:29:38
◼
►
well, what if you have a ministerial pair,
00:29:40
◼
►
but they are not close to each other?
00:29:42
◼
►
So maybe it could be beneficial to say, well, you know,
00:29:46
◼
►
maybe I have this HomePod Mini by the window
00:29:48
◼
►
and report a certain value, but I have this other one,
00:29:52
◼
►
you know, in the hallway and it's a totally different value.
00:29:55
◼
►
So I see both sides, I guess, as with most things,
00:29:59
◼
►
when you cannot find a single approach,
00:30:02
◼
►
you can either do what Apple does
00:30:03
◼
►
or you can do the right thing, which is make it a setting.
00:30:07
◼
►
I don't know, I guess we'll see if they do or not.
00:30:10
◼
►
probably not. New Unity wallpapers are here and obviously watchOS 9, I keep forgetting
00:30:18
◼
►
the watchOS is on version 9, 9.3 also launched and it's got a new Unity watch face. And there
00:30:25
◼
►
were some changes to the emergency SOS. I haven't really played around with this. I
00:30:31
◼
►
never test emergency SOS in my reviews because I am so afraid I'm going to trigger it and
00:30:38
◼
►
the police is going to pick up and I'm going to have to explain what I just did.
00:30:41
◼
►
Yeah, I'm a blogger. Please don't come over here.
00:30:43
◼
►
Sorry, I'm a blogger.
00:30:45
◼
►
So, there's been some tweaks here to prevent like accidental, what we were just saying,
00:30:54
◼
►
like accidental phone calls. So now you can place a call by holding down the side button
00:31:01
◼
►
alongside either of the volume buttons.
00:31:04
◼
►
But in order to place the call, you gotta release the buttons.
00:31:10
◼
►
Before, if you just held them down,
00:31:12
◼
►
you would place an emergency phone call.
00:31:14
◼
►
Now you need to release them.
00:31:16
◼
►
I don't know if this is better than before,
00:31:19
◼
►
because it also comes natural to release those buttons
00:31:24
◼
►
when you realize what you've done.
00:31:26
◼
►
And it may be too late anyway.
00:31:29
◼
►
So I don't know.
00:31:29
◼
►
like I said, I don't want to test this. I don't want to be that guy. But there's this tweak.
00:31:35
◼
►
And in Ventura 3.2, which reminds me, I need to update my Mac Mini.
00:31:41
◼
►
13.2. There's a fix for the... I saw this happen to Myke, to John, and to friend of the show,
00:31:51
◼
►
Steve Transtmith text handwritten with the Apple Pencil sort of exploding all
00:32:00
◼
►
over a board in free form. This should have been fixed in this version. Yeah, we
00:32:07
◼
►
ran into that on on MPU as well and basically what happens is if someone's
00:32:12
◼
►
using a pencil to hand write on a freeform board on the iPad, when you open
00:32:17
◼
►
it on the Mac the text slowly drifts and so like if you wrote the word Federico
00:32:20
◼
►
It eventually would like beat three levels on top of each other then some space and like the other letters on top of each other
00:32:26
◼
►
Nice, very strange. My feedback for it is still open, but they say they fixed it
00:32:31
◼
►
so, you know maybe at some point my
00:32:34
◼
►
My feedback number will we marked as closed but god they fixed it freeform did get bumped to version
00:32:42
◼
►
I think 1.1 with this, you know, it's it's interesting because we talked about
00:32:47
◼
►
either here or on MPU
00:32:50
◼
►
would Apple treat freeform like a
00:32:52
◼
►
built-in system app like notes or reminders where it gets updates with the OS or is it gonna be more like
00:33:00
◼
►
I work, you know Apple can do a pages or keynote update
00:33:03
◼
►
independent of
00:33:06
◼
►
What's going on at the OS level now? Sometimes they are on the same day. Sometimes they are tied together
00:33:10
◼
►
Definitely, but there are other times like oh, hey, we fix these bugs and numbers and you know the other apps. So
00:33:16
◼
►
So far, it's only been in conjunction with iOS but one point is not a graph. So I'm curious to see
00:33:22
◼
►
Apple treats freeform
00:33:25
◼
►
differently, I mean I think you and I both agree that it would be nice for Apple to
00:33:29
◼
►
Update like reminders or mail or something at all during the year not just in the point of every fall
00:33:37
◼
►
but even if they they did that off cycle, I think would be
00:33:40
◼
►
it would be nice but there they seem to all be kind of linked together in a way that
00:33:46
◼
►
really feels like a historic artifact from back in the day with like
00:33:49
◼
►
The iPhone had you like down remember this like you download a firmware file in iTunes and then like you plug your phone in it
00:33:55
◼
►
Was out of commission for 30 minutes when it like upgraded the firmware
00:33:58
◼
►
We've moved past that but in some ways we haven't something else that came out as of yesterday ivory for Mastodon
00:34:05
◼
►
So in case you've in case you're not a mastodon or you don't know what I'm talking about
00:34:10
◼
►
This is the new app from tap bots
00:34:14
◼
►
And it's, you know, at a glance can be described as the tweetbot equivalent, but for Mastodon instead of Twitter.
00:34:21
◼
►
Especially consider then, since last week, third-party Twitter clients are officially dead. Rest in peace.
00:34:29
◼
►
I don't want to talk about like how, you know, Twitter made the announcement official by sort of updating the guidelines.
00:34:39
◼
►
post the fact that they actually killed the client.
00:34:43
◼
►
Yet another ridiculous move from this company.
00:34:46
◼
►
But in any case, Ivory for iPhone and iPad is out.
00:34:50
◼
►
The Mac version is still being worked on.
00:34:55
◼
►
I think it'll come out next.
00:34:57
◼
►
I did a review on Mac stories and it felt like
00:35:02
◼
►
sort of my entire timeline yesterday
00:35:05
◼
►
was taken over by Ivory.
00:35:07
◼
►
I think there's obviously,
00:35:08
◼
►
so something that I pointed out in my review,
00:35:11
◼
►
besides the fact that it's a really high quality app
00:35:14
◼
►
in terms of design, excellent, really well done,
00:35:17
◼
►
feels like Mark, the designer Tapbot,
00:35:21
◼
►
has kind of found his enthusiasm back after,
00:35:25
◼
►
and I can imagine that, like, you know,
00:35:27
◼
►
making a Twitter client, especially in the past few years,
00:35:30
◼
►
must have been, you know,
00:35:31
◼
►
just exhausting from a creative standpoint.
00:35:34
◼
►
Like, you have some ideas and you cannot do them,
00:35:37
◼
►
because you're not sure you will be able to actually ship them.
00:35:41
◼
►
So it must be exhausting, like draining
00:35:43
◼
►
all of your creative energy.
00:35:45
◼
►
And it feels like you can tell that tab bots,
00:35:47
◼
►
like they're both Mark and Paul, they're both very energetic,
00:35:54
◼
►
Like, you can feel it when a developer is eager to ship more
00:35:58
◼
►
and do more stuff, which is exciting, I think.
00:36:01
◼
►
from a performance standpoint, like super smooth,
00:36:04
◼
►
like if you remember Tweetbot, how smoothly it scrolls
00:36:07
◼
►
and the menus, how quickly they open,
00:36:10
◼
►
and the action drawer.
00:36:12
◼
►
It's just really high quality product
00:36:15
◼
►
from two developers who have clearly been doing this
00:36:20
◼
►
for a long time.
00:36:22
◼
►
The bigger point, and this has been kind of controversial,
00:36:25
◼
►
I think, I've definitely had to mute some,
00:36:31
◼
►
insufferable people on Mastodon about this.
00:36:35
◼
►
Turns out, Steven, some kind of people are everywhere.
00:36:39
◼
►
Just on Twitter, they can also be on Mastodon.
00:36:43
◼
►
I think the bigger point is that it's important
00:36:47
◼
►
in our little community, in our little Apple community,
00:36:50
◼
►
to have this kind of product for Mastodon right now
00:36:54
◼
►
to sort of ease the transition from Twitter
00:36:57
◼
►
to something else.
00:36:59
◼
►
The counterargument to this is that the beauty of decentralization and federation and federated
00:37:10
◼
►
social media is that you're not "supposed to" use a proprietary paid-for client that
00:37:21
◼
►
is just on Apple devices and just for Mastodon.
00:37:25
◼
►
And while I do understand the perspective from which the argument comes, I also think
00:37:32
◼
►
First of all, I always tend to be against, like, the arguments that start with "you're
00:37:38
◼
►
not supposed to," like, that thing, like, when you shouldn't do something, based on
00:37:44
◼
►
the assumption of what, exactly, and who.
00:37:48
◼
►
It never quite works with me.
00:37:52
◼
►
I also think that there's a fundamental difference now that we are approaching and we are learning the ropes of this new type of social media.
00:38:04
◼
►
Mastodon is one type of service that is compatible, to an extent, with ActivityPub.
00:38:13
◼
►
We talked about this before, ActivityPub being the standard that powers, and again I'm simplifying here,
00:38:19
◼
►
here. The standard that powers this communication between different services with a decentralized
00:38:25
◼
►
Mastodon is one service for that, and it's the kind of software made by a company that
00:38:33
◼
►
wants to make money in building software. Whereas I've seen some people in my replies
00:38:39
◼
►
yesterday arguing that because of decentralized social media, basically all software should
00:38:48
◼
►
be free and open source.
00:38:50
◼
►
And if you're not using free and open source software--
00:38:53
◼
►
and I'm literally quoting one of the replies that I got--
00:38:58
◼
►
you are one of those Twitter people that
00:39:01
◼
►
have now come on our service.
00:39:05
◼
►
And I really dislike that sort of like--
00:39:11
◼
►
Gatekeeping.
00:39:12
◼
►
Gatekeeping.
00:39:13
◼
►
That's the word I was looking for.
00:39:15
◼
►
Like, oh, it's one of those Twitter people who have migrated from that service back to here.
00:39:22
◼
►
And I really dislike it. I think fundamentally the misunderstanding there is that there can be
00:39:30
◼
►
multiple types of software, and competition is good. Competition is great.
00:39:33
◼
►
You can have free and open source software. I mean, you look at IceCubes. Excellent
00:39:39
◼
►
Mastodon client that I want to write about more soon.
00:39:43
◼
►
It's free and open source.
00:39:45
◼
►
You got a bunch of other free and open source software
00:39:47
◼
►
for Mastodon, for ActivityPub.
00:39:49
◼
►
It's full of that kind of stuff right there.
00:39:51
◼
►
But the whole point of this,
00:39:54
◼
►
the whole point of not having a single entity control
00:39:58
◼
►
the social network you're using
00:40:00
◼
►
is that you're free to do whatever you want.
00:40:02
◼
►
And you're free to use an app that is paid for.
00:40:08
◼
►
And even in that segment, you're free to choose if you want to have a paid upfront client or a subscription client.
00:40:14
◼
►
Like you're free, just do whatever you want.
00:40:17
◼
►
And you're free to use a free and open source app or a web app or a PWA, ELK, E-L-K, excellent PWA for Mastodon.
00:40:29
◼
►
I've installed it on my gaming PC while I was trying Apple Music for Windows. Works great.
00:40:36
◼
►
You can even install it on your iPhone if you want to.
00:40:39
◼
►
The point being, that kind of gatekeeping, I think is kind of silly.
00:40:44
◼
►
And you're free to, like, you should, the thing is, you should, if you want to use that
00:40:48
◼
►
verb, what you should do is you should feel free to do whatever you want, because this
00:40:52
◼
►
is the whole point of it.
00:40:54
◼
►
Like I think we migrated away from Twitter because that was exactly the problem, that
00:41:01
◼
►
service didn't want you to do, to use certain things.
00:41:05
◼
►
Here, just do whatever you want.
00:41:06
◼
►
You like ivory, use ivory.
00:41:08
◼
►
You like ice cubes, you use ice cubes.
00:41:10
◼
►
You wanna use a web app, use a web app,
00:41:11
◼
►
like suit yourself, you know?
00:41:13
◼
►
So that's just something that I wanted to point out
00:41:15
◼
►
because I saw that kind of reaction from multiple people
00:41:18
◼
►
after I posted my review and it was just bothering me.
00:41:21
◼
►
- No, I get it.
00:41:23
◼
►
And I hope that, you know, the folks behind Twitterrific
00:41:26
◼
►
and some other applications,
00:41:28
◼
►
I know the person behind Spring is doing what,
00:41:30
◼
►
Mona, is they're gonna be their Mastodon client.
00:41:33
◼
►
There's other things coming, right?
00:41:35
◼
►
If tweetbots, tweetbot wasn't your jam on Twitter,
00:41:39
◼
►
it's probably not gonna be your jam on Mastodon,
00:41:41
◼
►
but I think there's more on its way.
00:41:45
◼
►
And I know that our friend, Manton Reese,
00:41:47
◼
►
who runs micro.blog had a post about some of the challenges
00:41:52
◼
►
of kind of integrating with Mastodon,
00:41:58
◼
►
using ActivityPub, all this stuff.
00:42:00
◼
►
So we'll put that, this is early days, right?
00:42:04
◼
►
- There are things that are a little bit messy in places
00:42:07
◼
►
and even Ivory is sort of labeled as like early access.
00:42:10
◼
►
Like there were things that just aren't there yet,
00:42:13
◼
►
but I know in the beta process
00:42:18
◼
►
that they've really been working hard,
00:42:20
◼
►
I suspect that will continue.
00:42:22
◼
►
- And just in general, Ivory, really excellent app.
00:42:25
◼
►
I've been using it.
00:42:27
◼
►
I'm now in the process of like switching
00:42:29
◼
►
between multiple clients because I wanna do,
00:42:32
◼
►
I want to do at some point like some kind of overview of the different options that
00:42:36
◼
►
you have at least on iOS and iPadOS.
00:42:38
◼
►
But Ivory is the one that's on my home screen and it's the one I go back to just because
00:42:42
◼
►
it feels nicer than anything else at the moment.
00:42:48
◼
►
But I'll probably spend some time setting up Mona as well, especially on the iPad because
00:42:53
◼
►
of the multiple columns, custom sections and all that kind of stuff.
00:42:56
◼
►
Yeah, it's a exciting time, I think,
00:42:59
◼
►
to be on Mastodon, you and Myke should join Steven.
00:43:04
◼
►
- I mean, I've been reading more.
00:43:08
◼
►
- Come on, come on.
00:43:10
◼
►
You know, even Steve Tran Smith is on there now.
00:43:13
◼
►
- I saw that.
00:43:14
◼
►
Yeah, I've been reading some.
00:43:16
◼
►
- I don't wanna clarify, I don't wanna peer pressure you,
00:43:19
◼
►
but I'm just saying I would love it if you were there.
00:43:22
◼
►
But if you don't want to, then it's also fine.
00:43:24
◼
►
- We'll see, we will see.
00:43:26
◼
►
We don't do, we only do peer pressure when it comes to buying computers and stuff, but
00:43:31
◼
►
social media, do whatever you want.
00:43:34
◼
►
This episode of Connected is also made possible by Fitbot.
00:43:37
◼
►
It's a new year, a time that most people reevaluate their fitness plans.
00:43:43
◼
►
Fitbot is an easy and affordable way to build a fitness plan that's just for you.
00:43:47
◼
►
Its algorithm learns about you, your goals, and your training ability, creating a custom
00:43:52
◼
►
dynamic program based on your experience and any equipment you have.
00:43:56
◼
►
This all is an app that makes it incredibly easy to learn how to perform each exercise.
00:44:01
◼
►
Personal fitness is not about competing with other people, looking to others, trying to
00:44:05
◼
►
mimic what they're doing.
00:44:06
◼
►
You need something that's going to work for you, that's when it works, that's when you
00:44:10
◼
►
begin to see the results you're looking for.
00:44:12
◼
►
Because everyone's fitness path is different.
00:44:14
◼
►
Fitbod uses actual data from your workouts to make sure they're customizing things to
00:44:21
◼
►
This powerful technology understands your strength training ability, studies your past
00:44:25
◼
►
workouts and adapts to your available gym equipment.
00:44:28
◼
►
So if you've got a home gym like I have and maybe you add something to it, you can add
00:44:32
◼
►
it to FitBod and it will rebuild your future workouts with that in mind.
00:44:37
◼
►
Or maybe you're traveling, right?
00:44:38
◼
►
The hotel has a gym with a bunch of equipment you don't have access to or maybe less equipment
00:44:43
◼
►
than you have access to.
00:44:44
◼
►
Maybe you're doing bodyweight only exercises.
00:44:46
◼
►
FITBOD can be adjusted to account for all of those things. FITBOD also tracks
00:44:52
◼
►
muscle fatigue and recovery, so it's designing a well-balanced workout routine
00:44:57
◼
►
over time. It has over 1,400 HD video tutorials shot from multiple angles so
00:45:03
◼
►
you can see exactly how each exercise is supposed to be done. It also integrates
00:45:08
◼
►
with Apple Watch, Wera smartwatches, and apps like Strava, Fitbit, and Apple Health.
00:45:13
◼
►
Personalized training of this quality can be expensive, but FitBod is just $12.99 a
00:45:18
◼
►
month or $79.99 a year.
00:45:21
◼
►
But you can get 25% off your membership by going to fitbod.me/connected.
00:45:27
◼
►
That's fitbod, F-I-T-B-O-D, fitbod.me/connected for 25% off your membership.
00:45:34
◼
►
Our thanks to FitBod for their support of the show and Relay FM.
00:45:38
◼
►
So you want to close out this episode with an easy topic.
00:45:43
◼
►
- Yeah, touchscreen Macs.
00:45:45
◼
►
A couple of weeks ago,
00:45:49
◼
►
Mark Gurman had a article in Bloomberg,
00:45:51
◼
►
I'm sure everyone's seen it now,
00:45:52
◼
►
we're a little bit late to this,
00:45:54
◼
►
that Apple is working on adding touchscreens to Macs,
00:45:57
◼
►
something he calls a major turnabout.
00:46:00
◼
►
Back in the day, Federico, I'm sure you remember this,
00:46:03
◼
►
when they released the good MacBook Air
00:46:05
◼
►
in that back to the Mac event,
00:46:06
◼
►
there was a little section about touch.
00:46:08
◼
►
And there's a lot more, but these are some of
00:46:10
◼
►
the highlights of how we've been
00:46:12
◼
►
inspired by the work that we've done in iOS,
00:46:15
◼
►
and we'd like to bring it back to the Mac.
00:46:17
◼
►
So, let me talk for a few minutes about a few of these.
00:46:21
◼
►
Multi-touch gestures.
00:46:23
◼
►
You know, the first thing you think about is this, right?
00:46:27
◼
►
We thought about this years ago.
00:46:29
◼
►
We've done tons of user testing on this,
00:46:34
◼
►
and it turns out it doesn't work.
00:46:36
◼
►
Touch surfaces don't want to be vertical.
00:46:40
◼
►
It gives great demo.
00:46:42
◼
►
But after a short period of time,
00:46:45
◼
►
you start to fatigue and after
00:46:47
◼
►
an extended period of time,
00:46:49
◼
►
your arm wants to fall off.
00:46:51
◼
►
It doesn't work.
00:46:52
◼
►
It's ergonomically terrible.
00:46:54
◼
►
Touch surfaces want to be horizontal, hence pads.
00:47:01
◼
►
For a notebook, that's why we've
00:47:03
◼
►
perfected our multi-touch trackpads over the years.
00:47:07
◼
►
Because that's the best way we've found
00:47:10
◼
►
to get multi-touch into a notebook.
00:47:13
◼
►
We've also, in essence,
00:47:15
◼
►
put a multi-touch trackpad
00:47:17
◼
►
on the mouse with our magic mouse.
00:47:19
◼
►
And we've recently come out with
00:47:21
◼
►
a pure play trackpad as well for our desktop users.
00:47:24
◼
►
So this is how we're going to use multi-touch
00:47:27
◼
►
on our Mac products because this doesn't work.
00:47:32
◼
►
Well, that was 10 years ago. Just because Apple said it was a bad idea then doesn't mean it's a
00:47:37
◼
►
bad idea now. We've learned is touch is extremely important how we interact with our software.
00:47:42
◼
►
If we tried to build it into the display, we discovered that it's not in an optimal position,
00:47:47
◼
►
you don't feel comfortable holding your hand up in the air and trying to multi-touch. The best way
00:47:52
◼
►
to deliver multi-touch in the notebook is through the trackpad. So in the MacBook Air, we've built
00:47:56
◼
►
in a large glass multi-touch trackpad right before the full-size keyboard.
00:48:00
◼
►
The rest of the market has gone to this. Even the iPad with its multiple keyboard and trackpad
00:48:07
◼
►
accessories has moved this way. And I really want to get your take on this because I know one of the
00:48:15
◼
►
things you love about the iPad is the modality that you can have it as a desktop computer. You
00:48:20
◼
►
can have it as something you use in the car or walk around with. And I know a lot of that is
00:48:25
◼
►
is that you can just like tear the screen off the keyboard.
00:48:27
◼
►
And I don't think Apple's gonna do that with the Mac,
00:48:31
◼
►
but as someone who uses a touch computer
00:48:33
◼
►
as their primary computer,
00:48:35
◼
►
what about this, you know, gets you excited?
00:48:38
◼
►
What are you thinking?
00:48:39
◼
►
- I gotta tell you that I'm gonna bring some fire.
00:48:42
◼
►
- Good. - To this topic.
00:48:43
◼
►
- Good. - Saving it
00:48:45
◼
►
for a couple of minutes.
00:48:47
◼
►
I, obviously I am on team, they should do this.
00:48:52
◼
►
- Yes. - And they should have done
00:48:53
◼
►
this years ago.
00:48:54
◼
►
I feel like the other important factor is, like, let alone the fact that the same company
00:49:00
◼
►
is making a computer, the iPad Pro, charging good money for it, and that computer is predicated
00:49:07
◼
►
upon the idea of you attach a keyboard, you use the keyboard, it's got a trackpad, but
00:49:12
◼
►
hey, at the same time, you can or cannot touch the screen as well.
00:49:18
◼
►
other factor is in those 10 years or so,
00:49:23
◼
►
in the meantime,
00:49:24
◼
►
a new generation of people as grown up accustomed to touch screens and sort of
00:49:30
◼
►
with the expectation that every display they see,
00:49:35
◼
►
I guess besides the television that they have in, you know,
00:49:39
◼
►
that their parents have in the living room usually is a touch compatible
00:49:44
◼
►
display. Uh, you know, kids, they just,
00:49:47
◼
►
I got three of those people in my house and that is 100% accurate.
00:49:51
◼
►
They sit down at a MacBook Air and they try to scroll on the screen.
00:49:54
◼
►
They try to scroll. Like they just grew up that way. So 10 years ago,
00:49:59
◼
►
I would have argued that that was already happening, but let's play along.
00:50:03
◼
►
Let's say that 10 years ago, that wasn't the case. It is the case today.
00:50:06
◼
►
And so I think what you just said,
00:50:08
◼
►
like because Steve Jobs said something 10 years ago,
00:50:13
◼
►
let me tell you something. Steve Jobs was not infallible.
00:50:17
◼
►
He did some things that, you know, in hindsight were wrong.
00:50:21
◼
►
And at the same time, I believe there's also--
00:50:24
◼
►
because like Apple fans, they only like to quote
00:50:27
◼
►
one side of Steve Jobs.
00:50:29
◼
►
I'm pretty sure that somewhere there's
00:50:31
◼
►
a Steve Jobs quote that says something along the lines of,
00:50:35
◼
►
"One of the greatest qualities is the ability
00:50:37
◼
►
to change your mind."
00:50:38
◼
►
I'm pretty sure that there's also that quote.
00:50:41
◼
►
So it's convenient that they always
00:50:42
◼
►
quote the thing that plays along to their argument.
00:50:47
◼
►
You can change your mind, it's fine.
00:50:49
◼
►
In these 10 years, the computing landscape has changed.
00:50:53
◼
►
Apple itself is making a computer
00:50:55
◼
►
that you can touch or cannot touch.
00:50:57
◼
►
And the thing is, I feel like we are not asking for,
00:51:02
◼
►
use a MacBook Pro, for example, only with touch.
00:51:09
◼
►
I think what people are looking for are options.
00:51:12
◼
►
Just have more input methods.
00:51:16
◼
►
just have touch as a companion input method to the keyboard and trackpad.
00:51:22
◼
►
Just because for some things it's more convenient, like for example, I don't know,
00:51:28
◼
►
let's say you're playing music and with your thumb you can just reach out and quickly cue another song.
00:51:35
◼
►
Or on YouTube you can click on a thumbnail, or maybe it's easier to actually touch it instead of using the cursor.
00:51:42
◼
►
Like, just more concurrent input methods.
00:51:47
◼
►
I think it would be great.
00:51:49
◼
►
I think they should absolutely do this.
00:51:51
◼
►
And I think now is the time to accept that,
00:51:55
◼
►
hey, maybe 10 years ago we thought
00:51:57
◼
►
it wasn't the best option for us,
00:52:00
◼
►
but maybe we can do something today.
00:52:02
◼
►
- Yeah, and I think in the context of that discussion
00:52:06
◼
►
10 years ago was, should touch screens be on the Mac
00:52:09
◼
►
or should we have track pads, right?
00:52:11
◼
►
The idea that you would have both and you would kind of use whatever was the best in any given moment
00:52:17
◼
►
that really wasn't I don't think a
00:52:22
◼
►
Position thought but in the year since we've come to understand that very thing
00:52:26
◼
►
We're like with the iPad with the magic keyboard. You've got the trackpad
00:52:31
◼
►
You know if you're typing if you're in that kind of keyboard heavy mode
00:52:34
◼
►
You're probably just gonna reach down and use the trackpad
00:52:37
◼
►
But you should be able to reach up with your finger your thumb and scroll, you know
00:52:42
◼
►
yes, some elements of Mac OS currently are not really touch friendly, but maybe they all don't have to be and
00:52:49
◼
►
Garvin says this is like three or four years out. So there's plenty of time
00:52:53
◼
►
If you haven't noticed Apple does a Mac OS release every year. There's plenty of time for them to make some
00:52:59
◼
►
Adjustments and I think they've been working towards that
00:53:03
◼
►
I mean we talked about this a couple years ago with Big Sur and its control centers
00:53:06
◼
►
like wow that looks just like iOS look how huge these targets are for a cursor
00:53:10
◼
►
hmm you know is there more of that stuff coming probably so I think it's something
00:53:16
◼
►
they should do you and I are in a hundred percent agreement in this that
00:53:19
◼
►
this is something they should add to the Mac it would be an optional thing for
00:53:23
◼
►
people who want it but the trackpad is not gonna go anywhere and I firmly
00:53:29
◼
►
believe that that the trackpad will continue to be the main source of input
00:53:34
◼
►
even if Mac notebooks do gain a touchscreen.
00:53:37
◼
►
And that kind of leads me to my second question for you.
00:53:41
◼
►
I think when we talk about this, we assume laptop,
00:53:43
◼
►
like, oh yeah, the MacBook Air, of course it should have that.
00:53:45
◼
►
But you and I are both sitting in front of a studio display.
00:53:48
◼
►
People have iMacs, right?
00:53:51
◼
►
Is that something Apple should bring to the desktop as well?
00:53:54
◼
►
Do you think it makes sense there?
00:53:55
◼
►
- I don't know on an external monitor.
00:53:58
◼
►
I don't know why, but I don't feel,
00:54:03
◼
►
Like, whenever I was using the MacBook Pro, I would always, like, just, you know,
00:54:09
◼
►
my instinct was to just reach out and touch the display.
00:54:13
◼
►
I never do that with a studio display, just because I feel like it's the mode switching,
00:54:20
◼
►
like I'm sitting in front of it, and I know that it's not a touch-compatible display.
00:54:25
◼
►
So first answer, probably going to be, like, no on the external monitor, just because that
00:54:31
◼
►
feels maybe kind of strange. Although, I mean, I mean, it's not like I would oppose it strongly.
00:54:37
◼
►
Like, if you want to do it, do it. Like, I wouldn't be upset about it. I don't know how frequently
00:54:43
◼
►
I would do it with a VESA-mounted display in front of me. But also, like, if you want to do it,
00:54:50
◼
►
just feel free to do it would be my answer, yeah. Yeah, in the Windows world, there is some touch
00:54:59
◼
►
on the desktop like I think famously the Surface Studio, the big you know Microsoft iMac that has
00:55:05
◼
►
a touch screen. Yeah. That computer has not been successful but I think it's that's more to do with
00:55:11
◼
►
its specs and price than the fact that it has a has a touch screen but it is really interesting to
00:55:19
◼
►
consider like if it's secondary right if it's how I think you and I are thinking like it's for
00:55:24
◼
►
scrolling and you reach up and tap something but you're not doing your computing with your arms
00:55:29
◼
►
held out, then I think they would be fine to skip the desktop. And yeah, it's on notebooks.
00:55:35
◼
►
That's awesome. That's what most people buy anyways. But you're in a desktop environment.
00:55:39
◼
►
It's a little bit different. Most PCs, most desktops are using screens that are not touch
00:55:44
◼
►
right in the windows world, kind of outside of the surface studio and a couple other products
00:55:49
◼
►
like it touches basically on notebooks and not on the desktop. And I think that is totally
00:55:55
◼
►
Now, yeah, if something wild happens and like touch is the only thing and they get rid of the trackpad
00:56:01
◼
►
They're not doing any of that but say they did they would have to bring it to the desktop
00:56:05
◼
►
I think the experience would be too broken you have to different between their products
00:56:08
◼
►
but adding it to a notebook seems like it's so overdue so simple and
00:56:14
◼
►
Something that you know the beauty of this is because it's additive if it's not for you. You just never use it
00:56:21
◼
►
I guess not a big deal because they're not gonna take away what we're already using
00:56:25
◼
►
This topic, like this report from Germin and the discussion that I've heard, an upgrade
00:56:33
◼
►
and other shows, it's sort of perfect timing for me because I've been thinking about this
00:56:39
◼
►
stuff a lot lately. It all started with how stressed out I was with stage manager and
00:56:48
◼
►
sort of broadly speaking my concern with the direction of iPadOS. But obviously in the
00:56:53
◼
►
past couple of months I've been doing a lot of soul searching, if you will,
00:56:57
◼
►
tech-wise. Sort of like trying to understand like what is it that I want
00:57:02
◼
►
from my computer? Like why was Stage Manager so problematic for me? But even
00:57:09
◼
►
beyond that, like what are my points of friction with iPadOS and what just what
00:57:15
◼
►
is it that I want from from how I use a computer? And I have reached the point
00:57:22
◼
►
where I am going to say something that until a few years ago I would have
00:57:31
◼
►
thought was unthinkable for me and something that I actually fought pretty
00:57:38
◼
►
pretty strongly when I heard that argument. The thing is I I think I've
00:57:47
◼
►
I've come to the conclusion that what I want is for Apple to give me, to make,
00:57:55
◼
►
not to just give me personally, but just to make.
00:57:59
◼
►
We handmade this one product just for you.
00:58:01
◼
►
No, but just I want Apple to make a true convertible computer.
00:58:07
◼
►
I have reached a point where my wish is for a tablet that runs Mac OS.
00:58:15
◼
►
And you know what? They brought me to this point, just out of exhaustion.
00:58:21
◼
►
It's not my fault I said this. And it's not just stage manager.
00:58:28
◼
►
The thing is, the very basic simple truth is I am tired of having to use two computers to do my job.
00:58:43
◼
►
I feel like I shouldn't have to do this.
00:58:46
◼
►
I shouldn't have to use an iPad Pro, because it's the modular convertible computer that I like to use.
00:58:55
◼
►
It's touch, but it's also got a keyboard, and I can hold it, but I can also dock it if I want to.
00:59:02
◼
►
And I love using it, except for some key tasks of my job,
00:59:07
◼
►
which is the other half of my job, recording podcasts.
00:59:11
◼
►
unless I purchase a bunch of expensive equipment and I overcomplicate my setup
00:59:18
◼
►
so that I can sort of record with the setup that I want on the iPad Pro.
00:59:23
◼
►
I'm just tired of all of this, and I am tired of having iPadOS be,
00:59:31
◼
►
this is something that I have written over and over in my reviews over the years.
00:59:38
◼
►
I love the idea that Apple has a shot at reinventing the traditional desktop OS
00:59:45
◼
►
with a new design, with new interactions, with support for multiple input methods.
00:59:52
◼
►
But if you want to reinvent it, you also need to meet a certain baseline of functionality.
01:00:01
◼
►
You cannot just reinvent for, you know, design's sake.
01:00:06
◼
►
And the fact that every single year for some key tasks of some built-in apps or some workflows,
01:00:18
◼
►
like recording and having proper audio controls or just having the ability to install apps from
01:00:25
◼
►
other sources that are not the App Store. And every year I keep thinking, "Oh, maybe next year."
01:00:30
◼
►
"Oh, well, maybe next year." "Oh, this year they did this feature, but I'm sure next year they'll
01:00:35
◼
►
get to it. I'm just tired of it. I'm just tired of feeling handcuffed by the platform.
01:00:44
◼
►
And this year, they focused on Stage Manager, which they had a shot at rethinking multitasking,
01:00:51
◼
►
and in my opinion, they blew it, because it doesn't do what I want. It doesn't give me
01:00:56
◼
►
the flexibility that I, as a professional user, I would like to see. And I'm just, you
01:01:03
◼
►
You know, I was thinking a few weeks ago, the prospect of Apple is not going to dedicate
01:01:10
◼
►
much attention to iOS and iPadOS 17 this year because of the headset. It's scary. Like the
01:01:17
◼
►
thought that if I want to have bigger fixes for iPadOS, I'm going to have to wait until
01:01:25
◼
►
June 2024. It's kind of scary. Like, I don't know.
01:01:32
◼
►
It's a bummer.
01:01:33
◼
►
I don't know if I want to live with iPadOS for another year and a half, honestly.
01:01:39
◼
►
But at the same time, what's my alternative?
01:01:42
◼
►
Using MacBook Pro?
01:01:45
◼
►
I don't want a laptop.
01:01:47
◼
►
Like I just, I don't want to have a laptop that I cannot rip the screen out and use it
01:01:53
◼
►
as a tablet.
01:01:55
◼
►
So I think I've reached a point where unfortunately the computer I want Apple to make does not
01:02:02
◼
►
exist. And then the question becomes, what's going to happen sooner? That Apple is going
01:02:08
◼
►
to make a convertible Mac or that iPadOS is going to grow enough to sustain workflows?
01:02:16
◼
►
That's a terrible race.
01:02:18
◼
►
It's a terrible race. And I'm just here thinking about all these and feeling kind of scared
01:02:23
◼
►
and afraid because I'm afraid that the answer is, who knows? And so this is why I've been,
01:02:32
◼
►
I've actually been very nervous about all this because I feel like to an extent,
01:02:36
◼
►
you know, to get super honest with you, um, I feel like to, to an extent,
01:02:41
◼
►
so much of my, Oh, this is going to sound so silly, but Hey, whatever. Um,
01:02:45
◼
►
but the thing is so much of my online identity is tied to be,
01:02:50
◼
►
no, it's, it's the iPad guy, you know, like, and,
01:02:54
◼
►
and I know that so many people like signed up for the club or, you know,
01:02:59
◼
►
just follow me because I've used and tried to push the iPad beyond,
01:03:04
◼
►
maybe sometimes beyond its limits. And I was not alone.
01:03:07
◼
►
There's a bunch of other great people experimenting with the platform.
01:03:12
◼
►
But that's what I spent most of my time
01:03:16
◼
►
researching and studying and writing about over the past few years.
01:03:20
◼
►
But I feel like I've hit a wall. I don't know what else I can do.
01:03:27
◼
►
I don't like using Stage Manager.
01:03:30
◼
►
I don't like being, you know, like, I mean,
01:03:34
◼
►
I don't know if you saw this, but like I posted on Masterdome,
01:03:36
◼
►
I went back to using Split View and Slide Over.
01:03:39
◼
►
Yeah, I think you told us that in messages.
01:03:42
◼
►
Yeah, I just, and I'm tired, and I'm tired of like,
01:03:47
◼
►
sometimes you wanna open a desktop web app
01:03:50
◼
►
and it doesn't work just right in Safari.
01:03:53
◼
►
And you're forced to use Safari
01:03:55
◼
►
because you cannot put Google Chrome on it.
01:03:58
◼
►
You have some built-in apps,
01:04:00
◼
►
they still don't have the equivalent features
01:04:03
◼
►
of the Mac OS versions.
01:04:06
◼
►
Smart folders in Apple Mail,
01:04:08
◼
►
smart playlists in Apple Music.
01:04:10
◼
►
Like, and I'm tired.
01:04:12
◼
►
I'm just tired of waiting for who knows exactly what, right?
01:04:17
◼
►
It's been 10 years.
01:04:20
◼
►
Like I was thinking about this.
01:04:22
◼
►
It's been 10 years that I've been using the iPad.
01:04:25
◼
►
And some things I've been complaining for literally a decade.
01:04:30
◼
►
And I feel like maybe it's enough, you know, like,
01:04:34
◼
►
but the thing is, I don't know what I'm doing. Like, I don't like,
01:04:40
◼
►
I love Mac OS. Mind you, I love Mac OS. I just,
01:04:44
◼
►
I don't like being forced into a laptop again.
01:04:48
◼
►
I don't think a MacBook Air the screen comes off of is in the cards anytime
01:04:54
◼
►
soon yeah but but touch is a first step in that direction right without touch
01:05:02
◼
►
there you're never gonna get to the true convertible so maybe maybe like we said
01:05:07
◼
►
earlier Apple should get weird that's what we want they should do it just you
01:05:12
◼
►
know make a make an iPad make them I don't know call it the MacBook touch or
01:05:18
◼
►
whatever just call it whatever you want just give me a computer that runs
01:05:23
◼
►
Mac OS or the single hope. I'm going to close out with a glimmer of hope. I'm afraid to
01:05:32
◼
►
say that my one true hope this year is the European Union, which is not a position I
01:05:40
◼
►
thought I would ever be in on this show. But hey, maybe the European Union is going to
01:05:48
◼
►
really force Apple to allow sideloading on on iPadOS and maybe just maybe we will get alternative
01:05:56
◼
►
browsers and alternative apps for audio files and that will maybe remove the friction I'm
01:06:04
◼
►
finding over and over with some things and everything will work itself out thanks to
01:06:10
◼
►
Gatekeeper and sideloading and the European Union and whatever feature Apple is going to ship
01:06:17
◼
►
this year if they are doing it. And it sounds like they are. So maybe there's hope.
01:06:20
◼
►
Not the kind of hope I was looking for, you know? Never a good kind of a feature, I guess,
01:06:29
◼
►
if it's forced by regulators. But hey, maybe that's it. Maybe that's... I just need to wait
01:06:34
◼
►
for sideloading. Godspeed, my friend. Yeah, I know, right? If you want to find links to stuff we
01:06:40
◼
►
spoke about in the show this week, they're in your podcast app. They're also on the web at relay.fm/
01:06:46
◼
►
connected slash 434. There's also a link there where you can submit feedback or
01:06:51
◼
►
follow up to the show. There are also buttons to join and get connected pro
01:06:56
◼
►
which is a longer ad-free version of the show each and every week the pro show is
01:07:02
◼
►
awesome you don't want to miss it so join up and if you are a member thank
01:07:06
◼
►
you so much for your support. You can find Federico's work online he is the
01:07:10
◼
►
editor-in-chief of Mac stories dot net. If you haven't read his ivory view go
01:07:15
◼
►
check it out. It's awesome and you really get into like, yes, this is based on Tweetbot,
01:07:19
◼
►
but it is also its own thing. So I think that was a really excellent piece.
01:07:23
◼
►
Yeah. And as of today, we made it even easier to find us on Mastodon. I had this idea for
01:07:32
◼
►
like, hey, why don't I just set up like a sub domain so that like, because it's weird
01:07:38
◼
►
when you know, we used to say, just find, you know, @Vittucci on Twitter, but that's
01:07:42
◼
►
not possible anymore. So now if you want to find me on Mastodon, you just type into your
01:07:47
◼
►
address bar vittici.macstories.net and you will be taken to my profile. That's it, like
01:07:53
◼
►
vittici.macstories.net in Safari, Google Chrome, whatever.
01:07:57
◼
►
You can find my writing over at 512pixels.net and I also co-host MacPowerUsers here on Relay
01:08:04
◼
►
FM. Myke's not here, but he also hosts a bunch of other shows here on Relay FM and he's the
01:08:09
◼
►
co-founder of Cortex brand. You can learn more about their theme system journal
01:08:13
◼
►
and a whole bunch more at cortexmerch.com. I'd like to thank our sponsors this week
01:08:18
◼
►
Squarespace and Fitbod and until next week Federico say goodbye.
01:08:23
◼
►
Arigatou gozaimasu. Bye y'all.