Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► - From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 425.

00:00:13 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by some excellent sponsors,

00:00:15 ◼   ► Squarespace and Memerful.

00:00:17 ◼   ► I'm one of your two co-hosts this week,

00:00:20 ◼   ► Federico Vittucci and I'm,

00:00:21 ◼   ► my absolute pleasure once again

00:00:23 ◼   ► to welcome to the show, Mr. Stephen Hackett.

00:00:25 ◼   ► Hello, Stephen, how are you?

00:00:28 ◼   ► - Hello Federico, I am good.

00:00:30 ◼   ► - It's the two of us again.

00:00:32 ◼   ► - It is just the two of us, just the two of us.

00:00:35 ◼   ► Myke is on vacation for a couple of weeks

00:00:38 ◼   ► and so it's me and you.

00:00:39 ◼   ► I think we're gonna be joined maybe

00:00:41 ◼   ► by the one true John next week.

00:00:42 ◼   ► - Maybe.

00:00:43 ◼   ► - He may be hearing about it for the first time right now.

00:00:45 ◼   ► - Right, maybe.

00:00:46 ◼   ► I still, I need to tell John that we had this idea

00:00:50 ◼   ► for Connected, but I guess he'll find out about it

00:00:54 ◼   ► soon enough without me having to text him about it.

00:00:57 ◼   ► or maybe I will, we'll see.

00:00:58 ◼   ► See when we have some follow-up.

00:01:02 ◼   ► - We do.

00:01:04 ◼   ► It's all about you.

00:01:05 ◼   ► Again, it's Federico follow-up.

00:01:07 ◼   ► - Well.

00:01:09 ◼   ► - Federico up.

00:01:10 ◼   ► - No, no, no.

00:01:13 ◼   ► - Can't find a word there.

00:01:15 ◼   ► Lots of people have written in,

00:01:17 ◼   ► I'm not sharing their names for, you know,

00:01:19 ◼   ► when to protect the innocents,

00:01:22 ◼   ► but lots of people have written and tell us

00:01:23 ◼   ► that they type just like you,

00:01:25 ◼   ► using the caps lock key intermittently as a shift key.

00:01:28 ◼   ► - There are dozens of us out there, dozens of us.

00:01:31 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:01:32 ◼   ► - As you can see, there's a bunch of people

00:01:33 ◼   ► that are just like me, I've been so far afraid

00:01:36 ◼   ► to admit it in public, but there are many, many people

00:01:41 ◼   ► like me out there using caps lock.

00:01:44 ◼   ► What was the, someone used the term, to cap shift,

00:01:49 ◼   ► I think someone--

00:01:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think I saw that.

00:01:52 ◼   ► terminology to "cap shift" when using a physical keyboard.

00:01:56 ◼   ► And someone also told me his 11-year-old daughter

00:02:01 ◼   ► does that when typing at a keyboard,

00:02:03 ◼   ► which I'm not sure how to take that response as like,

00:02:06 ◼   ► I'm not sure if it was ironic or as meant to be

00:02:11 ◼   ► as a compliment, meaning like,

00:02:13 ◼   ► "I am so glad that my daughter sees the light

00:02:17 ◼   ► just like you do and uses caps lock."

00:02:20 ◼   ► Maybe that was the interpretation of that tweet. Probably that.

00:02:25 ◼   ► Like I'm so thankful that my daughter also is like you in terms of using

00:02:29 ◼   ► caps lock. We also got some feedback about the...

00:02:33 ◼   ► I was complaining about the scrolling effect when using a Logitech mouse with

00:02:38 ◼   ► macOS. Now, a bit of a...

00:02:41 ◼   ► What's the term for follow-up inside follow-up?

00:02:44 ◼   ► Like the... Well, I guess at one point, like years ago,

00:02:49 ◼   ► you could have said Russian doll, but now I don't know,

00:02:52 ◼   ► that's probably not the best expression anymore.

00:02:55 ◼   ► - It's nested follow-up.

00:02:57 ◼   ► - Just nested follow-up.

00:02:58 ◼   ► It's like, oh, what was the thing that Myke hates?

00:03:02 ◼   ► Indent left and indent right.

00:03:04 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:03:05 ◼   ► - It's like indented follow-up.

00:03:08 ◼   ► I said last week, I'm not sure how long this experiment

00:03:15 ◼   ► with the Logitech accessories is gonna last.

00:03:19 ◼   ► Uh-oh.

00:03:19 ◼   ► And I can tell you it lasted for a day after the show.

00:03:24 ◼   ► I went back and I am looking at these two things again.

00:03:29 ◼   ► Right now, the Apple Magic Keyboard

00:03:32 ◼   ► and the Apple Magic Trackpad.

00:03:34 ◼   ► It's just, I cannot take not having gestures on a trackpad.

00:03:39 ◼   ► And it was the trackpad more than the keyboard,

00:03:45 ◼   ► but as soon as I realized,

00:03:47 ◼   ► oh, I like the trackpad so much better than the mouse,

00:03:50 ◼   ► then I just didn't want to have a hybrid setup, you know?

00:03:54 ◼   ► I just didn't want to have the trackpad from Apple

00:03:59 ◼   ► and the keyboard from Logitech.

00:04:01 ◼   ► And there was also the problem that I mentioned last week

00:04:04 ◼   ► of the inability to remap the globe key

00:04:08 ◼   ► on the Logitech keyboard,

00:04:10 ◼   ► whereas on the Apple Magic keyboard,

00:04:12 ◼   ► I have a native globe key.

00:04:13 ◼   ► So all is good with the world again,

00:04:16 ◼   ► But I'm using a wire right now.

00:04:18 ◼   ► There's a, not that I'm wearing a wire.

00:04:21 ◼   ► That's not what I meant.

00:04:22 ◼   ► I was, what I meant was that-

00:04:24 ◼   ► Oh no, someone will hear our conversation.

00:04:26 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:04:29 ◼   ► I'm using the accessories.

00:04:32 ◼   ► I'm using the accessories in wired mode right now.

00:04:37 ◼   ► Got it.

00:04:40 ◼   ► They are connected to the Thunderbolt dock,

00:04:42 ◼   ► the CalDigit that you convinced me to buy.

00:04:45 ◼   ► Yes.

00:04:46 ◼   ► But I will probably, I don't know,

00:04:48 ◼   ► we'll talk about this setup again next week.

00:04:50 ◼   ► I have some ideas.

00:04:52 ◼   ► Anyway, that's the end of the indented followup.

00:04:57 ◼   ► Now we are indenting left again.

00:05:01 ◼   ► Meaning we are returning to the main followup item,

00:05:05 ◼   ► mouse scrolling.

00:05:07 ◼   ► I was complaining last week about how gerry it was

00:05:11 ◼   ► when scrolling with a click wheel on a Logitech mouse

00:05:15 ◼   ► on Mac OS and iPad OS.

00:05:17 ◼   ► And now a bunch of people sent us a few links.

00:05:21 ◼   ► Ed sent us a link to a utility called MOS,

00:05:24 ◼   ► that's M-O-S, and Christopher sent us a link to Smoos,

00:05:29 ◼   ► Smoos Pro, actually.

00:05:32 ◼   ► These are two utilities,

00:05:33 ◼   ► and I know that at least another one exists.

00:05:36 ◼   ► I've seen the link fly by on Twitter.

00:05:39 ◼   ► These are utilities that are, of course,

00:05:41 ◼   ► only available on Mac OS,

00:05:43 ◼   ► because you cannot do this stuff on iPadOS--

00:05:45 ◼   ► that lets you modify the scrolling behavior

00:05:47 ◼   ► when a mouse is connected.

00:05:49 ◼   ► Essentially, they make the scrolling smoother for you

00:05:53 ◼   ► when you're using MacOS with a mouse instead of a Magic Track

00:05:57 ◼   ► Pad.

00:05:58 ◼   ► I am especially intrigued by Smoose Pro.

00:06:01 ◼   ► The tagline of the app is "Rediscover your scroll wheel

00:06:05 ◼   ► mouse."

00:06:06 ◼   ► It's pretty impressive because, I mean, obviously,

00:06:08 ◼   ► it lets you change the scrolling behavior.

00:06:12 ◼   ► It also has support for auto-scroll

00:06:14 ◼   ► and a bunch of different gestures,

00:06:16 ◼   ► like grab and drag and throw, I think one is called.

00:06:20 ◼   ► It synchronizes your, like if you do drawings,

00:06:23 ◼   ► for example, if you're an artist,

00:06:25 ◼   ► it synchronizes the drawings to the refresh rate

00:06:29 ◼   ► of the display when you're scrolling with the mouse wheel.

00:06:32 ◼   ► And it even lets you choose between

00:06:35 ◼   ► different animation curves for the scrolling.

00:06:39 ◼   ► So it goes very, I mean, it's called Smooth Pro.

00:06:42 ◼   ► So you know it's for pros when you can choose

00:06:43 ◼   ► the animation curve.

00:06:45 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Yeah, it's got linear,

00:06:47 ◼   ► slide in, slide out, yeah, it's got a bunch of things.

00:06:50 ◼   ► It's real fancy.

00:06:51 ◼   ► So yes, thank you Ed and Christopher

00:06:53 ◼   ► for sending over some mouse-related follow-up.

00:06:56 ◼   ► Unfortunately, these utilities are Mac OS only.

00:07:00 ◼   ► You cannot do real mouse work on an iPad.

00:07:04 ◼   ► So there's that.

00:07:05 ◼   ► Steve, we have some universal control feedback.

00:07:08 ◼   ► - Yes, I'm calling this

00:07:09 ◼   ► Universal Control Feedback Part 27.

00:07:12 ◼   ► This is from a Mac Word article

00:07:14 ◼   ► written by our friend Jason Snell.

00:07:16 ◼   ► I'm gonna read a little bit of this to you

00:07:17 ◼   ► 'cause then I want your take.

00:07:19 ◼   ► This is Jason.

00:07:20 ◼   ► This week I uncovered a surprising use

00:07:22 ◼   ► of universal control that I'd never anticipated.

00:07:25 ◼   ► I was complaining to a friend of mine

00:07:27 ◼   ► about how I was struggling to properly test

00:07:29 ◼   ► external display support on the current iPad OS beta

00:07:33 ◼   ► because it was such a pain to detach my display,

00:07:35 ◼   ► keyboard, and trackpad from my Mac

00:07:37 ◼   ► and reattach them to my iPad.

00:07:40 ◼   ► He wanted to keep the same desk configuration

00:07:42 ◼   ► just like you want to.

00:07:43 ◼   ► So back to Jason.

00:07:44 ◼   ► My friend suggested that perhaps

00:07:47 ◼   ► I could give universal control a try.

00:07:49 ◼   ► After all, isn't the Mac studio still running?

00:07:51 ◼   ► Why disconnect the keyboard and track pad at all?

00:07:54 ◼   ► So I unplugged the cable running from my Mac studio

00:07:57 ◼   ► to my studio display, and instead plugged in the iPad Pro.

00:08:01 ◼   ► Then I put my hand on my track pad,

00:08:03 ◼   ► still attached to the Mac,

00:08:05 ◼   ► and imagined moving the pointer across

00:08:07 ◼   ► to the far right edge of the Mac screen

00:08:10 ◼   ► and popping it into the iPad.

00:08:12 ◼   ► Sure enough, it just worked.

00:08:13 ◼   ► And for the next few hours,

00:08:15 ◼   ► I used my iPad with an external display,

00:08:17 ◼   ► all driven by a keyboard and track pad,

00:08:20 ◼   ► still attached to a Mac,

00:08:21 ◼   ► connected via universal control.

00:08:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:08:26 ◼   ► It's funny because I was just talking to Jason

00:08:28 ◼   ► about this very topic privately just a couple of days ago.

00:08:31 ◼   ► And as is often the case with Jason,

00:08:33 ◼   ► many conversations eventually become Mac Word or Six Colors articles, which is always,

00:08:40 ◼   ► that's something that is very, very unique to JSON. This article is excellent because

00:08:45 ◼   ► that's exactly one of the suggestions that people, a couple of people including JSON,

00:08:51 ◼   ► sent over to me in terms of, well, if you are really committed to using one setup, one

00:08:59 ◼   ► keyboard and trackpad setup for Mac OS and iPad OS with one display, maybe Universal

00:09:06 ◼   ► Control could be a solution for you. I think this is a topic we'll revisit soon, because

00:09:14 ◼   ► like I said, I have some ideas. The key though to understand about this is when Jason says

00:09:22 ◼   ► and I imagined moving the pointer.

00:09:25 ◼   ► That's the downside here, right?

00:09:28 ◼   ► Because if you unplug the cable from the Mac Studio

00:09:33 ◼   ► to the Studio Display and plug it into the iPad Pro,

00:09:37 ◼   ► then you no longer see Mac OS.

00:09:39 ◼   ► So you just gotta go by feel, essentially,

00:09:42 ◼   ► and imagine that you're dragging the pointer

00:09:44 ◼   ► to the right edge of the screen,

00:09:46 ◼   ► and eventually it should pop over on iPad OS.

00:09:50 ◼   ► I wonder what happens if you do a bit of an Inception setup,

00:09:58 ◼   ► but in theory you could VNC into the Mac and use something like screens

00:10:06 ◼   ► and move the pointer via VNC onto the iPad itself.

00:10:12 ◼   ► But then what happens in that case? A pointer becomes a pointer, I guess?

00:10:18 ◼   ► You got a double pointer?

00:10:20 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:10:20 ◼   ► - I'm trying to think through that.

00:10:22 ◼   ► - Right?

00:10:23 ◼   ► Right, because if you use VNC to move a virtual pointer,

00:10:28 ◼   ► oh man, yeah, I don't know what happens in that case,

00:10:32 ◼   ► but I guess we'll find out.

00:10:34 ◼   ► So that could be fun.

00:10:35 ◼   ► - And his setup is a little different from yours

00:10:38 ◼   ► in that he's running a Mac Studio.

00:10:40 ◼   ► It's tucked under his desk like mine is,

00:10:42 ◼   ► and your machine is a 14-inch MacBook Pro.

00:10:45 ◼   ► And so you've got to keep that machine

00:10:48 ◼   ► Awake for this to work right and if it's in clamshell mode and the external display goes away. It's gonna go to sleep

00:10:55 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't like this. I don't like this idea

00:10:58 ◼   ► Yeah, so it's I think it's an interesting thing and definitely a use case that I hadn't thought of

00:11:03 ◼   ► But it is one that comes with some trade-offs depending on you know exactly

00:11:09 ◼   ► What you have as your Mac. I want to touch base on Apple frames 3.1. You've been talking this up

00:11:17 ◼   ► you know where is it come on well I mean it's Thanksgiving week for me as well

00:11:22 ◼   ► even though I'm the only one of the few Italians who celebrate Thanksgiving I

00:11:27 ◼   ► think no it's coming I I was hoping to get it out this week I don't think I

00:11:33 ◼   ► will have the time but we'll see see the thing about this update is that it

00:11:37 ◼   ► requires a bit of documentation let me explain so some some relatively easy

00:11:45 ◼   ► changes were adding support for devices that were missing. I talked about this

00:11:51 ◼   ► last week. I will restore support for the iPhone 8 Plus and the small Apple Watch.

00:11:57 ◼   ► The small Apple Watch, I totally forgot that Apple was offering a frame for it.

00:12:02 ◼   ► They didn't have one last year. I guess they added one in September for the

00:12:07 ◼   ► Series 8 and I just assumed that the 41 millimeter watch did not have one. There

00:12:14 ◼   ► There is one, so that one will be supported in Frames 3.1.

00:12:19 ◼   ► But the thing I did with Apple Frames 3.1 is I basically added...

00:12:26 ◼   ► And wow, I cannot believe that the theme of this episode is one thing inside of another

00:12:32 ◼   ► thing, because here we're going to talk about that as well.

00:12:36 ◼   ► So I made...

00:12:37 ◼   ► How can I explain this?

00:12:39 ◼   ► So I made a shortcut capable of supporting other shortcuts, meaning I built automation

00:12:50 ◼   ► for Apple Frames.

00:12:53 ◼   ► Basically the idea is you can run Apple Frames like you always do.

00:12:58 ◼   ► You run it manually, you pick an image, multiple images.

00:13:03 ◼   ► The way you've been using Apple Frames for the past three, four years, it's not changing.

00:13:08 ◼   ► will always stay the same. You press a button, you run Apple Frames, you pick an image, and

00:13:13 ◼   ► then you choose an option. But I figured maybe power users of Apple Frames would like to

00:13:19 ◼   ► have a few options in terms of switching the behavior of Apple Frames. So think of Apple

00:13:26 ◼   ► Frames 3.1 as capable of supporting different activation modes and different output modes.

00:13:36 ◼   ► For example, you can tell Apple Frames 3.1 to not present you with an image picker and

00:13:45 ◼   ► instead get the latest screenshot that you took, or get an image from the clipboard,

00:13:53 ◼   ► or get the latest 7 screenshots.

00:13:57 ◼   ► So you can change the activation method.

00:14:00 ◼   ► You can say "I don't want to pick manually, just use this image".

00:14:04 ◼   ► That's how you have different commands for how Apple Frames activates.

00:14:09 ◼   ► But then you also have commands for what Apple Frames does at the end.

00:14:13 ◼   ► So you can basically script the beginning and the end of Apple Frames.

00:14:19 ◼   ► And at the end you can say, "I don't want to see the menu with all the options.

00:14:23 ◼   ► I want you to save all these framed images to photos."

00:14:28 ◼   ► Or "I want you to save them all in a folder in Finder without asking me about it."

00:14:33 ◼   ► I want you to copy them all to the clipboard and so forth.

00:14:37 ◼   ► So basically, the beginning and the end of Apple Frames are scriptable now.

00:14:42 ◼   ► The engine in between has remained the same.

00:14:47 ◼   ► And you will even be able, if you're a power user,

00:14:50 ◼   ► and this is the very last thing I added, and then I decided,

00:14:54 ◼   ► "Okay, now it's time to write some documentation and polish this,

00:14:58 ◼   ► because I'm done with this update," you will also be able to choose.

00:15:02 ◼   ► if you are passing multiple images to Apple Frames,

00:15:06 ◼   ► do you want to combine them all in a single image?

00:15:10 ◼   ► Like, for example, with all the iPhones side by side,

00:15:13 ◼   ► you've seen the screenshots that I do like this,

00:15:16 ◼   ► you know, with three, four iPhones, all side by side.

00:15:18 ◼   ► - Definitely.

00:15:20 ◼   ► - Now you will be able to choose,

00:15:21 ◼   ► do you want Apple Frames to combine

00:15:23 ◼   ► to stitch together all those iPhones,

00:15:25 ◼   ► or do you want to frame them,

00:15:28 ◼   ► but save them as individual images instead.

00:15:32 ◼   ► And you can do that.

00:15:35 ◼   ► So now you can, for example, pass five iPad screenshots

00:15:40 ◼   ► and save them as five separate framed iPad images.

00:15:46 ◼   ► That's also one thing that you can script Apple Frames 3.1 with.

00:15:52 ◼   ► And all of this can be mixed and matched.

00:15:55 ◼   ► So all of these different modes, you can combine them however you want, and it supports a pretty

00:16:02 ◼   ► large set of commands for the input and for the output.

00:16:09 ◼   ► And it's very nice because now you can basically make Apple Frames fit any kind of workflow.

00:16:16 ◼   ► And the last thing I will mention here is that I also added something pretty nice for

00:16:20 ◼   ► Mac OS.

00:16:22 ◼   ► So for Mac users, you will be able, again, this is macOS only because only macOS lets

00:16:28 ◼   ► you do certain things.

00:16:30 ◼   ► One of the things macOS lets you do is trigger a shortcut with a hotkey anywhere in your

00:16:37 ◼   ► system, right?

00:16:38 ◼   ► You can run a shortcut even when you're looking at something else, which you cannot do on

00:16:44 ◼   ► iPad.

00:16:45 ◼   ► With Apple Frames 3.1, you will be able to screenshot what you're looking at and frame

00:16:50 ◼   ► it immediately.

00:16:52 ◼   ► - That's cool.

00:16:52 ◼   ► - So just capture the screen and frame it right away

00:16:56 ◼   ► with a single keyboard shortcut.

00:16:58 ◼   ► So that will be pretty nice.

00:17:00 ◼   ► And yeah, that's it for this update,

00:17:03 ◼   ► which again, I need to write it up

00:17:05 ◼   ► and explain all the different options,

00:17:09 ◼   ► but yeah, it should be nice.

00:17:10 ◼   ► - Any HDMI adapter news?

00:17:12 ◼   ► People keep asking how it's going.

00:17:14 ◼   ► - I wasted a bunch of money.

00:17:15 ◼   ► - Oh no!

00:17:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, it does not work.

00:17:21 ◼   ► the Club 3D HDMI to Thunderbolt adapter that I got,

00:17:26 ◼   ► which I guess technically is like an HDMI

00:17:30 ◼   ► to DisplayPort 1.4 adapter,

00:17:34 ◼   ► because what the stereo display does should be like,

00:17:38 ◼   ► what's it called?

00:17:39 ◼   ► DisplayPort over USB-C, I guess.

00:17:43 ◼   ► Yeah, it doesn't work.

00:17:45 ◼   ► That Club 3D thing that I mentioned,

00:17:49 ◼   ► I plugged in my Apple TV and nothing,

00:17:53 ◼   ► just the screen wouldn't even turn on.

00:17:55 ◼   ► - Oh man.

00:17:56 ◼   ► - So yeah, I'm sending it back.

00:17:58 ◼   ► - Good, that's a bummer.

00:17:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, maybe I need to rethink.

00:18:02 ◼   ► Maybe I'm following the wrong approach here.

00:18:05 ◼   ► Maybe the solution is not a physical Apple TV.

00:18:09 ◼   ► Maybe what I can do is something like a guest account

00:18:14 ◼   ► on a Mac that's running in like some sort of kiosk mode

00:18:19 ◼   ► and it opens a Plex UI.

00:18:21 ◼   ► I don't know, but basically I'm thinking

00:18:23 ◼   ► about something like this.

00:18:24 ◼   ► What about having a guest account on macOS

00:18:27 ◼   ► and in the doc you only see three icons?

00:18:30 ◼   ► Netflix, YouTube, and Plex.

00:18:33 ◼   ► - I like it.

00:18:33 ◼   ► - Something along those lines that is super easy to use

00:18:37 ◼   ► and it's, you know, asks for your--

00:18:40 ◼   ► - Not an administrator user, right?

00:18:42 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:18:43 ◼   ► And I mean, look, it's either gonna be my mom

00:18:46 ◼   ► and my mom won't care.

00:18:48 ◼   ► Although for my mom, I could, because you can do that with Plex, and I have in storage somewhere

00:18:55 ◼   ► one of those TV tuners. I have an antenna here. I have a socket in the wall for a TV antenna.

00:19:05 ◼   ► And I could install one of those TV tuners that lets you watch TV via a computer. And Plex supports

00:19:13 ◼   ► those devices. What's it called? Oh, man. Are you familiar, Steven, with the app called

00:19:20 ◼   ► Channels?

00:19:21 ◼   ► I know Casey has talked about it. He gave it on ATP.

00:19:25 ◼   ► Yes.

00:19:26 ◼   ► It's like internet TV, or it's like TV and DVR software, and you can hook, you can use

00:19:31 ◼   ► a cable card with it.

00:19:32 ◼   ► And you can use one of those TV tuners. I don't remember what the name of the, it's

00:19:37 ◼   ► not called TV tuner.

00:19:39 ◼   ► Like Over the Air?

00:19:40 ◼   ► Yes, it's a little box that you plug into an antenna.

00:19:44 ◼   ► Of course, I don't have a, like, the whole antenna

00:19:46 ◼   ► is on the roof of the building,

00:19:47 ◼   ► but I have a connector here that I can run a cable to.

00:19:50 ◼   ► And you get this little puck.

00:19:52 ◼   ► It looks like an Apple T, I just remembered.

00:19:55 ◼   ► The company that makes these adapters is called HD Home Run.

00:20:00 ◼   ► So you get an HD, thank you, Zach, yeah, that's the one.

00:20:03 ◼   ► So you get an HD Home Run, you set it up via channels,

00:20:07 ◼   ► and then you can watch live TV on a Mac via the Channels app.

00:20:14 ◼   ► So if my mom sleeps over, I can set up channels for her.

00:20:19 ◼   ► And if it's not my mom, it's going to be Sylvia's sister.

00:20:21 ◼   ► Now Sylvia's sister may want to watch Netflix and YouTube.

00:20:25 ◼   ► So yeah, I think I could get by with a guest account on Mac OS

00:20:30 ◼   ► with four icons in the dock--

00:20:33 ◼   ► YouTube channels Plex and Netflix and Apple TV throw it in the mix five icons. I

00:20:39 ◼   ► Think it's doable and probably better than finding one of these janky

00:20:45 ◼   ► HDMI adapters and I was I was even trying to Google like can you airplay?

00:20:50 ◼   ► From an Apple TV to a Mac, but that doesn't seem like that's a thing. No

00:20:55 ◼   ► No, you know you could have a if you had your Mac cooked up anyways, but yeah

00:21:00 ◼   ► I think ultimately just doing something that's in Mac OS and yeah make that user as simple as possible like that'll get the job done

00:21:07 ◼   ► Real quick. We just want to tell people about some membership deals. We have going on across our various

00:21:14 ◼   ► Platforms, what are you guys doing over at Club Max stories?

00:21:18 ◼   ► so

00:21:20 ◼   ► For this holiday season. This is something that we've been doing for the for the past few years

00:21:26 ◼   ► Basically, you can gift the Club Max Stories subscription.

00:21:30 ◼   ► Now, obviously, for the past year, you've been able to choose between three different tiers of Club Max Stories.

00:21:35 ◼   ► You have the regular one, you have Club Max Stories Plus, and you have Club Premiere.

00:21:39 ◼   ► Club Premiere being the one that has all included, basically, the fancy version of the club, the Discord, and App Stories Plus.

00:21:48 ◼   ► So now if you gift a membership to someone else, you can receive back three months,

00:21:59 ◼   ► an extension of three months of your membership. So if you purchase an annual subscription for

00:22:06 ◼   ► someone else in your family or a friend, say you have a very dear friend and you know that friend

00:22:12 ◼   ► is going to be into apps and music and shortcuts and the kind of things we cover at Mac Stories

00:22:19 ◼   ► and the Club, and you give them an annual subscription, you, on your existing plan,

00:22:26 ◼   ► you get an extension of three months. So gift an annual plan, get three months back for

00:22:31 ◼   ► free on your account. And otherwise, I believe if you gift a monthly plan, you get an extra

00:22:37 ◼   ► month, same as last year, but this year we figured, hey, if you gift an annual

00:22:42 ◼   ► membership you probably deserve a bigger extension, so that's what we're doing.

00:22:46 ◼   ► Gift an annual subscription, get three months, it's like, you know, one

00:22:53 ◼   ► quarter... no, how many months is a year? Twelve months. So yeah, it's one-fourth of

00:23:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, quarter of the year.

00:23:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, quarter of, yeah, three months.

00:23:05 ◼   ► Who knew?

00:23:05 ◼   ► Yeah, so that's what we're doing.

00:23:09 ◼   ► - Cool.

00:23:10 ◼   ► And here at Relay, we're doing 20% off

00:23:14 ◼   ► all of our annual plans.

00:23:15 ◼   ► You can go to giverelay.com and again, send it as a gift.

00:23:19 ◼   ► Or if you want to just treat yourself,

00:23:22 ◼   ► you can use the coupon code 2023HOLIDAYS

00:23:26 ◼   ► at checkout on the Relay website,

00:23:28 ◼   ► and that'll get you the same 20% off an annual plan.

00:23:32 ◼   ► Our thing is running through December 17th

00:23:35 ◼   ► and signups have been really good this year so far.

00:23:39 ◼   ► I think we'll be even better than we did last year.

00:23:42 ◼   ► So thank you all who have checked that out

00:23:44 ◼   ► and for supporting both Relay and Mac stories over the years.

00:23:48 ◼   ► I mean, I like take this chance to say that

00:23:51 ◼   ► because our membership programs are really special.

00:23:55 ◼   ► I think both of them are.

00:23:56 ◼   ► And obviously there's a lot of people who are in both,

00:23:58 ◼   ► but there's people who aren't.

00:23:59 ◼   ► And so wherever you are,

00:24:00 ◼   ► however you choose to support the shows, thank you.

00:24:04 ◼   ► It means a lot to us.

00:24:05 ◼   ► And it has really given us all a sense of stability

00:24:09 ◼   ► in our businesses in these unprecedented times.

00:24:12 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:24:15 ◼   ► - I don't like that phrase.

00:24:16 ◼   ► - They are unprecedented.

00:24:18 ◼   ► - They are.

00:24:18 ◼   ► - But yes, thank you.

00:24:19 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:24:20 ◼   ► - This episode of Connected is made possible by Squarespace,

00:24:24 ◼   ► the all-in-one platform for building your brand

00:24:26 ◼   ► and growing your business online.

00:24:28 ◼   ► You can stand out with a beautiful website,

00:24:30 ◼   ► engage with your audience and sell anything,

00:24:32 ◼   ► products, services, even content.

00:24:35 ◼   ► With Squarespace, you can use insights

00:24:36 ◼   ► to grow your business.

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00:24:43 ◼   ► All of those tools are built in to Squarespace,

00:24:46 ◼   ► which is really cool.

00:24:47 ◼   ► They also extend to Squarespace email campaigns,

00:24:50 ◼   ► so you can have people sign up,

00:24:51 ◼   ► you can send them a customized email using your brand,

00:24:55 ◼   ► your colors and everything and the analytics measure the impact of every

00:24:59 ◼   ► email sent there as well. These SEO tools can be really confusing. I really

00:25:03 ◼   ► like that it's all integrated into Squarespace. The GiveRelay website is

00:25:08 ◼   ► built on Squarespace. If you go there and look at our membership stuff,

00:25:11 ◼   ► all built with Squarespace. Those galleries, the text, being able to lay

00:25:14 ◼   ► things out, it took very little time at all and I think it looks really good. I

00:25:18 ◼   ► really like building on Squarespace when it comes to these special projects for

00:25:22 ◼   ► the network. Head on over to squarespace.com/connected for a free trial with no credit card required.

00:25:29 ◼   ► And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code "Connected" to save 10% off your first

00:25:33 ◼   ► purchase of a website or domain name. Once again, that's squarespace.com/connected and

00:25:39 ◼   ► the code "Connected" is going to get you 10% off your first purchase and to show your support

00:25:44 ◼   ► for the show. Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting Connected and Relay FM.

00:25:50 ◼   ► I'm trying to think of a nice way to introduce this.

00:25:54 ◼   ► Myke is a very close friend of ours.

00:25:58 ◼   ► And Myke, like the rest of us, has opinions.

00:26:03 ◼   ► And sometimes Myke has some really strong opinions about things.

00:26:09 ◼   ► He has opinions about computers, about games, about music, about colors.

00:26:15 ◼   ► Sometimes he has opinions about clothing and clothing accessories or clothing items in general.

00:26:22 ◼   ► And you know, he's the type of person who has been collecting, you know, he has a collection of podcast t-shirts,

00:26:30 ◼   ► has a collection of, you know, obviously with Cortex they've been doing an entire line

00:26:37 ◼   ► of t-shirts and sweaters and things, you know, but he's a guy with opinions.

00:26:42 ◼   ► And over the years, one opinion in particular has sort of defined the relationship between the three of us

00:26:52 ◼   ► when it comes to something we did a few years ago.

00:26:56 ◼   ► And Steven and I always... I don't want to say we strongly disagreed with Myke,

00:27:04 ◼   ► but we didn't exactly feel the same way it did about a particular t-shirt.

00:27:11 ◼   ► And so we were waiting and we were anticipating the moment when Myke would go on vacation.

00:27:20 ◼   ► We've been planning this for weeks, actually. This has been planned in secret. Behind the scenes, we've been scheming and doing things behind Myke's back, waiting until the moment he will be so excited to leave.

00:27:40 ◼   ► excited to leave for his vacation. And until that moment we knew we had to hold all of

00:27:46 ◼   ► our plants. But as soon as he left, all the plants came alive. And so it is our pleasure

00:27:54 ◼   ► to bring back the one and only Tiny Head T-Shirt. It is back for sale on Cotton Bureau, the

00:28:05 ◼   ► Tiny Head t-shirt. The t-shirt featuring, well, the three of us, obviously. Quite a

00:28:14 ◼   ► buffed version of the three of us. But with the tiny heads. With the tiny heads.

00:28:22 ◼   ► This is a t-shirt from a few years ago. You may remember it started off as a

00:28:26 ◼   ► joke when this particular style of design was all hot in Silicon Valley.

00:28:33 ◼   ► It felt like at one moment a couple of years ago,

00:28:36 ◼   ► everybody was making artwork featuring human characters

00:28:41 ◼   ► with very, very tiny heads.

00:28:44 ◼   ► Now, I think this style is out of fashion actually,

00:28:47 ◼   ► but that's the thing about fashion.

00:28:48 ◼   ► Everything comes back eventually.

00:28:51 ◼   ► So based on that principle,

00:28:52 ◼   ► Steven approached me a few weeks ago saying,

00:28:55 ◼   ► "Hey, you know, Myke is gonna be on vacation

00:28:57 ◼   ► toward the end of November.

00:28:59 ◼   ► Maybe this is the time when we can bring back the tiny head

00:29:03 ◼   ► head without telling him. And I believe, Stephen, you've been planning this so that

00:29:09 ◼   ► Myke couldn't find out for a couple of weeks now. A couple things. One, this

00:29:15 ◼   ► design is called Corporate Memphis. Like, that's the name of this design language.

00:29:21 ◼   ► Anyways, I'm putting that in the show notes. It's funny to me that it's named

00:29:23 ◼   ► after the city I live in. But yeah, so we're gonna do this. So I emailed our

00:29:28 ◼   ► friends at Cotton Bureau, but I realized that the email account on the connected

00:29:33 ◼   ► account with Cotton Bureau was Myke's, and so I had to change that so all the

00:29:39 ◼   ► emails would come to me, and he didn't seem to notice that I did that, or if he

00:29:43 ◼   ► did he didn't say anything, and so yeah, the the tiny head shirt is back

00:29:48 ◼   ► because look, we're men of the people, if anything, and the people

00:29:54 ◼   ► spoke and they wanted the shirt to come back and so you got 14 days to do it. So

00:30:02 ◼   ► this is gonna run all the way through the evening of December 7th and they'll

00:30:09 ◼   ► ship. You're gonna get it after Christmas it looks like because we got this pretty

00:30:14 ◼   ► close but again we want to time it with Myke being gone so we couldn't stop it.

00:30:17 ◼   ► So please please go grab a shirt it'd mean a lot to us. Exactly, it's just

00:30:23 ◼   ► something that I need to highlight here because there's something now people need to understand.

00:30:27 ◼   ► Now, you need to buy this t-shirt, otherwise Steven and I are screwed because we planned this behind

00:30:34 ◼   ► the scenes. And I mean, I'm joking, if you don't like the t-shirt, don't buy the t-shirt, but we

00:30:38 ◼   ► will really appreciate it if you got one. If only because we planned this in secret and we have a

00:30:44 ◼   ► point to prove to Michael. Now, we don't know how Myke is gonna react, right? There's a very good

00:30:51 ◼   ► chance that he will be upset, that he will be angry and he's gonna have opinions again.

00:30:57 ◼   ► But we love Myke and we hope that Myke will see the light regarding the tiny head. The tiny head

00:31:04 ◼   ► t-shirt was ahead of its time years ago. We believe the time is right now. Just as soon as this design

00:31:13 ◼   ► style has somewhat faded we can bring him back in its full glory. Yeah, if you like it get the

00:31:20 ◼   ► the t-shirt if you liked the show get the t-shirt remember Stephen and I we

00:31:25 ◼   ► did this in secret for you and we have a point to prove to Myke so you want to be

00:31:31 ◼   ► part of the part of that all thing with us we would appreciate it and you have

00:31:37 ◼   ► time until what was it Stephen December 8th or 7th yeah it's this December 7th

00:31:43 ◼   ► at 8 p.m. Eastern Time oh yeah it's my 2 a.m. that's why I was seen December 8

00:31:49 ◼   ► Yeah, okay. Well, yeah, now, you know, the mic is gonna be upset, right?

00:31:57 ◼   ► Probably. He'll be okay.

00:31:59 ◼   ► Well, look, I mean, you are his business partner, so you can smooth things over. I can blame it on you and you two can figure it out.

00:32:08 ◼   ► Yeah, you definitely already did blame it on me and the show. You're like, "Yes, Steven approached me," which is true.

00:32:13 ◼   ► Well, I mean, no, I mean, I should say I was also very excited about the idea. It's not

00:32:18 ◼   ► like Steven forced me or anything. I was like, yeah, yeah, actually, that's a great idea.

00:32:21 ◼   ► That's like, I was, I was more than a witness in, in this process, I should say. So yes,

00:32:29 ◼   ► but, but regardless, I will blame it on you. Okay. You know? Okay. Yeah. Please go buy

00:32:35 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:32:37 ◼   ► Oh, it's so good.

00:32:40 ◼   ► I'm so happy that it's back.

00:32:41 ◼   ► - Yes, me too.

00:32:42 ◼   ► I mean, look at it.

00:32:44 ◼   ► I think I'm gonna get a,

00:32:45 ◼   ► I think I'm gonna get a,

00:32:47 ◼   ► I really like the indigo color.

00:32:49 ◼   ► I think I will get that one.

00:32:50 ◼   ► - At the indigo,

00:32:51 ◼   ► I have an indigo one from last time.

00:32:53 ◼   ► This time I got the vintage turquoise.

00:32:56 ◼   ► I thought that was like a nice blue.

00:32:57 ◼   ► - Hmm, that's very blue.

00:33:00 ◼   ► - You need the tiny heads to stand out, you know?

00:33:02 ◼   ► I'm adding to cart right now.

00:33:05 ◼   ► - Okay, the time on our edition

00:33:06 ◼   ► of buying a t-shirt on the podcast.

00:33:08 ◼   ► Federico, tell me about Apple Books ruining fun.

00:33:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, so for the past few months,

00:33:15 ◼   ► a few people have reached out to my Mac Stories email

00:33:21 ◼   ► to complain about Apple Books.

00:33:23 ◼   ► Now this is something that I sort of knew

00:33:27 ◼   ► it was gonna happen.

00:33:28 ◼   ► When I wrote my iOS 16 review,

00:33:30 ◼   ► I believe there was a line in the books section where I said,

00:33:35 ◼   ► like, I'm not a heavy reader.

00:33:37 ◼   ► I'm one of those people that every year has the New Year's

00:33:41 ◼   ► resolution of, like, I'm going to read more books.

00:33:44 ◼   ► And then it's always--

00:33:45 ◼   ► I've always been jealous of people like Jason Snell,

00:33:49 ◼   ► really heavy, voracious readers.

00:33:53 ◼   ► And it's just, I guess, priorities.

00:33:55 ◼   ► I don't know, I just prefer to play video games at night.

00:33:59 ◼   ► But it's always there, like, I want to read more books.

00:34:02 ◼   ► I want to read more books, and I never do.

00:34:04 ◼   ► Anyway, I wrote in the review, like, I

00:34:08 ◼   ► don't know how this is going to go for heavy users of Apple

00:34:13 ◼   ► Books.

00:34:14 ◼   ► But I have a feeling that some of them will complain.

00:34:16 ◼   ► And some of them have complained about the redesign

00:34:20 ◼   ► of Apple Books.

00:34:21 ◼   ► A specific complaint that I keep hearing about

00:34:24 ◼   ► is that it's now, I think, easier--

00:34:28 ◼   ► if I'm getting this right.

00:34:29 ◼   ► I think it's easier to add a bookmark than before.

00:34:34 ◼   ► So now people end up with a bunch of random bookmarks

00:34:38 ◼   ► when they're reading a book in the books app.

00:34:41 ◼   ► And also other people told me over email,

00:34:44 ◼   ► like, and I'm grateful to them

00:34:46 ◼   ► because they send me like this very lengthy emails.

00:34:49 ◼   ► And typically I, typically, you know,

00:34:51 ◼   ► the lengthy email is a beast of its own, right?

00:34:54 ◼   ► When you get it.

00:34:55 ◼   ► But sometimes you get those lengthy emails

00:34:57 ◼   ► or from someone who says, I love it

00:35:00 ◼   ► when they are extremely aware of the lengthy email

00:35:04 ◼   ► they're sending you.

00:35:05 ◼   ► And they're like, you don't need to respond.

00:35:08 ◼   ► And I know that this is a long email.

00:35:10 ◼   ► But for the sake of letting you know about this,

00:35:13 ◼   ► don't feel the pressure to reply.

00:35:15 ◼   ► But I just figured I would send you some thoughts.

00:35:18 ◼   ► I super appreciate when that happens.

00:35:21 ◼   ► That is such a great way to send the lengthy email.

00:35:24 ◼   ► Anyway, one of the complaints is the new UI of Apple Books.

00:35:29 ◼   ► It's kind of weird.

00:35:31 ◼   ► We have mentioned before-- we have talked about this

00:35:33 ◼   ► on the show this summer--

00:35:35 ◼   ► the weird button in Apple Books on the phone.

00:35:39 ◼   ► Remember the weird menu we talked about?

00:35:42 ◼   ► They have that new menu.

00:35:44 ◼   ► It like floats down there?

00:35:46 ◼   ► It floats at the bottom, and it's both a button and a slider

00:35:51 ◼   ► all at once.

00:35:52 ◼   ► Yeah, we talked about the weird menu.

00:35:54 ◼   ► So the weird menu, it's both, well, it's strange looking and doesn't have any sort of UI precedent

00:36:02 ◼   ► on iOS, but also according to these people, it hides functionality that was easier to

00:36:07 ◼   ► reach than before.

00:36:09 ◼   ► So there's the whole aspect of criticism surrounding the Books app.

00:36:14 ◼   ► But something else that is why we're talking about this now, they removed, Apple removed

00:36:22 ◼   ► from iOS 16 and iPad OS 16, the excellent, really, really

00:36:27 ◼   ► excellent page curl animation that has been really

00:36:33 ◼   ► the marquee feature of iBooks and then books for years.

00:36:38 ◼   ► The page curl being the 3D effect

00:36:40 ◼   ► that you would get when swiping with your finger

00:36:43 ◼   ► to change pages when reading a book.

00:36:48 ◼   ► And that animation, I think, was introduced

00:36:52 ◼   ► with the very first version of iBooks,

00:36:55 ◼   ► back in 2010 with the first iPad,

00:36:58 ◼   ► and Steve Jobs was very proud of it.

00:37:01 ◼   ► And if I'm not mistaken,

00:37:02 ◼   ► that animation was actually patented by Apple

00:37:07 ◼   ► with the technology.

00:37:10 ◼   ► It was in Maps, I think, first.

00:37:13 ◼   ► Also, you may be right.

00:37:16 ◼   ► It like scrolled up from the corner

00:37:19 ◼   ► and you could select satellite, you know, map view, whatever.

00:37:24 ◼   ► It may not be exactly the same animation,

00:37:26 ◼   ► but it's very similar.

00:37:27 ◼   ► - But iBooks was before Maps.

00:37:31 ◼   ► Well, Apple Maps was iOS 6.

00:37:33 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, you're right.

00:37:35 ◼   ► Oh, look at you.

00:37:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, I know some of my history.

00:37:39 ◼   ► Not like you, but still.

00:37:41 ◼   ► The pattern that they have about this

00:37:43 ◼   ► involved a very complex process

00:37:46 ◼   ► in which the page was rotating around a 3D cone to simulate that page curl effect.

00:37:55 ◼   ► Yeah, I believe a bunch of Apple engineers hold the patent for that style of design.

00:38:02 ◼   ► Anyway, there was a very distinctive look, and it was fun, and it was cute, and it didn't hurt anybody.

00:38:10 ◼   ► and yet it was removed in iOS 16, replaced by a rather anonymous and bland

00:38:16 ◼   ► animation that flips you over to the next page horizontally.

00:38:20 ◼   ► It's one of those things where, like, I can imagine,

00:38:25 ◼   ► I can imagine if you were like, "Physical books are bad, they have been culturally canceled,

00:38:34 ◼   ► we cannot leave any references to physical books in our app called "books".

00:38:41 ◼   ► Like, if books had been cancelled by humanity,

00:38:45 ◼   ► I would imagine distancing yourself from the typical look of a book.

00:38:51 ◼   ► You know, just like Hollywood executives distance themselves from actors.

00:38:55 ◼   ► Like, okay, I want nothing to do with that.

00:38:58 ◼   ► But books have now been cancelled, in fact.

00:39:01 ◼   ► And it's not like you replaced that animation with something completely different and abstract.

00:39:10 ◼   ► You have a different page switch animation.

00:39:13 ◼   ► It's not a curl anymore, but you do have an animation.

00:39:17 ◼   ► It's just worse than before.

00:39:20 ◼   ► So like, you still have a part of that physical UI metaphor of navigating to a different page.

00:39:29 ◼   ► just a "now it's boring and bad and you had a good thing going and you just had to ruin

00:39:36 ◼   ► it" because why? Like what was the problem there? I don't know. They had a fun, beautiful,

00:39:44 ◼   ► cute, playful thing and they replaced it with one of those animations that you can buy on

00:39:51 ◼   ► one of those marketplaces online where they sell you graphical assets for like $5 or something.

00:39:57 ◼   ► It looks like that.

00:39:59 ◼   ► So I mean, bring it back.

00:40:02 ◼   ► Why?

00:40:03 ◼   ► It was fun and made you feel satisfied.

00:40:06 ◼   ► You know, whenever you flipped over to a new page

00:40:08 ◼   ► and you grabbed it from the corner

00:40:09 ◼   ► and you played around with it, you're like, ooh, this is cute.

00:40:12 ◼   ► And now you cannot do that anymore.

00:40:14 ◼   ► You had this in your notes.

00:40:18 ◼   ► You're one of those people with a Kobo.

00:40:20 ◼   ► I tried-- no, I tried the Kobo.

00:40:22 ◼   ► You tried.

00:40:23 ◼   ► This summer.

00:40:25 ◼   ► And much to Jason Snell's sadness probably,

00:40:28 ◼   ► it just didn't stick for me.

00:40:30 ◼   ► Partially because I'm so deep in the Amazon book ecosystem,

00:40:33 ◼   ► I've had Kindles forever.

00:40:35 ◼   ► And yes, I know you can UN DRM your books or whatever.

00:40:40 ◼   ► - Calibre, man, come on.

00:40:42 ◼   ► - Yes, yes, I was looking for the name, yes.

00:40:45 ◼   ► - It's the hot app from the mid 2000s.

00:40:48 ◼   ► - It looks like it's written in Java.

00:40:51 ◼   ► - I think it is actually.

00:40:52 ◼   ► - It may actually be.

00:40:53 ◼   ► It's one of those apps that lets you install a Java applet

00:40:57 ◼   ► when you run it the first time.

00:40:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, so anyways, yeah,

00:40:58 ◼   ► so I'm in the Kindle ecosystem for eBooks.

00:41:02 ◼   ► I do read physical books quite a bit actually,

00:41:05 ◼   ► but also have a Kindle,

00:41:07 ◼   ► and I think the Paperwhite is totally the way to go.

00:41:09 ◼   ► I had an Oasis, a first-gen Oasis

00:41:11 ◼   ► that I think I lost on my trip to Colorado.

00:41:15 ◼   ► I can't find it, so I dug out like a Paperwhite

00:41:17 ◼   ► that was floating around and have been using it,

00:41:19 ◼   ► and it's great.

00:41:20 ◼   ► So I'm not an iBooks user.

00:41:21 ◼   ► What about you?

00:41:22 ◼   ► How do you consume your books?

00:41:24 ◼   ► - How do I consume my books?

00:41:27 ◼   ► I think I gotta confess,

00:41:32 ◼   ► well, this is not a bad confession like last week,

00:41:35 ◼   ► but yeah, I never really mentioned this,

00:41:37 ◼   ► but I realized this year,

00:41:39 ◼   ► it's a 2022 realization that I had,

00:41:41 ◼   ► that I cannot be a multi-tablet person.

00:41:46 ◼   ► I think this is just something

00:41:47 ◼   ► that I needed to explore for myself,

00:41:50 ◼   ► see through the end and then accept, okay, I am a different kind of person.

00:41:57 ◼   ► I am the kind of person who just likes to use one iPad Pro.

00:42:01 ◼   ► And that's what I'm doing now.

00:42:04 ◼   ► And look, I had a Kindle Oasis, a Kobo.

00:42:08 ◼   ► I don't remember which one, the one Jason told me to buy a couple of years ago.

00:42:13 ◼   ► I, so I had a Kindle, I had a Kobo and I used them for a while.

00:42:16 ◼   ► Then I had an iPad mini, of course.

00:42:19 ◼   ► And for several months I went with the split approach of the iPad Mini for consumption,

00:42:27 ◼   ► the iPad Pro for work.

00:42:29 ◼   ► But I think I just cannot handle the inconsistency and the having to do the same thing twice.

00:42:39 ◼   ► iPadOS does not have home screen sync like tvOS, which is one of the many problems.

00:42:48 ◼   ► But it's just, I like to have all my things right there.

00:42:52 ◼   ► And if anything, I'm more of a focus mode with custom home screens person than a multi-tablet

00:43:00 ◼   ► or multi-device person.

00:43:02 ◼   ► And I just like to have my notes all there and the same apps and the same widgets and

00:43:08 ◼   ► one iPad.

00:43:10 ◼   ► So instead, I have explored this other side of how things could be done, and I think plenty

00:43:18 ◼   ► of people do things that way, and it's not a wrong way.

00:43:23 ◼   ► The way I prefer to do this is, I have multiple setups, but I just switch the iPad between

00:43:31 ◼   ► them.

00:43:32 ◼   ► Like, by setups, I mean physical locations in the house.

00:43:35 ◼   ► For example, something I started doing lately when I realized this is what I like, I always

00:43:41 ◼   ► leave the Magic Keyboard in a bag.

00:43:46 ◼   ► The Magic Keyboard for iPad, that is the case.

00:43:49 ◼   ► Because I know that I'm going to use that when I'm not at home.

00:43:53 ◼   ► And I leave my Smart Cover, my Smart Folio on the iPad all the time.

00:43:59 ◼   ► Because when I'm home, the SmartFolio either props up the iPad at a desk, where I have

00:44:06 ◼   ► a physical keyboard and a trackpad, or I use that to use the iPad Pro in tablet mode, on

00:44:14 ◼   ► the couch, or in bed.

00:44:16 ◼   ► So I prefer to have one iPad with multiple setups, rather than multiple iPads and multiple

00:44:22 ◼   ► setups.

00:44:24 ◼   ► And that applies, of course, to physical e-readers as well, because they're not iPads.

00:44:28 ◼   ► just dedicated things.

00:44:31 ◼   ► So, are you reading on a Kindle?

00:44:33 ◼   ► No, the book's up.

00:44:35 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is also made possible by Membrful.

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00:46:08 ◼   ► All right, Federico, one last topic for you today.

00:46:12 ◼   ► There's a rumor by shrimpapplepro on Twitter.

00:46:15 ◼   ► This account apparently has a pretty decent track record.

00:46:18 ◼   ► I did some digging earlier.

00:46:19 ◼   ► And according to their report--

00:46:21 ◼   ► I thought you were gonna say that this rumor from Shrimp Apple Pro was kinda fishy.

00:46:29 ◼   ► Oh, son!

00:46:31 ◼   ► But you didn't go there, so...

00:46:34 ◼   ► That's good.

00:46:35 ◼   ► That's good.

00:46:36 ◼   ► Ah, well.

00:46:37 ◼   ► Sorry, I let you down.

00:46:40 ◼   ► Anyways, what they are saying is, they say the iPhone 15, I'm assuming this is like an

00:46:46 ◼   ► iPhone 15 Pro sort of thing.

00:46:49 ◼   ► Okay, yeah.

00:46:50 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:46:51 ◼   ► - It would have flat sides that would then curve

00:46:55 ◼   ► to the back and this material would be titanium.

00:46:59 ◼   ► As 9to5Mac points out, this would be very much

00:47:03 ◼   ► like the iPhone 5C.

00:47:04 ◼   ► So in the show notes, I've put a really like high resolution

00:47:08 ◼   ► press image of the iPhone 5C so you can go look at this.

00:47:11 ◼   ► I think it's helpful in talking about it,

00:47:13 ◼   ► kind of picture the 5C where the front of the 5C was flat

00:47:17 ◼   ► and the sides were flat.

00:47:19 ◼   ► But instead of the current phone, which is like a sandwich,

00:47:23 ◼   ► like it has the front and back are flat

00:47:25 ◼   ► and has a rail around them, on the iPhone 5C,

00:47:27 ◼   ► the back, the rails in the back sort of curve

00:47:31 ◼   ► to meet each other.

00:47:33 ◼   ► And as a result, the iPhone 5C, I got one out today,

00:47:36 ◼   ► just to like play with it in preparation of talking,

00:47:39 ◼   ► it's really comfortable in the hand.

00:47:41 ◼   ► And it looks really cool,

00:47:42 ◼   ► 'cause you have the perfectly flat front,

00:47:43 ◼   ► which I really like, and you have the flat sides,

00:47:46 ◼   ► which are nice, but then it has a bit more

00:47:49 ◼   ► of an organic shape just on the back.

00:47:51 ◼   ► It also makes it really easy to tell the front

00:47:53 ◼   ► from the back by feeling, which was and is a problem

00:47:57 ◼   ► with the iPhone if you don't have it in a case,

00:47:59 ◼   ► because it's really hard to tell unless you happen

00:48:01 ◼   ► to like jam your finger into the giant camera on the back.

00:48:05 ◼   ► So I think it's interesting.

00:48:06 ◼   ► I think it's something that they've done before,

00:48:08 ◼   ► but they could do in a new way.

00:48:09 ◼   ► And I'm definitely interested to see how, you know,

00:48:12 ◼   ► these, how this joining would work,

00:48:16 ◼   ► because, assumingly, the back would still be glass

00:48:19 ◼   ► because you can't wirelessly charge through metal.

00:48:22 ◼   ► But I think, even if they don't do this,

00:48:25 ◼   ► I think the idea of bringing titanium

00:48:28 ◼   ► to the Pro phones is a real win.

00:48:30 ◼   ► I think a lot of people don't like

00:48:31 ◼   ► sort of the shiny aspect of the Pro phones.

00:48:34 ◼   ► I know some people do, but I think a lot of people

00:48:36 ◼   ► kind of see it as kind of too much.

00:48:38 ◼   ► But one of the most common complaints

00:48:40 ◼   ► I hear about the Pro line is the weight.

00:48:42 ◼   ► And a lot of that is the glass,

00:48:43 ◼   ► but a lot of that also is the stainless steel band.

00:48:46 ◼   ► Stainless steel is just heavy.

00:48:49 ◼   ► And knowing what we know about the Apple Watch,

00:48:51 ◼   ► the titanium watches are much, or not much,

00:48:55 ◼   ► but they're significantly lighter than the steel ones.

00:48:58 ◼   ► And they've used titanium on the watches

00:49:00 ◼   ► for a couple of years now.

00:49:01 ◼   ► Now, of course, the Ultra only comes in titanium,

00:49:04 ◼   ► and I see it being a material that Apple would want to use.

00:49:07 ◼   ► And maybe they could distinguish this in a way,

00:49:11 ◼   ► like the steel has done, but make different,

00:49:13 ◼   ► and I think better trade-offs.

00:49:15 ◼   ► And I'm curious what you think about all this.

00:49:17 ◼   ► - This will basically be, well, pretty similar

00:49:22 ◼   ► to a MacBook Pro when seen from the side.

00:49:26 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:49:27 ◼   ► - Kind of, but made of titanium.

00:49:29 ◼   ► I think I'm up for this,

00:49:32 ◼   ► because it would still let you retain the benefits

00:49:36 ◼   ► and the aesthetic, mostly, of a flat edge design,

00:49:41 ◼   ► which is the current style of the iPhone,

00:49:44 ◼   ► but you will get that nice sort of minimal curve

00:49:49 ◼   ► at the top and bottom,

00:49:52 ◼   ► like an iPhone 5C or a MacBook Pro.

00:49:55 ◼   ► And maybe the MacBook Pro, like the curve is not as,

00:49:59 ◼   ► I'm looking at it right now,

00:50:00 ◼   ► maybe it's not as steep as it was on the 5C

00:50:03 ◼   ► by a few degrees,

00:50:05 ◼   ► like it's a more gentle slope, if you will,

00:50:08 ◼   ► but it's still nice.

00:50:09 ◼   ► And I mean, that sort of style, but thinner, of course,

00:50:14 ◼   ► because it's an iPhone, not as chunky as a MacBook Pro.

00:50:18 ◼   ► - Right. (laughs)

00:50:19 ◼   ► - I mean, I would be up for it, actually,

00:50:23 ◼   ► to have a chunky phone,

00:50:25 ◼   ► if it meant no more camera bump, maybe.

00:50:27 ◼   ► I don't know. - Yeah.

00:50:29 ◼   ► - Fun thought experiment.

00:50:31 ◼   ► I'm not sure.

00:50:32 ◼   ► Imagine if you could choose, right?

00:50:33 ◼   ► Imagine if you could choose, like,

00:50:34 ◼   ► do you want your phone thin, thin and light,

00:50:37 ◼   ► but with a camera bump and a smaller battery?

00:50:39 ◼   ► Or do you want the thick boy with no camera bump and an even bigger battery inside?

00:50:46 ◼   ► Would be fun to choose. Still, yeah, I think I would like this design.

00:50:52 ◼   ► Now, the only thing I'm uncertain about is the titanium.

00:50:57 ◼   ► I don't think, yeah, I don't think I've ever touched titanium in my life.

00:51:02 ◼   ► Are there any other objects I may have touched in my everyday life made of titanium?

00:51:09 ◼   ► that I do not know about.

00:51:10 ◼   ► - I don't think it's real common.

00:51:12 ◼   ► I mean, Apple used it on the watches.

00:51:14 ◼   ► They had a power book back in the day,

00:51:15 ◼   ► but that's like a totally different sort of process,

00:51:18 ◼   ► so it doesn't really count.

00:51:19 ◼   ► The screws in my foot are titanium.

00:51:20 ◼   ► Have you touched those?

00:51:22 ◼   ► - Neither the screw nor the feet.

00:51:24 ◼   ► - Okay, okay, good.

00:51:25 ◼   ► Thank you for making that very clear.

00:51:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:51:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's not super commonly used.

00:51:31 ◼   ► I think it's pretty expensive, but on the high-end phone,

00:51:34 ◼   ► you know, maybe there's room for that.

00:51:36 ◼   ► This also kind of jives the idea

00:51:38 ◼   ► that the Pro Max could become the Ultra.

00:51:40 ◼   ► So maybe like the Pro and the Ultra both get this new,

00:51:43 ◼   ► this new material.

00:51:45 ◼   ► I do, I do wonder how Apple could treat the titanium.

00:51:49 ◼   ► So with the, the Apple watches,

00:51:51 ◼   ► they had the brushed titanium and they had the space black.

00:51:56 ◼   ► And I have an Apple insider review

00:51:58 ◼   ► of the old space black titanium watch

00:52:00 ◼   ► from several years ago in the show notes.

00:52:02 ◼   ► You can go look at the pictures.

00:52:03 ◼   ► What's cool about titanium is that it's, it's matte.

00:52:06 ◼   ► It's like flat, right?

00:52:07 ◼   ► It's not shiny like the stainless steel. It doesn't really pick up fingerprints

00:52:10 ◼   ► Now the ultra is kind of bead blasted. It's not it's not the same as the old brushed Apple watches

00:52:17 ◼   ► So the texture is a little bit different, but at first glance

00:52:20 ◼   ► it does look like aluminum because it's not shiny and I wonder if Apple would want to

00:52:26 ◼   ► Continue to keep the like the visual

00:52:31 ◼   ► Differences as much as they are now and like and like how many colors could they even do in titanium?

00:52:37 ◼   ► You know with the aluminum they anodize it they can do basically any color they want

00:52:41 ◼   ► Even if they even if they don't choose good colors or enough colors, they can basically do what they want

00:52:46 ◼   ► I just don't know what the options are with titanium

00:52:49 ◼   ► But they've been using it in the real world for quite a while now and I could see them

00:52:55 ◼   ► Bringing it as a high-end option if there are ways to you know, make the rest of the product what they want

00:53:01 ◼   ► but I would be excited about it

00:53:04 ◼   ► 'cause I think it'd be a really nice change.

00:53:06 ◼   ► And even if they kept the stainless steel,

00:53:10 ◼   ► I do think the flat on the front slightly curved the back

00:53:13 ◼   ► is a nice tweak to the current design.

00:53:16 ◼   ► I really liked the flat sides,

00:53:19 ◼   ► but something that's a little more comfortable to hand

00:53:21 ◼   ► would be really nice.

00:53:22 ◼   ► And I think it would still look new and modern

00:53:24 ◼   ► and maybe the iPads could follow at some point in the future

00:53:27 ◼   ► but all of this is really interesting.

00:53:29 ◼   ► and we're coming up on what, year three of this design.

00:53:34 ◼   ► You know, maybe we're due,

00:53:35 ◼   ► maybe they're gonna do one more year.

00:53:37 ◼   ► I mean, the six design, six plus design

00:53:40 ◼   ► basically stayed to the eight.

00:53:42 ◼   ► You know, then it was like the 10, 10R, 10S, 11,

00:53:46 ◼   ► and now the 12, 13, 14.

00:53:47 ◼   ► So it gets about time, you know,

00:53:49 ◼   ► maybe sooner rather than later,

00:53:51 ◼   ► they're gonna tweak it again.

00:53:52 ◼   ► And this seems like a good direction to go,

00:53:56 ◼   ► but I'm excited about both of these.

00:53:58 ◼   ► If we get both, I think it'd be awesome.

00:54:00 ◼   ► Even if we just get one though,

00:54:01 ◼   ► I still think it'd be pretty cool.

00:54:03 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:54:04 ◼   ► - It feels right to me though.

00:54:04 ◼   ► This feels like a direction they could go.

00:54:06 ◼   ► - I agree.

00:54:07 ◼   ► - So yeah, so we'll keep down this.

00:54:09 ◼   ► I mean, we are the end of the year almost, right?

00:54:12 ◼   ► So these iPhone rumors will heat up as we go.

00:54:15 ◼   ► So we'll see if ShrimpApplePro gets this one right or not.

00:54:19 ◼   ► It also reminds me that in about a month,

00:54:21 ◼   ► we'll be judging our annual picks and be making new ones.

00:54:24 ◼   ► So, you know, maybe iPhone designs will pop up again here

00:54:28 ◼   ► before too long.

00:54:29 ◼   ► - Let me peek at the--

00:54:32 ◼   ► - I haven't looked in a while at the annual predictions.

00:54:36 ◼   ► - Oh man.

00:54:37 ◼   ► - Ooh.

00:54:38 ◼   ► - The ooh this is-- - There's a bunch of bad

00:54:40 ◼   ► things in here.

00:54:40 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:54:42 ◼   ► - This is-- - We'll get to that

00:54:43 ◼   ► in December, don't worry.

00:54:45 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:54:46 ◼   ► - Well as it is Thanksgiving week here in the States,

00:54:49 ◼   ► we thought we'd cut this episode a little bit short.

00:54:51 ◼   ► A bunch of us have holiday plans.

00:54:53 ◼   ► Thank you for spending some of your holiday week

00:54:56 ◼   ► with us here on Connected.

00:54:58 ◼   ► And once again, thank you all for listening.

00:55:00 ◼   ► If you're a member or not,

00:55:02 ◼   ► your support over the years means a lot to us.

00:55:04 ◼   ► And we are excited about the future of the show,

00:55:08 ◼   ► what we do, but I'd like to take the opportunity

00:55:10 ◼   ► to thank people when it comes up.

00:55:13 ◼   ► If you wanna find links to stuff we spoke about,

00:55:15 ◼   ► head onto the website at relay.fm/connected/425.

00:55:20 ◼   ► There you can become a member.

00:55:21 ◼   ► Remember if you're doing an annual plan,

00:55:22 ◼   ► It's 20% off with the code 2023holidays.

00:55:26 ◼   ► Or if you wanna buy a plan for a loved one,

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00:55:32 ◼   ► When you're on the website, you can send us an email

00:55:34 ◼   ► with feedback or follow up.

00:55:36 ◼   ► You can also find us online.

00:55:38 ◼   ► Federico is the editor-in-chief of MacStories.net,

00:55:41 ◼   ► where he also hosts AppStories and a bunch of other podcasts.

00:55:44 ◼   ► Go check all that stuff out.

00:55:45 ◼   ► You can follow me.

00:55:47 ◼   ► My writing is at 512pixels.net,

00:55:49 ◼   ► and also host Mac Power Users here on Relay FM.

00:55:53 ◼   ► I'd like to thank our sponsors this week,

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00:55:56 ◼   ► And until next time, Federico, say goodbye.

00:55:59 ◼   ► - Arrivederci.