Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [MUSIC]

00:00:09 ◼   ► >> From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 402.

00:00:14 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by our excellent, fine sponsors,

00:00:17 ◼   ► who are Squarespace, CleanMyMacEx, and Hover.

00:00:21 ◼   ► I'm your host from Italy, Federico Vittucci, and I'm joined today,

00:00:25 ◼   ► exclusively today, well, not really exclusively, but

00:00:28 ◼   ► I'm joined today by Stephen Hackett.

00:00:30 ◼   ► Hello, Stephen.

00:00:31 ◼   ► - Hey Federico, how are you?

00:00:33 ◼   ► - I am good.

00:00:33 ◼   ► How are you in America?

00:00:35 ◼   ► - I am good.

00:00:36 ◼   ► There's no mic this week.

00:00:38 ◼   ► He's fine.

00:00:39 ◼   ► He just couldn't make it with scheduling stuff.

00:00:41 ◼   ► He is recovering.

00:00:42 ◼   ► I know we've gotten a lot of notes of people

00:00:45 ◼   ► about his COVID deal at WBC and he is on the mend, I think.

00:00:49 ◼   ► So I'll speak on behalf of all of us

00:00:52 ◼   ► that everyone's concern and care for him

00:00:54 ◼   ► was really awesome to see.

00:00:56 ◼   ► and I think he'll be back to normal soon enough.

00:00:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I think everybody loves Myke, you know?

00:01:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:04 ◼   ► Like, brought generally speaking,

00:01:06 ◼   ► he's a very lovable character, I think, on the internet.

00:01:09 ◼   ► So.

00:01:10 ◼   ► Whereas like, you know,

00:01:12 ◼   ► some people can have negative feelings for me or you,

00:01:14 ◼   ► because, you know, sometimes we say things in a certain way,

00:01:19 ◼   ► but Myke has that British, you know, politeness to him.

00:01:24 ◼   ► I think he's a very lovable guy.

00:01:25 ◼   ► I mean, he's a lovable guy in real life, but also on the internet.

00:01:29 ◼   ► And so it was awesome to see this theory come true.

00:01:32 ◼   ► Everybody loves Myke and cares for Myke, so thank you.

00:01:35 ◼   ► So you're saying that if you or I had landed at who we see and tested positive with COVID,

00:01:41 ◼   ► maybe some people would be like, "Yeah, well, screw that guy."

00:01:47 ◼   ► I don't like thinking that somebody thinks that about either one of us, to be honest

00:01:50 ◼   ► with you.

00:01:51 ◼   ► You know, I don't know.

00:01:54 ◼   ► I've seen comments on the internet before, I don't know.

00:01:57 ◼   ► All I'm saying is everybody loves mic,

00:01:59 ◼   ► and that's the way it's supposed to be.

00:02:00 ◼   ► So thank you for loving mic.

00:02:01 ◼   ► Keep loving mic would be my request and advice.

00:02:06 ◼   ► So it's coming back to the show soon enough,

00:02:09 ◼   ► soon but not yet, I guess.

00:02:11 ◼   ► - Let's do some follow-up.

00:02:12 ◼   ► - Yes. - How does that sound?

00:02:14 ◼   ► - Yes. - We have a tweet

00:02:15 ◼   ► from Parker.

00:02:17 ◼   ► It's a screenshot from the big, long features page.

00:02:21 ◼   ► So if you haven't seen these,

00:02:22 ◼   ► I'll put a link in the show notes.

00:02:24 ◼   ► It is, it's this page on Apple's like Mac OS

00:02:29 ◼   ► and iOS preview pages.

00:02:32 ◼   ► And basically it's just a bunch of text

00:02:35 ◼   ► and it lists all the features as like bullet points.

00:02:41 ◼   ► And it's a fantastic resource because it's stuff

00:02:45 ◼   ► that is kind of buried otherwise.

00:02:48 ◼   ► It's great, you should check these out.

00:02:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is what I do.

00:02:50 ◼   ► This is what I do when I'm done organizing the key features,

00:02:55 ◼   ► announce the WWDC and inSessions.

00:02:58 ◼   ► And I organize all my notes

00:03:00 ◼   ► and I move things between chapters for the review.

00:03:03 ◼   ► But then I go to the all features page.

00:03:05 ◼   ► There's one, as you said, for Mac OS, iOS, and iPadOS.

00:03:08 ◼   ► And I just start from the top and I check all the things.

00:03:12 ◼   ► Like, okay, have I noted this down?

00:03:14 ◼   ► Nope.

00:03:15 ◼   ► And usually you find a ton of things.

00:03:17 ◼   ► My understanding is that all these,

00:03:20 ◼   ► It's actually like a list of features,

00:03:21 ◼   ► like the individual teams at Apple provide the list

00:03:24 ◼   ► of all the features that end up in here,

00:03:26 ◼   ► minus the bug fixes and improvements.

00:03:29 ◼   ► Like in shortcuts, for example,

00:03:31 ◼   ► if there's gonna be like a change to an existing action,

00:03:34 ◼   ► it's not gonna be listed on this page,

00:03:37 ◼   ► but everything else you can just find in here.

00:03:39 ◼   ► It's an incredible resource, yeah.

00:03:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, so Parker noted that in the photos section,

00:03:46 ◼   ► there are a couple of changes that seem really cool,

00:03:49 ◼   ► But the big one they highlighted was

00:03:51 ◼   ► you can disable memories and feature photos

00:03:56 ◼   ► from appearing in photos and in the photos widget.

00:04:00 ◼   ► This doesn't seem to be like the full control we want of,

00:04:03 ◼   ► like, I never want to see a picture of this person

00:04:05 ◼   ► in my widget, but I think it does address the thing

00:04:07 ◼   ► that all three of us dislike,

00:04:09 ◼   ► where memories get added and you tap it

00:04:13 ◼   ► and suddenly your phone is playing a slideshow with music

00:04:15 ◼   ► at midnight when you're looking at photos on your phone.

00:04:18 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:04:19 ◼   ► - And I think, I mean, the memory feature is like,

00:04:22 ◼   ► it's nice, but I don't want it,

00:04:24 ◼   ► I don't want to be surprised by it.

00:04:26 ◼   ► And it, I mean, it's been a year, I guess,

00:04:30 ◼   ► since we've had that, 'cause that was added in iOS 15.

00:04:34 ◼   ► And I still like, I'm surprised by it.

00:04:36 ◼   ► I still don't like it.

00:04:37 ◼   ► And so I think this is a nice addition

00:04:40 ◼   ► to be able to turn that off.

00:04:43 ◼   ► - And I think this sort of the same control

00:04:46 ◼   ► is maybe coming to lock screen widgets as well.

00:04:49 ◼   ► I don't think it's in there yet,

00:04:51 ◼   ► but I think you're supposed to be able,

00:04:53 ◼   ► when you open the widget gallery on the iOS 16 lock screen,

00:04:58 ◼   ► you're supposed to be able to say,

00:04:59 ◼   ► turn off this featured item as well.

00:05:02 ◼   ► But I don't think that works yet

00:05:05 ◼   ► because I keep finding, for example,

00:05:07 ◼   ► suggested photos of me for when I was doing chemo,

00:05:10 ◼   ► which is not an ideal memory to have

00:05:14 ◼   ► as a suggested item in the widget gallery.

00:05:17 ◼   ► Also, there's a conversation to be had there

00:05:20 ◼   ► about you keep mentioning these machine learning things

00:05:25 ◼   ► and can you not infer that the guy

00:05:28 ◼   ► who used to have long hair before has long hair now,

00:05:32 ◼   ► there's a year in between where he's bald,

00:05:36 ◼   ► can you not infer anything there?

00:05:38 ◼   ► But we'll let that pass.

00:05:41 ◼   ► That's another conversation.

00:05:44 ◼   ► But yeah, it would be nice to have that same control

00:05:47 ◼   ► in the lock screen.

00:05:48 ◼   ► I think, you know, these kinds of features,

00:05:50 ◼   ► they're coming in future betas.

00:05:52 ◼   ► So for the widgets, I'm really happy to see that.

00:05:55 ◼   ► I hope it will work on the lock screen as well.

00:05:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, that'd be pretty sweet.

00:06:01 ◼   ► Your example is particularly funny

00:06:03 ◼   ► because one way that Apple builds memories

00:06:06 ◼   ► is dates and location.

00:06:08 ◼   ► Like, it knows those photos were taken at a hospital.

00:06:11 ◼   ► Like, what are you doing?

00:06:12 ◼   ► Yes, yes. There's one in particular, which is me hooked up to a bunch of things and I'm

00:06:18 ◼   ► bald and the location says hospital in this town. And like, seriously, like, can you not

00:06:25 ◼   ► imagine what this is? But I guess not.

00:06:27 ◼   ► The caption on the widget is like back in the day. It's like, come on.

00:06:31 ◼   ► Thank you. On this day. Yeah. Well, yeah. Okay. It's, it's, it's okay. It's in the past

00:06:37 ◼   ► and everything ended up fine. But yeah, that's a fun one for sure to see. We also wanted

00:06:45 ◼   ► to... We had some follow-up about UI at the bottom of the screen on the iPhone. We mentioned

00:06:51 ◼   ► this before, leading up to WWDC, we were wondering, like, are there any other system apps that

00:06:57 ◼   ► are gonna graduate, sort of, to the new trend of placing UI elements at the bottom of the

00:07:03 ◼   ► the screen. And maybe we didn't mention that the new books app for iOS has this new design.

00:07:10 ◼   ► And it's it's actually a wild you are. Have you seen this, Steven, in books for iOS 16?

00:07:16 ◼   ► Yeah. So we actually spoke about it on the show before WVDC, I think, because this was

00:07:25 ◼   ► shown. Was this shown in the press release about the accessibility stuff? Yes. So but

00:07:31 ◼   ► They showed a part of this UI element about the customization, about like, "Oh, you're

00:07:38 ◼   ► going to have controls to have more options for fonts, colors, and size," which is true,

00:07:47 ◼   ► but that's a submenu.

00:07:49 ◼   ► The main menu that you will now see in books is wild.

00:07:53 ◼   ► So you have this new button.

00:07:56 ◼   ► There's an icon.

00:07:57 ◼   ► Oh, they actually showed off the entire...

00:07:59 ◼   ► No, they didn't show off the entire menu.

00:08:01 ◼   ► So the main menu is this single icon in the bottom right corner of the screen.

00:08:07 ◼   ► If you look at it, it actually looks like the stage manager icon, but flip.

00:08:12 ◼   ► It really does.

00:08:16 ◼   ► And what this does is an unprecedented UI element.

00:08:20 ◼   ► This is a totally custom thing that I have not seen in any other iPhone app made by Apple.

00:08:27 ◼   ► You tap this button and this translucent set of rectangles comes up, and the first one

00:08:37 ◼   ► is both a button and a progress bar.

00:08:41 ◼   ► It's called "contents."

00:08:44 ◼   ► So this button, it actually does multiple things.

00:08:47 ◼   ► So you can press it, and it's a button, and it opens your tables of contents.

00:08:53 ◼   ► But it also tells you your progress inside the book.

00:08:57 ◼   ► So it's a progress bar, and there's a percentage of your progress in reading a book.

00:09:02 ◼   ► But you can also swipe across.

00:09:04 ◼   ► You can slide your finger on the bar to quickly skim the book.

00:09:09 ◼   ► So it's also a slider.

00:09:12 ◼   ► Then you have another button for your bookmarks and highlights.

00:09:15 ◼   ► The search feature is now another rectangular button.

00:09:19 ◼   ► Then you have your themes and settings, which is what Apple showed off, and when you tap

00:09:23 ◼   ► this, you get the half sheet UI, the one that they introduced last year in iOS 15. And then

00:09:30 ◼   ► you have these three smaller buttons at the very end for sharing, turning off rotation

00:09:36 ◼   ► lock, and adding a new bookmark. This kind of menu is books only, and it's kind of wild,

00:09:46 ◼   ► it uses a bunch of... it basically breaks all kinds of UI conventions on iOS. I mean,

00:09:55 ◼   ► it looks funny to me. I cannot really describe it, but the button that is both tappable and

00:10:01 ◼   ► an indicator, but also a slider all at once... I mean, good job! You figured out a way to

00:10:07 ◼   ► embed three different interactions in a single UI element.

00:10:11 ◼   ► It's kind of like control center without a background.

00:10:16 ◼   ► And it also I didn't notice it until I looked at these screenshots of Mac rumors.

00:10:20 ◼   ► It also cast a shadow on the book page.

00:10:22 ◼   ► Oh God, yeah, it's subtle, but it's there.

00:10:25 ◼   ► I don't know what this is.

00:10:26 ◼   ► I mean, like, maybe we'll see more of this UI because it is on the bottom like maps,

00:10:31 ◼   ► but maps doesn't look like this.

00:10:33 ◼   ► This is its own special snowflake.

00:10:35 ◼   ► And it's, you know, and the icon looks like a stage manager who tripped and fell on the

00:10:40 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:10:42 ◼   ► - We need an icon, take this one and rotate 90 degrees.

00:10:47 ◼   ► Done!

00:10:48 ◼   ► - Done.

00:10:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, so if you haven't played with Iowa 16 yet,

00:10:52 ◼   ► and you probably shouldn't be, unless you're a developer,

00:10:55 ◼   ► just go look at these screenshots, 'cause it is,

00:10:57 ◼   ► it's nuts. - Interesting.

00:10:59 ◼   ► It's an interesting menu.

00:11:01 ◼   ► - I wanna talk to you a little bit

00:11:02 ◼   ► about your breaking of the beta.

00:11:07 ◼   ► You have this tweet talking about poster board,

00:11:11 ◼   ► which is the new lock screen.

00:11:12 ◼   ► And we had debated last time if it's an app or not.

00:11:15 ◼   ► It turns out it is, and shortcuts can actually see it.

00:11:20 ◼   ► And you've done some just terrible things to your devices.

00:11:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, this is so, there is precedent for shortcuts

00:11:28 ◼   ► being able to access this kind of system apps

00:11:33 ◼   ► that it's not supposed to access in the first beta of iOS.

00:11:36 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure this happened before with Springboard.

00:11:41 ◼   ► Like you could launch Springboard

00:11:43 ◼   ► from the open app action of shortcuts.

00:11:46 ◼   ► I think it was iOS 14 or 15 maybe.

00:11:49 ◼   ► But now using the same trick, you can launch Posterboard,

00:11:53 ◼   ► which is the lock screen app,

00:11:55 ◼   ► but you can also launch batteries.

00:11:57 ◼   ► And if you launch batteries,

00:11:59 ◼   ► you get into this debug menu for the batteries widget,

00:12:02 ◼   ► which is also funny.

00:12:03 ◼   ► Obviously these are gonna get removed in beta two or three.

00:12:07 ◼   ► But what you do is,

00:12:08 ◼   ► if you create this single action shortcut

00:12:11 ◼   ► that uses OpenApp and you search for poster board,

00:12:15 ◼   ► and you say, yeah, shortcuts, open poster board,

00:12:18 ◼   ► what you do is you're gonna enter this private debug UI

00:12:23 ◼   ► for tweaking the lock screen.

00:12:27 ◼   ► The problem is you can run this shortcut

00:12:30 ◼   ► on the iPad as well.

00:12:32 ◼   ► The iPad does not have the customizable lock screen.

00:12:37 ◼   ► And if you try that, you are going to enter the debug menu

00:12:42 ◼   ► for the lock screen on your iPad.

00:12:44 ◼   ► And from this debug menu, you can actually preview

00:12:47 ◼   ► what the widgets and the wallpapers are gonna look like.

00:12:50 ◼   ► The problem is, because they forgot

00:12:53 ◼   ► to remove this menu from the iPad,

00:12:56 ◼   ► if you try to enter the live preview

00:13:00 ◼   ► for the lock screen on your iPad,

00:13:02 ◼   ► it's gonna look super broken

00:13:04 ◼   ► because you're gonna have these iPhone widgets

00:13:07 ◼   ► that are super sized on the iPad.

00:13:09 ◼   ► - They cover, I mean,

00:13:10 ◼   ► they're like twice as tall as the clock.

00:13:13 ◼   ► - Yes, and just to clarify here,

00:13:15 ◼   ► you're not customizing your lock screen,

00:13:17 ◼   ► you are entering a special debug mode

00:13:20 ◼   ► in which you can preview what the lock screen

00:13:23 ◼   ► could look like on iPadOS if it were customizable,

00:13:27 ◼   ► but you're still inside the poster board app

00:13:30 ◼   ► launched from shortcuts.

00:13:32 ◼   ► And so, yeah, this is possible now.

00:13:35 ◼   ► It's gonna get removed very soon.

00:13:37 ◼   ► And I tweeted, joking obviously,

00:13:41 ◼   ► that finally I can start preparing

00:13:44 ◼   ► for the iPadOS 617 review

00:13:47 ◼   ► with a customizable lock screen.

00:13:50 ◼   ► So broken, and with those giant widgets.

00:13:54 ◼   ► But yeah, if you wanna play around with this,

00:13:57 ◼   ► I don't know why, but if you wanna see what a debug menu

00:14:00 ◼   ► made by Apple looks like, you can see what it looks like.

00:14:03 ◼   ► - It's such a bummer to me that the iPad

00:14:05 ◼   ► is not going to get this customizable lock screen stuff.

00:14:09 ◼   ► I think it would be great.

00:14:10 ◼   ► It feels like a repeat of the widget thing, right?

00:14:13 ◼   ► Where, oh, there's widgets on the iPad,

00:14:16 ◼   ► but they're stuck over here on the side

00:14:20 ◼   ► and you can't have them where you want them.

00:14:23 ◼   ► I just, I mean, I kind of hope that it shows up in the beta.

00:14:26 ◼   ► I don't think it will.

00:14:27 ◼   ► I don't think that's a reasonable expectation,

00:14:29 ◼   ► but I wish it would.

00:14:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I wish it would too,

00:14:32 ◼   ► but this doesn't surprise me

00:14:33 ◼   ► because they do this all the time

00:14:35 ◼   ► with this kind of iPhone features.

00:14:37 ◼   ► They're iPhone first and later they come to the iPad.

00:14:40 ◼   ► And when they come to the iPad, they have a special twist.

00:14:43 ◼   ► Like on the iPad with widgets, we all thought,

00:14:45 ◼   ► "Oh no, why is widgets on the home screen iOS 14 only?"

00:14:50 ◼   ► And then when they came to iPad in iPadOS 15,

00:14:53 ◼   ► Apple added the special twist of,

00:14:55 ◼   ► well, there's an Excel size now just for the iPad.

00:15:00 ◼   ► So if they do this next year,

00:15:02 ◼   ► they're probably gonna have new sizes

00:15:04 ◼   ► for the lock screen on the iPad

00:15:06 ◼   ► or different arrangements maybe.

00:15:08 ◼   ► I also thought,

00:15:09 ◼   ► and I kinda wanna know what you think about this,

00:15:12 ◼   ► but I feel like widgets on the lock screen,

00:15:15 ◼   ► and they actually make more sense.

00:15:17 ◼   ► And this is like,

00:15:18 ◼   ► I know that it kind of sounds like Stockholm syndrome here,

00:15:22 ◼   ► but I kind of feel like they make more sense

00:15:24 ◼   ► on the iPhone anyway,

00:15:26 ◼   ► because especially if the iPhone is getting

00:15:28 ◼   ► an always-on lock screen,

00:15:30 ◼   ► which this is like a super telegraphed announcement,

00:15:33 ◼   ► by the way, like these widgets are happening now

00:15:36 ◼   ► because an always-on lock screen is happening this year

00:15:38 ◼   ► on the iPhone 14 Pro.

00:15:40 ◼   ► But like the iPad, are you really glancing

00:15:44 ◼   ► at your iPad lock screen multiple times per day?

00:15:47 ◼   ► I don't think you are.

00:15:48 ◼   ► I think most people are either unlocking the lock screen quickly with Touch ID, or are

00:15:52 ◼   ► sitting in front of their iPad Pro and unlocking with Face ID, just by pressing the space bar,

00:15:57 ◼   ► maybe on the Magic Keyboard.

00:15:59 ◼   ► So would you really have any value in putting glanceable information on a lock screen that

00:16:05 ◼   ► you're going to see for a split second anyway?

00:16:07 ◼   ► So I don't know.

00:16:08 ◼   ► Yeah, and I mean, the sizing thing is interesting too, because...

00:16:13 ◼   ► I think we've said this already, but you really need to think about these lock screen widgets

00:16:18 ◼   ► They're much more like Apple Watch complications than traditional widgets, right?

00:16:28 ◼   ► And at that scale, they may just be really tiny on the iPad and look silly, right?

00:16:34 ◼   ► It may just be that they're going to bring this later on, like you said, with sort of

00:16:39 ◼   ► a reimagining of what this could be.

00:16:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:16:43 ◼   ► be interesting is what if, and I'm just spitballing here really, but okay so now

00:16:50 ◼   ► we have, let's say you're Apple and you're saying okay so we built this

00:16:53 ◼   ► technology for glanceable information on the iPhone and on the iPhone it's on the

00:16:58 ◼   ► lock screen and on the watch it's on the watch face because those are the two

00:17:01 ◼   ► places where you're glancing at information and you want to have data

00:17:04 ◼   ► available quickly throughout the day. On your iPad you're not really glancing at

00:17:10 ◼   ► information on the lock screen, right, because you're just gonna get your work

00:17:13 ◼   ► done or you want to play a game or watch a movie or whatever. But I could see a scenario

00:17:17 ◼   ► in which Apple says, "Well, it's a shame that we're not using this technology on the iPad

00:17:22 ◼   ► as well. Where's a place that's not the lock screen where we could put this glanceable

00:17:27 ◼   ► information?" And maybe at some point they could say, "What if on the iPad we thought

00:17:34 ◼   ► about this in a different way and we put those glanceable widgets, I don't know, in a new

00:17:40 ◼   ► status bar or somewhere else, like in Control Center, I don't know, some new place of the

00:17:48 ◼   ► OS where, as you're working, you can glance at information. I don't know. Maybe it's just

00:17:54 ◼   ► a thought, but right now I don't really see the value for putting data on the iPad lock

00:18:01 ◼   ► screen, but maybe there's a way to reuse that technology in the future in another place.

00:18:06 ◼   ► I don't think this is what they'll do, but I suddenly had a flashback to, I guess it

00:18:10 ◼   ► was iOS 8, where Apple put your favorite contacts in the app switcher?

00:18:16 ◼   ► Did that feature ship at all?

00:18:18 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it did.

00:18:19 ◼   ► I think it did.

00:18:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:18:21 ◼   ► What a weird time that was.

00:18:23 ◼   ► And that was, wasn't that about the same time where they were pitching the, oh God, there

00:18:31 ◼   ► was a location tab in the App Store where you could discover apps based on where you

00:18:38 ◼   ► were. Oh yeah, that was a time for sure.

00:18:42 ◼   ► There was a weird idea floating around in 2014.

00:18:46 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is made possible by Squarespace. I want to tell you a story

00:18:51 ◼   ► this week. My kids go to an elementary school. Well, only one does now because my kids are

00:18:56 ◼   ► getting older, but a few years ago the parent-teacher organization got a hold of me because they

00:19:01 ◼   ► They needed to build a website for the organization, you know, volunteering, getting parents involved,

00:19:06 ◼   ► that sort of thing.

00:19:07 ◼   ► And they thought, he's a guy who knows about computers, let's get him to build us a website.

00:19:11 ◼   ► And I immediately turned to Squarespace to build this because I knew I wanted something

00:19:16 ◼   ► where they could update it over time, right, as new initiatives happen, new projects, new

00:19:22 ◼   ► parents and people are involved.

00:19:24 ◼   ► And so we built it on Squarespace.

00:19:26 ◼   ► It looks awesome.

00:19:27 ◼   ► And it's really easy to edit for them.

00:19:29 ◼   ► And it's just been such a great thing for that organization to be able to really easily

00:19:35 ◼   ► share and update people about what's going on.

00:19:39 ◼   ► I chose Squarespace for a bunch of reasons.

00:19:42 ◼   ► First of all, it's just really easy to get started.

00:19:45 ◼   ► You pick a great looking template, you customize it with your colors and logos and typefaces,

00:19:50 ◼   ► and you can really have something built really pretty quickly.

00:19:53 ◼   ► And they can sell stuff online.

00:19:55 ◼   ► So they're selling t-shirts and masks and all sorts of things right through the online

00:20:00 ◼   ► store that's just built into Squarespace.

00:20:02 ◼   ► They don't have to go out and bolt something else on, it's all just there ready to go.

00:20:08 ◼   ► And it means they don't have to learn some other system.

00:20:11 ◼   ► If you're looking to build a website you need to start with Squarespace and you can get

00:20:15 ◼   ► a free trial with no credit card required by going to squarespace.com/connected.

00:20:19 ◼   ► And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code "connected" to save 10% off your first

00:20:25 ◼   ► purchase of a website or domain name. Once again, that's squarespace.com/connected.

00:20:30 ◼   ► And we decided to sign up, use the offer code connected, and you'll get 10% off

00:20:34 ◼   ► your first purchase and to show your support for the show. Our thanks to

00:20:38 ◼   ► Squarespace for supporting connected and all of relay FM. We'll talk about

00:20:42 ◼   ► MacBook pros with you, Federico.

00:20:44 ◼   ► Okay.

00:20:45 ◼   ► Are you excited to pre-order the 13 inch MacBook pro on Friday?

00:20:49 ◼   ► I pre-ordered one.

00:20:50 ◼   ► Please don't do that.

00:20:54 ◼   ► It's not a computer you should get.

00:20:56 ◼   ► You thought about it for a second,

00:20:58 ◼   ► and you're like, wait, what?

00:20:59 ◼   ► Wait, no, it doesn't open till Friday.

00:21:01 ◼   ► Yeah, so this is the, apparently,

00:21:03 ◼   ► the second best-selling laptop in the world.

00:21:06 ◼   ► Sure, sure.

00:21:07 ◼   ► And our friend Jason has an article over at Macworld.

00:21:11 ◼   ► We'll put that in the show notes.

00:21:13 ◼   ► Kind of building the case of why this machine still exists,

00:21:16 ◼   ► and it basically comes down to,

00:21:18 ◼   ► it's probably really cheap for Apple to build at this point.

00:21:21 ◼   ► This is a design, mind you,

00:21:24 ◼   ► that originated really in 2016.

00:21:27 ◼   ► And of course it got tweaked with the new keyboard,

00:21:30 ◼   ► but it's effectively, it's effectively the same computer

00:21:34 ◼   ► that's been around a really long time.

00:21:36 ◼   ► And Apple can sell it at 1299, 1199 for education.

00:21:41 ◼   ► And it does offer, while not massive,

00:21:45 ◼   ► some improvements over the MacBook Air

00:21:48 ◼   ► in terms of performance, especially sustained performance,

00:21:50 ◼   ► 'cause it does have active cooling.

00:21:51 ◼   ► It has a single fan in there,

00:21:53 ◼   ► where the MacBook Air of course is fanless.

00:21:56 ◼   ► And for people who do want the touch bar,

00:21:58 ◼   ► it is the sole machine that still has the touch bar.

00:22:02 ◼   ► It's gone from everywhere else.

00:22:03 ◼   ► But I think really critically, it is about the price point.

00:22:07 ◼   ► If somebody wants a MacBook Pro,

00:22:10 ◼   ► they can do that without jumping up

00:22:12 ◼   ► to a $2,000, 14 inch machine.

00:22:15 ◼   ► And I think as we get into some

00:22:17 ◼   ► of the other MacBook Pro rumors I wanna talk about,

00:22:20 ◼   ► I think holding the price point

00:22:22 ◼   ► is probably the most important thing here.

00:22:25 ◼   ► Even though you can spec a MacBook Air

00:22:27 ◼   ► and it can cost like over $2,000.

00:22:29 ◼   ► Like if you load up an M2 MacBook Air,

00:22:31 ◼   ► which will ship next month, you can spend a lot of money.

00:22:34 ◼   ► This does give them a foothold in that lower price

00:22:39 ◼   ► that's something beyond just the MacBook Air.

00:22:41 ◼   ► I mean, if the only laptop they had under two grand

00:22:45 ◼   ► was the MacBook Air, like I can see why Apple,

00:22:48 ◼   ► why they wouldn't want that, right?

00:22:50 ◼   ► And I guess that's fair.

00:22:52 ◼   ► - Boy, I'm really confused by this computer, honestly.

00:22:55 ◼   ► Mostly, I think I understand the reasons

00:23:01 ◼   ► why this computer is still around.

00:23:03 ◼   ► I still don't think it's a good look

00:23:09 ◼   ► for Apple to have this computer.

00:23:11 ◼   ► I understand that, yeah, you gotta hit a price point

00:23:14 ◼   ► and everything, but it's a confusing message

00:23:17 ◼   ► to have this old generation of what Apple thinks of,

00:23:22 ◼   ► you know, a Mac laptop that has the old design,

00:23:27 ◼   ► but as an M2.

00:23:29 ◼   ► It's like, yeah, it's the old one

00:23:31 ◼   ► and we actually make much better ones now,

00:23:34 ◼   ► but look, it's got an M2.

00:23:35 ◼   ► And so I'm worried that a bunch of people are gonna say,

00:23:38 ◼   ► "Hey, it's got the M2 that sounds better than M1

00:23:41 ◼   ► and it's cheap, so I'm just gonna get this one."

00:23:44 ◼   ► And maybe, you know, maybe that's okay.

00:23:46 ◼   ► I mean, it's not gonna be a terrible computer, like it's not gonna be a bad computer, but

00:23:51 ◼   ► the thing is, Apple makes other MacBook Pros or MacBooks with an M series chip that are

00:23:59 ◼   ► so much better than what this computer is, in terms of I/O, in terms of keyboard, in

00:24:04 ◼   ► terms of design, in terms of battery life.

00:24:08 ◼   ► So I don't know, I understand.

00:24:11 ◼   ► Like this is a classic, classic Tim Cook, Apple move, right?

00:24:16 ◼   ► - Definitely.

00:24:17 ◼   ► - I cannot get excited about this thing.

00:24:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, the confusion or possible confusion,

00:24:26 ◼   ► 'cause this actually isn't out yet.

00:24:27 ◼   ► I don't think we know how normal people think about it yet,

00:24:30 ◼   ► that there's an M2, but the more expensive one

00:24:33 ◼   ► has M1 in the name.

00:24:35 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:24:36 ◼   ► - That was inevitable when they chose this naming scheme.

00:24:39 ◼   ► right? Say what you will about Intel. And there's lots to say,

00:24:42 ◼   ► core i3, i5, i7, and then a generation number was like

00:24:47 ◼   ► pretty easy to understand. And most people didn't even know the

00:24:50 ◼   ► generation number. And in fact, Apple downplayed it over the

00:24:53 ◼   ► years more and more, especially in a world where Apple doesn't

00:24:59 ◼   ► share the clock speeds. Most people just walk in like, oh,

00:25:03 ◼   ► the M2 must be better than the M1 Pro or whatever that is. And

00:25:07 ◼   ► I mean, maybe in some very specific cases it is,

00:25:09 ◼   ► like it is probably faster, single core speed.

00:25:12 ◼   ► I expect that we're just like days away

00:25:14 ◼   ► from actually getting real benchmarks out of this machine.

00:25:17 ◼   ► But to your point, the M1 Pro in the 14 inch machine is,

00:25:22 ◼   ► it's a way better computer.

00:25:23 ◼   ► Like the 14 inch MacBook Pro is just,

00:25:25 ◼   ► I mean, it's basically perfect.

00:25:27 ◼   ► But it costs $700, $800 more.

00:25:31 ◼   ► And I don't think Apple is willing to have just one computer

00:25:36 ◼   ► in the $1,000 price tier.

00:25:39 ◼   ► And so maybe it is, look, I think if they were planning

00:25:42 ◼   ► on keeping this machine around,

00:25:44 ◼   ► the very least they would have given it MagSafe, right?

00:25:46 ◼   ► They didn't even do that.

00:25:48 ◼   ► It is exactly the same chassis.

00:25:51 ◼   ► And so my feeling is that this is not

00:25:55 ◼   ► the long-term play here.

00:25:57 ◼   ► But in the meantime, it means that there will be people

00:25:58 ◼   ► who buy it and probably people who like it.

00:26:00 ◼   ► And we heard from people who definitely dig Touch Bar Life.

00:26:05 ◼   ► Touch bar life, you know?

00:26:06 ◼   ► There's touch bar truthers out there, for sure.

00:26:10 ◼   ► Touch bar truthers.

00:26:11 ◼   ► So let's talk a little bit about what could go

00:26:15 ◼   ► in this place in the future.

00:26:16 ◼   ► So there are rumors of a 12 inch machine

00:26:20 ◼   ► for like late 23 or maybe even 2024,

00:26:24 ◼   ► of course powered by Apple Silicon.

00:26:27 ◼   ► As is Bloomberg reporting this,

00:26:29 ◼   ► we'll have some links in the show notes to this.

00:26:32 ◼   ► There's also more recently a friend of the show,

00:26:35 ◼   ► Meng-Chi Kuo talking about a 15 inch machine.

00:26:40 ◼   ► You know, we have talked before about the idea

00:26:42 ◼   ► of a 15 inch MacBook Air.

00:26:45 ◼   ► We've talked a lot about that on like Mac power users,

00:26:47 ◼   ► for instance, a lot of people seem pretty hip

00:26:50 ◼   ► to the idea of like a cheaper, bigger laptop,

00:26:52 ◼   ► but maybe one of those fits in there.

00:26:55 ◼   ► - It's interesting, you had this in your notes,

00:26:58 ◼   ► like what if this 15 inch computer

00:27:00 ◼   ► could be something like a MacBook Studio?

00:27:03 ◼   ► - Right.

00:27:03 ◼   ► I think it's interesting to consider the potential scenario in which Apple says,

00:27:08 ◼   ► "OK, in 2022 we introduced the first Studio product in our lineup, and in 2023

00:27:14 ◼   ► we're expanding the Studio lineup to more devices. So we're going to have a

00:27:19 ◼   ► MacBook Studio and we're going to have an iPad Studio, and the iPad Studio being

00:27:24 ◼   ► the rumored 14-inch one." That's an interesting scenario, I think, in which

00:27:30 ◼   ► could say we are now at, we now have sort of baseline iPad, MacBook, you know, iPhone.

00:27:38 ◼   ► We have the pro line, MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, iPhone Pro, and we have the studio line, which

00:27:45 ◼   ► is now Mac Studio, MacBook Studio, and iPad Studio. Now the question is, are they going

00:27:51 ◼   ► to do iPhone Studio? I don't think they are. Well, okay, kind of wild thought, but maybe

00:27:58 ◼   ► the iPhone studio is the name of the foldable device. Oh, man. I said it first. So you did.

00:28:05 ◼   ► We do have some real time follow up. Apparently just this morning, Geekbench scores came out

00:28:11 ◼   ► for the M2. Okay, and it is in line with that Apple said about being you know, 20% faster,

00:28:18 ◼   ► whatever they said about CPU. So like single core score is definitely higher than the M

00:28:23 ◼   ► the base M1 and the multi score is a little bit better too, but it's not it's not catching

00:28:31 ◼   ► the the more powerful M1s in terms of multi-core right they just thrash it but single speed

00:28:37 ◼   ► single core it is it is faster but again that's what apple said so it's it's in line with what

00:28:42 ◼   ► apple previewed when they introduced the M2 to begin with. So in practice what is this gonna mean

00:28:49 ◼   ► for like regular people who mostly use single core stuff. It's gonna be faster,

00:28:54 ◼   ► it's gonna, well, the battery is gonna last a bit more, yeah,

00:28:58 ◼   ► Safari's nappier, you know, than the usual. That's right, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not,

00:29:04 ◼   ► it's, I don't think it's like a, I mean, the move from Intel to Apple Silicon is

00:29:07 ◼   ► like a one-time thing, right, and now we're just kind of back in the world of

00:29:10 ◼   ► things slowly get better over time, but between, you know, let's say we have to

00:29:16 ◼   ► pick a 12 inch ultra portable or a 15 inch MacBook Air or MacBook studio

00:29:23 ◼   ► because part of the rumor is it could get the m2 Pro and like an upper level I

00:29:27 ◼   ► tend to think the 15 inch is a little bit better of a plan I know like people

00:29:33 ◼   ► in our audience like I think way more heavily towards smaller machines oh one

00:29:39 ◼   ► of those people yeah yeah I'm leaning toward like a super small MacBook if

00:29:44 ◼   ► If they try that again, man, that's gonna be sweet to have.

00:29:49 ◼   ► Like, I know that Steve Jobs said

00:29:52 ◼   ► netbooks aren't better at anything,

00:29:55 ◼   ► but I also always thought that the 11-inch MacBook Air

00:29:58 ◼   ► from back in the day was amazing.

00:30:00 ◼   ► So I kinda wanna get the small MacBook.

00:30:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, and there's room, I guess, for all of it,

00:30:05 ◼   ► and Apple could just have like seven laptops for sale,

00:30:07 ◼   ► but I feel like the,

00:30:11 ◼   ► like if you look at the broader PC market,

00:30:13 ◼   ► there's definitely a market for like cheaper,

00:30:15 ◼   ► lower end devices with bigger screens.

00:30:17 ◼   ► And they're doing that with the phone,

00:30:20 ◼   ► according to the rumors this year, right?

00:30:21 ◼   ► Like getting rid of the mini,

00:30:23 ◼   ► it's gonna be the iPhone and iPhone Pro,

00:30:26 ◼   ► but there's a max version of each as well.

00:30:28 ◼   ► So I don't know.

00:30:28 ◼   ► I mean, I think it's interesting.

00:30:29 ◼   ► I think in reality,

00:30:30 ◼   ► Apple's experimenting with all sorts of things

00:30:32 ◼   ► and we're just hearing about it way earlier than normal.

00:30:36 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:30:37 ◼   ► - Can we talk about the dog cow?

00:30:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, we can.

00:30:39 ◼   ► We have to.

00:30:40 ◼   ► - We have to.

00:30:41 ◼   ► - We have to.

00:30:42 ◼   ► There's a lot of backstory here.

00:30:44 ◼   ► I'm gonna leave a link in the show notes

00:30:47 ◼   ► to this big thing I wrote years ago,

00:30:49 ◼   ► giving like the full history.

00:30:50 ◼   ► But basically it's like this little bit of Mac history.

00:30:54 ◼   ► This glyph was part of an original typeface by Susan Care.

00:30:57 ◼   ► It looks like a dog, looks like a cow.

00:30:59 ◼   ► So I got the name dog cow.

00:31:00 ◼   ► And then over the years Apple employees wrote

00:31:03 ◼   ► like help documentation, giving her a name.

00:31:05 ◼   ► So her name was Claris, talking about where she lives.

00:31:09 ◼   ► I got to interview some of those people for this piece,

00:31:12 ◼   ► which was really cool.

00:31:14 ◼   ► And it slowly just kind of faded away

00:31:16 ◼   ► as Apple sort of lost a lot of its personality

00:31:19 ◼   ► in the, you know, Steve Jobs 2.0 era, right?

00:31:23 ◼   ► They sort of got rid of a lot of the silly things.

00:31:26 ◼   ► Over the years, it slowly started coming back

00:31:32 ◼   ► in like Swift documentation,

00:31:35 ◼   ► and then there was a sticker pack.

00:31:36 ◼   ► And now the big news is in Mac OS Ventura,

00:31:40 ◼   ► in the print preview screen, the dog cow was present,

00:31:43 ◼   ► which is where it lived initially.

00:31:45 ◼   ► So if you go to print a page,

00:31:47 ◼   ► it shows you if it's portrait or landscape or whatever.

00:31:50 ◼   ► And there's this new version of Clarus.

00:31:53 ◼   ► It's not all eight bit retro looking.

00:31:56 ◼   ► It's like kind of rounded.

00:31:58 ◼   ► - This is a retina Clarus.

00:32:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's right.

00:32:01 ◼   ► That's right.

00:32:02 ◼   ► - She looks great.

00:32:03 ◼   ► - Apparently this was previewed in a wallpaper article.

00:32:06 ◼   ► Remember that when they like interviewed designers

00:32:08 ◼   ► and there is apparently a photo

00:32:10 ◼   ► and there's like this Claris like on the wall,

00:32:12 ◼   ► like taped up on the wall

00:32:13 ◼   ► with a bunch of other design stuff, which is wild.

00:32:16 ◼   ► But it's back.

00:32:19 ◼   ► And I think that's a lot of fun

00:32:20 ◼   ► because I like personality in my computers

00:32:23 ◼   ► and I've got a dog cow tattoo,

00:32:25 ◼   ► for people who don't know,

00:32:26 ◼   ► I'm very into this like little corner of Apple history

00:32:28 ◼   ► and now it's Apple present again, which is great.

00:32:31 ◼   ► - Are you gonna get a retina version of the tattoo as well?

00:32:35 ◼   ► - People ask me, I'm gonna, as I get older,

00:32:37 ◼   ► it will slowly sort of, as the tattoo softens with time,

00:32:40 ◼   ► it'll slowly turn into the new version.

00:32:42 ◼   ► - It's not gonna be pixelated anymore.

00:32:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, so it's slowly evolving on my ankle

00:32:49 ◼   ► over the course of decades to be the new, be the new Claris.

00:32:54 ◼   ► - I'm very happy for you.

00:32:56 ◼   ► Honestly, like when I saw this,

00:32:58 ◼   ► I thought of you immediately,

00:33:00 ◼   ► which is funny that you as an internet personality

00:33:04 ◼   ► are tied to a fictional creature.

00:33:08 ◼   ► - Right.

00:33:09 ◼   ► - But hey, you know, it's great.

00:33:12 ◼   ► It's a funny bit of Apple lore, I think.

00:33:15 ◼   ► I'm in favor of this.

00:33:17 ◼   ► Like, Apple should, like, we always say on the show,

00:33:21 ◼   ► Apple should do more weird things.

00:33:23 ◼   ► And this is one of those funny, weird things

00:33:26 ◼   ► from Apple history that I'm super glad to see

00:33:30 ◼   ► back in the latest Oasis.

00:33:32 ◼   ► More of this, like, I wanna see more self-aware Apple

00:33:37 ◼   ► that throws in these references.

00:33:39 ◼   ► And they've done this from time to time

00:33:41 ◼   ► with like some of the icons.

00:33:43 ◼   ► What was it?

00:33:44 ◼   ► Like the default document icon as the, you know,

00:33:49 ◼   ► here's to the crazy ones text.

00:33:51 ◼   ► You know, they do these things from time to time.

00:33:54 ◼   ► They should do it more often.

00:33:55 ◼   ► You know, weird Apple has a bunch of great moments

00:33:59 ◼   ► from its history,

00:34:00 ◼   ► and they should throw in those references.

00:34:02 ◼   ► References are fun.

00:34:04 ◼   ► - They are. - So why not?

00:34:05 ◼   ► Why not?

00:34:06 ◼   ► - Get some, give us some more Warren Buffett paper games,

00:34:09 ◼   ► you know?

00:34:10 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:34:12 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:34:12 ◼   ► - Maybe there'll be a Clarus adventure game

00:34:16 ◼   ► in Apple Arcade at some point.

00:34:17 ◼   ► That would be fun.

00:34:18 ◼   ► - Clarus paper wizard.

00:34:20 ◼   ► - Oh, it's so good.

00:34:21 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:34:22 ◼   ► - It's really good.

00:34:23 ◼   ► Congratulations everybody.

00:34:25 ◼   ► She's back.

00:34:26 ◼   ► I mean, this seems like a really good reason

00:34:27 ◼   ► to put a Mac OS beta on your production machine.

00:34:30 ◼   ► Right? Just go for it. No, don't do that. That's a bad idea. Are you are you running

00:34:35 ◼   ► the Mac OS beta? No, no, no, no, no, no. Good. I'm running the watchOS beta. How's that?

00:34:43 ◼   ► It's mostly fine. Look, it's mostly fine. Like I've had more problems with iOS and iPadOS.

00:34:50 ◼   ► Lots of problems with iPadOS. Yeah. WatchOS, it's okay. It's got the new look for notifications.

00:34:57 ◼   ► They look fun.

00:34:58 ◼   ► They have this pill-shaped banner that comes in

00:35:02 ◼   ► when you get a notification.

00:35:03 ◼   ► I haven't really noticed anything else.

00:35:07 ◼   ► Oh, there's a new solid color watch face,

00:35:09 ◼   ► which I think looks cool.

00:35:10 ◼   ► I wanna make a yellow watch face now.

00:35:12 ◼   ► - That'd be cool.

00:35:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, the watch is fine so far.

00:35:16 ◼   ► iPadOS is the worst one.

00:35:18 ◼   ► I had this bug with Obsidian,

00:35:21 ◼   ► which I was using a lot, obviously,

00:35:22 ◼   ► because I was taking notes from my review.

00:35:24 ◼   ► and the entire app was half covered

00:35:28 ◼   ► by this empty keyboard area,

00:35:31 ◼   ► even though I was using a hardware keyboard.

00:35:33 ◼   ► I had to go in, I had to, quote unquote, "fix this."

00:35:38 ◼   ► I had to go into keyboard settings

00:35:41 ◼   ► and disable the shortcuts and predictive toggles.

00:35:46 ◼   ► And then I went into the Obsidian Discord

00:35:50 ◼   ► and I filed a feedback and I sent a screenshot,

00:35:52 ◼   ► be like, "Hey, this is what happens when you run on,

00:35:54 ◼   ► iPad OS 16. This, by the way, it's not just about Obsidian. I think a ton of apps, a ton

00:36:00 ◼   ► of iPad apps, especially if they're not using the latest sort of modern iPad conventions

00:36:06 ◼   ► for multitasking, for the scene technology that powers multi-window, you're gonna have

00:36:12 ◼   ► problems this fall with iPad OS 16 with the floating mode of Stage Manager. So if you

00:36:18 ◼   ► make an iPad app or you have an iPad version of your iPhone app and maybe you haven't really

00:36:24 ◼   ► spent the time there over the past couple of years to update it for, I don't know, multi-window,

00:36:29 ◼   ► scenes, split view, drag and drop. Now is a good time to do it because your thing is not gonna break

00:36:37 ◼   ► with iPod S16, but it's not gonna be fun. So yeah, that would be my advice. So Justin Hamilton has

00:36:45 ◼   ► made a dog cow game. Not since I said that, but this is in the past and I've forgotten about it. So

00:36:50 ◼   ► You play the dog cow and you like jump around and you want to eat original IMAX and avoid

00:36:57 ◼   ► being eaten by the Vista logo.

00:36:59 ◼   ► Oh my God, I'm playing now.

00:37:01 ◼   ► Yeah, it's really good.

00:37:03 ◼   ► There's music.

00:37:04 ◼   ► It's old Mac OS startup music.

00:37:06 ◼   ► Oh my God, you can, you can jump and okay.

00:37:09 ◼   ► I just ate an iMac.

00:37:10 ◼   ► It's good.

00:37:12 ◼   ► This is incredible, Justin.

00:37:13 ◼   ► It's so good.

00:37:16 ◼   ► Why is this game not on the iPhone?

00:37:19 ◼   ► because of copyright.

00:37:20 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I mean, the whole thing's over a leopard

00:37:22 ◼   ► screenshot that I made, so it's gonna be questionable.

00:37:26 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:37:27 ◼   ► - Oh, did you see that the upper levels,

00:37:28 ◼   ► like they look like the, everything looks like

00:37:30 ◼   ► the Aqua scroll bars?

00:37:31 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:37:32 ◼   ► - Oh no, I hit a Vista logo.

00:37:34 ◼   ► Okay, everyone needs to spend time and play this game,

00:37:37 ◼   ► because it is fantastic.

00:37:40 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is made possible

00:37:42 ◼   ► by CleanMyMac X.

00:37:44 ◼   ► You want to make sure that you can trust your Mac.

00:37:46 ◼   ► It's a crucial tool for work, education, and life.

00:37:50 ◼   ► MacPaw is on a mission to help your machine help you,

00:37:53 ◼   ► which is why they developed CleanMyMac X,

00:37:55 ◼   ► an ideal decluttering app for the Mac

00:37:58 ◼   ► that can help keep it in tip-top shape.

00:38:00 ◼   ► CleanMyMac X includes 49 tools

00:38:02 ◼   ► to find and delete invisible computer junk.

00:38:05 ◼   ► It helps to tune up your Mac so it runs at maximum speed.

00:38:08 ◼   ► Plus it organizes disk space,

00:38:10 ◼   ► showing you large hidden folders,

00:38:12 ◼   ► meaning you can free up tons of space

00:38:14 ◼   ► so your Mac never runs into issues with its storage.

00:38:17 ◼   ► It fights Mac specific malware and adware

00:38:19 ◼   ► and protects your computer

00:38:21 ◼   ► and prevents a Mac from cluttering,

00:38:22 ◼   ► lagging and slowing down.

00:38:24 ◼   ► It's notarized by Apple

00:38:25 ◼   ► and is available in the Mac App Store.

00:38:27 ◼   ► So it's been checked for security

00:38:29 ◼   ► and it really stands out in design.

00:38:30 ◼   ► It looks fantastic.

00:38:32 ◼   ► In 2021 alone, CleanMyMac was honored

00:38:34 ◼   ► with the Red Dot Award, UX Design Award

00:38:37 ◼   ► and has even become a Webby Award nominee this year.

00:38:41 ◼   ► You can get CleanMyMac X today

00:38:43 ◼   ► for 5% off at macpaw.app/connected.

00:38:48 ◼   ► This counts only valid for two weeks,

00:38:50 ◼   ► so jump on it, macpaw.app/connected for 5% off.

00:38:54 ◼   ► And there's of course a link in the show notes.

00:38:56 ◼   ► And one final note, despite the war in MacPaw's

00:38:59 ◼   ► home country of Ukraine, the team have worked hard

00:39:01 ◼   ► to make sure there are no disruptions in support

00:39:03 ◼   ► and development of CleanMyMac X.

00:39:05 ◼   ► Their product is stable, safe, and secure.

00:39:08 ◼   ► And a personal note, I got to hang out with these folks

00:39:11 ◼   ► at WWDC and it was so good to see them.

00:39:13 ◼   ► Our thanks to CleanMyMac X for the support of the show and Relay FM.

00:39:17 ◼   ► We have ourselves a gate.

00:39:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:39:21 ◼   ► Stage gate.

00:39:22 ◼   ► Stage, stage gate.

00:39:24 ◼   ► Stage gate.

00:39:25 ◼   ► I was going to go with a manager gate, but stage gates way more fun to say.

00:39:28 ◼   ► Manager gate sounds like a workplace issue.

00:39:31 ◼   ► So that's, that's not fun.

00:39:32 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:39:33 ◼   ► Let's avoid that.

00:39:34 ◼   ► Uh, so tell us what's going on with the, uh, the hubbub around

00:39:38 ◼   ► stage manager and the M1.

00:39:40 ◼   ► Yes.

00:39:41 ◼   ► So, okay.

00:39:43 ◼   ► So the context here, obviously, is that Stage Manager, the new multitasking feature for

00:39:48 ◼   ► macOS, Ventura, and iPadOS, on the iPad side of things, is going to be available on the M1 iPads

00:39:57 ◼   ► only. That would be the 2021 iPad Pro and the 2022 iPad Air, which also has the M1 system on a chip.

00:40:04 ◼   ► Last week, when we talked about this, and we mentioned, oh, there's a few people that are

00:40:10 ◼   ► very upset about Stage Manager being only available on the 2021 iPad Pro. And I said

00:40:17 ◼   ► that I didn't like the attitude of some people on the internet, and I specifically said,

00:40:25 ◼   ► "How can you know that Stage Manager as a feature could be supported on older hardware?" That would

00:40:33 ◼   ► be the main argument from this group of iPad users, if you don't work at Apple, if you're not

00:40:38 ◼   ► an engineer. Now, I don't, like, I said that, but I also want to say that I've been doing

00:40:49 ◼   ► a lot of reading over the past week. That episode we recorded two days after the keynote.

00:40:56 ◼   ► But like, sometimes I say things, and I don't want to say that I regret saying those things,

00:41:01 ◼   ► but like, I love changing my opinion, okay? And I love...

00:41:06 ◼   ► See, this is why people love Myke.

00:41:08 ◼   ► This is why people love Myke, exactly.

00:41:10 ◼   ► What I'm saying is that I continue

00:41:12 ◼   ► to believe that a lot of people on Reddit and on Twitter

00:41:17 ◼   ► have the wrong approach when it comes to thinking you know what

00:41:22 ◼   ► you're talking about by saying, oh, I can tell you

00:41:25 ◼   ► for sure that stage manager could work on older iPads.

00:41:31 ◼   ► That's the main point that I take issue with,

00:41:35 ◼   ► which is, unless you really work on Craig Federighi's team,

00:41:39 ◼   ► you can't really know.

00:41:42 ◼   ► But I've been doing a lot of reading

00:41:45 ◼   ► and spending time on Reddit, on Twitter,

00:41:48 ◼   ► checking out the emails that I received from people,

00:41:50 ◼   ► "Thank you for getting in touch with me."

00:41:51 ◼   ► Like, this is not sarcastic at all.

00:41:53 ◼   ► Like, I love when people get in touch with me

00:41:56 ◼   ► and tell me, "Here's why you're wrong."

00:41:57 ◼   ► Like, that's one of the best things

00:41:59 ◼   ► of having a career on the internet,

00:42:01 ◼   ► having people reach out to you and tell you you're wrong.

00:42:03 ◼   ► I understand the issue here, and I kind of want to talk about it on the show, and try

00:42:10 ◼   ► to tackle this with all the possible arguments that we could have in favor of bringing Stage

00:42:17 ◼   ► Manager to older iPads and against bringing Stage Manager to older iPads.

00:42:23 ◼   ► The additional context that we require is the fact that Apple has been giving some interviews

00:42:28 ◼   ► over the past week, sort of, I assume,

00:42:31 ◼   ► trying to not only explain the iPadOS story,

00:42:34 ◼   ► but also trying to do some damage control, you know?

00:42:37 ◼   ► This is not unusual for Apple to do this

00:42:40 ◼   ► when they announce something that is potentially

00:42:42 ◼   ► controversial with a part of the community,

00:42:44 ◼   ► trying to explain their thinking.

00:42:46 ◼   ► And in this case, we have interviews,

00:42:48 ◼   ► there's one on TechCrunch with Matthew Panzareno,

00:42:52 ◼   ► interviewed Craig Federighi,

00:42:53 ◼   ► went into the details of Stage Manager,

00:42:55 ◼   ► we can get into those in a couple of minutes.

00:42:57 ◼   ► But yeah, that's the context. A ton of people, if you just open Twitter and search for "stage manager,"

00:43:03 ◼   ► or if you go to Reddit, to the iPad or the Apple subreddits, there's thousands of people who are

00:43:10 ◼   ► between annoyed, like it covers the full spectrum. Some of them are annoyed, some of them are really

00:43:16 ◼   ► upset, some of them are calling Apple and Federighi an outright liar when it comes to stage manager.

00:43:23 ◼   ► So I'm trying to understand here what the problem is. And I tweeted yesterday, I have this poll

00:43:31 ◼   ► going on Twitter. Let me open this tweet, and let's look at these poll results. It's been,

00:43:36 ◼   ► let's see, there's an hour left in this poll. So I tweeted, "Thought experiment. Let's say

00:43:43 ◼   ► Apple listens to users and backtracks on Stage Manager being M1 iPad only. But there's a catch.

00:43:51 ◼   ► no external display support, and limited to three apps on the iPad Pro, starting with the 2018 model

00:43:58 ◼   ► and later. How would you feel about this scenario?" And I had three potential answers.

00:44:03 ◼   ► "Yes, I'll take it." "No, I'm still upset." And answer number three, "I'll just buy a new iPad."

00:44:11 ◼   ► As of right now, we have one hour left into this poll on Twitter. We have just short of

00:44:19 ◼   ► 2,000 votes. It's 1962 votes, so it's a pretty good sample, I think, of users. 60%, to be specific,

00:44:28 ◼   ► 59.7% of people said, "Yes, I'll take it." 13.6% said, "No, I'm still upset." And 26.6%,

00:44:39 ◼   ► and as I'm speaking the numbers changed slightly, but 26.6% said, "I'll just buy a new iPad."

00:44:47 ◼   ► So, effectively, you have 60% of people saying, "Give me Stage Manager on the older iPad, even if it's limited,"

00:44:55 ◼   ► 13% saying, "I'm very upset about this," and 26% saying, "I don't care about this controversy, I'll just get a new iPad."

00:45:04 ◼   ► Let's start with the arguments in favor, maybe, of bringing Stage Manager to older iPads.

00:45:09 ◼   ► The main argument, I think, and actually, again, for context, I do this all the time.

00:45:15 ◼   ► Whenever there's something that involves people, I turn to Sylvia, because Sylvia has a much

00:45:24 ◼   ► better pulse than I do on what the average folk think about these kinds of things.

00:45:34 ◼   ► And I gotta come clean here.

00:45:36 ◼   ► This is one of my limitations, as a guy who writes about technology on the internet, and

00:45:41 ◼   ► You know, I try review units and I talk to Apple.

00:45:45 ◼   ► One of my weaknesses is it's sometimes

00:45:49 ◼   ► I have the kind of tunnel vision where I'm always

00:45:55 ◼   ► in favor of progress.

00:45:57 ◼   ► I'm always in favor of the new, right?

00:46:00 ◼   ► I always want to get the latest iPhone.

00:46:02 ◼   ► I always want to get the latest iPad because it's my job

00:46:05 ◼   ► and because I'm also a fan of these machines

00:46:08 ◼   ► and I like using them.

00:46:10 ◼   ► So my perspective is, I don't care.

00:46:13 ◼   ► I'm always gonna get the latest device,

00:46:15 ◼   ► because it's part of what I do.

00:46:17 ◼   ► But that's one of my limits.

00:46:20 ◼   ► That's one of my weaknesses, because I can easily,

00:46:24 ◼   ► and I think this is actually quite common in all of us,

00:46:27 ◼   ► but I can quite easily lose track of what the average,

00:46:31 ◼   ► in this case, iPad user,

00:46:34 ◼   ► who doesn't wanna upgrade an iPad every year,

00:46:36 ◼   ► may think of this limitation.

00:46:38 ◼   ► So the first thing I'll say is this.

00:46:41 ◼   ► Let's say that in 2020, during the pandemic,

00:46:44 ◼   ► during the lockdowns, you bought an iPad Pro.

00:46:48 ◼   ► You bought an iPad Pro in 2020.

00:46:50 ◼   ► Apple had all the advertisements saying,

00:46:52 ◼   ► "The iPad Pro, powerful machine.

00:46:53 ◼   ► It's your computer replacement."

00:46:56 ◼   ► They released the magic keyboard, right?

00:46:58 ◼   ► With the pointer.

00:47:00 ◼   ► And you're like, "Oh, great.

00:47:02 ◼   ► They're now selling the iPad Pro as a laptop replacement."

00:47:06 ◼   ► and you have this great modular machine.

00:47:09 ◼   ► And it's got the A12Z system on a chip,

00:47:12 ◼   ► it's more powerful than the A12X, great.

00:47:15 ◼   ► Now, after two years, Apple is telling you,

00:47:19 ◼   ► well, actually, that computer that you bought two years ago

00:47:22 ◼   ► is not gonna be good enough to run this brand new flavor

00:47:25 ◼   ► of multitasking that's gonna make your iPad Pro

00:47:28 ◼   ► so much more powerful than before.

00:47:30 ◼   ► And I can imagine that if you're one of those people,

00:47:34 ◼   ► And again, keep in mind my limits here, right?

00:47:39 ◼   ► My limited perspective,

00:47:40 ◼   ► I haven't used the 2020 iPad Pro in two years,

00:47:44 ◼   ► but there's still plenty of people who do.

00:47:45 ◼   ► - There's a lot of 2018 ones running around too.

00:47:47 ◼   ► The first one with Face ID.

00:47:49 ◼   ► - Yes, exactly, because it was the first one with Face ID,

00:47:52 ◼   ► and it was the first one with the new design

00:47:54 ◼   ► with the liquid retina display.

00:47:55 ◼   ► And these iPads, they can last you for a very long time.

00:48:00 ◼   ► They're great machines, they're very durable,

00:48:02 ◼   ► very reliable, and the upgrade cycle of an iPad, and especially an iPad Pro, which is a big purchase,

00:48:08 ◼   ► if you want to buy an iPad Pro, and a Magic Keyboard, and an Apple Pencil, you know, you're

00:48:12 ◼   ► easily spending, what, $1,300? $1,500, depending on your configuration? These are machines that

00:48:19 ◼   ► are supposed to last you a long time. So I can imagine, if I were to put myself in that perspective,

00:48:27 ◼   ► that I'm gonna be upset, that I'm gonna be, "Wait, I bought this computer two years ago,

00:48:32 ◼   ► and now it's not good enough for this new kind of multitasking?" And there was this great tweet from

00:48:40 ◼   ► Andrew Cunningham. Andrew writes at Ars Technica, and I'm gonna read you this tweet. "My feelings

00:48:45 ◼   ► on these are complicated, but too long, didn't read. It's not unreasonable to expect a 14-month-old

00:48:53 ◼   ► $1,000 plus computer to support new OS features, and if Apple couldn't do that, they should have

00:49:01 ◼   ► designed the feature differently. This, I think, really encapsulates the problem. I don't think

00:49:08 ◼   ► it's a crazy argument to make. No, I don't either. So, if you spend that kind of money on a computer

00:49:16 ◼   ► that is pitched to you as a new generation of computer, that has a keyboard with a trackpad

00:49:23 ◼   ► and a pointer and USB-C and all these great features, it's not wild to be annoyed at the notion

00:49:32 ◼   ► that now it's not good enough anymore for new multitasking. And so if you're Apple, maybe the

00:49:38 ◼   ► question would be, "Was there really any other way..." Like, I get it, that you're saying that in this

00:49:45 ◼   ► version, Stage Manager wouldn't work on anything prior to the M1. But then the question becomes,

00:49:53 ◼   ► is the problem actually how you design Stage Manager? Right. It's not like they built this,

00:50:02 ◼   ► and then they were suddenly surprised, like, "Oh no, it needs an M1! Who did this?"

00:50:09 ◼   ► Exactly. Like, oh no, we released an iPad in 2020. Like, I mean,

00:50:13 ◼   ► and especially considering the context of 2020, we were all stuck at home.

00:50:18 ◼   ► Apple sold a bunch of iPads that year and there's the numbers to back it up.

00:50:24 ◼   ► The iPad and the iPad pro has been trending up. So it's, it's not like,

00:50:29 ◼   ► I gotta say to those people, you know,

00:50:31 ◼   ► I guess I'm sorry for making fun of you last week,

00:50:34 ◼   ► but in thinking about this and talking over with Sylvia,

00:50:38 ◼   ► Like, it's not wild to expect that that kind of purchase would support the latest features

00:50:47 ◼   ► of iPadOS.

00:50:48 ◼   ► The second argument, virtual memory swap.

00:50:52 ◼   ► So Apple said, for example, in this TechCrunch interview, Federighi really mentioned three

00:51:00 ◼   ► main factors when it comes to stage manager being only available on the M1 iPads.

00:51:07 ◼   ► And by the way, for those who are not aware, Stage Manager, you can run up to four concurrent

00:51:13 ◼   ► apps on the iPad display, and four more apps, or app windows, I guess, on an external display.

00:51:23 ◼   ► So a total of eight apps running at the same time.

00:51:28 ◼   ► Yeah, because they're separated now.

00:51:29 ◼   ► Unlike before, where an external display was mostly just a mirror, this is now like independent

00:51:36 ◼   ► instances of Stage Manager, basically.

00:51:40 ◼   ► - So, Federighi mentioned the, and I'm gonna go,

00:51:43 ◼   ► I don't wanna read the whole thing,

00:51:44 ◼   ► but basically the high DRAM capacity,

00:51:47 ◼   ► the high performance NAND,

00:51:49 ◼   ► that allows the virtual memory swap to be super fast.

00:51:52 ◼   ► So, memory issue.

00:51:54 ◼   ► IO, so the M1 is the only one that can support,

00:51:57 ◼   ► it's got the Thunderbolt port,

00:51:59 ◼   ► and it can drive 4K, 5K, and 6K displays.

00:52:02 ◼   ► And the third factor being the GPU.

00:52:05 ◼   ► So Fedor

00:52:15 ◼   ► out, while hitting a super high frame rate, across large displays and multiple displays,

00:52:21 ◼   ► that requires the peak of graphics performance that, you know, other iPads do not have. And

00:52:28 ◼   ► I understand. Like, I 100% believe this technical explanation, personally. I believe that in

00:52:35 ◼   ► this flavor of Stage Manager, Apple tried to make it work on older iPads and it sucked.

00:52:43 ◼   ► Like, I buy that, personally. I think that's true. But there's an interesting detail about the

00:52:50 ◼   ► virtual memory swap part of this explanation. A friend of the show, Steve Trottonsmith, noted

00:52:59 ◼   ► on Twitter that the virtual memory swap is only supported, actually, on the iPad Air M1 with the

00:53:08 ◼   ► 256 GB of storage, the 64 GB iPad Air with M1 does not support virtual memory swap, but

00:53:19 ◼   ► it has Stage Manager. So if it can't have Stage Manager without virtual memory swap,

00:53:25 ◼   ► at least one of the three factors that Federighi mentioned does not necessarily apply. Right?

00:53:34 ◼   ► Because if the iPad Air with M1 and 64 gigs can use Stage Manager without virtual memory

00:53:39 ◼   ► swap, it goes without saying that you can potentially design Stage Manager without virtual

00:53:45 ◼   ► memory swap, because you're actually doing it on one of the iPads that you currently

00:53:50 ◼   ► sell.

00:53:51 ◼   ► So that's an interesting detail.

00:53:53 ◼   ► Also, I was thinking about this.

00:53:56 ◼   ► It's not unusual for Apple to sort of gate certain features to modern hardware.

00:54:06 ◼   ► And I get it, like, especially when it comes to the camera, when it comes to the neural

00:54:10 ◼   ► engine, we have these very specific and very advanced features that you physically cannot

00:54:15 ◼   ► have on older hardware.

00:54:17 ◼   ► Like, you want to have portrait photos on a device that doesn't have a particular lens?

00:54:22 ◼   ► Like, it's actually impossible to do it.

00:54:25 ◼   ► simplify. But in this case, we're talking about a feature that the iPad user base has been requesting

00:54:35 ◼   ► for a long time. Better multitasking and external display integration, right? So I was thinking about

00:54:42 ◼   ► this, and I had these other thought experiments. Like, imagine if in 2011, when Apple rebranded

00:54:52 ◼   ► Exposé and Spaces on the Mac as Mission Control. Imagine if they said, "We're launching Mission

00:54:59 ◼   ► Control. It's a much better way to multitask on Mac OS X, but it only works on your 2010

00:55:06 ◼   ► Macs and later." Like, imagine if that 2011 feature was only available on a computer from

00:55:12 ◼   ► the year before, from 2010. Bad news. That was not the bad news, but that was not the

00:55:16 ◼   ► case. They designed Mission Control to work, and I checked and correct me if I'm wrong,

00:55:22 ◼   ► Steven, but it worked on Macs from 2007 and later. So you have this four-year grace period.

00:55:31 ◼   ► Yeah, anything that ran... because that came with OS X Lion, and so anything that ran Lion

00:55:37 ◼   ► could run that feature. Yeah, exactly. I have more facts and details here to consider.

00:55:46 ◼   ► The 2020 iPad Pro, which is really the the culprit here, right? I think I would get,

00:55:53 ◼   ► personally, I think if you backport this feature you should also backport it

00:55:59 ◼   ► to the 2018 iPad Pro, but let's focus on the 2020 iPad Pro, so the fourth gen

00:56:04 ◼   ► iPad Pro. That iPad Pro had the A12Z system on a chip, we're gonna talk about

00:56:09 ◼   ► this later, in a few minutes, and 6 gigs of RAM, and then you could say "aha, that's

00:56:16 ◼   ► That's the problem, right?

00:56:17 ◼   ► You only have 6GB of RAM.

00:56:19 ◼   ► But remember that the 2021 iPad Pro, so the one with the M1, you may say, "Oh, I know

00:56:29 ◼   ► that the iPad Pro with the M1 has 16GB of RAM."

00:56:33 ◼   ► That's not actually the case for all models.

00:56:36 ◼   ► It's just the 1 and 2TB models that have 16GB of RAM.

00:56:41 ◼   ► the 2021 iPad Pro in the 128, 256, and 512 GB configurations, those have 8 GB of RAM.

00:56:52 ◼   ► So it's only 2 GB more. And so this is another of those tweets and threads that I've seen

00:56:58 ◼   ► of like, "Come on, for 2 GB of RAM, you couldn't make it happen?" Again, I don't know. But

00:57:04 ◼   ► interesting to consider that we may think by default that the 2021 iPad Pro has 16 gigs of RAM.

00:57:13 ◼   ► That's not true, because some models, they have 8 gigs of RAM. The other, sort of the broader argument,

00:57:21 ◼   ► I think, is, and this is another thing that I've seen in a lot of tweets, if the iPad, if the 2018,

00:57:31 ◼   ► Let's go deeper into the past. If the 2018 iPad Pro can run three apps at the same time,

00:57:40 ◼   ► two in Splitview and one in Slideover, why couldn't you design Stage Manager in a way that you are

00:57:51 ◼   ► upselling people onto the M1 iPad Pro? And it's got all the bells and whistles, it's got all the

00:57:57 ◼   ► nice graphics, it's got all the animations, it supports four apps on the iPad, four apps on the

00:58:02 ◼   ► display, like, that's the best version of Stage Manager. But why couldn't you do a limited version

00:58:10 ◼   ► of Stage Manager for older hardware? There is precedent for this being the case. And, like,

00:58:17 ◼   ► I'm not... I'm not... Like, this is not fiction, this is all history, this is all Apple history.

00:58:23 ◼   ► In 2015, so, you know, going back in time, in 2015, Apple announced iOS 9 at WWDC. iOS 9 featured

00:58:34 ◼   ► Split View and Slide Over. Split View was exclusive to the second generation iPad Air from 2014, so you

00:58:42 ◼   ► may say "yeah, that's what they're doing this year as well!" That feature is only for the iPad from the

00:58:48 ◼   ► the year before. That is true. But in 2015, Apple also found a compromise. And the compromise

00:58:55 ◼   ► was, if you don't have an iPad Air 2, but you have an iPad Air 1 from 2013, so two years

00:59:04 ◼   ► before, you're not going to get SplitView, but you're going to get SlideOver. And they

00:59:09 ◼   ► did that. They actually did that. In 2015, they had new multitasking, but it was available

00:59:16 ◼   ► in two flavors. The best one, for the folks who had an iPad Air 2, and the limited one,

00:59:24 ◼   ► for folks who had an iPad Air 1, and only SlideOver was available. So history teaches

00:59:29 ◼   ► that Apple has done it before, limiting features and taking a part of something, making it

00:59:37 ◼   ► available on the older hardware. So to sum up this segment, I guess the question would

00:59:42 ◼   ► be. Like I said, I buy, and I believe, the technical explanation. That in this version

00:59:50 ◼   ► of Stage Manager, it wouldn't work on iPads without the M1. And I believe them. There's

00:59:56 ◼   ► a few details worth considering, like the virtual memory swap, but broadly speaking,

01:00:01 ◼   ► I believe it. But my question to sum this up would be, how many existing iPad users

01:00:09 ◼   ► you willing to upset over this? How many of those people who bought an iPad Pro in 2020

01:00:16 ◼   ► are you willing to annoy and maybe lose the customer set over by saying "No, you don't

01:00:25 ◼   ► get stage manager at all, not even in a limited fashion"? That would be my question for this

01:00:33 ◼   ► part of the argument.

01:00:34 ◼   ► Yeah, the iOS nine example is just so interesting. I'd forgotten about it, but you, you brought

01:00:43 ◼   ► it back to mind. And one common refrain from those days was, wow, the iPad hardware is

01:00:52 ◼   ► so far ahead of the out of the software, right? I mean, that was something we talked about

01:00:57 ◼   ► with the iPad Air two specifically, and then a year later, we see Oh, iOS nine is bringing

01:01:02 ◼   ► this new multitasking. It's been the case for the iPad Pro really ever since. And I

01:01:09 ◼   ► would argue the iPad Air as well. Like these things are so powerful. And you're cutting

01:01:18 ◼   ► off a bunch of really good iPads. To me, I think there's some clear places where they

01:01:25 ◼   ► could find that compromise this year. And after reading all this stuff you put together

01:01:30 ◼   ► and listening to you, like, I think this is the way they should go.

01:01:34 ◼   ► They should find a way to bring a simpler version of Stage Manager to these older devices.

01:01:40 ◼   ► And I gotta say, I'm maybe leaning that way too now.

01:01:43 ◼   ► Because like I said, that's one of my weaknesses.

01:01:47 ◼   ► Because I'm always in favor of progress.

01:01:49 ◼   ► I always tend to say, whatever, I don't care about old stuff anymore, it's all about the

01:01:54 ◼   ► new.

01:01:55 ◼   ► It's always about the new, you know?

01:01:57 ◼   ► me of that great line from Mad Men, when Don Draper says, you know, the concept of new,

01:02:03 ◼   ► he creates this itch. And I have that itch, right? It's new. And I'm always in favor of

01:02:08 ◼   ► the new. But in reading more and remembering my own history is actually funny because a

01:02:14 ◼   ► bunch of people from my Discord send me links to my own stories from seven years ago. Like,

01:02:20 ◼   ► hey, you actually wrote about this. Like, yeah, that's ancient iPad history, but that's

01:02:26 ◼   ► what they did. But in reading more about this, I may be leaning that way too. But let's talk

01:02:31 ◼   ► about why Apple shouldn't do it, right? Why shouldn't they bring Stage Manager to all

01:02:36 ◼   ► their iPads? So first of all, there's the technical explanation. Apple said, "We tried,

01:02:42 ◼   ► and we would really love to do it, but it wouldn't work." And if there's a company that

01:02:50 ◼   ► the track record—again, this is not opinion, this is facts—if there's a company that

01:02:56 ◼   ► cares about keeping your hardware in a workable state via software updates, that's Apple.

01:03:02 ◼   ► I mean, we were complaining about the Apple Watch 3 being still supported in the latest

01:03:09 ◼   ► version of WatchOS. The iPhone 6s can run iOS 15, I believe. Obviously, in a very limited

01:03:18 ◼   ► fashion, but if there's a company that's gonna give the value back to you, usually that's

01:03:24 ◼   ► Apple. And if Apple says, "Look, we tried and it didn't work," I mean, what, you're

01:03:29 ◼   ► not going to believe them? And I mean, sure, you could say, "Oh, that's Tim Cook's Apple.

01:03:34 ◼   ► They want to sell you on a more expensive iPad." But you've got to believe that, you

01:03:38 ◼   ► know, they have a lot of smart people working on this stuff. I know many of those smart

01:03:42 ◼   ► people, and if they said this version wouldn't work, then it wouldn't work. And if they said,

01:03:47 ◼   ► "We tried and the performance wasn't there," then the performance wasn't there. One argument

01:03:52 ◼   ► that I saw from people this week was, "Oh, but the Mac DTK, the Developer Transition Kit,

01:03:59 ◼   ► it had the same A12Z system on a chip from the 2020 iPad Pro. Therefore, why does the

01:04:08 ◼   ► 2020 iPad Pro with the same A12Z chip, why is it not supported with Stage Manager?" The

01:04:14 ◼   ► difference to keep in mind there is that I believe the DTK, the Mac Mini DTK with the

01:04:19 ◼   ► i12z chip, it had 16 gigs of RAM. So, you know, that's a convenient detail to omit when

01:04:28 ◼   ► you're talking about this stuff. It had double the RAM of even the base model 2021 iPad Pro.

01:04:34 ◼   ► The broader argument, and I already mentioned how what I said about iOS 9 applies both in

01:04:42 ◼   ► favor and against this, because yeah, they brought SlideOver to the older hardware, but

01:04:48 ◼   ► also SplitView was gated to the 2014 iPad Air, and there was no way that could have

01:04:55 ◼   ► worked. They did it, brand new feature that everybody wanted, but that was 2014 and later

01:05:02 ◼   ► only.

01:05:03 ◼   ► The broader argument here, I think, is I think it's funny—and you can see how I have opinions

01:05:11 ◼   ► in both camps at this point. I think it's funny that last year we were all saying, "Oh,

01:05:20 ◼   ► M1 iPad Pro, why put this powerful chip in it if you don't have the software that takes

01:05:26 ◼   ► advantage of it?" And now they did and were complaining about the opposite, which I think

01:05:32 ◼   ► is a funny scenario to be in. Like Apple must be saying, "Hey, isn't this what you wanted?"

01:05:39 ◼   ► And there were articles and articles, including my own, including my own review of the 2021

01:05:45 ◼   ► iPad Pro, saying why.

01:05:48 ◼   ► It was literally titled "Future on Standby."

01:05:52 ◼   ► I still remember that.

01:05:54 ◼   ► I said, "This M1 is effectively useless on the iPad Pro because you're doing nothing

01:06:00 ◼   ► to take advantage of it.

01:06:01 ◼   ► You still have split view and slide over, and picture in picture, I guess."

01:06:05 ◼   ► Now they have. Now they are taking advantage of the M1. And so I think it's funny that,

01:06:11 ◼   ► you know, whatever they do, they're gonna do the wrong thing for some people. So that's

01:06:17 ◼   ► also the thing to consider. And I guess there's the fact that you cannot always, always optimize

01:06:28 ◼   ► for old hardware. At some point, if you have an idea—and this is the progressive side

01:06:34 ◼   ► of me speaking, right? At some point, if you have an idea, you just got to go for it. And

01:06:38 ◼   ► if it's only viable or new hardware, you cannot always optimize for the past, right? Otherwise,

01:06:46 ◼   ► you end up like Windows, having to support decades of computers. And that's not usually

01:06:54 ◼   ► how Apple operates. They give you years of backward compatibility, but not forever. You

01:07:01 ◼   ► don't want to end up in that scenario.

01:07:03 ◼   ► You brought up the phone, which I think is by far the best example.

01:07:06 ◼   ► But anytime you move the hardware requirements at all, you're going to hurt people, right?

01:07:11 ◼   ► I mean, I just heard from somebody just the day whose iMac is going to get cut off from

01:07:15 ◼   ► Ventura.

01:07:16 ◼   ► It's like, how long should I stay on Monterey?

01:07:17 ◼   ► It's like, well, you'll get a couple years of security updates.

01:07:20 ◼   ► But there's always, it's always a moving target, right?

01:07:25 ◼   ► And if you aim too far back, then you can't really push the ball forward on the front

01:07:33 ◼   ► Right? Like I don't envy anyone who has to try to like make those decisions

01:07:37 ◼   ► About what comes to what hardware because this whole week has been example

01:07:41 ◼   ► Like what happens if you choose wrong or people think you chose wrong, right?

01:07:45 ◼   ► So here we are, right?

01:07:47 ◼   ► we have arguments in favor of bringing stage manager to all their iPads and against doing it and

01:07:53 ◼   ► I think

01:07:56 ◼   ► To wrap this up. I think

01:07:59 ◼   ► if you're Apple, it comes down to two things maybe. It comes down to what is

01:08:04 ◼   ► technically right and what is right for the customer, right?

01:08:10 ◼   ► I

01:08:12 ◼   ► feel like in reading about this, talking about this with someone who's not like me,

01:08:17 ◼   ► someone who, I mean Sylvia's using an iPad from years ago, and she held on to her

01:08:24 ◼   ► MacBook Pro for

01:08:26 ◼   ► six years or something. Just total opposite of me. I am leaning toward

01:08:31 ◼   ► maybe...

01:08:33 ◼   ► Like, I get it. That this version of Stage Manager is M1 only. Keep it. Keep it that way.

01:08:39 ◼   ► This fancy version of Stage Manager, with the beautiful animations, with four apps, with external monitor support, keep it

01:08:47 ◼   ► M1 only. It's totally fair. But I'm also leaning toward, hey, maybe this summer you can figure out a way to bring

01:08:56 ◼   ► some of the benefits of Stage Manager to older iPads. Because, yeah, the fancy flavor of

01:09:04 ◼   ► it, it's not technically the right thing to do. You don't want to do it just because people

01:09:10 ◼   ► are asking, and you're going to give them a bad experience. I don't think anybody is

01:09:14 ◼   ► asking Apple to give customers a bad experience. But I think it's also right—I don't want

01:09:21 ◼   ► to say morally right, because, hey, this is a company, this is a business who cares about

01:09:25 ◼   ► morals, right? Apple likes to say that they do, but that's a different argument. But you know,

01:09:31 ◼   ► you have customers, and maybe the right thing to do is, we're gonna try and give you a limited

01:09:39 ◼   ► version of Stage Manager, just like you did in 2015, with new multitasking. You're not gonna

01:09:47 ◼   ► get SplitView, but we can give you SlideOver. Maybe that's a good compromise, and in the Stage

01:09:52 ◼   ► Manager era, the equivalent of that could be, look, you're not gonna get four apps, you're not gonna

01:10:00 ◼   ► get the external display integration. We're sorry, but it's just not gonna work. But what we can do

01:10:05 ◼   ► is we can give you three apps at the same time, and maybe you're gonna see fewer apps on the left side,

01:10:13 ◼   ► and maybe you're not gonna get some of the fancy 3D animations, but you're gonna be able to use

01:10:20 ◼   ► three apps at the same time instead of four,

01:10:23 ◼   ► just on the iPad and resize them.

01:10:26 ◼   ► Looking at the numbers from this poll on Twitter,

01:10:29 ◼   ► looking at the general sentiment, looking at history,

01:10:33 ◼   ► looking at the arguments in favor and against,

01:10:37 ◼   ► I think maybe that could be the optimal solution

01:10:39 ◼   ► for the summer.

01:10:40 ◼   ► - I agree.

01:10:41 ◼   ► I think in particular, the external display support

01:10:44 ◼   ► seems like a really easy way to cut the pie.

01:10:47 ◼   ► I mean, how many, like, first of all,

01:10:50 ◼   ► how many users are actually gonna like really dive into that?

01:10:53 ◼   ► It's probably a very small number.

01:10:54 ◼   ► - Exactly.

01:10:55 ◼   ► And if you're that type of user,

01:10:56 ◼   ► chances are you got the M1 iPad Pro immediately last year.

01:11:00 ◼   ► - Right, right.

01:11:01 ◼   ► So that seems fine place for me as does three apps

01:11:04 ◼   ► because really that puts,

01:11:07 ◼   ► that still puts you ahead of slide over and split view now

01:11:11 ◼   ► where like you have two apps and one comes in over the top.

01:11:14 ◼   ► Like that's kind of three apps at once, but not really.

01:11:18 ◼   ► this would still be an improvement over the old system.

01:11:21 ◼   ► I mean, I think you've, in terms of compromise,

01:11:24 ◼   ► I really like where you've kind of drawn this line.

01:11:27 ◼   ► Of course, we don't know anything about,

01:11:28 ◼   ► I mean, really what's going on technically.

01:11:30 ◼   ► - No, because again, I'm not an engineer.

01:11:32 ◼   ► Like the same thing that I said last week

01:11:35 ◼   ► applies to me as well.

01:11:36 ◼   ► Like I'm just imagining things here.

01:11:38 ◼   ► - Right, but in terms of where could this feature be split

01:11:42 ◼   ► where it still makes sense for the most number of users,

01:11:45 ◼   ► I really like that.

01:11:47 ◼   ► three apps and no external display support seems like a really solid compromise.

01:11:51 ◼   ► And, you know, just as a side, as an aside,

01:11:55 ◼   ► that 2020 iPad pro, like the longer we get away from it, the weirder it seems

01:12:01 ◼   ► right. The eight 12 Z added LIDAR.

01:12:03 ◼   ► Like no one really should have gotten that in hindsight.

01:12:07 ◼   ► And now it kind of reminds me of the iPad three.

01:12:09 ◼   ► Remember that the first retina one, and then the iPad four was out like nine

01:12:13 ◼   ► months later, like that poor 2020 iPad Pro. But yeah, I think there's middle ground to

01:12:19 ◼   ► be found. And honestly, I think I think that maybe Apple's only way out of this. I mean,

01:12:24 ◼   ► let's say just hold the line and are willing to make people angry. But I would imagine

01:12:29 ◼   ► that they're looking at some way to compromise on this.

01:12:32 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. Because like I said, if you're if you're a company, if you're a business,

01:12:37 ◼   ► maybe you don't necessarily care about your morals. And I get it. But at the same time,

01:12:43 ◼   ► Because you're a business, you have to care about the feelings of your customers.

01:12:48 ◼   ► Like maybe you don't... maybe you, the business, don't have feelings.

01:12:52 ◼   ► But your customers do.

01:12:54 ◼   ► And so my only concern here, and the reason why I wanted to talk about this, you have

01:12:59 ◼   ► to care about how people feel about this.

01:13:03 ◼   ► Especially... and I know that this is not a technical discussion, but for a lot of people,

01:13:10 ◼   ► This is the computer that really helped them during a time of our modern lives where everything

01:13:18 ◼   ► was complicated.

01:13:19 ◼   ► And I think a lot of people have a really strong attachment to the iPad Pro.

01:13:25 ◼   ► And it would be a shame to upset those people without even trying a compromise.

01:13:32 ◼   ► And maybe what you could do is, "Hey, look, we're gonna try in this beta cycle in the

01:13:36 ◼   ► summer.

01:13:37 ◼   ► And we're gonna show you what it looks like.

01:13:40 ◼   ► in a limited fashion. And if you think it sucks, we're not gonna do it. And we know

01:13:44 ◼   ► that Apple is capable of having these honest conversations with users. They did it last

01:13:48 ◼   ► year with Safari. Very open to feedback, very open to trying things and listening. So, before

01:13:55 ◼   ► we take these extreme positions of like "No, Apple should never do it" or "Apple should

01:14:01 ◼   ► do it all the way", maybe we can find a nice middle ground where, if you have an M1, you

01:14:07 ◼   ► get the super fancy version. If you don't, there's a cutoff point and you got some

01:14:12 ◼   ► of it. And I think it will be fair.

01:14:14 ◼   ► Do you really expect any change to come? Like, I mean, you've paid more attention to betas

01:14:20 ◼   ► than almost anybody.

01:14:21 ◼   ► I do. The reason why I wanted to talk about this is that I started having yesterday this

01:14:28 ◼   ► weird feeling inside of me of like, "Hmm, this is the kind of thing that I think is

01:14:34 ◼   ► going to change this summer. I kind of have a sixth sense for these things at this point.

01:14:40 ◼   ► It was like Safari—well, not as bad as Safari last year, but you know, I keep seeing the

01:14:45 ◼   ► interviews and I keep seeing the damage control and I keep seeing the tweets and the Reddit

01:14:50 ◼   ► threads, and I'm like, "Hmm, I'm starting to have that feeling again." And I think we're—I

01:14:58 ◼   ► I would put it at, I don't know, 70%, maybe.

01:15:02 ◼   ► I think we're going to have this conversation again.

01:15:05 ◼   ► And I do think that Apple is listening to this--

01:15:09 ◼   ► well, not to this segment of Connected specifically.

01:15:11 ◼   ► Hey, maybe some of them are.

01:15:12 ◼   ► But in general, to this conversation

01:15:14 ◼   ► that we're having.

01:15:16 ◼   ► I think there's a lot of--

01:15:17 ◼   ► like what I said last year, there's

01:15:19 ◼   ► a lot of people out there who come

01:15:20 ◼   ► about this with the wrong attitude, with the wrong tweets.

01:15:24 ◼   ► But I think underneath all of that--

01:15:27 ◼   ► underneath all of those angry tweets,

01:15:30 ◼   ► there is the core of an argument,

01:15:34 ◼   ► which is, "I love my iPad," right?

01:15:38 ◼   ► This is what those people are saying.

01:15:39 ◼   ► Those people are saying, "I love my iPad.

01:15:41 ◼   ► Help me continue to love my iPad

01:15:45 ◼   ► by not making me feel left out.

01:15:48 ◼   ► Can you find a compromise to not make me feel left out

01:15:51 ◼   ► because I cannot spend $1,500 every year?"

01:15:56 ◼   ► It really comes down to that.

01:15:57 ◼   ► - Well, fingers crossed, man.

01:15:59 ◼   ► I hope they find a way forward.

01:16:01 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is made possible by Hover,

01:16:04 ◼   ► one of Relay FM's longest running sponsors.

01:16:07 ◼   ► When you have that one big idea, where do you go?

01:16:10 ◼   ► Well, your business starts with a domain name.

01:16:12 ◼   ► So for many entrepreneurs, Hover is that big leap.

01:16:16 ◼   ► They have over 300 domain name extensions to choose from.

01:16:19 ◼   ► There's the .com and .net,

01:16:20 ◼   ► but there's a lot of awesome fun ones now too.

01:16:23 ◼   ► So no matter what you're looking to build,

01:16:25 ◼   ► domain name is there waiting for you.

01:16:28 ◼   ► They have excellent technical support

01:16:29 ◼   ► to answer any questions you may have

01:16:31 ◼   ► because they're dedicated to getting you online,

01:16:33 ◼   ► not upselling you with stuff you don't need.

01:16:36 ◼   ► That means things like their design, the UX UI,

01:16:39 ◼   ► it's really simple and clean and easy to navigate.

01:16:41 ◼   ► Everything is just really intuitive with Hover.

01:16:44 ◼   ► Plus they offer free Whois privacy

01:16:46 ◼   ► and monthly sales on popular top level domains.

01:16:50 ◼   ► All my domains are over at Hover

01:16:52 ◼   ► And I really can't imagine being anywhere else

01:16:55 ◼   ► 'cause if I ever have a question or a problem,

01:16:57 ◼   ► I can get in touch with them really easily.

01:16:58 ◼   ► They can walk me through the changes I need to make,

01:17:00 ◼   ► say to my DNS, and I'm up and running quickly.

01:17:04 ◼   ► So buy your domain and start using it today.

01:17:06 ◼   ► Hover.com/connected is where you wanna go.

01:17:09 ◼   ► And you'll get a 10% discount on all new purchases.

01:17:12 ◼   ► That URL one more time is hover.com/connected.

01:17:16 ◼   ► Make a name for yourself with Hover.

01:17:18 ◼   ► Our thanks to Hover for their support of the show

01:17:20 ◼   ► and Relay FM.

01:17:22 ◼   ► So before I let you go, I wanna talk a little bit about

01:17:25 ◼   ► the trouble of WWDC keynotes.

01:17:28 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:17:29 ◼   ► - It really struck me this time

01:17:32 ◼   ► that so many of the features in iOS and iPad OS 16

01:17:37 ◼   ► and macOS Ventura are all the same feature, right?

01:17:40 ◼   ► Like stage managers coming to two out of the three.

01:17:43 ◼   ► Yeah, quick note everywhere, the mail changes are everywhere

01:17:47 ◼   ► and this has been a pattern for a while now

01:17:50 ◼   ► But this year it has really struck me.

01:17:52 ◼   ► And I wonder if they need to be considering

01:17:57 ◼   ► changing the way these presentations are done

01:18:01 ◼   ► and talk more about features

01:18:04 ◼   ► and less about individual product categories.

01:18:08 ◼   ► So maybe they're, for instance,

01:18:10 ◼   ► if we were to go back a week and remix this keynote,

01:18:13 ◼   ► maybe stage manager is a section

01:18:15 ◼   ► and they say, this is what it looks like on the Mac

01:18:17 ◼   ► and this is what it looks like on the iPad.

01:18:19 ◼   ► You know, here are productivity changes.

01:18:21 ◼   ► Here's what's coming in Mail and Safari,

01:18:23 ◼   ► and it's coming to all the platforms.

01:18:25 ◼   ► Do you have any thoughts on that?

01:18:27 ◼   ► - I haven't really thought about this.

01:18:31 ◼   ► I get it now though.

01:18:32 ◼   ► Like, it would be fun to structure a keynote

01:18:37 ◼   ► where it's not about platforms, it's about the features.

01:18:46 ◼   ► I can see why Apple does it, right?

01:18:50 ◼   ► It's historically been done this way, and it gives you a very easy structure to follow,

01:18:55 ◼   ► right?

01:18:56 ◼   ► You're talking about the watch, then the iPhone, then the iPad, then the Mac.

01:19:00 ◼   ► And TV, occasionally.

01:19:03 ◼   ► Every third year.

01:19:06 ◼   ► But more and more, I mean, I kinda don't wanna say it, but I'm gonna say it anyway.

01:19:14 ◼   ► have feature parity between the Mac and iPad at this point. So like, you're talking, well,

01:19:19 ◼   ► you're going to be talking about the same feature twice in two segments, whereas it

01:19:24 ◼   ► could just be one segment about one feature. You know, you're going to make it shorter

01:19:29 ◼   ► and the structure is going to make more sense. Like so many of these features now are cross-platform

01:19:35 ◼   ► and equal, right?

01:19:37 ◼   ► Stage Manager, live text,

01:19:39 ◼   ► all the machine, like visual lookup in photos,

01:19:44 ◼   ► enhancements to shortcuts, like reminders.

01:19:47 ◼   ► Like you have all these features and updates that are,

01:19:52 ◼   ► you know, span the whole spectrum of your platforms.

01:19:57 ◼   ► Therefore, in a keynote presentation,

01:19:59 ◼   ► what's the best way to convey that?

01:20:02 ◼   ► I could see some experimentation on this front, I think.

01:20:06 ◼   ► I think it would actually make sense.

01:20:07 ◼   ► Maybe they could start doing it to call out specific things

01:20:11 ◼   ► and see how it goes.

01:20:12 ◼   ► Like maybe next year, they could still have the segments.

01:20:16 ◼   ► But there could be like some announcements

01:20:20 ◼   ► could be structured.

01:20:22 ◼   ► Here's what I'm thinking.

01:20:23 ◼   ► Some features could be structured

01:20:26 ◼   ► like they announced the accessibility features.

01:20:29 ◼   ► When they announced the accessibility features

01:20:31 ◼   ► before WWDC, it's not three press releases,

01:20:35 ◼   ► one for each platform.

01:20:37 ◼   ► - Are you getting it?

01:20:37 ◼   ► - It's one,

01:20:38 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:20:39 ◼   ► it's one press release that talks about

01:20:42 ◼   ► all the accessibility improvements across all platforms.

01:20:45 ◼   ► And sure, you have some specific,

01:20:48 ◼   ► some device specific things like Apple Watch, for example,

01:20:52 ◼   ► but you have accessibility developing on multiple fronts

01:20:56 ◼   ► and most of the things are equal.

01:20:58 ◼   ► So I could see Apple's,

01:21:01 ◼   ► Maybe with shortcuts or multitasking or Safari.

01:21:04 ◼   ► Safari would be another great contender for this.

01:21:06 ◼   ► Like, here's all the changes coming to Safari.

01:21:10 ◼   ► And it's not an OS segment.

01:21:12 ◼   ► It's an application or service segment.

01:21:16 ◼   ► I think they should start trying this.

01:21:18 ◼   ► I think they should, too.

01:21:20 ◼   ► Trying to-- I mean, where it really hit me

01:21:24 ◼   ► was the showing Stage Manager in the context of Mac OS.

01:21:28 ◼   ► I'm sitting next to David Sparks,

01:21:29 ◼   ► and we look at each other and say,

01:21:30 ◼   ► that's the iPad multitasking.

01:21:32 ◼   ► But we didn't know that for another 20 minutes, right?

01:21:35 ◼   ► 'Cause they got other stuff to talk about with the Mac.

01:21:37 ◼   ► And I still think there would be room in this format

01:21:40 ◼   ► for platform specific things.

01:21:44 ◼   ► But I think you could pull out the headline features

01:21:47 ◼   ► like this year, stage manager being top of the list,

01:21:51 ◼   ► and then maybe some of the productivity stuff.

01:21:53 ◼   ► And then talk about those.

01:21:56 ◼   ► And I think they would almost stand to have better coverage

01:22:01 ◼   ► because of it, right?

01:22:02 ◼   ► 'Cause then it's not so much about,

01:22:04 ◼   ► oh, it's this way on the Mac and this way on the iPad.

01:22:06 ◼   ► It's like, it is one feature and it's coming to both.

01:22:09 ◼   ► And it's unifying the two in this new and interesting way

01:22:14 ◼   ► that we've honestly never really seen before.

01:22:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, and also to your point,

01:22:19 ◼   ► you could also hold people's attention more

01:22:22 ◼   ► with this approach.

01:22:23 ◼   ► Because I gotta be honest,

01:22:25 ◼   ► when the watchOS segment started during the keynote,

01:22:29 ◼   ► I wanted to stretch my legs

01:22:31 ◼   ► and I wanted to have another coffee.

01:22:33 ◼   ► So I just went into the other room

01:22:34 ◼   ► and made myself an espresso quickly.

01:22:36 ◼   ► And then I went back into the bedroom

01:22:38 ◼   ► and I caught up on the end of the watch segment.

01:22:40 ◼   ► It's like, yeah, I can watch this later.

01:22:43 ◼   ► I don't care.

01:22:44 ◼   ► You know?

01:22:45 ◼   ► So if it was different, I could watch the whole thing.

01:22:48 ◼   ► - And they did it.

01:22:50 ◼   ► So there was like a backdoor pilot for this

01:22:53 ◼   ► 'cause they talked about gaming.

01:22:54 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:22:55 ◼   ► about it in context of the Mac, but the overall message was it's on the Mac

01:23:00 ◼   ► because it's on the iPhone and iPad with metal, right? Like, it was a half step

01:23:04 ◼   ► towards this, and maybe that's another one. Again, if we were to go back to last

01:23:09 ◼   ► week and, like, reshuffle the slides, maybe gaming is a top-level thing, and it's

01:23:13 ◼   ► focused on the Mac mostly, but then it's also about the ecosystem and, like, tying

01:23:20 ◼   ► it all together. Yeah, I think they should do this more and

01:23:23 ◼   ► and more often. So we'll see.

01:23:25 ◼   ► Yeah, that's I this is the kind of thing that I hadn't really considered but as soon as you mentioned it

01:23:31 ◼   ► It's like yeah, this makes total sense. Why not? Yeah, why not? Like I said try weird things

01:23:37 ◼   ► I always like always in favor of trying different things

01:23:40 ◼   ► I mean like they put Craig Federighi in a in like a tracksuit and in an 80s style tracksuit

01:23:46 ◼   ► So anything is possible anything

01:23:48 ◼   ► That's the thing about Apple, and it actually applies to all the topics we covered today.

01:23:55 ◼   ► If they want to do something, they can.

01:23:59 ◼   ► Because if there's a company that can put their mind to something and be like, "Hey,

01:24:03 ◼   ► you gotta spend a bunch of money to make this happen," I mean, they can do it.

01:24:07 ◼   ► All these tech companies, they can, but Apple specifically, if they want to do something,

01:24:12 ◼   ► they can do it in a lot of cases.

01:24:15 ◼   ► And I mean, this one is an easy one.

01:24:18 ◼   ► Change up the format of the keynote, try it once,

01:24:21 ◼   ► see how it goes.

01:24:22 ◼   ► If it doesn't go well, whatever,

01:24:24 ◼   ► you're not gonna do it anymore.

01:24:25 ◼   ► - I mean, I think one of the potential downsides is

01:24:27 ◼   ► you walk away and say,

01:24:28 ◼   ► "Oh, they didn't actually do anything for platform X."

01:24:31 ◼   ► - There is no new, no, but I mean,

01:24:33 ◼   ► you could recap, like you could have a segment says,

01:24:35 ◼   ► "Okay, and all these features,

01:24:37 ◼   ► they're coming to the new versions

01:24:39 ◼   ► of our operating systems."

01:24:40 ◼   ► And they are called iOS 17, and all of that.

01:24:43 ◼   ► macOS, well, it's gonna be called next year. I'm gonna give you my prediction, Steven. So I'm opening Apple Maps

01:24:50 ◼   ► I'm searching for California.

01:24:52 ◼   ► I was wondering what you were doing.

01:24:54 ◼   ► No, no, hold on. California

01:24:56 ◼   ► Ventura. Where is Ventura? Okay. So let's say every year

01:25:02 ◼   ► They like to start from the previous place and then they like to say and we drove around

01:25:06 ◼   ► So if you start from Ventura

01:25:09 ◼   ► You could go up in the in the mountains. Maybe let's see

01:25:12 ◼   ► Oh man, what are all these names?

01:25:15 ◼   ► Pismo.

01:25:16 ◼   ► Pismo is a cool name.

01:25:17 ◼   ► Pismo bitch.

01:25:18 ◼   ► Yeah, it was a code name for an old power book too, so there's a mystery there.

01:25:22 ◼   ► Ah, Cambria!

01:25:23 ◼   ► Cambria is a great name.

01:25:24 ◼   ► Oh, that is good.

01:25:25 ◼   ► But it's a Facebook thing, right?

01:25:26 ◼   ► Oh yeah, it's there.

01:25:27 ◼   ► It's one of their headset code names, I think.

01:25:29 ◼   ► You've picked two code names so far.

01:25:31 ◼   ► No!

01:25:32 ◼   ► Big Sur, let's see, Santa Maria, great name but not an OS name.

01:25:38 ◼   ► So from Ventura, you're gonna do Mac OS Lamont.

01:25:46 ◼   ► Okay.

01:25:48 ◼   ► Look, it's either gonna be Mac OS Lamont or Mac OS...

01:25:55 ◼   ► Am I even still in California here?

01:25:58 ◼   ► Is this Nevada?

01:25:59 ◼   ► Hold on.

01:26:00 ◼   ► Cross state lines there, buddy.

01:26:02 ◼   ► Mac OS...

01:26:03 ◼   ► What did I say?

01:26:05 ◼   ► Lamont or...

01:26:06 ◼   ► Or...

01:26:07 ◼   ► I can go south.

01:26:08 ◼   ► I'm gonna go south.

01:26:09 ◼   ► Oh, well, I was gonna say Corona.

01:26:11 ◼   ► No!

01:26:12 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:26:15 ◼   ► Mecha, okay.

01:26:17 ◼   ► macOS.

01:26:18 ◼   ► Oxnard.

01:26:22 ◼   ► That was a joke in a previous keynote, I think,

01:26:24 ◼   ► but we'll go with it.

01:26:25 ◼   ► They can do anything they put their minds to, right?

01:26:28 ◼   ► They could even fix stage manager.

01:26:29 ◼   ► They can.

01:26:30 ◼   ► You wanna change states?

01:26:32 ◼   ► You wanna start calling macOS releases

01:26:34 ◼   ► after, I don't know, placing Arkansas?

01:26:35 ◼   ► You can.

01:26:36 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:26:37 ◼   ► Why not? Why not?

01:26:39 ◼   ► Mac OS Fayetteville, Mac OS Jonesboro.

01:26:42 ◼   ► I live next door to Arkansas, I know all these places.

01:26:46 ◼   ► Let's see, Mac OS Pine Bluff.

01:26:50 ◼   ► Oh, Pine Bluff's nice.

01:26:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:26:53 ◼   ► Holly Spring, or Hot Springs.

01:26:55 ◼   ► Mac OS Sheridan.

01:26:57 ◼   ► Mac OS Conway.

01:27:01 ◼   ► Mac OS Clinton.

01:27:07 ◼   ► That comes with some other connotations for some people.

01:27:10 ◼   ► - Probably not.

01:27:11 ◼   ► - Well, I think that does it for this week.

01:27:12 ◼   ► If you want to find links to stuff we spoke about,

01:27:14 ◼   ► head on over to the web at relay.fm/connected/402.

01:27:19 ◼   ► While you're there, you can join and get Connected Pro,

01:27:22 ◼   ► which is a longer ad-free version of the show

01:27:25 ◼   ► each and every week.

01:27:26 ◼   ► You can find us all online.

01:27:27 ◼   ► You can find Federico on Twitter @vittici, V-I-T-I-C-C-I,

01:27:32 ◼   ► and he is the editor-in-chief of MacStories.net.

01:27:36 ◼   ► Myke is out this week, but you can find him on Twitter

01:27:38 ◼   ► as @IMYKE, and he hosts a bunch of shows here on Relay FM.

01:27:43 ◼   ► You can find me online as @ismh.

01:27:45 ◼   ► I co-host Mac Power Users here on Relay FM

01:27:49 ◼   ► and write at 512pixels.net.

01:27:51 ◼   ► I'd like to thank our sponsors this week,

01:27:53 ◼   ► Squarespace, CleanMyMac X, and Hover.

01:27:57 ◼   ► And until next time, Federico, say goodbye.

01:27:59 ◼   ► - Arrivederci.