Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► - From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 360.

00:00:10 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Pingdom,

00:00:12 ◼   ► ExpressVPN, and Hello.

00:00:14 ◼   ► My name is Myke Hurley and I'm joined by Federico Vittucci.

00:00:17 ◼   ► Ciao Federico.

00:00:18 ◼   ► - Ciao Myke, how are you?

00:00:20 ◼   ► - I'm fine my friend, fine and dandy.

00:00:22 ◼   ► Unfortunately no Stephen Hackett with us this week,

00:00:24 ◼   ► but that doesn't matter,

00:00:26 ◼   ► because we're still gonna talk about things that he thinks.

00:00:28 ◼   ► So Stephen wrote an article about Safari 15

00:00:32 ◼   ► on the Mac and iPad,

00:00:34 ◼   ► 'cause I think as a primary Mac user,

00:00:37 ◼   ► Stephen was upset that people would just say,

00:00:39 ◼   ► "Hey, Safari 15's all good now, no problem."

00:00:43 ◼   ► But there are still some things

00:00:45 ◼   ► which could be considered lingering with Safari

00:00:48 ◼   ► on both iPad and the Mac.

00:00:50 ◼   ► And I'm sure you will probably, as an iPad user,

00:00:54 ◼   ► feel some of these issues potentially.

00:00:56 ◼   ► So a couple of the things I wanted to pull out from Steven's article.

00:00:59 ◼   ► Oh, by the way, yes, we're still talking about Safari.

00:01:02 ◼   ► Um, Steven doesn't like color in Tamps.

00:01:08 ◼   ► He turned that off.

00:01:10 ◼   ► I wanted to know what you thought of that.

00:01:12 ◼   ► I turned it off.

00:01:13 ◼   ► I thought it was cool.

00:01:15 ◼   ► Yeah, I thought it was cool initially.

00:01:18 ◼   ► And then I didn't think that anymore, basically.

00:01:23 ◼   ► It's very distracting and it didn't help with like...

00:01:26 ◼   ► There were a bunch of like contrast issues with being a...

00:01:30 ◼   ► Like some colors on some websites did not help in like properly,

00:01:35 ◼   ► at least for me to my eyes,

00:01:38 ◼   ► didn't help with some icons in the toolbar,

00:01:41 ◼   ► like the extension icon, for example,

00:01:43 ◼   ► when you have an extension enabled in Safari 15 on iPad,

00:01:46 ◼   ► and it's light blue and you'll go to a website

00:01:50 ◼   ► that is also light blue.

00:01:51 ◼   ► and the contrast there is super bad.

00:01:54 ◼   ► And by the way, I can tell you that, unfortunately,

00:01:57 ◼   ► I just installed iPadOS 15 Beta 7 on my iPad,

00:02:01 ◼   ► and I can tell you, nothing has changed.

00:02:04 ◼   ► - They're shipping it like this, it's done.

00:02:06 ◼   ► - They're shipping it like this, the tab design,

00:02:08 ◼   ► the favorites under the tabs, this is it, yeah.

00:02:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that that's done.

00:02:15 ◼   ► I think that's like, it's set now, I think.

00:02:19 ◼   ► For me, I mean, again, having only used this on iPad,

00:02:21 ◼   ► I kind of like the color.

00:02:22 ◼   ► I'm going to try it.

00:02:24 ◼   ► I'm going to try keeping it on for a while.

00:02:25 ◼   ► I mean, I'm sure it works in some places

00:02:29 ◼   ► and some others it doesn't.

00:02:31 ◼   ► And I'll just, I'll judge it over time.

00:02:33 ◼   ► But I want to try that because I don't really have an issue

00:02:36 ◼   ► with it in theory.

00:02:37 ◼   ► And I've seen some screenshots and images of it being used.

00:02:40 ◼   ► And I actually kind of liked the look.

00:02:42 ◼   ► And I do like the look on my iPad,

00:02:43 ◼   ► but I understand why this is something

00:02:46 ◼   ► that people are not a fan of.

00:02:48 ◼   ► I mean, you know, we all have our own preferences.

00:02:50 ◼   ► like I cannot stand window transparency on the Mac

00:02:53 ◼   ► and have turned that off for a long time.

00:02:55 ◼   ► I don't want to see my desktop background

00:02:57 ◼   ► through my applications.

00:02:58 ◼   ► It's not something that I consider

00:03:00 ◼   ► as a necessary feature.

00:03:02 ◼   ► So we all have our personal preferences on these things.

00:03:06 ◼   ► Stephen also really doesn't like the tab placement.

00:03:08 ◼   ► So the way that it is on older versions of Safari,

00:03:12 ◼   ► it goes URL bar, bookmarks bar, if you have that enabled,

00:03:16 ◼   ► and then tabs.

00:03:17 ◼   ► But with Safari 15, it goes URL bar, tabs, bookmarks.

00:03:22 ◼   ► What do you think about this?

00:03:24 ◼   ► Do you use the bookmarks bar?

00:03:25 ◼   ► - I do.

00:03:26 ◼   ► I do all the time.

00:03:28 ◼   ► And I think it's silly that it's under the tabs right now.

00:03:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, it is an interesting placement.

00:03:37 ◼   ► - I think it's kind of confusing that,

00:03:39 ◼   ► just because I feel like the tab is,

00:03:41 ◼   ► and I know that there's a whole discussion

00:03:45 ◼   ► about this among some people.

00:03:47 ◼   ► But I feel like the tab should represent the current page.

00:03:51 ◼   ► And so if you're on a page, the thing you see--

00:03:53 ◼   ► it's almost like tabs in an actual folder.

00:03:58 ◼   ► And the tab is connected to the page itself.

00:04:01 ◼   ► So that if you want to find the page quickly, you pull the tab,

00:04:05 ◼   ► and the tab is directly connected

00:04:07 ◼   ► to the physical page.

00:04:08 ◼   ► And that metaphor is now broken in Safari,

00:04:11 ◼   ► because you have the address bar, and you have the tabs,

00:04:14 ◼   ► and then you have the favorites.

00:04:16 ◼   ► And it doesn't really make any sense to add the favorites

00:04:18 ◼   ► above the page.

00:04:20 ◼   ► What makes more sense, in my opinion,

00:04:21 ◼   ► is to have the tab directly above the page,

00:04:24 ◼   ► because I see that connection between the tab and the page

00:04:28 ◼   ► that with this design, that's missing.

00:04:32 ◼   ► And I mean, there have been bigger problems with Safari.

00:04:37 ◼   ► And this is one of the minor ones, I think, at this point,

00:04:41 ◼   ► but I'm still not used to it.

00:04:43 ◼   ► And I don't understand, and that's the thing,

00:04:45 ◼   ► I don't understand why it needs to be this way.

00:04:47 ◼   ► I don't understand why the favorites bar

00:04:50 ◼   ► cannot be under the address bar as before.

00:04:53 ◼   ► It just feels like changing an existing design

00:04:56 ◼   ► for changes sake, not just for an actual motivation

00:05:00 ◼   ► that makes sense, reasonably speaking.

00:05:04 ◼   ► It just, oh yeah, this feels new.

00:05:07 ◼   ► Let's move it over there.

00:05:08 ◼   ► I don't know why.

00:05:10 ◼   ► - I don't think I'm too concerned of it,

00:05:11 ◼   ► but I understand what people do.

00:05:13 ◼   ► I mean, it is kind of funny

00:05:14 ◼   ► that they went from one extreme to the other though, right?

00:05:17 ◼   ► Where it's like the tab and the URL bar

00:05:19 ◼   ► completely intertwined, it's one, you can't avoid it.

00:05:22 ◼   ► And now it's like tab and URL bar,

00:05:25 ◼   ► they'd never heard of each other.

00:05:26 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:05:28 ◼   ► Do you think we're probably set completely now?

00:05:30 ◼   ► I mean, I know we just said it, but like final word on it,

00:05:33 ◼   ► do you think this is gonna be it?

00:05:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, I feel like at this point,

00:05:37 ◼   ► the design is pretty much set,

00:05:38 ◼   ► considering that it looks the same on iPad

00:05:40 ◼   ► and beta seven looks the same on iPhone.

00:05:43 ◼   ► I think this is what we're getting.

00:05:44 ◼   ► I think they were waiting for beta 6 for the major change,

00:05:48 ◼   ► which was sort of reverting the design in iPhone.

00:05:51 ◼   ► But now I think this is what we will see

00:05:54 ◼   ► in the final product, so.

00:05:56 ◼   ► - Which is probably only like three or four weeks away,

00:05:58 ◼   ► at most.

00:06:00 ◼   ► - At most, I mean, I would love four weeks,

00:06:02 ◼   ► but honestly I feel like it's gonna be September 15th.

00:06:05 ◼   ► - So. - Until just then,

00:06:07 ◼   ► I'd completely forgotten about the fact

00:06:09 ◼   ► that you were writing an iOS review, 'cause.

00:06:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, me too.

00:06:12 ◼   ► We've been focused on other stuff, right?

00:06:14 ◼   ► Which we'll get to touch on a little bit later on,

00:06:16 ◼   ► you know, Club Max stories.

00:06:18 ◼   ► That's like, in my mind,

00:06:19 ◼   ► that's what Federico's been up to.

00:06:21 ◼   ► And I had completely forgotten that you should also,

00:06:24 ◼   ► and have also been writing your massive article

00:06:27 ◼   ► for the year at the same time.

00:06:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, which, when I think about it, it's, yeah.

00:06:33 ◼   ► I actually, I had to put on pause that story

00:06:36 ◼   ► for like the past two weeks.

00:06:38 ◼   ► And now it's coming back to bite me,

00:06:40 ◼   ► because now it's looking like I have 20 days at most to be ready with everything.

00:06:50 ◼   ► And while I am in the final two and a half chapters of the review,

00:06:57 ◼   ► there's still a long way to go in terms of editing and images and art.

00:07:02 ◼   ► So it's going to be a long process for me going forward.

00:07:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:08 ◼   ► I'm surprised how good spirits you're in.

00:07:11 ◼   ► Well, what else am I supposed to be?

00:07:14 ◼   ► I know, but last year you were not in good spirits.

00:07:18 ◼   ► I mean, you had a lot going on,

00:07:20 ◼   ► but also just in general about work.

00:07:21 ◼   ► So I'm just surprised.

00:07:22 ◼   ► That is a testament to your work ethic, Federico.

00:07:25 ◼   ► Well, thank you.

00:07:26 ◼   ► But yeah, I feel like obviously there's,

00:07:29 ◼   ► like I have seen last year

00:07:32 ◼   ► that even if I'm not ready on launch day,

00:07:34 ◼   ► it's not a tragedy.

00:07:36 ◼   ► Obviously this time around,

00:07:37 ◼   ► I am trying my best to hit the day one release of iOS 15.

00:07:45 ◼   ► I also know that if that will not happen,

00:07:47 ◼   ► it's not like I can get sick working on the review.

00:07:50 ◼   ► I don't want to die because a story needs

00:07:53 ◼   ► to be posted on day one.

00:07:54 ◼   ► So I'm trying my best, but I also

00:07:56 ◼   ► have other things going on.

00:07:58 ◼   ► There's another side of the business to take care of now.

00:08:00 ◼   ► So I'm going to do my best.

00:08:03 ◼   ► I'm going to sleep as little as I humanly can,

00:08:06 ◼   ► but I also gotta sleep, I also gotta care for my family,

00:08:09 ◼   ► I gotta care for my dogs, so it's fine.

00:08:12 ◼   ► We'll see how it goes.

00:08:13 ◼   ► I'm gonna try my best, but if Apple pulls another surprise

00:08:17 ◼   ► and there's like an event on September 7th or something

00:08:19 ◼   ► and they say iOS 15 is coming out tomorrow,

00:08:22 ◼   ► well then I will not be ready.

00:08:24 ◼   ► And that's okay.

00:08:25 ◼   ► - Well you know now, like that was the benefit of last year,

00:08:28 ◼   ► you know that that doesn't mean that it was a waste of time.

00:08:32 ◼   ► - Right, yeah.

00:08:33 ◼   ► - You don't have to be on the day of release

00:08:35 ◼   ► of the operating system. It's not imperative. You can enable picture in picture for YouTube

00:08:45 ◼   ► on your iPhone. This came out a couple of days, I think within the last 24 hours or

00:08:49 ◼   ► so, it's been flying around the internet. Just a bit of follow up from previous conversations.

00:08:53 ◼   ► If you are a YouTube Premium subscriber, so you have to be a Premium subscriber for this,

00:08:57 ◼   ► you go to youtube.com/new, you can sign into your account and there's an option to turn

00:09:03 ◼   ► on picture in picture. Bear in mind it can take a while for this to take effect. It didn't

00:09:06 ◼   ► start working for me for a while and then it just did so like give it a couple of hours

00:09:10 ◼   ► or whatever. This only works on the iPhone right now which is kind of frustrating but

00:09:14 ◼   ► hey it's better than nothing. So I set this up on my iPhone yesterday and I mean it works.

00:09:22 ◼   ► It's very nice. You can start watching a video and then you go back and like you go back

00:09:28 ◼   ► to the home screen and it starts picture in picture. It's kind of what I've always wanted

00:09:32 ◼   ► right, to be able to do this. It's slightly annoying that due to how

00:09:38 ◼   ► picture-in-picture works on iOS you do not get any YouTube specific controls or

00:09:44 ◼   ► UI in there, right? It's the standard like picture-in-picture design for all kinds

00:09:50 ◼   ► of videos. It doesn't have, like for example, it doesn't have a thumbs up

00:09:53 ◼   ► control in the picture-in-picture view because Google cannot do

00:09:58 ◼   ► that because picture-in-picture can only show you like the video and basic

00:10:01 ◼   ► playback controls and that's it. So we'll see how much I use it but I think based on

00:10:10 ◼   ► since I enabled the option yesterday I've already used it a bunch so I'm very glad that

00:10:16 ◼   ► I have the option. I really hope it doesn't go away.

00:10:20 ◼   ► I think they're going to keep it but it's probably just going to be a bit of a pain

00:10:25 ◼   ► when they're going to roll it out. Because they said that they're doing it just in general

00:10:30 ◼   ► but this is at least a way to get it going.

00:10:33 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:10:35 ◼   ► - Speaking of getting things going,

00:10:37 ◼   ► stjude.org/relay, we've been raising money

00:10:40 ◼   ► and we'll continue to raise money from now

00:10:42 ◼   ► all the way through to the end of September

00:10:44 ◼   ► for the wonderful people at St. Jude.

00:10:47 ◼   ► This is our third consecutive year

00:10:49 ◼   ► where we are supporting the life-saving mission

00:10:52 ◼   ► of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

00:10:54 ◼   ► Their mission is very simple,

00:10:55 ◼   ► finding cures and saving children.

00:10:58 ◼   ► St. Jude is leading the way the world understands, treats and defeats childhood cancer and other

00:11:03 ◼   ► life-threatening diseases, but they can't do it without the help of people like you.

00:11:08 ◼   ► Because of our generous listeners who are wonderful donors, people like you and many

00:11:13 ◼   ► others make sure that no family receives a bill from St. Jude for their treatment, for

00:11:18 ◼   ► travel or for food because all the family should have to worry about is helping their

00:11:23 ◼   ► child live.

00:11:24 ◼   ► For context, the average cost to treat one child with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the

00:11:30 ◼   ► most common form of childhood cancer, is $203,074.

00:11:38 ◼   ► To make this possible so St. Jude can offer this treatment, about 80% of the funds necessary

00:11:43 ◼   ► to sustain and grow St. Jude must be raised every year from generous donors like you.

00:11:49 ◼   ► This September you can join ReallyFM's efforts to raise the funds and awareness needed to

00:11:53 ◼   ► to treat and defeat childhood cancer.

00:11:55 ◼   ► You can donate today at stduo.org/relay.

00:11:59 ◼   ► And if you donate $100 or more,

00:12:01 ◼   ► you can claim the exclusive Relay FM Stickers of Thanks pack.

00:12:05 ◼   ► Let's cure childhood cancer together.

00:12:08 ◼   ► So, so far, the campaign is, we're a weekend,

00:12:12 ◼   ► and we have raised $35,000, which is absolutely incredible.

00:12:17 ◼   ► - Oh, nice.

00:12:18 ◼   ► - Thank you so much to everybody that's donated,

00:12:20 ◼   ► but we know there are more of you out there

00:12:22 ◼   ► were able to donate, so please do go to stju.org/relay.

00:12:27 ◼   ► We'll continue to talk about this now

00:12:29 ◼   ► and throughout September.

00:12:31 ◼   ► iCloud Plus custom email domains.

00:12:33 ◼   ► This is one of the things we spoke about last week

00:12:36 ◼   ► that seemed like it was not gonna be making its way

00:12:38 ◼   ► into the release version of iOS 15.

00:12:41 ◼   ► The beta for this just showed up,

00:12:42 ◼   ► and you've set it up, right?

00:12:44 ◼   ► - I set it up last night on a personal domain

00:12:48 ◼   ► that I've had forever.

00:12:51 ◼   ► like I don't know when I bought it and I figured you know what I have a few

00:12:55 ◼   ► minutes you know free time right now this is what I do in my free time right

00:13:00 ◼   ► I play around with DNS records and email addresses so yeah it's exciting, really exciting.

00:13:07 ◼   ► Party!

00:13:09 ◼   ► I could be playing with my Nintendo or something and do something you know no

00:13:14 ◼   ► let's take a look at MX and TXT and CNAME records but yeah so I set it up

00:13:20 ◼   ► you gotta go to this new section of the beta iCloud website. So you go to beta.icloud.com

00:13:28 ◼   ► because it's a beta feature and in the account settings there's a new section for custom domains.

00:13:34 ◼   ► I did this on my iPhone because now you can use the iCloud.com website on mobile. Didn't used to

00:13:41 ◼   ► be like that years ago, now it works. And yeah, you set it up, you follow the instructions, you verify

00:13:47 ◼   ► custom domain, by receiving an email message, and that's really the first most

00:13:52 ◼   ► important step that you gotta keep in mind. Apple is letting you do this only

00:13:56 ◼   ► if you have an existing email address at the custom domain, right? So for example,

00:14:01 ◼   ► if your custom domain is Myke.com and you want to use the email address

00:14:08 ◼   ► me@mike.com, that address needs to exist already. That's what Apple is

00:14:15 ◼   ► saying in the instructions. So first you get a message at that email address and

00:14:20 ◼   ► you verify that you are the owner of that email address and then you follow

00:14:24 ◼   ► the steps for the DNS records, you wait a while and the DNS

00:14:29 ◼   ► records propagate, you click continue and iCloud says it's all done, now you can

00:14:35 ◼   ► start using your custom email address in iCloud mail. And it took me about

00:14:39 ◼   ► 30 minutes to figure this out because my host, my domain provider

00:14:44 ◼   ► had like a weird DNS settings section. But then I was good to go and Apple said

00:14:51 ◼   ► "yeah, you know, you're set up, you can now use your custom email address" and I

00:14:56 ◼   ► could use it from the web right away. I just went to iCloud mail on the beta

00:15:01 ◼   ► iCloud website and it displayed like this prompt saying "do you want to pick a

00:15:07 ◼   ► different default email address?" and it allowed me to choose from my main sort

00:15:13 ◼   ► of Apple ID email address, my alias, and the new custom email address. And that was cool.

00:15:21 ◼   ► But then I figured, okay, I guess that this will also exist on iOS and iPadOS. But yesterday,

00:15:27 ◼   ► as of beta 6, now, I don't know if there's a... Actually, let me look.

00:15:31 ◼   ► Maybe it's in beta 7, right?

00:15:33 ◼   ► Maybe it's in beta 7, maybe there's a proper settings.

00:15:35 ◼   ► I'm a little bit confused by something that you said, though. Why do you need to have

00:15:38 ◼   ► an existing email service to make this work? Do you know?

00:15:42 ◼   ► I don't know, but the page says,

00:15:44 ◼   ► actually I cannot read you the thing,

00:15:45 ◼   ► but it says you need to have an existing email address,

00:15:48 ◼   ► the existing email address that you're trying to configure.

00:15:51 ◼   ► - Huh, okay. - I don't know why.

00:15:53 ◼   ► I also thought that was weird, honestly.

00:15:54 ◼   ► - That is strange.

00:15:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, it says, add existing email addresses,

00:15:59 ◼   ► all of the, add all of the email addresses

00:16:01 ◼   ► that you currently use with this domain.

00:16:04 ◼   ► You'll be asked to verify this during setup.

00:16:07 ◼   ► You can create new email addresses

00:16:10 ◼   ► after you finished setting up your domain.

00:16:13 ◼   ► So yeah, it wants them to exist for some reason.

00:16:16 ◼   ► But anyway, so I figured, okay,

00:16:18 ◼   ► now I can use my iPhone and iPad

00:16:20 ◼   ► and I can find those email,

00:16:23 ◼   ► like that custom email address somewhere in settings, right?

00:16:28 ◼   ► And I couldn't, it just, it wasn't showing up anywhere.

00:16:31 ◼   ► And so the way that this works is this morning I woke up

00:16:35 ◼   ► and I opened mail and the custom email address

00:16:39 ◼   ► was now part of the sort of,

00:16:42 ◼   ► you know how when you set up an alias

00:16:44 ◼   ► for an iCloud mail address,

00:16:46 ◼   ► the alias shows up in the from field

00:16:49 ◼   ► when you're sending a message,

00:16:51 ◼   ► and the custom email address, it showed up like that

00:16:54 ◼   ► after a few hours, basically.

00:16:56 ◼   ► I just opened mail and I clicked on from,

00:16:58 ◼   ► and now the custom email address was an option.

00:17:01 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

00:17:02 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:17:03 ◼   ► So it looks like an alias, but it's not an alias.

00:17:05 ◼   ► It's a custom email address for your domain.

00:17:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is interesting.

00:17:09 ◼   ► I don't know why anyone would do this.

00:17:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, me neither.

00:17:12 ◼   ► - It's kind of my feeling on it.

00:17:13 ◼   ► - Honestly, I don't know why I did it.

00:17:15 ◼   ► - I mean, you did it for science, right?

00:17:17 ◼   ► - For science.

00:17:18 ◼   ► - I don't know why someone would do this.

00:17:23 ◼   ► The iCloud email address service is not very good.

00:17:27 ◼   ► - I can tell you that I immediately got in my inbox

00:17:30 ◼   ► a message about win an iPhone 12.

00:17:34 ◼   ► That was obviously a spam message

00:17:36 ◼   ► and it ended up in my inbox.

00:17:38 ◼   ► - Spam detection is very bad with iCloud email.

00:17:42 ◼   ► Take this from someone whose primary personal email address

00:17:46 ◼   ► is an iCloud email address.

00:17:48 ◼   ► Your boy has spam.

00:17:52 ◼   ► I mean, look, you can train their system,

00:17:55 ◼   ► but it's not very advanced.

00:17:57 ◼   ► Like Google does a lot better

00:17:59 ◼   ► and many others do a lot better.

00:18:01 ◼   ► - That's a very polite way to put it.

00:18:03 ◼   ► It's not very advanced.

00:18:05 ◼   ► - It's not very advanced.

00:18:06 ◼   ► You just tell things to go to spam.

00:18:08 ◼   ► And then also I have things,

00:18:09 ◼   ► I have to check my spam folder quite frequently

00:18:12 ◼   ► because it also works in the reverse for me.

00:18:14 ◼   ► But I get many emails that are not spam,

00:18:17 ◼   ► but they get sent to spam.

00:18:18 ◼   ► Hi, Jo.

00:18:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:18:21 ◼   ► Yeah, in fact, when I tested the custom email address,

00:18:24 ◼   ► I emailed myself, right?

00:18:26 ◼   ► I emailed myself from my new fancy icon address

00:18:30 ◼   ► to my Mac stories one.

00:18:32 ◼   ► And both of those messages ended up in spam

00:18:34 ◼   ► because Google thought that my new iCloud-powered email address was a spammer.

00:18:42 ◼   ► And vice versa.

00:18:44 ◼   ► It's me, myself, I'm sending myself messages, but nope, you're spam.

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00:20:04 ◼   ► Alright, I'm just gonna be honest here, okay?

00:20:07 ◼   ► Things are about to get real weird for a bit.

00:20:09 ◼   ► I just wanted to let everybody know this in advance.

00:20:11 ◼   ► You can't say I didn't warn you.

00:20:13 ◼   ► This next segment's gonna be really strange.

00:20:16 ◼   ► I mean, stranger than other things we've done on the show?

00:20:19 ◼   ► Probably not, but you know, I feel like I just want everybody to know in advance

00:20:23 ◼   ► that it's gonna be things about to get weird.

00:20:25 ◼   ► So, on our last episode, well actually over the last few weeks,

00:20:29 ◼   ► we've had an issue with Luxembourg.

00:20:31 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:20:33 ◼   ► - The Luxembourg incident, yes, I remember that.

00:20:38 ◼   ► - The Luxembourg incident, as it will forever be known as

00:20:41 ◼   ► in the lore of the show.

00:20:42 ◼   ► - It's a diplomatic situation we have going on.

00:20:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, the Luxembourg incident,

00:20:47 ◼   ► which ended up leading to a situation

00:20:49 ◼   ► where we put out a call on our last episode

00:20:53 ◼   ► to try and find listeners which we would be considered

00:20:57 ◼   ► to be from the rarest places.

00:20:59 ◼   ► And I was honestly, this was so good for me.

00:21:02 ◼   ► We got so many tweets and like, I loved it.

00:21:05 ◼   ► It was, it's been fantastic over the last week.

00:21:08 ◼   ► I'm sure this is now something we're going to suffer from

00:21:10 ◼   ► for the rest of our careers.

00:21:12 ◼   ► People sending these tweets as they randomly find things

00:21:15 ◼   ► or, you know, it's just a part of who we are now

00:21:17 ◼   ► and I'm fine with that.

00:21:18 ◼   ► Especially if this takes off.

00:21:20 ◼   ► I don't remember if we came up with a name for this segment.

00:21:23 ◼   ► I think we didn't.

00:21:23 ◼   ► Maybe this would just be something that happens to us

00:21:26 ◼   ► in time. So, but before we get into, so basically people have been sending in things, we've

00:21:32 ◼   ► been saving them, I have had this whole list of people, it was basically if it seemed like,

00:21:37 ◼   ► it was pretty easy for me to guess which ones I needed to save, right? Like, we had people

00:21:42 ◼   ► like "I'm from Sweden!" It's like Sweden is not going to be one of the rare country

00:21:46 ◼   ► lists. Not rare enough. But before we get into these, some listeners, I had, there was

00:21:52 ◼   ► a number of listeners Federico that are very disappointing in you. In me? Yes, in you.

00:21:57 ◼   ► So on our last episode you referenced Andorra as one of the smallest countries or the smallest

00:22:02 ◼   ► country in the world. Many people were upset that you didn't mention Vatican City which

00:22:07 ◼   ► is actually the smallest country in the world. Well why should I? Tell me more Federico.

00:22:13 ◼   ► No I could, I don't know, I don't know how to say this politely but yeah I don't recognize

00:22:19 ◼   ► that as a stage. Nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice. What was your iCloud email

00:22:25 ◼   ► if people want to get in contact with you? They can just go straight to that one, huh?

00:22:32 ◼   ► It's just a district of Rome, you know? It's fine.

00:22:36 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. I don't know anything about this. Don't look at me, no

00:22:40 ◼   ► idea. All right, so I've taken a collection of people's tweets, and so we have listeners'

00:22:46 ◼   ► names and where they're from. And what I decided to do was, uh, the way that I wanted to try

00:22:52 ◼   ► and judge this was to take a recent episode in our hosting provider and search through

00:22:57 ◼   ► the database that they have and use that as a way to judge how many people potentially

00:23:04 ◼   ► listen to this show from that location as a way to judge the rarity of that person.

00:23:11 ◼   ► That's the way I decided to go with this. Does that make sense? So like somebody says,

00:23:15 ◼   ► I'm from country A and then I would take the stats look through find country A see how many people listened and

00:23:22 ◼   ► Use this as a barometer of two things one how rare that person is and then also just roughly

00:23:29 ◼   ► How many people we have listening from a certain location?

00:23:33 ◼   ► This seemed like the most fun thing because I can look through the hosting thing and I can tell you what?

00:23:38 ◼   ► Like the rarest countries are but it seems more fun to me as we add to all of us to put it on our listeners

00:23:45 ◼   ► to think they're weird and then contact us first. And I think that that was the fun way

00:23:48 ◼   ► to do it. So, I collected up a bunch. Most of them I figured would be rare. Some of them

00:23:56 ◼   ► I just put in there to try and add some contacts, like the first two, because I was like, "Hmm,

00:24:01 ◼   ► who knows?" Right? So, Casey, with a K, wrote in from New Zealand. So this is the lowest,

00:24:10 ◼   ► This is like number one on the list. These are going in ascending order or descending

00:24:16 ◼   ► order? I don't know which one. Descending order. From biggest to smallest. Because I

00:24:20 ◼   ► figured New Zealand's really far away and it's smaller than Australia. But I mean, it

00:24:26 ◼   ► seems like we're big in New Zealand. Big in New Zealand. So all of these statistics are

00:24:32 ◼   ► taken from episode 358. I decided to go two episodes back because it takes a couple of

00:24:38 ◼   ► weeks for everybody to listen to our episodes, which is always funny to me.

00:24:42 ◼   ► Not because it takes a couple of weeks for the show to arrive in New Zealand.

00:24:46 ◼   ► That's why! There's a lot of distance to get the bits over to, the hot bits.

00:24:54 ◼   ► All the bits.

00:24:55 ◼   ► 190 people from New Zealand. So Casey, you are not our weirdest listener. I don't think

00:25:01 ◼   ► that's the right thing to say.

00:25:02 ◼   ► Congrats!

00:25:03 ◼   ► Congratulations, you're not our weirdest listener.

00:25:06 ◼   ► Then we have Thomas from the neutral land of Switzerland. Switzerland's a pretty small

00:25:12 ◼   ► country I think. Yeah, I mean it is, yes. So I figured that Switzerland could be an

00:25:18 ◼   ► interesting one. Switzerland has 8.5 million people in it. 8.5 million? Really? That's

00:25:25 ◼   ► what Google tells me. And they're all in Switzerland? You're asking me if the population of Switzerland

00:25:31 ◼   ► are all in Switzerland? Is that what you're asking me? I'm not really sure how to answer

00:25:35 ◼   ► - That's the right question.

00:25:36 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:25:37 ◼   ► No, they're located all over the place.

00:25:40 ◼   ► It's 2019 population of Switzerland is 8.5 million.

00:25:45 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:25:46 ◼   ► - 157 people from Switzerland listened to that episode.

00:25:51 ◼   ► So Thomas, you are not our weirdest listener.

00:25:54 ◼   ► I mean, just not saying that,

00:25:56 ◼   ► but I don't know what else to call it.

00:26:00 ◼   ► - Congratulations, Thomas. - Most unique, most passionate.

00:26:02 ◼   ► - No, no, you're not the weirdest.

00:26:03 ◼   ► That totally works. - All right, great, cool.

00:26:05 ◼   ► Cool, cool, cool.

00:26:06 ◼   ► Gabriel from Brazil.

00:26:09 ◼   ► Now, bear with me on this one, all right?

00:26:12 ◼   ► Brazil, absolutely massive, right?

00:26:14 ◼   ► One of the largest countries in the world.

00:26:16 ◼   ► 211 million people live in Brazil.

00:26:19 ◼   ► But I thought, far away,

00:26:23 ◼   ► predominantly Spanish and Brazilians.

00:26:26 ◼   ► Do they speak Spanish?

00:26:28 ◼   ► - They speak Portuguese.

00:26:29 ◼   ► - I'm so sorry, everybody.

00:26:31 ◼   ► I apologize significantly for my error there.

00:26:34 ◼   ► Look, let's be fair, along with Federico's thing,

00:26:36 ◼   ► we're gonna make a lot of errors here about countries,

00:26:37 ◼   ► all right, we're trying our best.

00:26:40 ◼   ► But you know, so I figured it's not a predominantly

00:26:42 ◼   ► English language and that was one of my other things

00:26:44 ◼   ► as well, like if I thought it would be interesting

00:26:48 ◼   ► to include countries where English is not

00:26:50 ◼   ► the predominant spoken language as well,

00:26:53 ◼   ► 'cause I thought that that would be a barrier of entry

00:26:55 ◼   ► for our show because we do speak mostly English on this show.

00:26:58 ◼   ► 121 people.

00:27:01 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:27:02 ◼   ► - From Brazil.

00:27:03 ◼   ► - Okay. Well, we are a disappointment then, because Brazil is so big, so many people,

00:27:09 ◼   ► there are only 121 listen from Brazil. What are we doing?

00:27:12 ◼   ► - So maybe we need a Portuguese language version of this show.

00:27:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, we need the Portuguese vertical of "Connected." Yeah.

00:27:20 ◼   ► - I'm going to take a very quick diversion now. Actually, let me read the name of this

00:27:25 ◼   ► next one, and then I can make the point that I want to make. So we have Andre from the

00:27:29 ◼   ► Czech...

00:27:30 ◼   ► - Hold on, hold on. Gabriel, you're not a weirdo.

00:27:32 ◼   ► Gabriel, you are not our witness listener. We apologize.

00:27:35 ◼   ► Andre from the Czech Republic.

00:27:37 ◼   ► Now, I looked this one up on Google,

00:27:39 ◼   ► and here's what I'm doing here.

00:27:41 ◼   ► I'm checking all of the populations as we go.

00:27:43 ◼   ► That was not the same thing that I did in advance

00:27:45 ◼   ► and I should have.

00:27:46 ◼   ► 10.6 million people live in the Czech Republic.

00:27:51 ◼   ► As I bring it up, it says Czechia, right,

00:27:54 ◼   ► which I think is now the name of the Czech Republic.

00:27:56 ◼   ► So Andre told me they were from the Czech Republic,

00:28:00 ◼   ► but it's "Czechia" I think it's pronounced.

00:28:03 ◼   ► But this has brought me to a thing that is a frustration to me.

00:28:05 ◼   ► It's something that is one of my pet peeves.

00:28:08 ◼   ► A thing that I think the world should change,

00:28:10 ◼   ► but I don't know how we would change it now.

00:28:14 ◼   ► Every country pronounces the name of their country

00:28:18 ◼   ► in their native language, and it's written down as such, right?

00:28:21 ◼   ► So what is the name of your country, Federica?

00:28:24 ◼   ► -Italia. -Exactly. And what do I call it?

00:28:27 ◼   ► -Italy. -I don't think that's fair.

00:28:29 ◼   ► Yeah, well, Silvia and I have had these conversations about city names, right? Because, for example,

00:28:37 ◼   ► and I think it's a very, like, American-centric thing to do. Like, in Italy, we don't say,

00:28:43 ◼   ► I don't know, "Nova York" for New York, we say "New York", right? But, no, actually,

00:28:51 ◼   ► no, because we do change London to "Londra", so...

00:28:54 ◼   ► Yeah. I think this isn't an American... This is a global thing, because everybody does

00:28:59 ◼   ► It's a global thing.

00:29:00 ◼   ► Every country has their own name for every other country.

00:29:03 ◼   ► And I think that this is bananas.

00:29:05 ◼   ► I don't know why we do that.

00:29:07 ◼   ► There should be like a universal language

00:29:11 ◼   ► that everybody speaks.

00:29:12 ◼   ► Well, I don't even think you need that.

00:29:14 ◼   ► Like, I think it could be, I mean, one,

00:29:17 ◼   ► yeah, it would be interesting

00:29:18 ◼   ► if that such a thing was to exist.

00:29:20 ◼   ► But I think it's possible to do this, right?

00:29:22 ◼   ► Because you can even just do a phonetic spelling

00:29:27 ◼   ► in the places where we don't use the same characters.

00:29:31 ◼   ► So like, you know, people when I mentioned,

00:29:35 ◼   ► so how would you do this for Japan and Russia or whatever?

00:29:39 ◼   ► Was like, well, the way that you would do it

00:29:40 ◼   ► is you would just take the phonetic spelling of those words

00:29:45 ◼   ► and then that would be it, right?

00:29:48 ◼   ► Because I think Japan, it's Nippon, right?

00:29:52 ◼   ► Would be the way that you would say it.

00:29:54 ◼   ► which by the way, sounds nothing like Japan, right?

00:29:58 ◼   ► Anyway, right?

00:29:59 ◼   ► So I just, this is like,

00:30:00 ◼   ► this is just one of my little pet peeves.

00:30:03 ◼   ► - Maybe Esperanto, the universal language,

00:30:07 ◼   ► was not such a bad idea after all.

00:30:09 ◼   ► Are you familiar with Esperanto?

00:30:12 ◼   ► - A little bit.

00:30:12 ◼   ► I didn't know it was intended.

00:30:14 ◼   ► I knew it was a language that's spoken

00:30:15 ◼   ► in some parts of the world,

00:30:16 ◼   ► but I didn't know it was intended

00:30:17 ◼   ► to be a universal language.

00:30:19 ◼   ► - The whole idea of Esperanto was to make it

00:30:21 ◼   ► like the universal language that sort of takes on some,

00:30:24 ◼   ► if I remember this correctly, because I've done the research

00:30:26 ◼   ► like a couple of years ago,

00:30:28 ◼   ► when I wanted to really study Esperanto in Duolingo,

00:30:31 ◼   ► I did some research and I'm pretty sure

00:30:34 ◼   ► that it was like this experiment

00:30:36 ◼   ► to come up with a universal language

00:30:38 ◼   ► that takes on some traits of the,

00:30:41 ◼   ► what are they called, Indo-European languages,

00:30:44 ◼   ► and some of the,

00:30:45 ◼   ► there's a name for them, like German-based languages,

00:30:50 ◼   ► but there's a proper noun.

00:30:52 ◼   ► Like English is also like a German based language.

00:30:54 ◼   ► - Germanic.

00:30:55 ◼   ► - Germanic, yeah, probably.

00:30:57 ◼   ► And anyway, it was like an experiment that was attempted,

00:31:02 ◼   ► I don't know when, obviously didn't take off.

00:31:05 ◼   ► But you can still study and speak Esperanto, I believe.

00:31:08 ◼   ► For example, I can tell you that Michael was right,

00:31:11 ◼   ► would be Michaelo Praviss.

00:31:13 ◼   ► - Oh, that's nice.

00:31:15 ◼   ► - Michaelo Praviss in Esperanto.

00:31:17 ◼   ► So Michaelo, you can go on with the show if you want.

00:31:21 ◼   ► 48 people from the Czech Republic.

00:31:23 ◼   ► So Andre, you are not our weirdest listener.

00:31:26 ◼   ► Next up, we have Firas from Saudi Arabia.

00:31:31 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:31:32 ◼   ► - 33 people from Saudi Arabia.

00:31:33 ◼   ► So Firas, you are not our weirdest listener.

00:31:36 ◼   ► Raka from Slovenia.

00:31:39 ◼   ► 30 people from Slovenia.

00:31:43 ◼   ► Big in Slovenia.

00:31:44 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:31:45 ◼   ► - It's just interesting to me, some of these numbers,

00:31:48 ◼   ► especially when, next up is Argentina.

00:31:51 ◼   ► now. You know, we were big in Brazil. Could we be big in Argentina? 28 people from Argentina,

00:31:59 ◼   ► from Facundo in Argentina. What are we doing? Some of these things are interesting to me.

00:32:03 ◼   ► Why do we have more listeners in Slovenia than we do in Argentina? Why? Well, it must

00:32:10 ◼   ► be something that we said that resonated with the Slovenian audience. That's true, that's

00:32:15 ◼   ► true? I don't know maybe it's a... Because like Slovenia, Slovenia population of 2 million,

00:32:20 ◼   ► Argentina 44 million, so what's going on there? What's up with that? Right? I know one of our

00:32:28 ◼   ► Slovenian listeners, his name is Anze. I've been to Slovenia. Wait what? Yeah, on a school trip

00:32:34 ◼   ► in high school. Why? Why did you pick Slovenia? I don't know, talk to the school principal,

00:32:40 ◼   ► I don't know why, but the trip was to Slovenia for some reason.

00:32:44 ◼   ► That's interesting.

00:32:44 ◼   ► But, you know, actually...

00:32:46 ◼   ► School trips usually have a reason though.

00:32:48 ◼   ► Well, you know, the reason was to go see...

00:32:50 ◼   ► Oh God, what's the name of the capital of Slovenia?

00:32:55 ◼   ► Oh my, I'm terrible at this.

00:32:59 ◼   ► Well, I can use Google for this, can't I?

00:33:02 ◼   ► It was...

00:33:03 ◼   ► Lublana?

00:33:05 ◼   ► Lublana, something like that.

00:33:10 ◼   ► Yeah, that city.

00:33:12 ◼   ► Oh, man.

00:33:13 ◼   ► Yeah, it was like we went to a museum.

00:33:15 ◼   ► I honestly, you know, high school trips, 17.

00:33:19 ◼   ► I wasn't paying a lot of attention.

00:33:21 ◼   ► I do remember that it got pretty tragic at some point.

00:33:25 ◼   ► Oh, no!

00:33:26 ◼   ► Yeah, because we were on the school bus.

00:33:29 ◼   ► We were like on the highway somewhere in Slovenia.

00:33:31 ◼   ► And at some point the bus stops,

00:33:33 ◼   ► and we're all wondering like, "What's going on?

00:33:36 ◼   ► Is there an accident ahead?"

00:33:38 ◼   ► And I turn, like I sort of take a look out of the window of the bus and I see a severed foot on the road.

00:33:47 ◼   ► Oh!

00:33:47 ◼   ► Yeah, and that was pretty tragic, honestly.

00:33:50 ◼   ► And like everybody was staring at the foot and there was a pretty bad accident up ahead.

00:33:56 ◼   ► I mean, Federico, as far as accidents go, that's gonna be a bad one.

00:34:01 ◼   ► Yeah, it was a bad one.

00:34:02 ◼   ► Bad accident.

00:34:03 ◼   ► It was a bad one.

00:34:04 ◼   ► You were right.

00:34:05 ◼   ► It was a bad one.

00:34:06 ◼   ► There was an ambulance and everything and everybody.

00:34:07 ◼   ► it was kind of... you would hope so. Yeah, yeah and we stayed for like two hours on the bus

00:34:13 ◼   ► and the foot was there and then eventually the police came and covered the foot with a blanket.

00:34:19 ◼   ► So yeah, Slovenia. Drive safely if you can. Facundo from Argentina. You are not our

00:34:27 ◼   ► Our Weirdest Listener.

00:34:28 ◼   ► I think Federico is now.

00:34:30 ◼   ► Mood from Oman.

00:34:33 ◼   ► 23 people from Oman.

00:34:36 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:34:37 ◼   ► - So Mood is not our weirdest listener.

00:34:39 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:34:40 ◼   ► - Nguyen from Vietnam.

00:34:42 ◼   ► Also 23 people from Vietnam.

00:34:47 ◼   ► So Nguyen, you are not our weirdest listener.

00:34:50 ◼   ► - No, congrats.

00:34:51 ◼   ► - Ramon from Colombia.

00:34:53 ◼   ► - Oh, now we're getting in the, you know, below 20s.

00:34:57 ◼   ► Now this gets really interesting, okay.

00:34:59 ◼   ► - 19.

00:35:00 ◼   ► Is Ramon our weirdest listener, Federico?

00:35:04 ◼   ► - No, Ramon is not.

00:35:06 ◼   ► Congrats, Ramon.

00:35:07 ◼   ► - No, I think people want to be, right?

00:35:10 ◼   ► That's why they wrote in.

00:35:11 ◼   ► - Oh, I'm sorry then.

00:35:12 ◼   ► - Everybody that contacted us was hoping

00:35:15 ◼   ► that they were going to be that person

00:35:17 ◼   ► who would be considered the weirdest listener of "Connected."

00:35:21 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:35:25 ◼   ► Sebastian from Chile.

00:35:27 ◼   ► - No, you skipped one.

00:35:29 ◼   ► - Majd, I thought I just did that.

00:35:31 ◼   ► Majd from Syria, 15.

00:35:33 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:35:34 ◼   ► - Majd, you are not our weirdest listener.

00:35:35 ◼   ► You already knew that because I skipped one.

00:35:38 ◼   ► Sebastian from Chile with 12.

00:35:42 ◼   ► - Okay, Sebastian, I'm sorry.

00:35:45 ◼   ► - Not the weirdest listener, sorry, Sebastian.

00:35:47 ◼   ► - Can you explain the next one?

00:35:49 ◼   ► - Yes, Tom from Jersey.

00:35:51 ◼   ► Why is this funny to you, Federico?

00:35:55 ◼   ► - Isn't Jersey like a state of the United States?

00:36:00 ◼   ► - That's New Jersey.

00:36:02 ◼   ► - And what is Jersey? - Because there is

00:36:03 ◼   ► an old Jersey.

00:36:04 ◼   ► Jersey is the largest of the Channel Islands

00:36:07 ◼   ► between England and France.

00:36:08 ◼   ► - No way. - A self governing dependency

00:36:09 ◼   ► of the United Kingdom with a mix of British

00:36:12 ◼   ► and French cultures.

00:36:13 ◼   ► So it's funny to me, it says it's known for its beaches,

00:36:17 ◼   ► cliffside walking.

00:36:19 ◼   ► You know what it's mostly known for for me?

00:36:20 ◼   ► That's where all the offshore accounts are.

00:36:22 ◼   ► They're in Jersey.

00:36:23 ◼   ► I knew this in my banking days.

00:36:26 ◼   ► People wanted offshore accounts.

00:36:27 ◼   ► - Sure, you knew from your banking days.

00:36:29 ◼   ► - Tax reasons.

00:36:30 ◼   ► Look Federico, I cannot allow, I will not allow

00:36:34 ◼   ► for any kind of, as opposed to me having

00:36:38 ◼   ► offshore banking accounts.

00:36:39 ◼   ► - Offshore bank accounts jokes are forbidden now?

00:36:41 ◼   ► Okay.

00:36:42 ◼   ► - I don't want to, wait, wait, yeah.

00:36:46 ◼   ► When did we agree that this is okay?

00:36:50 ◼   ► - Sure, I guess that's a--

00:36:51 ◼   ► - I don't have offshore banking.

00:36:52 ◼   ► I have no offshore banking.

00:36:55 ◼   ► - That's where you draw the line, okay?

00:36:57 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:37:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, all right, I'll draw the line there.

00:37:03 ◼   ► 10 people from Jersey, this is unbelievable.

00:37:05 ◼   ► Less than 100,000 people live in Jersey.

00:37:08 ◼   ► - Which is not, which is not New Jersey, once again.

00:37:12 ◼   ► It's an island. - It's old Jersey.

00:37:13 ◼   ► It's like we have, there is York.

00:37:15 ◼   ► There's New York, we have York.

00:37:17 ◼   ► - Wait, there's York? - Hampshire.

00:37:18 ◼   ► Hampshire, we have, look, all of the places

00:37:21 ◼   ► a new in America the reason they're new is because we have the old one and they have not replaced the

00:37:27 ◼   ► old one why would you do that because there's new like no no like people from york move to new york

00:37:36 ◼   ► nope well i mean some of them maybe well this is confusing as pastor boy says in the chat there is

00:37:41 ◼   ► a zeeland in the netherlands hence new zeeland no that's impossible okay this was a fun one for me

00:37:49 ◼   ► Oh wait, Tom, you are not our weirdest listener.

00:37:52 ◼   ► Unbelievably, I think.

00:37:54 ◼   ► Cezar from Panama.

00:37:57 ◼   ► - Panama.

00:37:59 ◼   ► - Panama, which is interesting to me to see.

00:38:04 ◼   ► There were six people, so Cezar,

00:38:08 ◼   ► you are not our weirdest listener.

00:38:10 ◼   ► - Six people from Panama.

00:38:12 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:38:13 ◼   ► Now, now we're under five, so.

00:38:18 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:38:19 ◼   ► we will not be claiming who or who is not the weirdest listener because we're

00:38:23 ◼   ► gonna need to come to some decisions which you'll understand shortly because we need to

00:38:28 ◼   ► make a decision here and now we're getting into such low numbers it's not clear and there is

00:38:34 ◼   ► something in a minute which is specifically unclear so Potter from Guatemala oh four

00:38:43 ◼   ► listeners from Guatemala.

00:38:45 ◼   ► Okay.

00:38:46 ◼   ► Guatemala, sorry.

00:38:47 ◼   ► Guatemala.

00:38:48 ◼   ► Not Guatamala.

00:38:49 ◼   ► I don't know if they have llamas in Guatemala.

00:38:52 ◼   ► If they did, it would be very confusing.

00:38:53 ◼   ► Guatamala.

00:38:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:38:55 ◼   ► That's what you'd have to call them though, right?

00:38:57 ◼   ► Let me see.

00:38:58 ◼   ► Sure.

00:38:59 ◼   ► Do they have llamas in Guatemala?

00:39:01 ◼   ► I'm sure somebody does.

00:39:02 ◼   ► I mean, there's a lot.

00:39:03 ◼   ► Oh my God.

00:39:04 ◼   ► Actually, they do.

00:39:06 ◼   ► No, that can't be right.

00:39:11 ◼   ► I think actually just lots of people have entered information for llamas in Guatemala

00:39:15 ◼   ► and into Google so it's confusing my search results. Jerome from Monaco. Two people from

00:39:25 ◼   ► Monaco. One of them is Jerome. One of them is Jerome. Saad from Qatar. Wow fancy okay.

00:39:36 ◼   ► Two people from Qatar. Amir from Palestine. Two people from Palestine. You see how we're

00:39:44 ◼   ► in all the twos here that makes it again complicated. Umar from Botswana.

00:39:50 ◼   ► Right? Botswana? Botswana. Super good. We've got Botswana. Also that's in

00:39:59 ◼   ► southern Africa. 2.3 million people live in Botswana by the way. One. And that's

00:40:05 ◼   ► Umar. That's Umar. Umar who is literally in the discord right now which is

00:40:11 ◼   ► incredible. No way. Yep. Oh my. Blend from Kosovo. Here's the problem. So we have a

00:40:23 ◼   ► Kosovo problem now. The Kosovo issue. Zero. I cannot find Kosovo in the statistics

00:40:34 ◼   ► for any episode. As far as our hosting provider is concerned nobody has ever

00:40:40 ◼   ► listened to our show from Kosovo. - Blend? Did you tell us the truth or not? - This is

00:40:46 ◼   ► what I can't decide, right? - I feel like... okay. - But here's the thing. So now we're into

00:40:54 ◼   ► how we're gonna make this decision. I think anybody under five, we're gonna

00:40:58 ◼   ► have to start playing some statistics, some games here. So I started looking at

00:41:02 ◼   ► populations, right? - Okay. - So there are 2.3 million people that live in

00:41:08 ◼   ► Botswana. So I would say that's a lot of people that could listen to our show if

00:41:15 ◼   ► they wanted to. -Sure. -Only that one of them does. You see what this is where I'm

00:41:21 ◼   ► going with this. I'm not going by proportion of people to that cut that

00:41:26 ◼   ► because what we are trying to find with this whole thing the whole Luxembourg

00:41:29 ◼   ► situation pointed out is the if you listen in your country it's how many

00:41:38 ◼   ► people live in your country that could listen therefore making you the

00:41:43 ◼   ► strangest because you do it that's how I look at this this is how I think about

00:41:46 ◼   ► this I know there are a couple of different ways to cut this cake but

00:41:50 ◼   ► that's the one that makes the most sense to me it's there is X amount of people

00:41:54 ◼   ► in your country, if you listen, it makes you strange.

00:41:57 ◼   ► Right. So here's where it falls for me,

00:42:02 ◼   ► Federico. Monaco has 38,000 people that live in it.

00:42:11 ◼   ► 38,000?

00:42:13 ◼   ► Yes.

00:42:13 ◼   ► OK.

00:42:15 ◼   ► That is the official population of Monaco.

00:42:17 ◼   ► So this is the Monaco of the Grand Prix of Monaco, the F1 thing.

00:42:22 ◼   ► Okay. The Monaco.

00:42:24 ◼   ► Yes, because I think somewhat similar to Vatican City, which I don't want to get into all that again,

00:42:30 ◼   ► it's like was a part of something then became its own thing, you know?

00:42:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:42:36 ◼   ► So Monaco has 38,000 people that live in it.

00:42:40 ◼   ► So I feel like even though Jerome is one of two people, which is unbelievable the hit rate we have in Monaco,

00:42:48 ◼   ► I would say that Monaco is the most peculiar country out of this list to listen to our show from

00:42:56 ◼   ► because there is only 39,000 people that live there.

00:42:59 ◼   ► I don't know though.

00:43:02 ◼   ► Because all of the other countries that we're talking about, so Guatemala, Palestine, Qatar, Botswana, Kosovo.

00:43:12 ◼   ► But you also gotta consider like the technology available, right?

00:43:23 ◼   ► We can't make that decision though. We're not smart enough to make that decision.

00:43:27 ◼   ► I don't know, I feel like I really wanted Umar to win.

00:43:31 ◼   ► Umar from Botswana?

00:43:33 ◼   ► I mean it's Umar from Botswana, you know? Like, sure, Jerome from Monaco, I mean, sure

00:43:40 ◼   ► Monaco is like a very small country but I don't know it's it's not like when you

00:43:46 ◼   ► think of Monaco it's not weird right you see Monaco in the news pretty frequently

00:43:53 ◼   ► right like how frequently do you have any idea of what's going on in our

00:43:59 ◼   ► Western society of what's going on in Botswana fair you know so I would look

00:44:07 ◼   ► Look again, we're making the rules here. There's no official process. I'm very, like considering

00:44:13 ◼   ► Umar, you know how I can slice this Federica? You know how this one works for me? As far

00:44:22 ◼   ► as we're aware, Umar is literally the only person in their country that listens to our

00:44:27 ◼   ► show. Umar is the only person in their country located in southern Africa. Umar also happens

00:44:36 ◼   ► to be live right now in the Discord. What are the chances of this happening when you

00:44:42 ◼   ► think about it?

00:44:43 ◼   ► And here's another thing I'll tell you. So all of these under 5 today, I spent some time

00:44:47 ◼   ► in Photoshop mocking up the connected artwork that we'll use for the rest of this episode

00:44:52 ◼   ► in honor of whoever the weirdest listener is. The Botswana flag looks great with our

00:44:59 ◼   ► friend. It looks really good because it's just stripes so it makes sense. It's blue,

00:45:04 ◼   ► white and black.

00:45:06 ◼   ► I think it has to be Botswana.

00:45:08 ◼   ► So we're gonna go with Umar from Botswana being our weirdest listener.

00:45:15 ◼   ► Umar, you are our weirdest listener of connected from Botswana. So congrats. It's you.

00:45:23 ◼   ► So now for the rest of this episode, we're going to be flying the Botswana flag as part

00:45:30 ◼   ► of our artwork. Congratulations, Umar. You have brought home this honor for your country.

00:45:37 ◼   ► I will just let you know though, Umar. You are currently, currently our weirdest listener.

00:45:44 ◼   ► Yes. This is not a lifetime honor. It's not a lifetime achievement. This could change

00:45:51 ◼   ► for any set of circumstances. Oh my God. But Umar, you're the weirdest fish. Oh my. Yes.

00:45:59 ◼   ► That would have taken us this long to realize that, like, Link.

00:46:03 ◼   ► Every time I was saying "weirdest," I'm like, "This rings a bell for me, and I'm not sure why."

00:46:08 ◼   ► Umar, you are our weirdest fish. Congratulations, Umar.

00:46:12 ◼   ► It's you.

00:46:13 ◼   ► It's always been you.

00:46:14 ◼   ► It's always been you.

00:46:16 ◼   ► It's always been you, Umar.

00:46:17 ◼   ► It's always been you.

00:46:18 ◼   ► Honestly, the only case in which I would assign a lifetime achievement for a weird listener from

00:46:27 ◼   ► somewhere would be an off-planet situation like

00:46:31 ◼   ► Listening from the space station

00:46:35 ◼   ► Wouldn't that be great though?

00:46:37 ◼   ► Imagine that like or someone of this new fancy like private flights, you know

00:46:43 ◼   ► Doesn't have to be a NASA astronaut listening to connected. I want visual proof of that though

00:46:49 ◼   ► Yeah, me too. Absolutely if that ever happens and I mean stranger things have no well no no stranger things happen

00:46:57 ◼   ► No, that would be the strangest.

00:46:58 ◼   ► I can tell you categorically, nothing stranger has happened than somebody listening to our

00:47:02 ◼   ► show from space.

00:47:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:04 ◼   ► But I mean, it could happen.

00:47:07 ◼   ► Hey, I'm convinced that at some point in our careers it will happen, but it's just about

00:47:12 ◼   ► when.

00:47:13 ◼   ► Right.

00:47:14 ◼   ► I think so too.

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00:49:27 ◼   ► So Federico.

00:49:28 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:49:29 ◼   ► - This week marks 10 years of Tim Cook's time

00:49:34 ◼   ► as CEO of Apple.

00:49:36 ◼   ► So I wanted to kind of look at a little bit of this,

00:49:39 ◼   ► of Tim at 10 is what we'll call it.

00:49:42 ◼   ► - Tim at 10.

00:49:42 ◼   ► - Tim at 10.

00:49:44 ◼   ► Tim would be our weirdest listener, right?

00:49:47 ◼   ► If Tim Cook listened to this show,

00:49:50 ◼   ► that would be pretty strange.

00:49:51 ◼   ► - That'd be pretty odd, yeah.

00:49:53 ◼   ► Kind of awkward too.

00:49:54 ◼   ► - It'd be pretty awkward,

00:49:55 ◼   ► especially as we're about to talk about him so much.

00:49:58 ◼   ► So Tim Cook will very shortly

00:50:01 ◼   ► become Apple's second longest running CEO.

00:50:04 ◼   ► So John Sculley also had a 10 year run.

00:50:07 ◼   ► Steve was in the role for about 14 years in total.

00:50:10 ◼   ► It's likely that,

00:50:12 ◼   ► My expectation is that Tim Cook will become Apple's longest running CEO at some point.

00:50:18 ◼   ► I don't think there's any particular reason that he wouldn't unless he didn't want to be anymore.

00:50:23 ◼   ► Right? Because, I mean, one of the things that's changed under Tim Cook is monstrous financial

00:50:28 ◼   ► performance. So, The Verge wrote a good article about this that I got some of the stuff from.

00:50:33 ◼   ► So, you know, it's just some of the stuff we know, right? Apple is now the most valuable

00:50:37 ◼   ► profitable company in the world. Quarterly earnings are four times what they were from

00:50:41 ◼   ► from when he took over. They're currently sitting on $200 billion in cash and have doubled

00:50:46 ◼   ► in size employee-wise as a company. So money is what they do.

00:50:52 ◼   ► Pretty strong performance, especially when you consider all the switch to services, which

00:50:57 ◼   ► to be fair, like well done, right? Because they totally called like that, that that was

00:51:02 ◼   ► going to be a thing. And the expansion first onto, you know, um, storage and then music

00:51:08 ◼   ► And then all the other things like some of the services

00:51:10 ◼   ► that they have launched have not been a success

00:51:14 ◼   ► or maybe they haven't been a success yet.

00:51:16 ◼   ► Like you could take a look at Apple News, for example, right?

00:51:18 ◼   ► And that's been kind of a dud.

00:51:20 ◼   ► There's been the new Apple podcast thing,

00:51:24 ◼   ► still not clear whether that's gonna be a success or not.

00:51:28 ◼   ► They are going to rebrand iCloud,

00:51:31 ◼   ► the paid subscription plan as iCloud Plus in the fall.

00:51:34 ◼   ► But by and large, I would say that especially

00:51:37 ◼   ► with Apple Music and convincing people to pay up for iCloud

00:51:42 ◼   ► and the App Store, if you consider that a service

00:51:45 ◼   ► and Apple Arcade, pretty good run so far

00:51:49 ◼   ► for the switch to services, I would say.

00:51:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that switch to services

00:51:53 ◼   ► is an interesting point, right?

00:51:55 ◼   ► 'Cause this is one of the few things I think,

00:51:58 ◼   ► which, you know, 'cause this is one of the few things

00:52:01 ◼   ► that we can clearly see.

00:52:03 ◼   ► There wasn't any plan for this from before, right?

00:52:07 ◼   ► This is a pure like Tim Cook, Apple move.

00:52:10 ◼   ► Because I mean, 10 years whilst being a long time,

00:52:13 ◼   ► they will have had a multiple year runway

00:52:15 ◼   ► from when Steve was still around

00:52:16 ◼   ► and they had to see that through

00:52:18 ◼   ► and then move on from there.

00:52:20 ◼   ► Services is one of those things.

00:52:21 ◼   ► And also honestly, services is something that I can imagine

00:52:24 ◼   ► that not every CEO would have felt the need to pursue.

00:52:27 ◼   ► You know, like the services stuff for Apple

00:52:29 ◼   ► really became a thing when they,

00:52:30 ◼   ► when Wall Street was getting worried

00:52:33 ◼   ► about their potential to grow as a company, right?

00:52:36 ◼   ► And it's not necessarily something they would have had

00:52:39 ◼   ► to have pushed on as hard as they have, but they have,

00:52:41 ◼   ► and it's become a big part of the company.

00:52:43 ◼   ► And I mean, honestly, like I know that it frustrates

00:52:46 ◼   ► some longer time Apple fans about this whole services thing.

00:52:50 ◼   ► You know, you can go back to like,

00:52:52 ◼   ► "Ah, why did they make a TV show?

00:52:54 ◼   ► "Just fix the Mac," right?

00:52:55 ◼   ► Like, which was a thing that people were talking about

00:52:57 ◼   ► for a long time, but I think all in all,

00:53:00 ◼   ► They've done a really good job with the services stuff.

00:53:03 ◼   ► I'm happy with all of the things that I pay for.

00:53:06 ◼   ► And there's a bunch of stuff that I don't even use

00:53:09 ◼   ► that I'm paying for, but I don't need them,

00:53:11 ◼   ► but I have no problem with it, you know?

00:53:13 ◼   ► Like I've never used Fitness Plus,

00:53:14 ◼   ► but I know it's there if I ever want to.

00:53:17 ◼   ► Have you ever used Fitness Plus?

00:53:19 ◼   ► - No, because I have my own fitness instructor at home, so.

00:53:23 ◼   ► - You have a live-in fitness instructor.

00:53:25 ◼   ► - I have a live-in certified fitness instructor.

00:53:30 ◼   ► also happens to live with me, which is very convenient.

00:53:33 ◼   ► Let me tell you that.

00:53:34 ◼   ► - Convenient, but I guess also a little bit frustrating

00:53:37 ◼   ► 'cause you can't get away from it, can you?

00:53:39 ◼   ► - No. - No.

00:53:40 ◼   ► - That's also what makes it, you know,

00:53:43 ◼   ► it's a thing because it makes it extra tough

00:53:46 ◼   ► because I'm also like,

00:53:50 ◼   ► she tends to be very strict with me

00:53:56 ◼   ► in a way that she isn't with,

00:53:58 ◼   ► I'm talking about Sylvia, by the way,

00:54:00 ◼   ► in a way that she isn't with other people.

00:54:04 ◼   ► So sometimes I feel like she takes out

00:54:06 ◼   ► some of the frustration with other students on me,

00:54:09 ◼   ► which is fun.

00:54:10 ◼   ► I can live with that.

00:54:11 ◼   ► - And Federico? - But it's tough.

00:54:13 ◼   ► - How does that make you feel?

00:54:15 ◼   ► - Sometimes very bad.

00:54:19 ◼   ► - We're doing therapy right now, by the way.

00:54:21 ◼   ► - Sometimes, yes, I know, thank you.

00:54:24 ◼   ► Sometimes quite bad,

00:54:27 ◼   ► but I also know it's for the greater good

00:54:29 ◼   ► because I mean over the past year or so I've lost like 15 kilograms which is

00:54:35 ◼   ► pretty awesome. You look great. Yeah thank you. So it's working. I need to be more

00:54:40 ◼   ► precise at it. You know I gotta you know keep my schedule and everything. It tends

00:54:44 ◼   ► to I tend to fall off on the exercise when I have this extra busy work thing.

00:54:52 ◼   ► That's a priorities thing, right?

00:54:54 ◼   ► You know, like, launch day for the club, I haven't moved from my chair at all, you know?

00:55:02 ◼   ► But what you gotta do? I don't know, I guess I'm supposed to be like one of those, have you ever seen those stories?

00:55:09 ◼   ► Like, live like a successful CEO and you know, wake up at six, hit the gym, drink-

00:55:15 ◼   ► Oh, that was actually talking about our friend Tim Cook.

00:55:18 ◼   ► There was a profile recently about him where he was referencing getting up at 5am or something

00:55:24 ◼   ► every day.

00:55:25 ◼   ► Or like 4am.

00:55:26 ◼   ► I can do that.

00:55:27 ◼   ► I can do that.

00:55:28 ◼   ► Can you imagine that?

00:55:31 ◼   ► Yeah, Apple CEO Tim Cook explains why he starts his day before 4am.

00:55:38 ◼   ► Yeah I don't know.

00:55:41 ◼   ► The one true John does it but he's not a CEO so I think he does it just because he likes

00:55:47 ◼   ► it.

00:55:48 ◼   ► him down there my friend. Yeah well I don't know sometimes I see these stories

00:55:53 ◼   ► like it's kind of like a meme of like here's how I'm a successful CEO managing

00:55:58 ◼   ► a company of like 200 people. I wake up at 5, I hit the gym, I drink 2 liters of

00:56:04 ◼   ► water before breakfast, I read one book a day it's like sure okay yeah yeah have

00:56:10 ◼   ► you ever seen those like super motivational stories on medium or

00:56:12 ◼   ► something? Oh of course. Yeah. So let me read you a quote from this it was in the

00:56:16 ◼   ► Australian financial review, they just did like a big interview and profile of him. When

00:56:21 ◼   ► asked about why 4am, like why 4am for him, I do that because I can control the morning

00:56:28 ◼   ► better than the evening and through the day.

00:56:30 ◼   ► Good morning.

00:56:31 ◼   ► Good morning. I do… oh man, Stephen needs to come back. This one's off the rails.

00:56:38 ◼   ► I do that because I can control the morning better than the evening and through the day.

00:56:44 ◼   ► happen through the day that kind of blow you off course. The morning is yours. The morning

00:56:47 ◼   ► is yours. Or should I say the early morning is yours. Now I have a theory about this,

00:56:52 ◼   ► right? Because this thing that you're referencing, I don't think that waking up at four o'clock

00:56:57 ◼   ► in the morning makes you a good CEO. I think when you are a big time powerful CEO, you

00:57:04 ◼   ► have to wake up at four in the morning if you don't want people to bother you. I think

00:57:09 ◼   ► That's what he's getting at here, right?

00:57:11 ◼   ► Look, and I said this before,

00:57:13 ◼   ► and while we're talking about Tim Cook,

00:57:15 ◼   ► I genuinely believe Tim Cook

00:57:17 ◼   ► is one of the most powerful people on the planet.

00:57:20 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:57:21 ◼   ► - More so than many world leaders.

00:57:23 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:57:25 ◼   ► - Maybe more so than pretty much all of them,

00:57:28 ◼   ► because he can't be voted out as such, right?

00:57:31 ◼   ► All he has to do is do a good job,

00:57:34 ◼   ► and he'll stay doing his thing.

00:57:36 ◼   ► That's not the case of world leaders in most countries.

00:57:39 ◼   ► Right, like the America president can do the best job ever,

00:57:42 ◼   ► but they have a limited time and they're out, right?

00:57:45 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:57:46 ◼   ► - Tim Cook is just there and we spoke about this,

00:57:49 ◼   ► like I was talking about this quite a bit

00:57:52 ◼   ► with all of the CSAM stuff on upgrade and whatever,

00:57:54 ◼   ► like companies, large companies, large tech companies,

00:57:58 ◼   ► they're almost like controlling powers in our world now,

00:58:02 ◼   ► right, like they are law enforcement in a way.

00:58:05 ◼   ► Like they enforce laws on behalf of countries.

00:58:08 ◼   ► Like, so Tim Cook is one of the most powerful people

00:58:12 ◼   ► in the world.

00:58:13 ◼   ► He probably needs those four in the morning wake up times

00:58:15 ◼   ► so we can actually get a bit of peace.

00:58:17 ◼   ► - I can see that.

00:58:19 ◼   ► - Probably that's not when people are bothering him.

00:58:22 ◼   ► Although you've got to believe there's someone

00:58:25 ◼   ► who's forced to wake up at five

00:58:27 ◼   ► because he wakes up at four, right?

00:58:29 ◼   ► Right, like someone who works for him.

00:58:32 ◼   ► Like they wake up that early because--

00:58:34 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

00:58:35 ◼   ► that early you know for sure the way it's gonna go but that's just what it's

00:58:40 ◼   ► like to I guess be like the executive assistant of the one of the most

00:58:45 ◼   ► powerful people on the planet I think that Tim Cook gets a lot of criticism or

00:58:54 ◼   ► like people just in general think that oh I don't like him because of this

00:59:02 ◼   ► sort of thing for the company. You know, like, I don't like this thing that Apple's doing,

00:59:07 ◼   ► it's Tim Cook's fault, you know? And I understand why you can say that, because he's the CEO,

00:59:13 ◼   ► right? But I don't necessarily think it's as simple as that a lot of the time. I think

00:59:17 ◼   ► we had this conversation a long time ago about Eddy Cue, right? That like we were saying

00:59:22 ◼   ► that we think that Eddy Cue is, gets a bit of a bad rap that people think that he's for

00:59:28 ◼   ► some reason not good at his job. I don't really know exactly why, but he obviously clearly

00:59:34 ◼   ► is. And there was that whole thing in Steve Jobs book about him, right? About like how

00:59:37 ◼   ► good of a deal maker he is. And like that is actually his job anyway, right? Like his

00:59:43 ◼   ► deal maker. So you know, it's fine. But anyway, how do you feel about Tim Cook in general,

00:59:49 ◼   ► the CEO of Apple? Do you have any particular feeling on it?

00:59:53 ◼   ► - Well, I think he was able to step out of Steve's shadow.

00:59:58 ◼   ► Honestly, that was like the biggest issue

01:00:01 ◼   ► in the first couple of years, I think.

01:00:02 ◼   ► When he started out as CEO,

01:00:06 ◼   ► I feel like the general consensus was that

01:00:09 ◼   ► he was not a really charismatic person, maybe,

01:00:14 ◼   ► but no one could really achieve the same level

01:00:17 ◼   ► of personality and charisma of Steve Jobs.

01:00:19 ◼   ► - You couldn't put anyone on the stage next

01:00:21 ◼   ► who was going to be able-- - Exactly.

01:00:23 ◼   ► Because even their next best is like Craig Federighi.

01:00:26 ◼   ► It's just not as good.

01:00:27 ◼   ► - No, exactly, exactly.

01:00:29 ◼   ► But I feel like, you know,

01:00:31 ◼   ► I think he found his way

01:00:37 ◼   ► and how he will be remembered.

01:00:40 ◼   ► And I think also like in the first few years,

01:00:42 ◼   ► his past at Apple, I think it was influencing

01:00:46 ◼   ► a lot of people's opinions about him.

01:00:48 ◼   ► Like when you used to see like a lot of people saying,

01:00:51 ◼   ► "Oh, the operations guy is now in charge, he only cares about money."

01:00:55 ◼   ► The bean counter is running the company.

01:00:57 ◼   ► Exactly, yes.

01:00:58 ◼   ► And I feel like where it came from also influenced people's opinions a few years ago.

01:01:05 ◼   ► But I think over time, I believe how Tim Cook will be remembered one day.

01:01:11 ◼   ► And I mean, it's not like he's leaving his job or anything, but if we were to wrap it

01:01:15 ◼   ► up right now, he will be remembered as the CEO who took Apple into this new services

01:01:23 ◼   ► era successfully, very successfully, expanded the product line with AirPods and Apple Watch.

01:01:32 ◼   ► And just in general.

01:01:33 ◼   ► In general, yes.

01:01:34 ◼   ► All of the product lines are larger, they have more variation.

01:01:38 ◼   ► revived the Mac pretty successfully so far, honestly.

01:01:43 ◼   ► And took Apple in a series of new directions

01:01:50 ◼   ► when it comes to privacy and when it comes to being

01:01:53 ◼   ► a more socially responsible company.

01:01:58 ◼   ► Caring for the environment, social initiatives

01:02:02 ◼   ► with schools, with young developers,

01:02:04 ◼   ► helping out certain districts, for example,

01:02:07 ◼   ► certain neighborhoods, being just a more socially aware

01:02:11 ◼   ► and responsible company.

01:02:13 ◼   ► That I feel right now, as of today,

01:02:15 ◼   ► will be Tim Cook's legacy.

01:02:17 ◼   ► - I couldn't agree more on that.

01:02:19 ◼   ► Right, like the products that have been under his tenure,

01:02:22 ◼   ► you know, kind of like Apple Watch probably,

01:02:24 ◼   ► I think that was what people were saying

01:02:25 ◼   ► was like the first non-Steve product, right?

01:02:29 ◼   ► Then you say like Apple Silicon,

01:02:31 ◼   ► maybe the iPad Pro to a sense,

01:02:36 ◼   ► AirPods, right?

01:02:38 ◼   ► And then the services. - AirPods for sure.

01:02:39 ◼   ► - That's where we are now.

01:02:41 ◼   ► And like, you know, whilst there,

01:02:43 ◼   ► none of these, and then, you know,

01:02:44 ◼   ► the next stuff is AR and VR, right?

01:02:47 ◼   ► AR is very clearly something that he cares about greatly.

01:02:52 ◼   ► And I'm intrigued to see what that materializes into,

01:02:56 ◼   ► like seriously for them.

01:02:57 ◼   ► Because look, the thing that people will say

01:02:59 ◼   ► and the thing that people continue to say about him

01:03:01 ◼   ► is that he, you know, he hasn't had his hit

01:03:05 ◼   ► Right? No Mac, no iPhone, no iPad.

01:03:10 ◼   ► There's AirPods.

01:03:11 ◼   ► You're probably right, actually.

01:03:13 ◼   ► I mean, it's easy to maybe discount them because it's a small thing.

01:03:17 ◼   ► It's an accessory.

01:03:18 ◼   ► It's not a platform.

01:03:20 ◼   ► But AirPods are a huge hit.

01:03:22 ◼   ► But maybe it will be AR and VR.

01:03:24 ◼   ► I did actually as well want to think about what I think is something that's a potential challenge for Tim Cook,

01:03:31 ◼   ► which is Apple's corporate culture.

01:03:34 ◼   ► culture. This seems to be something that is really starting to heat up. And this

01:03:39 ◼   ► might be one of those things that like it may stay confined to technology

01:03:45 ◼   ► focused media for a while but I would say that wider media is always looking

01:03:51 ◼   ► for a story about Apple now, right? And there have been, The Verge is doing a lot

01:03:58 ◼   ► of reporting on this at the moment,

01:04:00 ◼   ► especially Zoe Shiffer seems to have like the ear

01:04:05 ◼   ► of some people at Apple and has been reporting

01:04:09 ◼   ► on a lot of stuff.

01:04:11 ◼   ► And one of the things that's just happened is like,

01:04:13 ◼   ► seems like there are a number of employees

01:04:16 ◼   ► are organizing under like this banner called Apple 2,

01:04:19 ◼   ► like #Apple2.

01:04:21 ◼   ► I'll put a link in the show notes

01:04:23 ◼   ► in case people have missed this.

01:04:25 ◼   ► But I think this, like, you know,

01:04:26 ◼   ► We've been talking about this off and on for a while,

01:04:28 ◼   ► like the corporate culture, the return from work stuff.

01:04:31 ◼   ► There's been some reports of like,

01:04:34 ◼   ► mistreating of sexual harassment cases.

01:04:37 ◼   ► Like, these things are gonna keep going.

01:04:41 ◼   ► And there's stuff that happens at every single tech company.

01:04:45 ◼   ► But this is like a similar thing to Apple's privacy stance

01:04:48 ◼   ► and why they got so much flack

01:04:50 ◼   ► for the way that they were handling the CSAM stuff is,

01:04:53 ◼   ► If as a company you put a flag in the ground

01:04:57 ◼   ► about how you're better than everybody else

01:05:00 ◼   ► in a certain thing,

01:05:02 ◼   ► the places where you fail will be highlighted

01:05:05 ◼   ► because you say that you're better than this.

01:05:08 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:05:08 ◼   ► - And there seems to be some stuff at Apple

01:05:11 ◼   ► which isn't right.

01:05:12 ◼   ► I mean, I maintain my position

01:05:15 ◼   ► that they should be more flexible with work from home now,

01:05:18 ◼   ► especially after what everybody's been through

01:05:20 ◼   ► over the last couple of years.

01:05:21 ◼   ► - I agree.

01:05:22 ◼   ► proven that it is possible and I feel like it should be decisions that are devolved to

01:05:26 ◼   ► managers you know, rather than being like an overall process but we're getting a bit

01:05:32 ◼   ► in the weeds here but I did just want to mention it because it is something that I think could

01:05:36 ◼   ► be a problem for them and it's going to be ultimately something that he's going to have

01:05:39 ◼   ► to change the environment of if he wants to and if he doesn't I mean it's his prerogative

01:05:45 ◼   ► but it could potentially change the way that they attack talent.

01:05:48 ◼   ► But that was a bit of a tangent. Nevertheless, I personally am a big fan of Tim Cook. I love

01:05:59 ◼   ► Apple, we all do, right? And I think that he has taken a bunch of steps to make the

01:06:05 ◼   ► company continue to be interesting to us, good and bad, and has definitely secured its

01:06:12 ◼   ► future into the long term. I was thinking about this recently, about if one of the things

01:06:18 ◼   ► that people say, and this is actually maybe,

01:06:20 ◼   ► and again, another mark is the China issue with Apple, right?

01:06:24 ◼   ► That they're very linked to China.

01:06:26 ◼   ► And that is something else to watch out for

01:06:29 ◼   ► for the next 10 years is to if or how Tim Cook

01:06:32 ◼   ► starts to undo any of that.

01:06:34 ◼   ► So I was wondering, like, if they had to pull out of China

01:06:36 ◼   ► and couldn't make a product,

01:06:39 ◼   ► how long could they last on their cash reserve

01:06:42 ◼   ► if they couldn't sell products?

01:06:44 ◼   ► Like, I worked it out,

01:06:45 ◼   ► Like it would be multiple years they could last for.

01:06:48 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:06:50 ◼   ► - Which is incredible as a thought

01:06:53 ◼   ► for a company of their size.

01:06:54 ◼   ► They have so much cash in the bank,

01:06:56 ◼   ► they could last for a long time paying all of their people

01:07:00 ◼   ► and not sell a product.

01:07:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, realistically,

01:07:02 ◼   ► they're never going away, right?

01:07:04 ◼   ► - Seems like that.

01:07:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, so.

01:07:07 ◼   ► - Happy birthday, Tim Cook, I guess is the thing.

01:07:09 ◼   ► 10 years is quite incredible though.

01:07:11 ◼   ► It's gone by fast.

01:07:12 ◼   ► - It doesn't feel like it, right?

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01:09:21 ◼   ► So Federico, you've been pretty busy.

01:09:23 ◼   ► Yes.

01:09:24 ◼   ► This past week. I want to try and see if I can do this for you. A quick overview of the brand

01:09:30 ◼   ► new Club Max Stories.

01:09:31 ◼   ► Okay, go for it.

01:09:32 ◼   ► There is a new web app available for Club Max Stories subscribers, members. What do you call

01:09:39 ◼   ► Subscribers or members?

01:09:41 ◼   ► Members.

01:09:42 ◼   ► Fallen at the first hurdle.

01:09:43 ◼   ► Club Max Stories members.

01:09:44 ◼   ► This new web app features newsletter content.

01:09:47 ◼   ► So the newsletter that goes out every week is now available on the web.

01:09:50 ◼   ► So it's a new format.

01:09:51 ◼   ► You can click around and see a bunch of categories and it's laid out very nicely.

01:09:58 ◼   ► There are also some new pricing tiers for the club.

01:10:01 ◼   ► There is Club Max Stories Plus and Club Premiere.

01:10:05 ◼   ► These features have more features available to them, including this web tool having advanced

01:10:11 ◼   ► search, so you can search for stuff that you're looking for, custom RSS feeds, which is my

01:10:16 ◼   ► favorite so you can make RSS feeds out of Club Max Stories content, some exclusive content

01:10:24 ◼   ► and access to the Club Max Stories Discord.

01:10:26 ◼   ► Did I do a good job for you?

01:10:29 ◼   ► You just missed the discounts.

01:10:30 ◼   ► Discounts!

01:10:31 ◼   ► Pretty good.

01:10:32 ◼   ► I love a discount.

01:10:33 ◼   ► or a discount from popular applications

01:10:35 ◼   ► from some of their favorite developers.

01:10:37 ◼   ► Now, people can go and they can read about this

01:10:40 ◼   ► on Mac stories and you had a great episode

01:10:42 ◼   ► of App Stories talking about it.

01:10:43 ◼   ► There's also an ad-free version of App Stories

01:10:45 ◼   ► available now as well, which is not included in Premiere.

01:10:48 ◼   ► What I wanted to talk to you about today

01:10:50 ◼   ► is the CMS and web app that you built.

01:10:53 ◼   ► - Okay.

01:10:54 ◼   ► - It's called Calliope.

01:10:55 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:10:56 ◼   ► - Why would somebody build a CMS in 2021?

01:10:59 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:11:01 ◼   ► Why would you do this?

01:11:02 ◼   ► Why did you do this?

01:11:03 ◼   ► - It felt like the culmination of sort of how I've changed

01:11:08 ◼   ► as a business owner and as a creator over the years.

01:11:13 ◼   ► I've always, you know, I've been talking

01:11:16 ◼   ► over the past few years about taking control

01:11:18 ◼   ► of all the technologies that I use

01:11:20 ◼   ► and refusing, just outright refusing

01:11:23 ◼   ► to lock myself into proprietary things.

01:11:26 ◼   ► And so whenever I saw, you know,

01:11:28 ◼   ► some of my colleagues on other websites

01:11:30 ◼   ► get on this fancy new service, or now we're

01:11:33 ◼   ► going to publish stories on Facebook,

01:11:35 ◼   ► and now we're going to do Google AMP,

01:11:37 ◼   ► now we're going to do exclusive subscriptions on Apple News.

01:11:41 ◼   ► I always refused, because I knew that ultimately, I

01:11:47 ◼   ► don't think those services are going to be successful,

01:11:49 ◼   ► because those platforms, they don't really

01:11:52 ◼   ► care about publishing your stuff on the web

01:11:56 ◼   ► as much as you think they do.

01:11:58 ◼   ► And also because I have been obsessed, in a good way,

01:12:03 ◼   ► with being able to leave a legacy behind.

01:12:06 ◼   ► And so being able to leave all these things that I've done,

01:12:11 ◼   ► all these words that I've written,

01:12:13 ◼   ► all these words that I've said,

01:12:15 ◼   ► to be able to fully control them in a way

01:12:18 ◼   ► that I know they will stick around no matter what.

01:12:22 ◼   ► And maybe that's a grim way to look at it,

01:12:25 ◼   ► but it just makes me feel more comfortable

01:12:27 ◼   ► with the things that I do, you know?

01:12:30 ◼   ► And honestly, building a CMS was the obvious solution

01:12:35 ◼   ► for what we have planned for Max Stories in the future.

01:12:40 ◼   ► If you think about it, now we have the regular website,

01:12:45 ◼   ► which is not going away,

01:12:46 ◼   ► I've seen a bunch of people ask about this,

01:12:47 ◼   ► like today we blogged on Max Stories,

01:12:50 ◼   ► like Jon and I, regular blog posts on Max Stories.

01:12:54 ◼   ► Max Stories is the center of everything we do, right?

01:12:57 ◼   ► with the news, the reviews, the stories, the links.

01:13:00 ◼   ► But we also have the club, so we have members

01:13:04 ◼   ► who want more out of that.

01:13:06 ◼   ► And we have a bunch of podcasts,

01:13:08 ◼   ► and we have digital products that you can buy

01:13:10 ◼   ► from Mac Stories Pixel, right?

01:13:12 ◼   ► We have the icons that you can buy there.

01:13:14 ◼   ► And in the future, maybe we're gonna have

01:13:16 ◼   ► new products as well.

01:13:17 ◼   ► And we have some ideas for other things

01:13:20 ◼   ► that we may wanna do in the future,

01:13:21 ◼   ► like physical objects, right?

01:13:23 ◼   ► Physical goods, merchandise, that kind of stuff.

01:13:25 ◼   ► and other, let's call them, verticals

01:13:28 ◼   ► that we may do as part of Mac stories.

01:13:30 ◼   ► And it felt like it makes more sense

01:13:33 ◼   ► to have a platform that is ours,

01:13:37 ◼   ► that is unique to us, that does exactly what we want to,

01:13:41 ◼   ► that doesn't lock us into anything,

01:13:43 ◼   ► and that includes the membership system,

01:13:48 ◼   ► but that's a different conversation.

01:13:50 ◼   ► And so building a CMS in 2021

01:13:55 ◼   ► makes sense for us because it's not just about providing

01:14:00 ◼   ► a website for the newsletters.

01:14:02 ◼   ► It's much more than that.

01:14:05 ◼   ► It's about building the Max Stories platform

01:14:08 ◼   ► for the next 10 years.

01:14:10 ◼   ► The way I see it in its first decade,

01:14:12 ◼   ► and plus, really in its first 12 years,

01:14:15 ◼   ► Max Stories was a WordPress website

01:14:19 ◼   ► where we were able to add in additional properties.

01:14:25 ◼   ► And the way I look at it, over the next decade,

01:14:28 ◼   ► we are going to bring everything together as much as possible.

01:14:31 ◼   ► Like, I'm not saying that the Mac Store is on page

01:14:34 ◼   ► will be stuffed with a bunch of things

01:14:37 ◼   ► that you don't care about.

01:14:38 ◼   ► But it makes more sense, instead of using a CMS for this,

01:14:43 ◼   ► and another CMS for that, and a service for this feature,

01:14:47 ◼   ► and a different service for that other feature,

01:14:49 ◼   ► it makes more sense to bring everything in-house

01:14:52 ◼   ► and do it ourselves.

01:14:54 ◼   ► - So just to like, I probably should have done this earlier,

01:14:57 ◼   ► but CMS is a content management system.

01:15:00 ◼   ► And for Federico, that means publishing blog posts

01:15:04 ◼   ► and podcasts.

01:15:06 ◼   ► So like the Relay FM website is powered by our own CMS.

01:15:10 ◼   ► I mean, the reason we did it,

01:15:11 ◼   ► like as I made that joke to Federico at the start,

01:15:13 ◼   ► I mean, the reason we have a CMS at Relay FM

01:15:15 ◼   ► is when we started seven years ago,

01:15:17 ◼   ► there just wasn't something that could power

01:15:20 ◼   ► a podcast network.

01:15:21 ◼   ► There's lots of options for single podcasts,

01:15:23 ◼   ► but not really to do something in a neat way

01:15:26 ◼   ► for a set of we were five then,

01:15:28 ◼   ► but with more to come in the future.

01:15:32 ◼   ► But for you, right, like there are many options available

01:15:37 ◼   ► to do the kinds of things in theory,

01:15:40 ◼   ► which is like publishing text or whatever.

01:15:43 ◼   ► - Sure.

01:15:44 ◼   ► - As we know, and as like I've learned over the years,

01:15:46 ◼   ► once you start going down this route

01:15:48 ◼   ► or all of custom stuff,

01:15:50 ◼   ► you then get into the world that you're into,

01:15:52 ◼   ► which is, but I want it done just the way I want it

01:15:56 ◼   ► to be done. - Yes.

01:15:57 ◼   ► - And that's where things can become a little trickier,

01:16:00 ◼   ► maybe, I don't know.

01:16:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that was really the ultimate,

01:16:04 ◼   ► like when we made the final decision months ago

01:16:07 ◼   ► to pull the plug on the system that we were trying

01:16:10 ◼   ► to adapt to ourselves, we were trying to make it all work

01:16:15 ◼   ► using Ghost, which is a popular open source CMS.

01:16:19 ◼   ► But ultimately what we wanted to do,

01:16:22 ◼   ► which was the idea of a modular system, where

01:16:27 ◼   ► the same article can exist in multiple places.

01:16:31 ◼   ► So the thing that Calliope allows us to do,

01:16:35 ◼   ► which is a section of a newsletter,

01:16:38 ◼   ► is both a part of a bigger thing--

01:16:42 ◼   ► so it's a small section of a newsletter, which

01:16:45 ◼   ► includes other sections--

01:16:47 ◼   ► but the same post, the same article,

01:16:50 ◼   ► is also its own standalone story,

01:16:52 ◼   ► which means you can link it, you can open it,

01:16:56 ◼   ► on its own page, you can share that story

01:16:59 ◼   ► with other people as well.

01:17:00 ◼   ► So the same thing can exist in multiple places.

01:17:03 ◼   ► And when you add in the ability for the same story

01:17:09 ◼   ► to be presented differently,

01:17:15 ◼   ► depending on the kind of reader you are.

01:17:19 ◼   ► So one of the things that Calliope allows us to do is,

01:17:22 ◼   ► if you are reading this article and you are a regular member,

01:17:29 ◼   ► you see this content.

01:17:31 ◼   ► If you are a Plus or Premier member,

01:17:33 ◼   ► you see this extra content in the same story.

01:17:37 ◼   ► So it's like, imagine if an article

01:17:39 ◼   ► had a bunch of conditional blocks, like in shortcuts.

01:17:44 ◼   ► And those blocks decided what the content should be.

01:17:47 ◼   ► That's what Calliope allows us to do.

01:17:49 ◼   ► And you can see how going forward,

01:17:51 ◼   ► I could do things like over the next few weeks even,

01:17:54 ◼   ► where, for example, I could say,

01:17:58 ◼   ► I'm sharing my home screen in Mac Stories Weekly.

01:18:01 ◼   ► Now that I have Calliope, now that we have a new website,

01:18:05 ◼   ► I can share the link to my home screen article, right?

01:18:09 ◼   ► But usually, I prefer to put the image,

01:18:13 ◼   ► the screenshot of my home screen at the top of the story.

01:18:17 ◼   ► However, that poses a problem,

01:18:19 ◼   ► because if you are a free user,

01:18:21 ◼   ► which means you are not a Club Max Stories member,

01:18:23 ◼   ► you just clicked a link on Twitter,

01:18:25 ◼   ► and you land on the story,

01:18:27 ◼   ► you see the screenshot and the first paragraph,

01:18:31 ◼   ► and then you don't see the rest of the article,

01:18:32 ◼   ► but maybe you just wanna see the image,

01:18:35 ◼   ► and you're like, yeah, I see the image for free,

01:18:37 ◼   ► that's fine, I don't need to sign up

01:18:39 ◼   ► to read the rest of the explanation.

01:18:41 ◼   ► But what I can do now is, well,

01:18:43 ◼   ► if you are a free user and you think you're smart

01:18:46 ◼   ► because you clicked the link on Twitter,

01:18:48 ◼   ► I'm gonna show you a blurred image.

01:18:50 ◼   ► If you are signed in at the top of the story,

01:18:52 ◼   ► you're gonna see my actual home screen.

01:18:54 ◼   ► And that's the kind of thing that I can do now,

01:18:56 ◼   ► which is in the same story without too many complications,

01:19:00 ◼   ► I can say, depending on the kind of user you are,

01:19:02 ◼   ► this is what you see.

01:19:03 ◼   ► - And then from there, you're able to build

01:19:05 ◼   ► a bunch of interesting and intriguing things, right?

01:19:08 ◼   ► - Yes. - But if you start

01:19:08 ◼   ► with that as the core, then it builds out,

01:19:12 ◼   ► because, I mean, you have grander plans for this

01:19:15 ◼   ► than just publishing even what is something

01:19:18 ◼   ► which is very important,

01:19:19 ◼   ► which is a Club Max Stories content,

01:19:21 ◼   ► but you have even grander plans for it.

01:19:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, so right now we launched this

01:19:26 ◼   ► over the past few months.

01:19:28 ◼   ► It took us a while because over the past few months,

01:19:29 ◼   ► we have manually imported just about 3,000 posts

01:19:34 ◼   ► or six years of Club Max Stories.

01:19:38 ◼   ► So when you count it all up,

01:19:41 ◼   ► it would be 350 something newsletters.

01:19:45 ◼   ► So right now Calliope contains six years of content or 3,000 posts.

01:19:55 ◼   ► Now, we are going to begin a longer process, which is the migration of maxstories.net,

01:20:02 ◼   ► so the main website, which is a 12-year-old website that has over 15,000 articles that we have published since 2009.

01:20:13 ◼   ► And we're gonna migrate all of it to Calliope over the next few months.

01:20:19 ◼   ► It's gonna take us a while.

01:20:20 ◼   ► It's a lot of copy and paste, man.

01:20:22 ◼   ► I assume it's a little bit more advanced than that.

01:20:25 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a lot more advanced than that.

01:20:29 ◼   ► Actually, Alex is gonna have a technical overview of how he was able to pull this off.

01:20:34 ◼   ► But I can just tell you that it built a special parser for MailChimp to make the job easier for us.

01:20:45 ◼   ► And that parser, which is now useless because we're not going to use it anymore,

01:20:49 ◼   ► since we can now assemble the newsletters in Calliope directly,

01:20:53 ◼   ► but that parser needed to run through the weird HTML of MailChimp newsletters,

01:21:00 ◼   ► which I can tell you it's probably the weirdest HTML you ever see in your life.

01:21:04 ◼   ► But switching this to MaxStories means we are building this platform where all the websites that we have and all the properties that we have are aware of each other.

01:21:19 ◼   ► That's how, for example, the Club MaxStories website and the AppStories.net website, they are basically the same, they're just on different domains.

01:21:31 ◼   ► That's the kind of thing that Calliope allows us to do.

01:21:34 ◼   ► You can log in on AppStories.net if you have a club account and vice versa.

01:21:39 ◼   ► And that's how we were able to build a new membership plan called Club Premier

01:21:46 ◼   ► that includes both Club Max Stories and App Stories Plus.

01:21:50 ◼   ► I've seen other websites and other podcasters try and do this,

01:21:54 ◼   ► do this, you know, mixing and matching, you know, the memberships, you know, the article

01:21:59 ◼   ► content and the podcast content, and it's never been really elegant enough, in my opinion,

01:22:05 ◼   ► and that is why we decided to, you know, to just build it ourselves.

01:22:09 ◼   ► So I want to talk a little bit about the development process, because, you know, while you had

01:22:12 ◼   ► Alex doing the heavy lifting with the development, it was the three of you, including the one

01:22:17 ◼   ► Drew John, who I guess were all working together on this project.

01:22:22 ◼   ► How did you keep track of stuff as a team?

01:22:25 ◼   ► How were you keeping track of design changes, notes, and stuff like that?

01:22:28 ◼   ► What tools were you using?

01:22:30 ◼   ► That's fun.

01:22:31 ◼   ► Really, no project management system at all.

01:22:36 ◼   ► We didn't use any shared inbox.

01:22:38 ◼   ► So OK.

01:22:39 ◼   ► I'm going to say that Alex told me that I've been a good product manager.

01:22:46 ◼   ► So take it from the developer.

01:22:48 ◼   ► He would say that, wouldn't he?

01:22:49 ◼   ► Well, it seemed pretty honest when he said that.

01:22:53 ◼   ► So Alex said, I'm gonna take it, you know,

01:22:55 ◼   ► to beg his word for this.

01:22:57 ◼   ► - Were you holding his invoice in your hand at that point?

01:22:59 ◼   ► - No, I wasn't.

01:23:01 ◼   ► I wasn't.

01:23:01 ◼   ► He said it on his own.

01:23:04 ◼   ► Said I've been a good project manager.

01:23:05 ◼   ► - Hey, look, I have worked with you for,

01:23:07 ◼   ► I don't even know how many years now,

01:23:09 ◼   ► and I find that to be a very good experience, so.

01:23:12 ◼   ► - Okay, thank you.

01:23:14 ◼   ► But one of the things that I've realized over the years

01:23:17 ◼   ► is that I believe shared task lists

01:23:22 ◼   ► between a manager and the engineer are a bad idea.

01:23:27 ◼   ► - I think shared task lists in general are good.

01:23:30 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:23:31 ◼   ► - Because everyone sees all the tasks.

01:23:33 ◼   ► - Exactly.

01:23:34 ◼   ► And there really isn't a really good solution

01:23:37 ◼   ► where you don't annoy one of the people

01:23:42 ◼   ► in the relationship that is going on.

01:23:47 ◼   ► I think that there can be a value in having a shared database, like a Trello or some tool,

01:23:54 ◼   ► but it's not what's considered to be like, this is everybody's task list, we're all running

01:23:58 ◼   ► from it.

01:23:59 ◼   ► Like you can, there's everything you need to do is in that one place, and then you build

01:24:02 ◼   ► your own task list from that.

01:24:04 ◼   ► That's not why I think it should be done.

01:24:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:24:07 ◼   ► So I can tell you the way that I've dealt with this myself.

01:24:12 ◼   ► So each week, especially in the final stages of development, each week we would do a call

01:24:18 ◼   ► on Discord, sort of like as a status update, what's going on, what can we test, what's

01:24:25 ◼   ► left, what's the timeline, what are the bugs, sort of discuss features, make a lot of decisions.

01:24:31 ◼   ► I've been making lots and lots of decisions for the past year, really.

01:24:36 ◼   ► It's been a constant decision-making kind of day at Maxor's HQ, which would be my bad

01:24:42 ◼   ► room. So we did weekly calls for updates, and then I think each of us had his own note

01:24:58 ◼   ► or task list or whatever we were using to keep track of things. I can tell you that

01:25:05 ◼   ► I personally had a note in Obsidian that was organized in three sections.

01:25:11 ◼   ► So I had "Check progress with Alex", "New things for Alex", and "Sylvia Design".

01:25:17 ◼   ► So in the Sylvia Design section I would drop in things that Sylvia needed to design.

01:25:26 ◼   ► The way that Sylvia likes to work is she doesn't like me using shared reminders or anything

01:25:35 ◼   ► like that, like she sits down and she says, "Okay, what do I need to work on today right

01:25:40 ◼   ► now?"

01:25:41 ◼   ► And we just do that on a day-to-day basis.

01:25:43 ◼   ► And so I just kept a list of the things that she needed to design for us.

01:25:49 ◼   ► In the "Check progress with Alex" section of the note, I would have a long list, hundreds

01:25:55 ◼   ► of lines of text, of things that we needed to double-check.

01:26:01 ◼   ► All kinds of things.

01:26:02 ◼   ► Like, is this button working?

01:26:03 ◼   ► Is this color just right?

01:26:06 ◼   ► What's this animation like?

01:26:08 ◼   ► Like all kinds of things.

01:26:09 ◼   ► Some of them were grouped by feature, some of them were not.

01:26:13 ◼   ► And my plan was just, each day I'm going through the list and I'm testing Calliope, and I'm

01:26:18 ◼   ► removing or adding things as I go.

01:26:22 ◼   ► New things, they would end up in the "New things for Alex" section.

01:26:26 ◼   ► And that section would be my topic of the conversation on the next weekly call.

01:26:32 ◼   ► So on our call, I would go through all the things that I added to the "New Things for

01:26:37 ◼   ► Alex" section, and as we discussed them, as Alex explained whether a feature was possible

01:26:43 ◼   ► or not to us, I would drop some of them into the main section of the note, the "Check

01:26:50 ◼   ► Progress" one.

01:26:51 ◼   ► And that's really how it went.

01:26:52 ◼   ► Oh, and for myself, I just used Todoist.

01:26:56 ◼   ► I used Todoist for myself and I also took, I really took advantage of the custom plugin

01:27:05 ◼   ► that we built with Fin, the one true Fin for Obsidian and Todoist integration.

01:27:13 ◼   ► Because I wrote, I personally wrote all of the, well not personally, John did a lot of

01:27:19 ◼   ► work for the Appstories FAQ and the Club FAQ for example.

01:27:23 ◼   ► a lot of the documentation for the Discord, for the About pages, for the Plans pages,

01:27:29 ◼   ► a lot of that stuff I personally wrote in my Obsidian.

01:27:33 ◼   ► Yeah, I found, I was really interested in it, so Federico gave me a, because he's a

01:27:38 ◼   ► big fancy product boy, gave me a demo showing me, like a, we did a video called, it was

01:27:44 ◼   ► so professional, it was amazing, and you were going through and showing me your, everything

01:27:49 ◼   ► about Calliope, right? You were showing me the system, you were showing me how it was

01:27:53 ◼   ► going to look to people and some little bits and bobs. And you were still, this was like

01:27:58 ◼   ► a few days before launch, you were still kind of ironing out some bugs. And because you

01:28:03 ◼   ► were sharing a screen with me, I would see, you would find a bug, you would open Obsidian

01:28:07 ◼   ► and write a note in Obsidian and then go back. And that was really interesting to me because

01:28:12 ◼   ► it was like, I would just assume that you'd make a task, I would just make a task or I

01:28:17 ◼   ► don't know, like update it somewhere else. But like, so my expectation is, were you turning

01:28:21 ◼   ► those into tasks or were you just going through that? Like what was Obsidian's role in that

01:28:25 ◼   ► part of the process for you, like the bug tracking process?

01:28:28 ◼   ► Some of them would become tasks if there was a specific need to give them a date and time.

01:28:38 ◼   ► If for example I needed to talk about some of those things with John during our App Stories

01:28:44 ◼   ► recordings before we did the show.

01:28:48 ◼   ► Most of those items, they remained in Obsidian as notes,

01:28:53 ◼   ► because it wasn't really necessary to give them

01:28:56 ◼   ► a time and date.

01:28:58 ◼   ► And we talked about this before.

01:29:00 ◼   ► I only put things in my task manager

01:29:02 ◼   ► if I can make them actionable with the date and time

01:29:06 ◼   ► and like a context for them.

01:29:09 ◼   ► Otherwise, it's not a task.

01:29:12 ◼   ► Otherwise, it's not a task.

01:29:13 ◼   ► It's just a thought or something that has to be,

01:29:17 ◼   ► at least for me, something that needs to exist

01:29:20 ◼   ► in my note-taking application.

01:29:22 ◼   ► I used the Obsidian integration with Todoist

01:29:27 ◼   ► for my personal, for what I was responsible for.

01:29:31 ◼   ► So like, I need to finish this paragraph of the about page.

01:29:36 ◼   ► I'm gonna make it a task so that in Todoist,

01:29:40 ◼   ► oh, I gotta finish this on Monday at 6 p.m.

01:29:43 ◼   ► and when I click the link in Todoist,

01:29:44 ◼   ► it takes me back into that page in Obsidian.

01:29:47 ◼   ► So the Todoist integration was mostly just for myself,

01:29:50 ◼   ► for the things that I personally needed to take care of.

01:29:54 ◼   ► - Very nice.

01:29:55 ◼   ► Very nice.

01:29:56 ◼   ► Well, you've done a great job.

01:29:58 ◼   ► - Thank you. - The group of you.

01:30:00 ◼   ► People should go and check it out.

01:30:01 ◼   ► Go to macstories.net and you can find out more.

01:30:04 ◼   ► Is there a specific URL you would send people to

01:30:06 ◼   ► or just go to Mac stories and they can read it?

01:30:07 ◼   ► - Oh no, there is one.

01:30:08 ◼   ► You can go to plus.club.

01:30:10 ◼   ► - There it is.

01:30:11 ◼   ► I knew that.

01:30:12 ◼   ► I was setting you up there, baby.

01:30:14 ◼   ► Plus.club, great URL, you can go and find out more.

01:30:17 ◼   ► - Plus.club, but let me tell you,

01:30:18 ◼   ► it was not a cheap domain, so please use it.

01:30:22 ◼   ► - Those kind of, the best ones, Federico, they never are.

01:30:25 ◼   ► - I know.

01:30:26 ◼   ► - I would like to remind all of our listeners,

01:30:28 ◼   ► please go to stju.org/relay and give what you can

01:30:32 ◼   ► to support the work of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

01:30:37 ◼   ► Thank you so much for those of you that will.

01:30:39 ◼   ► And thank you to our sponsors of this week,

01:30:41 ◼   ► Pingdom, ExpressVPN, and Hello.

01:30:43 ◼   ► Thank you to everybody who is a member of Connected

01:30:47 ◼   ► and sign up for Connected Pro.

01:30:49 ◼   ► If you want longer ad-free versions,

01:30:51 ◼   ► go to getconnectedpro.co, and you can sign up there.

01:30:54 ◼   ► If you want to find Federico online, go to maxstories.net,

01:30:57 ◼   ► and he is @vatici.

01:30:59 ◼   ► Steven is at ismh, and he's at 512pixels.net,

01:31:02 ◼   ► and I am at imike, I-M-Y-K-E. I make paper products.

01:31:07 ◼   ► Go to cortexmerch.com, and you can check those out

01:31:09 ◼   ► if you want to. Federico, I have a question for you.

01:31:13 ◼   ► - Oh, okay.

01:31:14 ◼   ► - How are you gonna celebrate the success you've had

01:31:17 ◼   ► with the Maxxers?

01:31:18 ◼   ► - Well, we are going out for a really good,

01:31:21 ◼   ► hopefully, seafood dinner in a few minutes.

01:31:25 ◼   ► - I knew that, which is why I'm wrapping up the show,

01:31:27 ◼   ► 'cause Federico's got that celebration dinner, baby.

01:31:29 ◼   ► You can't hold him back from that.

01:31:31 ◼   ► Thank you for listening to this somewhat peculiar episode

01:31:34 ◼   ► of "Connected."

01:31:36 ◼   ► Congratulations to our weirdest fish, Umar.

01:31:39 ◼   ► Congrats Mar.

01:31:40 ◼   ► I hope that you've enjoyed your country's flag as a show

01:31:42 ◼   ► artwork for this week.

01:31:44 ◼   ► We'll be back next time.

01:31:45 ◼   ► Until then, say goodbye, Federico.

01:31:47 ◼   ► Arrivederci.