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Connected

349: If Robots Happen, We’ll Need To Readdress This

 

00:00:00   (upbeat music)

00:00:02   Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 349.

00:00:13   It's made possible this week by our sponsors,

00:00:15   Fitbod, CleanMyMac X, Mac Weldon, and Hover.

00:00:20   My name is Steven Hackett and I'm joined

00:00:21   by Mr. Federico Vittucci.

00:00:23   - Hello. - That's not right.

00:00:25   It's Myke. - What did you call him?

00:00:27   I like, I tried changing to Myke mid-word,

00:00:30   but then I couldn't.

00:00:31   Very peculiar.

00:00:32   So actually, Myke, you're first.

00:00:34   Myke, hello.

00:00:35   What up, what up, deck daddy?

00:00:36   That's right.

00:00:38   Back with the deck attack.

00:00:39   (laughing)

00:00:41   Federico, how are you?

00:00:44   Federico.

00:00:46   Feder-a-Myke-ico.

00:00:48   Yes, it's me, Federico, yes.

00:00:52   That's me.

00:00:54   This is a good start for you today.

00:00:56   - Hey, it's only gonna get better.

00:00:58   - Yeah, it only can, right?

00:01:01   - Yes, today we are judging our WWDC 21 picks.

00:01:07   We call this the Ricky's, it's a whole game we play.

00:01:12   If this is your first episode of Connected,

00:01:14   they're not usually like this.

00:01:15   That's not true, they're usually--

00:01:18   - Honestly, over the last year,

00:01:19   they've been like this a lot, honestly.

00:01:21   They just keep, you know.

00:01:23   If this is your first episode of Connected, I guess go back two episodes and then catch up and you'll probably get your head around it. Maybe.

00:01:31   You've got some follow-up is what we do at the beginning of the show.

00:01:34   And we have a couple more listener projects. Let's call them that.

00:01:41   The first comes from Ellen in the Relay FM members Discord.

00:01:46   They have made a

00:01:48   Crocheted I think that's the right term

00:01:51   crocheted Ricky

00:01:54   weird fish oh

00:01:55   My god, it's it's a mascot. We now have a mascot

00:02:00   Oh, I thought this is like a photo that you shared with us from Etsy or something. Do you know?

00:02:06   Nope, Ellen in the discord made this incredible. She has confirmed. It is crocheted. I'm glad I got that right

00:02:12   I'll just say this, Ellen, if you're open to commission, I think we would all want one.

00:02:18   We all want one. Yeah, so if you could just make one for each of us and we'll pay you, that would be amazing.

00:02:24   Yep, so send me a direct message in Discord, Ellen, and we'll make that happen.

00:02:28   We all want one. I want to put it on my desk. I want to look at it all the time.

00:02:34   So thank you very much, Ellen, for that. We also have a listener project.

00:02:39   If you go to apple.com/iPadOS/iPadOSreview

00:02:44   and you scroll down to the all new widgets section,

00:02:49   it says find my contacts, Game Center, App Store, and Mail

00:02:52   all have new widgets.

00:02:54   And many widgets now come in the new larger size.

00:02:57   And if you look at the Game Center widget

00:03:00   in the bottom right, tell me that's not Federica Vittucci.

00:03:03   - It looks a lot like Federica.

00:03:07   There's a, there's also like a, like a, like a Rome reference in there because it says

00:03:14   like that person is playing Dead Cells, which I mean, obviously it's a fantastic game that

00:03:20   I love, but it also says as the username Ines of March and it's the way that it's spelled,

00:03:28   like it, it's a pun on the Ides of March, obviously when Julius Caesar was murdered.

00:03:35   So I don't know, somebody showed us this photo on Twitter, I don't think it's, I think that's

00:03:43   just like the stereotypical Italian guy, if I were to guess.

00:03:48   It's a me!

00:03:49   You know, with the mustache and the long hair and...

00:03:53   Fred the Rico!

00:03:56   You know, but fun reference for sure, like the the Ides of March, that is pretty fun.

00:04:03   What was the other thing that you showed up in? It was a CarPlay thing.

00:04:07   It was in a car. But we know that was him because the person who made it contacted us

00:04:12   and said that.

00:04:13   Yes, and it was his name. The CarPlay notification came down and said...

00:04:18   Oh, on the BMW website? No, it was not BMW.

00:04:21   It was Cadillac or something.

00:04:22   I think it was Cadillac.

00:04:23   Cadillac, yes, yes. And the person who made it was a connected listener, I believe. That

00:04:28   was years ago.

00:04:29   Because it was like a text message from you in CarPlay.

00:04:32   So like your name, your name came up.

00:04:35   So two very good listener projects this week, thank you all.

00:04:39   Also we're just saying that it's a listener project, okay, sure.

00:04:43   There's no other alternative in my mind.

00:04:45   Myke, tell us about this feature in photos and this topic we spoke about several weeks

00:04:50   ago.

00:04:51   Yeah, I think it was episode 340 something, where we had like a...

00:04:59   It was the last time that we did the Jeremy's episode.

00:05:03   It was 340, right?

00:05:07   Where we had a long conversation focused around Lauren Goode's article about memories in photos

00:05:15   and the way that our devices love to remind us of things now.

00:05:18   And we wanted more control over what our devices and the Photos app and widgets and stuff would

00:05:25   show.

00:05:26   And it seems like I thought that Apple were going to talk about this in the keynote, but

00:05:29   they didn't and then I was disappointed because I thought that they hadn't added it.

00:05:33   But this is one of those many, many things that came out afterwards, which is that now

00:05:38   you're able to tell photos if you want to see less of a specified date, place, holiday

00:05:43   or person in featured photos, the widget or memories.

00:05:47   And the way you do this is just, you know, you when you see something you don't like,

00:05:52   long press on it in the photos app and you can say see less and it will then give you

00:05:56   some options.

00:05:57   Like so you can tap it and it will say like see less of this person, see less of this

00:06:02   date, etc etc.

00:06:04   I've only personally came across this with people.

00:06:10   I haven't come across this myself with date and place and stuff like that.

00:06:16   But it looks like it is in or will be in iOS 15.

00:06:20   I just think is really great. As we said, I think it is a responsibility thing from

00:06:24   these platforms. If they're going to use our information, our data, our memories,

00:06:30   like weaponize our memories to try and make us feel better about the devices,

00:06:35   then we should also have some control over the stuff that we don't want to see.

00:06:39   When the news first broke that it was in there, what was initially reported is you

00:06:43   could just tell it to do it less. I was like, well that's halfway there. But yeah,

00:06:47   I'm glad they listened. I mean, yeah, it's weird

00:06:49   It starts with less and then you got once you do that you then get a bunch of options

00:06:54   Okay, it's worded strangely because it's like see this person less but then when you tap it brings you to another page

00:07:01   Okay, where it gives you more options, which I think is a kind of strange way to

00:07:06   Word it. Maybe it will change. I don't know but I think I tried it out by sending

00:07:12   I think I sent you a picture where I chose Stephen,

00:07:15   Celeste Stephen, and then changed my mind,

00:07:18   because who wouldn't want to see Stephen Hackett?

00:07:20   - So I tried this for a group photo

00:07:23   that I also pasted into Discord,

00:07:24   and when I go into the people selection screen,

00:07:27   I see Myke's face, I see John's face,

00:07:30   I see my face even though I'm, okay, I'm in the photo,

00:07:33   but for Stephen, it's just a gray box with no face.

00:07:38   - Sounds about right.

00:07:40   Well, did you delete him after he confessed to not having any album of you?

00:07:46   No, never. Never.

00:07:47   So, when I just added again, I go on to Steven, I say I don't want to see him. It says, "feature

00:07:52   this person less or never feature this person." And you can choose and confirm. This is after

00:07:57   you go into the see this person less. So, there's stuff there. I'm pleased that they're

00:08:01   adding features like this. I think this is really great.

00:08:04   Apple Music with lossless and spatial audio. I still have yet come up with... I think I wrote this down.

00:08:10   I don't know what to call this feature completely.

00:08:14   Oh, it's easy. No, it's easy.

00:08:16   Lassa. Lossless and spatial audio.

00:08:19   Okay. But also... I hate that.

00:08:22   Lassa?

00:08:23   Lassa? Like NASA?

00:08:24   I don't want to give it a nickname, right? Nicknames are bad.

00:08:27   Okay, Mykey.

00:08:28   Because it's also... the spatial audio thing is also Dolby Atmos.

00:08:32   Right, so it's like these things are so... all the words are complicated.

00:08:37   It's a lot of words.

00:08:38   But it started rolling out, it's now available.

00:08:41   We have a limited, more limited than I was expecting, library of stuff.

00:08:47   But I have noticed in the last couple of days, new things are being added,

00:08:52   new songs, new albums, that kind of stuff.

00:08:55   I had today found Abbey Road mixed in Dolby Atmos, which was really good.

00:09:02   Come Together by The Beatles, right?

00:09:03   It's everywhere by The Beatles.

00:09:04   It was just, that's a really, really great

00:09:06   special audio mix.

00:09:09   I absolutely adore this feature.

00:09:12   I love it.

00:09:13   I think it's fantastic.

00:09:14   I've been listening on my AirPods Pro

00:09:16   and I have been listening on my AirPods Max.

00:09:19   The first song that I tried out was

00:09:21   Blinding Lights by The Weeknd,

00:09:22   which was, I expected would be a song

00:09:25   that would be a good candidate,

00:09:27   and it was for me.

00:09:28   And it gave me that thing that we were talking about before

00:09:30   that was what I was looking for out of this is I could hear little parts of the music

00:09:34   that I didn't really hear before and that was what I was looking for because to me that

00:09:38   kind of denotes a special experience when it comes to listening to music this way. And

00:09:43   there's just more kind of separation like it feels like the instruments and the elements

00:09:48   of the music are kind of all around me they move around a little bit but not in a way

00:09:52   that I felt was really distracting. It's kind of like it feels like you know when we have

00:09:59   a very good stereo mix you can hear some separation and some of the stuff that's going on you

00:10:04   know like sometimes you're doing some music and something just happens in your left ear

00:10:08   right it's kind of like that on steroids like i don't find it distracting but what i notice

00:10:14   is that i feel like they should say on stereo stereo that's what i should you know what

00:10:19   i should say that i'm sorry i'm turning into steven and i hate it i'm sorry i heard i heard

00:10:24   what you said on App Stories. Oh no you did? Yeah about the Mac being a catalyst for change

00:10:31   and shortcuts. So proud of you. So sorry. I think it makes a lot of sense now that I've

00:10:41   listened to this why Apple's just enabling this because I don't think that it is this

00:10:46   why like so this it's not as as distracting I think as when with video where it sounds

00:10:53   like it's happening in a certain place, right?

00:10:56   Because with spatial audio, when you're watching something

00:10:59   on your iPad, like a video on your iPad,

00:11:01   it feels like the audio is just coming from wherever

00:11:04   the iPad's located.

00:11:05   And this isn't like that.

00:11:07   It still feels like it's just music

00:11:09   you're listening to as normal.

00:11:11   Now, with iOS 15, if you are looking at a device,

00:11:14   it does actually do a little bit of this.

00:11:16   I was playing around with my iPad.

00:11:18   If you have the iPad open on the Music app,

00:11:20   it does have a little bit more panning,

00:11:22   where you move your head left or right and it seems like the music is still coming from

00:11:25   a central place. But if you lock the iPad that actually fades away which I thought was

00:11:29   quite interesting. So they're kind of mixing that around. I don't know what it's going

00:11:34   to be like in 15. Some songs sound better than others. It feels like more modern stuff

00:11:39   is better and I guess that that might be the difference between recording with this in

00:11:43   mind rather than just mixing something after the fact. I really love it. The vocals are

00:11:50   interesting in some songs like I found like vocals to be quieter but then the

00:11:55   song overall feels like it has a lot more depth something that I recommend

00:11:59   people try doing you know you can be listening to one of these songs with

00:12:04   with spatial audio and if you go into control center and hold down on the

00:12:08   volume you can turn off spatial audio and then you can hear the difference

00:12:14   right and how the song is presented and it really does sound very different so I

00:12:18   I really love this feature. I want all of the music that I love to be available to me in Dolby Atmos now.

00:12:25   I think it's absolutely fantastic. I'm super excited about it.

00:12:28   I genuinely like it. It gave me everything I wanted and more.

00:12:31   I think this is an absolutely fantastic feature and they nailed it with this.

00:12:35   I'm a little more torn on it. So I'm gonna say I think it's a fun feature.

00:12:42   And I think if done well, it definitely makes for a good demo for all kinds of people going

00:12:50   beyond audio files.

00:12:52   It's the kind of thing that a lot of people can easily understand, which is great.

00:12:58   And I think surround sound for music, if done well, can be amazing.

00:13:04   So some first impressions that I have on spatial audio, I think when it's applied judiciously,

00:13:13   I guess, to songs, it can be a great effect.

00:13:19   And it's fun, and you get this bigger soundstage, you get this instrument separation that you

00:13:26   mentioned, and you can hear these details, not just left and right, but sort of like

00:13:34   more a 360 type deal, which is like it can be back and to the left, or you know, you can feel it,

00:13:42   you know, forward and, you know, up and to the right. Like, you can... This precise positioning

00:13:49   that you can get, definitely fun sometimes. Other times, the mixes are built all over the place.

00:13:57   There's a couple of stories that were published today, one on the verge by Chris Welch and another

00:14:03   by Matt Burchler on Birch Tree that I would like to link in the show notes. I think I feel like some

00:14:13   tracks, I don't know if it's because like those were old songs that were not recorded with Dolby

00:14:19   Atmos in mind, but just mixed in Atmos. Maybe that's the issue, but I feel like I'm listening

00:14:29   into those songs and I remembered the originals well, and I'm like, "What happened here?"

00:14:34   Right? So you listen to "What's My Age Again" by Blink-182, and the vocals are completely

00:14:40   muffled. And the instruments are super loud, and just the vocals, they sound like they're

00:14:47   coming from a doorbell microphone or something. And I'm like, "Have you recorded this with

00:14:53   voice memos on your iPhone, or like, it sounds totally different. You listen to "Gotta Have

00:15:00   It" by Kanye West and Jay-Z, and the instruments are super loud and the vocals basically disappear.

00:15:09   But then you listen to "Black Skinhead" also by Kanye West.

00:15:13   Oh my god, it's so good.

00:15:15   So that's where I think it's polarizing, right? Because some people, like, you remember the

00:15:19   original and you listen to the utmost mix and you're like okay this is very

00:15:23   different in places but it's fun like if you're not a purists of that I'm happy

00:15:31   you said that because I was gonna say this I think I think it's very clear

00:15:34   interested in our previous conversations you are much more of a music purist than

00:15:38   me right and I think I'm way more forgiving of like this doesn't seem like

00:15:45   the original, right? Right. And in Black Skinhead, there's some very specific background screams

00:15:53   in the songs, like the "ahh" the thing that you hear in the background. And in the original

00:15:58   song, yes, "ahh!" Like that.

00:16:03   [Music]

00:16:05   I mean, you put on Black Skin and it's totally like that. But in the Atmos mix, you can...

00:16:17   like they were very specifically panned to the left and to the right and then to the

00:16:21   back, right? And you can totally hear what they've done with the Atmos version. In the

00:16:27   original version, they are in a stereo mix, obviously, and you can hear where the... in

00:16:34   the stereo mix they are, it's just not that strong, not that obvious, right? Which brings

00:16:41   me to sort of my bigger point here. I feel like if you are the kind of person who can

00:16:49   listen to music with, you know, with good equipment, this bigger soundstage and this,

00:16:55   know, polished separation between different instruments. Like, I can hear the guitar,

00:17:00   and I can hear the drums, and I can hear, you know, maybe there's a sax line somewhere.

00:17:06   Like that you can already get with good headphones, right? And so for these tests, I just sat

00:17:14   down and I listened to the utmost mix of the same song, and, you know, the song on my Walkman

00:17:20   that I own in lossless format with my Sony headphones.

00:17:24   With my Sony headphones, unlike listening with AirPods Pro

00:17:28   or regular AirPods, I can hear the bigger soundstage.

00:17:32   I can hear that the song is more open,

00:17:37   for lack of a better word,

00:17:38   and I can hear the instruments more clearly.

00:17:40   Like that I already get by default with my headphones.

00:17:44   With the Atmos as a software feature,

00:17:48   as a software enhancement on top of a song,

00:17:53   it accentuates some aspects.

00:17:56   And sometimes it's really fun,

00:17:58   and it's really easy to understand.

00:18:00   And if you have an utmost setup,

00:18:01   whether it's AirPods Max or good Bluetooth headphones,

00:18:05   or maybe you have a surround system at home,

00:18:07   it's very easy to demo, it's very easy to explain.

00:18:10   And if done well,

00:18:11   I think it can be the future of streaming.

00:18:14   It can be a differentiating factor

00:18:17   for a service like Apple Music.

00:18:19   The problem is when it's not done well.

00:18:22   And there's a lot of examples in Apple Music of,

00:18:25   you know, you listen to the utmost mixing,

00:18:27   like what happened here?

00:18:29   Like, what's my age again?

00:18:30   Buddy Holly by the Weezer.

00:18:33   Gotta Have It by Jizzy and Connie.

00:18:34   It was like, what's going on here?

00:18:37   It sounds weird if you know the original.

00:18:40   And even if you don't know the original,

00:18:42   I don't know, the volume levels

00:18:44   are a bit all over the place.

00:18:45   I actually think what they've done with this whole suite of stuff, and you know, again,

00:18:51   which makes it so difficult to name, is they gave lossless to you, they gave spatial audio

00:18:56   to me.

00:18:57   The type of person who is more inclined to notice the things that you are noticing, you

00:19:02   have lossless now in Apple Music.

00:19:06   And then me, I don't notice those things so much, so I get Dolby Atmos, right?

00:19:11   And so like that's, it's like this is actually a great twofer because the other thing is

00:19:16   like you know what like as you're saying it's way better if you have all the stuff that

00:19:21   you have.

00:19:22   I don't have all of that stuff nor do I want it.

00:19:24   So but my $250 earbuds does a great job with Dolby Atmos and it sounds to me fantastic.

00:19:32   Right.

00:19:33   So and I agree with you right there are some that are better than others.

00:19:37   Like I didn't have the experience that you had of like this sounds bad but I had some

00:19:40   where I was like I actually couldn't even tell like for this one you know like

00:19:44   I don't remember which songs they were but like I'll play them and be like that

00:19:48   didn't feel like anything like it didn't feel any different to what I would

00:19:51   consider just a good stereo mix to be right so it's gonna be a learning curve

00:19:55   and new music is going to be better I am I think this sounds fantastic and I'm

00:20:02   excited to see where it goes but then as you have you tried the lossless stuff by

00:20:06   the way? Yeah, I did last night. I sat down with my new external DAC and it works

00:20:13   beautifully in Hi-ROS Los Angeles. I can see the bitrate on my

00:20:18   DAC's display and it totally works and it sounds great. How were the mids?

00:20:23   Were they crunchy? The mids were crunchy and the bass was

00:20:28   thick and warm. Treble? Treble was crisp, I can tell you that. Oh, that's

00:20:34   That's good, I mean, if it's not Chris, what's the point?

00:20:37   What is the point? It's a whole recipe over here.

00:20:38   (laughing)

00:20:40   And here's my final point.

00:20:41   I think I'm gonna, I am going to keep this enabled,

00:20:44   and I think I'm going to, I want to believe

00:20:47   that this is not gonna be like a gimmick

00:20:49   that lasts for three months,

00:20:51   and then we all forget about it.

00:20:53   Apple seems to be pretty much behind this initiative, right?

00:20:57   In terms of, you know, convincing producers and studios

00:21:01   to release mixes in Atmos.

00:21:04   And I think it can be an important exclusive feature

00:21:09   for Apple Music.

00:21:10   That is, unless Spotify comes in and strikes a deal with Dolby,

00:21:14   and they're like, OK, now we also have Dolby Atmos.

00:21:17   But I wonder if this convincing that Apple

00:21:22   is doing with record labels and studios,

00:21:25   will there be some exclusivity involved in that?

00:21:29   Like if Apple helps you set up a studio with Dolby Atmos support.

00:21:34   Oh, of course. I mean, yeah. If they're kind of throwing some weight in it.

00:21:38   Right.

00:21:38   And I think that this is important for them because they don't really have,

00:21:43   Apple doesn't have a feature of Apple Music that makes it compelling over Spotify.

00:21:50   Exactly. Exactly.

00:21:51   Right? So where Spotify has loads, like just that new campaign they're doing.

00:21:55   What is it? It's like Only You? Is that what it's called?

00:21:57   Only You. Yeah.

00:21:58   And it's just fantastic.

00:21:59   They have a great ad for it that I saw on TV.

00:22:02   And then Adina uses Spotify, and we went through hers

00:22:06   last night, and we thought it was hilarious,

00:22:08   like the things that they're surfacing.

00:22:10   They just really understand.

00:22:11   They are a data company.

00:22:13   As much as they are a music company,

00:22:14   they understand how to take information

00:22:16   and present it to you in interesting ways, right?

00:22:18   Apple has failed to do this tragically so far.

00:22:22   - Right.

00:22:23   - With their pre-wanted.

00:22:24   - They're not really--

00:22:25   - They're not doing it.

00:22:26   And they're not really changing anything in iOS 15, like they're not really doing anything,

00:22:30   at least right now with the intelligence-based stuff or mixes or...

00:22:35   But this could be something, right? Like Dolby Atmos stuff could be something, and also,

00:22:41   well, the lossless stuff is great because it's just included for free where everybody

00:22:44   else is going to make you pay a little bit more.

00:22:47   Yeah.

00:22:48   So, we'll see.

00:22:49   And to sum up, I think, like, I don't... Maybe I give you the impression that I'm totally,

00:22:54   know, saying "Atmos sucks." I think when it's done well, it's incredible. It's really well

00:23:00   done. It's fun, and I love it when it's done well. I heard a few examples of Atmos Mix

00:23:08   is not done well, but I want to listen more. Like, I really, I listen for like an hour

00:23:14   to a bunch of songs. Like, I want to actually sit down when this week is over and listen

00:23:18   into more tracks, but this could be... I could see myself switching back to Apple Music eventually,

00:23:26   if the Atmos experience lives up to the hype, and because of the things that I, like I said

00:23:32   months ago, that I'm continuing to miss from Apple Music, like seeing what my friends are

00:23:37   listening to, and real-time lyrics, which Spotify said, "Oh, those are coming eventually,

00:23:42   but they're not really coming." So I don't know. I think for me specifically, if this

00:23:47   this Atmos thing grows well, there are now a group of features that I find compelling

00:23:54   compared to Spotify, right? Hi, Roslosa, my friends social networking there, real-time

00:24:01   lyrics, and Dolby Atmos. So maybe it's, you know, I could see in a couple of months maybe

00:24:09   saying "You know what? I'm actually going back to Apple Music." But I feel like I have

00:24:14   a much more complete picture of what Apple Music is compared to Spotify, so I'm still

00:24:22   going to call the experiment a success if I decide to switch back. I don't know. I want

00:24:26   to see what happens with this special audio thing.

00:24:29   Alright, we're going to get to WWDC. We have scored ourselves. We're going to see if there's

00:24:37   a new winner, a new keynote chairman named. But first, we're going to take our first break.

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00:26:17   I've been using it a lot. I went in there, told it, gave a bunch of information about myself,

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00:26:57   for free and to get 25% off a membership. Our thanks to Fitbod for their support

00:27:02   of connected and relay FM. Stephen, our listeners, the passionate ones, I know what they want

00:27:09   more than anything. It's for you to read the rules. That's what we're going to do. It's

00:27:15   time to read those bill of rickies, my friend. Come on, let's do it. Everybody, please stand

00:27:19   if you're able. Oh, yeah, we're going. I'm too tired. Please don't stand. I'm standing

00:27:24   in spirit. The bill of rickies last amended on January 13, 2021. Past results can be seen

00:27:32   at rickys.co and rickys.net.

00:27:35   There are two types of Rickys, annual Rickys

00:27:37   and keynote Rickys.

00:27:39   The winner of the annual Rickys is named annual chairman

00:27:42   and retains the rights to the corresponding Twitter account

00:27:45   for the full year.

00:27:46   This position is awarded every January.

00:27:49   The keynote Rickys winner is named the keynote chairman

00:27:52   and retains the rights to the corresponding Twitter account

00:27:54   until the next keynote is held.

00:27:56   Annual winners roll over to preserve the order of picks.

00:27:59   For example, the 2019 annual winner got to go first for the next annual picks.

00:28:05   Order for the keynote rookies is based on the previous Apple event.

00:28:09   The loser, well they go last.

00:28:12   Turn any points everything written down in the prediction document must come true.

00:28:21   No half points may be awarded in any round and picks cannot be reused.

00:28:26   One point is awarded for any pick deemed correct in the first two rounds.

00:28:30   Two points will be awarded for correct picks in the risky pick round.

00:28:34   If your risky pick is wrong, you lose a point.

00:28:38   And the two other hosts must agree that your pick is risky.

00:28:42   For keynote rookies, the scoring window starts when the event begins

00:28:46   and closes when the picks are scored.

00:28:48   Now!

00:28:49   Right now.

00:28:50   The winner of the regular and risky picks must be granted access

00:28:55   to the annual or event chairman twitter account and will retain access until another winner

00:29:01   is named.

00:29:03   The Flexis.

00:29:06   Loser of the flexis must compensate the winner of the flexis by donating to the charity of

00:29:11   the winner's choice.

00:29:12   The amount of the donation is $25 per wrong flexi made by the loser.

00:29:18   In case of a tie, the ratio of the correct to incorrect flexis will be taken into account.

00:29:24   Each host must make a minimum of five FlexiPics.

00:29:28   Flexis may be reused as future Flexis or regular Pics,

00:29:33   and the money must be donated on air.

00:29:36   As a reminder, Myke is the current annual chairman

00:29:38   and Federico is the current keynote chairman.

00:29:41   That second Twitter account is on the line.

00:29:44   - Okay, so there may be an amendment needed

00:29:49   to the bill of re-keys.

00:29:51   - Oh.

00:29:53   So Jason, not that Jason, another one, who makes the

00:29:58   Wikipedia, rikis.net, wrote a very good article called

00:30:02   "Thoughts on Flexis," which is a riff on "Thoughts on Flash."

00:30:07   Wait, really?

00:30:08   Yeah, it's fantastic.

00:30:10   It will be in the show notes.

00:30:11   Everyone should go and read it.

00:30:12   It's hilarious and wonderfully detailed.

00:30:14   But the crux of it is basically coming down

00:30:18   to this idea of percentages, ratios of right to wrong, and the number of picks. Because

00:30:26   we have it in the flexies. In the case of a tie, the ratio of correct to incorrect flexies

00:30:31   will be taken into account, right? This makes the most sense if we're all picking the same

00:30:35   amount. Now that Federico's decided he wants to pick a thousand flexies every time, the

00:30:41   - I didn't say every time, but it's possible.

00:30:43   But you see, if we now have opened the door to this, basically, one of us could just pick

00:30:52   50 and you've only got to get six correct to win.

00:30:56   So I would like to propose an amendment to the Bill of Rickeys in regards to the flexis

00:31:03   that just removes the case of a tie and say the way that we score the flexis is the ratio

00:31:10   of correct to incorrect flexes and that's just the way it's scored so you have to be right.

00:31:17   Oh you lost me a while back. Okay so instead of like because the way we would score it right now

00:31:24   is you have 10, I have six, Steven has five or whatever right? Right. I think now we should be

00:31:31   scored on our percentages of right to wrong rather than who has the most correct. Isn't that already

00:31:40   Isn't that already in the rules? Well, so this is the thing. In our minds, we already we all think

00:31:45   this. This is this is where this has come from. This is why this came up because we have all just

00:31:50   been talking about the fact that that's just how it scored. But the flexi, the bill of rikki states

00:31:55   that that only comes into contention in case of a tie. Ah, I see. Matt, who is a mod in the discord,

00:32:03   gave the same feedback and I do think it's a problem that Federico has shown

00:32:09   in the system and yeah I second the amendment I think it should be a

00:32:13   percentage and I guess if the person so it's possible that say that Federico

00:32:22   picks 10 mm-hmm and gets eight correct that's 80% but then I pick 20 but I also

00:32:31   get 80% correctly we can still in a tie and then I think at that point it's

00:32:36   just a coin flip like the regular picks are. We love a coin flip. Okay. Oh oh by

00:32:41   the way, hey everyone can sit down sorry we finished reading the rules you can

00:32:44   sit down for this. A long time ago. So I just want to state for the record

00:32:48   because Jason who created Wikipedia is in the discord and is unhappy because

00:32:52   this isn't what he wanted. He wanted it to be a different way but this is what I

00:32:57   think makes the most sense because in our minds this is how we've been

00:33:00   thinking about this for a little while anyway that it's actually your ratio is

00:33:04   the important part yeah yeah so really it's so Jason Snell the bad person says

00:33:09   minimum five picks the percentage wins yes yeah I think so okay so let's look

00:33:15   at the language here and in case of a tie in case of a tie in case of a

00:33:19   percentage tie right right and actually we don't have the coin flip anywhere in

00:33:24   the bill of Ricky's that has just been something we've been doing so we need to

00:33:28   address that too but let's fix this we're doing a big amendment big amendment

00:33:33   big amendment be this is a thick amendment I'm going to strike the

00:33:41   languages says in the case of a tie the ratio of incorrect incorrect flexes

00:33:45   taking to account so get rid of that yeah for now get rid of each host was

00:33:49   like a minimum of five flexes mm-hmm flexes may be used as future flexes or

00:33:55   regular picks the winner is determined by ratio of correct to

00:34:07   incorrect picks. Correct to incorrect. Okay so the winner is determined by the

00:34:14   ratio of correct to incorrect flexes. Mm-hmm. Then I'm gonna have at the bottom

00:34:21   outside of the flexi section a new paragraph that says a tie in either the

00:34:27   regular picks or the flexis is to be broken by a coin toss can we make a

00:34:36   second amendment or the flexis is never have Jason flip the coin by by coin toss

00:34:43   Jason Snell has a lifetime ban on flipping the coin.

00:34:51   You should also say digital assistants may be used to flip a coin.

00:34:59   Okay, so Jason Snell has a lifetime ban on flipping the coin, but digital voice assistants

00:35:05   – if robots happen, we'll need to readdress this – digital voice assistants may be used.

00:35:12   used in brackets even by Jason Jason Jason's capable of asking Siri he's not

00:35:21   capable of flipping a physical claim by Jason okay all right okay I know that

00:35:27   people want us not to like that people in the discord already are asking about

00:35:32   like the the way that the tiebreaker should be broken is by how many you got

00:35:36   correct we just like coin flips I like a coin flip it's additional drama it's

00:35:41   always and it's simple coin flips are simple but we're already having to do a

00:35:44   lot more math than we needed to I didn't think we're gonna be making such huge

00:35:48   changes to the bullet rookies today I didn't either so let me read it all

00:35:53   again loser of the flexes must compensate the winner of the flexes by

00:35:56   donating to the charity of the winners choice okay the amount of the donation

00:36:00   is 25 per one flexing made by the loser each host must make a minimum of five

00:36:04   flexi picks flexes may be reused as future flexes or regular picks the

00:36:08   winner is determined by the ratio of correct to incorrect flexes. The money

00:36:13   must be donated on air. A tie in either the regular picks or the flexes is to be

00:36:17   broken by coin toss. Jason Snell has a lifetime ban on flipping the coin, but

00:36:23   digital voices instance may be used even by Jason. This is lovely. I will just say

00:36:30   none of this applies for today. Right, today we're playing under the old rules.

00:36:33   So this is for the next one.

00:36:35   Okay.

00:36:36   Okay.

00:36:37   Living document.

00:36:38   What are we calling this? How do we label amendments?

00:36:43   Oh, I hadn't thought of that.

00:36:45   Well, we just changed the text. And so I would say that if you run one of those websites,

00:36:49   it's kind of up to you how you display it.

00:36:50   But for guidance for third-party publishers, right? What's our guidelines?

00:36:56   The Bill of Rickeys, parenthetical, June 2021. Just like Apple does.

00:37:01   Yeah. Okay. Perfect.

00:37:03   OK. But we're playing in the old January 2021 rules today.

00:37:07   So, round one.

00:37:10   The order this time was Federico and then Myke and then me.

00:37:14   So Federico, you're up first.

00:37:16   Let's do it. In the next version of iPadOS,

00:37:20   you can put widgets in more places out of the left column.

00:37:24   That's a point. We got it. Widgets on the home screen.

00:37:28   It's good too.

00:37:29   Yeah, it's...

00:37:31   You can place them anywhere and you can mix in app icons.

00:37:35   There's a new extra large widget.

00:37:38   It's nice.

00:37:39   And I'm rethinking my home screen now.

00:37:41   - No names underneath the widgets on the iPad.

00:37:43   - No labels on iPad.

00:37:45   Why?

00:37:48   Like I have to believe that the label,

00:37:50   I think the label on iPhone is like a leftover

00:37:53   from a previous build.

00:37:54   I think they're gonna get rid of it.

00:37:56   So it's either a bug on iPad or it's a bug on iPhone.

00:37:59   - Yeah, it's gonna change somewhere, right?

00:38:01   - It's gonna change somewhere.

00:38:02   And I hope it changes on the iPhone

00:38:04   because I very much prefer the iPad look.

00:38:07   - I have the Bay Area on my 12.9 inch iPad Pro

00:38:10   and my iPad mini.

00:38:11   I just wanted to put it on the iPad mini.

00:38:14   Widgets look hilarious on the iPad mini.

00:38:16   They do, they're so small and they collide of each other

00:38:19   in like weird and wonderful ways.

00:38:21   The UI, especially on the shortcuts widget

00:38:24   on the iPad mini is hilarious.

00:38:27   It's really funny.

00:38:29   I really like it, though.

00:38:31   I don't like what happens when you go from portrait

00:38:33   to landscape.

00:38:35   They move.

00:38:37   They swap around.

00:38:38   And I really hoped that we were outside of that world, right?

00:38:41   When app icons used to swap around,

00:38:43   used to move place in portrait and landscape.

00:38:45   And we're back to that again.

00:38:46   And I really don't like that.

00:38:49   Yeah, that's the trade-off for bringing widgets

00:38:52   to the iPad home screen, right?

00:38:55   You've got to deal with rotation.

00:38:56   And in the process of doing this, Apple also got rid of an entire row of icons on the 12.9-inch

00:39:02   iPad Pro.

00:39:03   So it used to be a 6x5 grid, now it's a 6x4.

00:39:06   I guess because it's more easily divisible by the slots, the different slots of the widgets,

00:39:14   which I get it, the technicality of it, it makes sense.

00:39:18   It still kind of sucks that I'm losing a row of icons.

00:39:21   Yeah, I think they've added enough stuff that it doesn't matter so much for me now, right?

00:39:26   you can put more apps in the dock and you have App Library and so I'm kind of like I

00:39:31   don't care about losing the space because as well I was losing space for icons anyway

00:39:36   because I've put in widgets all over the place.

00:39:40   Are you going to use the App Library on iPad?

00:39:42   Oh I am and I think it's fantastic.

00:39:46   I don't like the swipe.

00:39:49   I like it in the dock.

00:39:51   The animation, currently the animation for the App Library when you swipe to the right

00:39:56   is...

00:39:57   Oh it's very nice.

00:39:58   I don't know it's too much for me.

00:39:59   It's a lot of animation.

00:40:00   Too much?

00:40:01   It's a lot of animation.

00:40:03   Remember if you remember I am an App Library user on the iPhone so using an a happy one

00:40:08   so using the App Library and the iPad is great for me.

00:40:12   I'm pleased about that.

00:40:16   What's your problem?

00:40:17   Well we have something to talk about my pick.

00:40:20   it was 15. Whoa hang on a minute, we haven't even done mine! Chill, chill Stephen. Sorry you were talking and I got

00:40:27   distracted. You weren't listening were you? You checked out, Stephen was doing

00:40:30   something else. Unbelievable. I was editing the beginning of the show. These already come back to the beginning.

00:40:36   That's some real multitasking. Live in the left ear, logic in the right ear, incredible.

00:40:43   My pick was no preview of AR, VR or mixed reality focused hardware. I mean this was

00:40:51   obvious to me. I had a cash bet with James Thompson about this very thing and

00:40:57   he now owes me cash money. I don't know why people thought this was gonna happen.

00:41:02   Like it was too early and as well like I just saw a report I think from Ming-Chi

00:41:07   quote saying Q2 2022 for this hardware like yeah of course it was like oh it's

00:41:15   a developer conference they're obviously gonna show it off now like no it wasn't

00:41:18   gonna happen and we did nothing to be honest I was actually kind of surprised

00:41:23   how little AR stuff they had in the bdbs in the keynote yeah is them is there

00:41:29   more that I've missed I haven't looked into any of the AR sessions there's some

00:41:33   ARKit sessions, but I don't even think they revised the ARKit version number.

00:41:38   I don't think.

00:41:39   I mean, there's stuff in Maps, and there's the thing where you can capture...

00:41:44   They have that object scanning thing.

00:41:45   Didn't they do ARKit 5?

00:41:46   I think they did ARKit 5.

00:41:47   Oh, yeah, because ARKit 5.

00:41:48   I'm sorry, chat room.

00:41:51   And there's a new RealityKit, but yeah, it doesn't seem like it got a lot of attention.

00:41:55   I'm sure James Thompson will take advantage of whatever they've done, though.

00:41:58   No, it was more of a...

00:41:59   I don't know, the entire theme of the conference.

00:42:02   Like in previous years, we got the big focus on AR

00:42:05   and all these different technologies.

00:42:07   This year, it was really like the pandemic update,

00:42:11   even more so than last year,

00:42:13   which I mentioned this on App Stories,

00:42:16   and I know that I think Jason wrote about it.

00:42:18   I don't know, I feel kind of,

00:42:21   some features, they feel kind of late at this point, right?

00:42:26   because just now that we're getting, thankfully, vaccinated and we can start hanging out again,

00:42:33   now Apple is saying, "But look, come September, you can watch movies and TV shows with your friends."

00:42:38   And I mean, that is a fantastic FaceTime feature, but I also hope I'm not gonna be in a position to

00:42:45   having to do that ever again, you know?

00:42:49   Wait, you don't want to watch a movie with me?

00:42:50   Have we ever watched a movie before the pandemic, Steven, on FaceTime?

00:42:55   During did you watch a movie together during the pandemic? No, no, I want to watch Star Wars with you

00:43:01   I feel this too. There's a bunch of stuff all the share play stuff

00:43:04   So much of the FaceTime stuff it has all been made with the pandemic in mind

00:43:11   Yeah, all of these features can be used post-pandemic, right? Sure. It'll be nice to have

00:43:16   We're not going to need them as much

00:43:19   Yeah, but you know, I mean we all have friends and family who you know, don't live near us

00:43:25   Right, like literally the three of us

00:43:28   Exactly. Like I am fully aware that

00:43:31   All my friends are here

00:43:33   like in isolation

00:43:35   I have no friends elsewhere, no problem for me

00:43:38   In isolation these features are like these features are terrific and the way they are done

00:43:45   Technically speaking, I think it's really clever.

00:43:47   They're really well done.

00:43:49   But it's the feature after feature at WWDC.

00:43:53   There was like, now that we cannot spend time--

00:43:57   yeah, I get it.

00:43:59   But we're all--

00:43:59   Yeah, yeah.

00:44:00   By September, we're now on the news here in Italy.

00:44:05   We're talking about reopening everything.

00:44:06   And we're going to be done with the vaccines, hopefully.

00:44:10   It's just the timing seems a little odd.

00:44:12   That's all.

00:44:13   Yeah.

00:44:14   some stuff is going to stick around, right?

00:44:16   Like some things people will have made new traditions

00:44:20   over the last year and a half

00:44:21   that will stick around for a while.

00:44:23   But like the desperation for these features,

00:44:27   that time has passed, right?

00:44:29   So much of this stuff,

00:44:30   like if FaceTime would have had all of these features,

00:44:33   Zoom probably wouldn't be as dominant as it is, right?

00:44:38   Because anyone that owns Apple devices

00:44:41   would have used these features

00:44:42   and it would have maybe spread a bit more.

00:44:43   Zoom I'm sure would have had a great time, but not been so dominant to the point that

00:44:47   we're now recording this show on Zoom.

00:44:50   Right?

00:44:51   Like, I don't think that would have happened.

00:44:53   I'm intrigued to see if we will actually move to FaceTime because we're only on Zoom because

00:44:58   Skype doesn't work on M1 Max so maybe we could try FaceTime again, who knows?

00:45:03   Well Skype Core Recorder doesn't work on M1 Max.

00:45:06   And so yeah, it was interesting to see all of that stuff and realize that we don't have

00:45:12   any of these features today really and it's still another three months maybe more for

00:45:17   some of them right because a lot of this stuff is in areas that Apple have struggled to make

00:45:23   the September date like a lot of FaceTime stuff. Some of these are going to get delayed.

00:45:27   Yeah. No way all this stuff is going to be done right. I think especially the FaceTime

00:45:33   features because there's so many there's so much more going on here like Apple has to

00:45:38   build out a reliable web-based solution for this, which seems, you know, isn't the typical

00:45:44   stuff that they do. It's a very new area for them, so we'll see.

00:45:49   There's a bigger question here that I just want to leave out there, like what does it

00:45:53   say about Apple as a company that this kind of feature needed to, you know, depend on

00:46:00   the monolithic software update to come out the next year?

00:46:04   Like, is there a timeline in which Apple

00:46:09   as a slightly different company

00:46:11   could have been able to say, you know what,

00:46:12   we're gonna prioritize all these major changes

00:46:15   to FaceTime in 14.5 or 14.3, you know,

00:46:19   instead of waiting for September 2021.

00:46:22   But it's a fun argument to think about.

00:46:25   Steven, now it's your turn.

00:46:29   iPadOS 15 brings organization changes to the home screen that don't exist on the iPhone,

00:46:34   including iOS 15.

00:46:36   What a surprise you didn't get this one.

00:46:38   But here's the thing.

00:46:40   I need to read the rest of it.

00:46:43   Note comma not in pic.

00:46:46   Widgets on home screen and app library don't count as they are on the iPhone already.

00:46:52   I really want to find any way to give you this point.

00:46:56   Yeah, there is a way.

00:46:57   library is different on the iPad it's in the dock and it's like the dock is not

00:47:03   the home screen no it's not an organization change yeah yeah it because

00:47:08   on the iPhone you swipe over and the app libraries all the way on the right and

00:47:13   on the iPad that is not there it is in or it is if you swipe over is is there

00:47:18   oh damn it yeah whatever an extremely thin case of if you were to argue about

00:47:26   about the widget labels and how they affect like custom home screens.

00:47:31   Yeah.

00:47:32   But...

00:47:33   Oh!

00:47:34   Also the new widget size.

00:47:36   Hmm?

00:47:37   Hmm?

00:47:38   But...

00:47:39   That's something that doesn't exist on the iPhone.

00:47:41   We don't have...

00:47:42   It's not an organization change.

00:47:44   Not in peak.

00:47:45   Widgets on home screen.

00:47:47   Don't count.

00:47:48   But we don't say anything about sizes or widgets?

00:47:50   But you don't say not...

00:47:53   You don't not say that.

00:47:55   I really appreciate you trying.

00:47:56   - It's almost like you're taking out on me

00:47:59   for something that somebody else did to you

00:48:00   on a different podcast.

00:48:01   - Well, you're involved in it.

00:48:02   Everyone's involved, this is a conspiracy.

00:48:05   - Hey, I was not, I was not.

00:48:07   - That's fair.

00:48:08   I appreciate, Steven, you're trying to get your point here.

00:48:12   Like you got to fight for your point.

00:48:14   Did you didn't get it?

00:48:15   - No, this is not--

00:48:16   - Sorry.

00:48:17   - It's okay.

00:48:18   - It's okay.

00:48:19   - That's okay.

00:48:19   - And if you remember, we tried to warn you

00:48:20   against this pick.

00:48:21   You can go back and listen.

00:48:23   - Oh yeah.

00:48:24   We really tried to warn you against the spec, but you know, you soldiered on.

00:48:31   So at the end of round one, Federico has one point, Myke has one point, and I have no points.

00:48:37   No points.

00:48:39   Round two, Federico.

00:48:41   Round two, WidgetKit, gains new interactivity features that allow you to perform actions

00:48:47   inside widgets without launching the associated app.

00:48:52   No, it did not happen.

00:48:54   And this was the--

00:48:55   Big surprise.

00:48:56   So I'm really-- beyond the fact that I'm

00:48:59   bummed for not getting the point,

00:49:00   but more broadly speaking, I'm really

00:49:03   surprised that we did not see a response from Apple

00:49:08   to all the widget enthusiasm from last year.

00:49:13   They literally did nothing on this front.

00:49:17   And again, I don't know what that says.

00:49:19   Is it because these features are planned a year in advance

00:49:23   and Apple cannot switch gears quickly?

00:49:27   But then again, I don't think it's true

00:49:28   when they wanted to with the,

00:49:31   I think of the exposure notifications, right?

00:49:32   - Oh, yeah, that can't be the case

00:49:33   because they weren't working on all these pandemic really,

00:49:36   it features two years ago

00:49:38   because you just would never have made

00:49:39   all of the things that they've made.

00:49:40   - So they just, maybe it's that SwiftUI or whatever

00:49:45   is not ready for that kind of feature yet.

00:49:48   It's really strange to me that, you know, beyond interactions, we didn't see anything for custom icons,

00:49:56   we didn't see anything for wallpapers, just nothing. And we were sure, oh, Apple is aware,

00:50:04   and they're gonna do a bunch of features all for customization because of widgets. No, completely ignored.

00:50:10   Yeah, I'm really surprised about this. It seemed like a foregone conclusion that they would do something,

00:50:16   right, to capitalize on the absolute incredible trend they found themselves on.

00:50:23   A trend so large that it forced Google to do something, right?

00:50:27   Right.

00:50:28   The next version of Android is based on this aesthetic theming stuff, right?

00:50:34   And Apple didn't do any of that and I am surprised about it.

00:50:37   And this is a lesson for future me.

00:50:42   never put all of your Ricky eggs in one basket,

00:50:46   in that case widgets, right?

00:50:48   And you guys try to warn me about this.

00:50:50   Like, you're gonna have all pigs be inspired by widgets,

00:50:55   right, be based on widgets.

00:50:57   And you sure you wanna do that?

00:50:58   And for the future, that's good advice.

00:51:02   Don't do that.

00:51:04   Try to spread out and have more diverse pigs.

00:51:07   So, yeah, I'm really surprised.

00:51:09   I don't know.

00:51:10   Could it be that... I mean I'm sure that some design purists at Apple, they must fundamentally

00:51:19   despise what people have been doing with their home screens, right?

00:51:22   Possibly. My feeling on this is SwiftUI is a big project. It isn't just widgets, right?

00:51:33   There's so much going on. They have a roadmap for what they will and won't allow us with

00:51:40   would be my expectation and they just didn't want to break from that because

00:51:44   it's it's too big of a thing to mess around with that would be my guess.

00:51:50   Shortcuts for the Mac. Felt good about this one and it's awesome. I'm so

00:51:58   excited for this it looks fantastic. I know Steven you wrote a thing on

00:52:02   Six Colors about this and Federico you just published an app stories about it

00:52:06   as well. I watched the session, the introducing shortcuts for Mac session, which is a really

00:52:14   good one. I can't believe how deep they're going with this.

00:52:20   Yeah, it's deep and open framework.

00:52:23   It really is.

00:52:24   Talked very clearly.

00:52:25   Yeah, it's really cool. And so apps that are just iOS apps, iPadOS apps running on M1 Macs,

00:52:33   if they've gone through the Mac catalyst chain and run on Intel Macs as well.

00:52:39   It's the same intense framework and so they can just plug into shortcuts.

00:52:44   And then on the Mac side you have two things happening.

00:52:47   They can import automator actions and Apple has rewritten all of their common automator

00:52:52   actions to deal with things like files and folders and servers, you know Mac like things,

00:52:57   some window management stuff from automators and added it to shortcuts.

00:53:03   And I'm sure Federico can chime in in a minute about how that has shown up on the iPad side

00:53:07   as well.

00:53:08   You also have the ability for regular AppKit apps.

00:53:13   So like Mail, or Tweetbot or Transmit, you know, regular Mac apps, traditional Mac apps,

00:53:21   they can adopt the same Intense API, even though they're not an iOS app, even though

00:53:27   they're not a Catalyst app.

00:53:29   And so your traditional Mac apps can also plug into shortcuts in the future, you know,

00:53:34   if developers adopt that and move over to it.

00:53:36   So they've really done a good job at embracing the different types of apps that run on the

00:53:41   Mac.

00:53:42   And you can run JavaScript for automation, or Apple script, or shell scripts within a

00:53:50   shortcut.

00:53:52   And so if you have a shortcut that is part regular, you know, sort of workflow, intense

00:53:58   but you need to bail out to AppleScript for something, you can do that.

00:54:02   And they have, seemingly from the sessions and the documentation, you know, Automator

00:54:09   will be slowly fading away, but I don't think there are any rush to do that.

00:54:16   Multi-year transition, they said, right?

00:54:18   So yeah, it is super cool.

00:54:21   And being able to have those legacy Mac automation tools within shortcuts is really cool.

00:54:29   I think a lot of people were afraid that shortcuts coming in would kill off those other things

00:54:34   or at least remove them from this new automation, these new automation tools, but that's not

00:54:40   the case.

00:54:41   Apple has embraced Mac automation in a new way and that is super exciting.

00:54:46   They really did like the best possible job I think.

00:54:48   I couldn't be more impressed.

00:54:51   I think you can access it from the menu bar and you can put them in the dock and stuff.

00:54:56   You can put them in Finder.

00:54:58   Remember Quick Action showed up in Mojave where you could have an Automator workflow

00:55:02   like show up anytime you had a JPEG in Finder, they drop in there.

00:55:08   It's really cool.

00:55:09   They've really done the work it seems to integrate this with what Mac users already expected

00:55:16   from automation.

00:55:18   And it's also benefited iPad in a big way too, right Federico?

00:55:24   And doing this has added a bunch of stuff, which has made the overall Shortcuts experience

00:55:30   better.

00:55:31   That really is my favorite part of this story.

00:55:36   And how in having to support Automator for that migration tool on the Mac, some of those

00:55:43   actions that Apple needed to recreate on the Mac for automator support, those are now available

00:55:48   on iOS and iPadOS as well. And so, thanks to the Mac, you could say that now we have

00:55:55   much better integration with the file system, with shortcuts on iOS and iPadOS. Now, in

00:56:01   shortcuts you can point the files actions to any folder, and you can pick any file and

00:56:08   And you can create automations for any location in either iCloud or local storage or compatible

00:56:13   file providers, right?

00:56:15   And so many of those actions, like dealing with PDF documents, one of the advantages

00:56:19   of Automator, it had real good support for PDF documents and images.

00:56:25   Well now those actions are also available on iOS and iPadOS.

00:56:29   So it's a new kind of halo effect, if you will, that all the work that Apple has done

00:56:34   for shortcuts on the Mac, now, you know, iOS and iPadOS users can take advantage of that

00:56:40   work as well. And so I'm really happy, like, if this is the consequence of Apple focusing

00:56:47   on the Mac for shortcuts this year, then great, because it also made the iOS and iPadOS app

00:56:54   much more powerful in the process. So yeah, it's...

00:56:57   And it's got a redesign too. Yeah, there's a new design for the editor.

00:57:02   So there's a new look for browsing actions in the Action Library, and all the actions

00:57:07   are now more compact.

00:57:11   The app icons have been integrated with the Action cell, and Apple got rid of the name

00:57:16   of the app inside the Action, so all the actions are a little shorter, and you can fit more

00:57:21   on screen at the same time.

00:57:24   And you can do things like folding, for example.

00:57:26   You can fold an entire block of actions, like a menu, or like an "if" block.

00:57:31   And so if you have something like MusicBot, which is like a thousand actions, and many

00:57:35   of them are contained inside blocks, you can fold them, and now scrolling along Shortcut

00:57:40   is much more convenient than before.

00:57:42   So all these, you know, these are power user additions, but it's exactly the kind of stuff

00:57:48   that Shortcut's power users wanted.

00:57:51   And so I'm just going to say that the Shortcuts team never disappoints, or very rarely disappoints,

00:57:57   I'm going to say.

00:57:58   And they've also added a bunch of things.

00:58:00   I don't know if this is part of needing to do the automated actions, but now being able

00:58:05   to open apps and control them in split views and slide over, it's amazing.

00:58:10   I've wanted this for so long and it opens up so many things that we've wanted.

00:58:14   Like we're always talking about, oh, we should have these fixed app pairs where you can do

00:58:17   that yourself now, right?

00:58:20   And I've been able to make some changes to some of my shortcuts already and it's doing

00:58:26   the exact thing that I've always wanted it to do.

00:58:28   Like I have one of the shortcuts that I use the most on my iPad is when I'm preparing

00:58:33   for one of my shows and I will say like show prep, it will give me a list, I tap it and

00:58:39   what it's always done in the past is sets a time-ary toggle timer and then opens Google

00:58:48   Docs to the correct Google Doc.

00:58:51   But what I always wanted to do and what I now have it do is it opens Google Docs on

00:58:55   the left it opens Safari on the right and then brings in notes from a slide

00:59:00   over and that's everything I need and I'm just so happy that they've done this

00:59:05   those little features are just they they're super awesome super awesome

00:59:09   no word on an Apple silicon Mac Pro fact no word on any hardware as we'll get to

00:59:17   you yeah I mean I felt it was too early for the Mac Pro and at this point you

00:59:22   know they could have a hardware a Mac hardware event in the fall you know

00:59:27   they'll have iPhone event assumingly in September and very often they have an

00:59:32   October event maybe we see Pro Max there or maybe before then who knows you know

00:59:39   depending on what rumor you read on what day it's good it's all over the place

00:59:43   but no Mac Pro news at WBC which made part of me breathe a little easier as a

00:59:50   Mac Pro user. So at the end of round two Federico has one point, Myke has two

00:59:59   points, I have one point. So Myke is in the lead going into our risky picks.

01:00:07   Before we get to them though let's take a break. This episode of Connected is

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01:01:43   Our thanks to CleanMyMac X for their support of the show and Relay FM. All right, it is time

01:01:49   for the Ricky's

01:01:52   Federico you're up

01:01:53   All right

01:01:54   So I said legacy widgets are completely removed from the system and there is no longer a place to put widgets

01:02:01   To the left of the main home screen about that

01:02:04   So in the keynote, it looked like they were gone

01:02:09   But once you got hold of the beta you learned that that's still there

01:02:14   Does it still work the same as it did in 14? Well, yeah, and in my mind this pick will

01:02:20   Come true eventually and it was really dependent on widget kit

01:02:24   Gaining some interactivity features right and because I did not get that one

01:02:30   I also it's very likely that that's the reason why I don't get this point. You pull your picks in the widget basket

01:02:36   - Exactly, so without interactions,

01:02:40   some legacy widgets wouldn't have any alternative,

01:02:45   some like the Pcalc widget, for example.

01:02:47   And so if WidgetKit does not have any support

01:02:51   for interactions, then maybe it's best

01:02:54   to keep those widgets around another year.

01:02:57   And because of that, there continues to be the Today page

01:03:01   on the left side of the home screen.

01:03:04   It's still an overlay on iPad, even though you can put widgets on the home screen, you

01:03:09   can still put them in the column, and in the column is also where you can keep those old

01:03:13   legacy widgets from iOS 13.

01:03:18   So I'm sad because I'm losing a point, and I'm sad because it's very likely that we need

01:03:26   to wait another year for this discontinued or, should I say, deprecated widgets to finally

01:03:35   go away. But yeah, no point.

01:03:38   And again, it's not that there's a problem with them, it's that they will only go away

01:03:44   you would expect when interactivity is added. And that's what we're really looking for here.

01:03:50   It's not like Federico hates old widgets. Or do you? I don't know.

01:03:56   Well, you know, some of them maybe, but no. Overall, no.

01:04:00   Overall.

01:04:01   I think we spoke about this maybe a few weeks ago even, but are y'all using any legacy widgets?

01:04:07   I'm not. I've finally replaced all of them.

01:04:10   No, I'm not. I had to check. I know I wasn't using any, but I wasn't sure if I had any still enabled.

01:04:21   Yeah, like just hanging around.

01:04:23   Yeah, and I don't. And the reason was I left a few of them there for a while,

01:04:27   but it takes so long to get down to them that they became

01:04:31   mostly pointless. And also a lot of the apps that I use

01:04:35   with widgets, they replaced it and so it removed it, you know.

01:04:39   So no, I don't use any legacy widgets now.

01:04:44   What about you Federico? No, I don't use any. No.

01:04:47   I don't use any. No, no. All right, my pick was Apple makes changes to rules and

01:04:52   on in-app purchases, removing restrictions on linking to external websites for account

01:04:56   creation. Obviously I knew this as an outside, right? The only reason I could get it in here

01:05:03   is because it was unlikely, right? I still think they're going to do it, but I don't

01:05:09   know when. They did make some changes to the review guidelines. It mostly is just clarifying

01:05:17   some stuff and saying certain types of apps are not allowed and that they will ban you

01:05:22   for doing bad things outside of the app store.

01:05:26   And they also added a new way to appeal if you think that you've been treated unfairly,

01:05:30   which is interesting.

01:05:34   Because they already had the appeal thing if you disagreed with a decision, but now

01:05:38   you can make a second type of appeal where if you think you're being treated badly by

01:05:43   the review team on other grounds. So that's all they did. I still think it's going to

01:05:50   come as we spoke about it before. It is in Apple's best interest to do it before they

01:05:55   are forced to do it. Yeah. But there is no changes to the parts of the review guidelines

01:06:02   that we would want. Yeah, and I think that just comes down to the Epic trial is not finished.

01:06:10   And I don't know, there may actually be something not allowing them to, but even if there isn't,

01:06:18   probably not the best time to change something while you're waiting on the judge to tell

01:06:23   you if you have to change anything.

01:06:24   Because either you're going to go too far or it could influence their decision.

01:06:29   So I agree with you, it was an outside chance.

01:06:32   I think there was some chance, but I think the case being still unfinished is probably

01:06:40   what held any possible change off.

01:06:44   Okay, so neither of you got your risky pick.

01:06:50   I think we could probably just wrap up here.

01:06:53   No, no, please tell us what you pick.

01:06:55   Apple unveils a new high-end audio product

01:06:58   as defined by a price of or over $399

01:07:03   or it's a standalone DAC.

01:07:06   I didn't get it.

01:07:09   Oh, didn't you?

01:07:09   No, I was surprised.

01:07:11   I didn't get it.

01:07:12   Ah, that's too bad.

01:07:14   I texted this to y'all, so a little behind the scenes.

01:07:16   Last week when we made these pics, we recorded on Monday.

01:07:19   I got almost the whole show edited.

01:07:21   I couldn't put it out until Tuesday

01:07:24   because it was like the beginning of the month.

01:07:26   And so I just woke up Tuesday morning and finished it.

01:07:29   And I basically was edited up to the point of the Ricky's.

01:07:33   And so I came out here after breakfast and was finishing it.

01:07:35   I told y'all, it was like when I got to my pick,

01:07:38   it was like, you know, after you've made like a really bad

01:07:41   set of decisions one evening and you wake up

01:07:43   the next morning and you realize what you've done.

01:07:46   It's kind of how it felt.

01:07:47   - You had the edit of "Shame", that's what you had.

01:07:49   - The edit of "Shame".

01:07:50   - Yep, that's what you had.

01:07:51   Yeah, no new high-end audio product. Did they do the Apple Music keynote that they had announced?

01:07:58   Or like the video event or whatever it was?

01:08:00   It doesn't seem like it. No, I don't think they did.

01:08:02   No, I think that was just the stuff that they put out after the keynote.

01:08:05   Which is like the little videos inside of Apple Music that Zane Lowe did.

01:08:11   They're not videos, it's like some introduction to Apple Music,

01:08:15   special audio stuff that Zane Lowe is hosting.

01:08:19   I think the Apple Music team, I don't know what they're doing over there.

01:08:22   They're like sliding things into the application like,

01:08:26   "Hey, we're doing something special."

01:08:28   And then everyone goes wild.

01:08:29   Like, I don't know what's happening,

01:08:31   but they've got some different kind of marketing rules over there, I think.

01:08:34   Kind of like they live somewhere in between Apple and Beats, right?

01:08:38   Because Beats just does, as we're talking about, whatever it wants.

01:08:41   And maybe Apple Music is still kind of a little bit in that organization.

01:08:44   So they seem to have slightly different rules around what they can and can't tease and promote.

01:08:51   But yeah, no, there was no standalone deck.

01:08:55   There was none.

01:08:57   Okay.

01:09:00   So...

01:09:01   Final point.

01:09:02   Yeah. Final point.

01:09:04   We'll start with Federico. Federico got one regular pick right, but he missed his Ricky.

01:09:12   So that point goes away, so Federico has zero points.

01:09:16   Myke got both regular rounds correct,

01:09:21   but missed his Ricky, so he has one total point.

01:09:26   And I tied Federico. I got one round correct,

01:09:32   and I missed my Ricky, so Federico and I both have zero points,

01:09:36   and technically we're supposed to coin toss for second and third place,

01:09:41   place but Myke congratulations you are the keynote chairman hold on I'm

01:09:48   bringing in an external adjudicator

01:09:52   now I've won I am the winner congratulations to me congratulations

01:10:01   consolidation you have both accounts now so yep so we need to get that assigned

01:10:08   over to you. Oh I'm signing in as we speak. I am signing in. There we go. Okay, so

01:10:16   Federico, you and I are coin tossing it, so I'll let you pick what side of the

01:10:23   coin and Myke if you want to toss a coin. Yeah. We can decide who is second or

01:10:29   third mm-hmm someone's got a yes say Federico pick a side I'm feeding a

01:10:42   strong tails all right you're gonna go with tails all right you ready yeah yeah

01:10:50   flip a coin

01:10:54   okay so it didn't say it out loud which is not particularly exciting but I do

01:11:01   have the answer okay it's tails okay I cannot win a coin toss yes yes so it's

01:11:11   Myke Federico then Steven once again in parentheses at the bottom of our

01:11:16   document lost by coin toss but we're not done yet we have our flexes we need to

01:11:24   into those. Can I just take one moment to just bask in the fact that I currently

01:11:29   have both. I am both annual and keynote chairman. I have been threatened in the

01:11:33   consolidation and it's happening. My plan is to, if you want to get the tweets from

01:11:39   this account, I will be splitting my tweets in half. So one half of the tweet

01:11:45   will come from one account and the other half of the tweet will come from another

01:11:48   account so you both at annual chairman and that keynote chairman it's going to

01:11:54   be the only way to understand what I'm doing double chairman all the way mm-hmm

01:11:59   congratulations thank you congratulations congratulations are are

01:12:04   you a king an emperor what call I am the I haven't decided yet but there's gonna

01:12:10   be some kind of like his Royal Highness to consolidate a champion right right

01:12:16   Right, right. Well, I'm pleased you won here, Myke.

01:12:23   Gotta win somewhere.

01:12:25   You won fair and square here on this show. This is why we have the Bila Rickeys.

01:12:34   You need them. You need the really, really particular rules.

01:12:38   Well, I look forward to your ruling of the kingdom. This episode of Connected is also

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01:14:54   Mack Weldon, reinventing men's basics.

01:14:57   Our thanks to Mack Weldon for their support of the show

01:15:00   and Relay FM.

01:15:01   - Flexi's time.

01:15:02   - Flexi's time.

01:15:04   Well, you have to appreciate my boldness here.

01:15:08   In fact, I do believe that I'm the moral winner of the Riki's.

01:15:12   Oh, jeez, here we go.

01:15:13   Because of my-- because of the boldness

01:15:16   that I demonstrated in my 10 flexes.

01:15:19   And your future donation.

01:15:21   Well, that's-- that's arguable.

01:15:23   We'll see about that.

01:15:25   But I do believe--

01:15:26   I consider myself the moral winner.

01:15:29   I consider myself an example because of what I've done.

01:15:32   I've inspired a new amendment to the Bill of Rickeys.

01:15:36   How many of you can say you've inspired a new law

01:15:39   to go into effect? - All of us.

01:15:40   Yeah, I'm pretty sure all of us have been.

01:15:42   - Well, I don't think so.

01:15:45   - No? Okay.

01:15:47   - I am declaring myself the moral winner of this episode

01:15:52   because of what I've done in the Flexis.

01:15:54   Anyway, I had 10 of them.

01:15:56   I'm gonna go through a list of them quickly.

01:16:00   Number one, the weather app comes to iPad.

01:16:03   Nope.

01:16:04   - How? - Number two.

01:16:05   - How do they not do that?

01:16:05   They've redesigned it on the phone.

01:16:08   Just didn't do it on the iPad.

01:16:10   - Number two, the files app gets new features.

01:16:14   (bell dings)

01:16:14   Yeah, some of them are new.

01:16:17   You can drag to select.

01:16:18   There's a progress bar when copying files.

01:16:21   - What a concept.

01:16:22   - The big stuff, you know?

01:16:24   Big features coming to files this year.

01:16:29   Number three, shortcuts gets new files actions.

01:16:32   (bell dings)

01:16:33   That's correct, we talked about them before.

01:16:36   Number four, better external display support on iPad.

01:16:40   Nah, they didn't do anything with just sad times.

01:16:44   I wanna talk about iPad multitasking

01:16:46   and iPadOS 15 eventually, not right now.

01:16:49   I don't know how I feel about it yet.

01:16:52   I'm sure, nah, look, I don't wanna be one of those people

01:16:56   like, oh no, they ruined it,

01:16:58   Let's go back to the days of iOS 9.

01:17:00   No, I just think that,

01:17:03   there's still some people like that out there.

01:17:05   I just think that there's some confusing aspects.

01:17:08   Maybe I just need to live with it some more.

01:17:09   We'll see, we'll talk about it soon.

01:17:12   Number five, iOS and iPadOS 15 get native HomeKit widgets.

01:17:17   No interactions, so likely because of that

01:17:21   also no HomeKit widgets either.

01:17:23   - That feels like the sidebar thing on the iPad

01:17:26   that once widgets are interactive, HomeKit will be like a,

01:17:29   I mean, it'd be awesome just to have a widget

01:17:30   and just like turn off a light by touching the widget.

01:17:33   That'd be cool.

01:17:34   - Yeah, there's kind of no point to have a HomeKit widget

01:17:38   if you can't do anything with it.

01:17:40   - Number six, the passwords feature of settings

01:17:44   becomes a standalone application.

01:17:47   No, but it did, it continues to gain

01:17:50   some really nice features.

01:17:52   And it's a system preference pane on macOS.

01:17:56   - Yep.

01:17:57   - But it's not, it's not a standalone app.

01:17:59   - It's now a preference pane.

01:18:01   You can now scan QR codes

01:18:03   for two-factor authentication codes.

01:18:05   Apple has a bunch of sessions

01:18:07   on how they're taking advantage of passwords

01:18:10   and the keychain to actually go beyond passwords.

01:18:12   And they're telling developers,

01:18:14   "Look, there's all these new APIs and technologies

01:18:16   that you can use to more easily sign users into your app,

01:18:20   whether you're using iOS, iPadOS, or tvOS.

01:18:23   They have a brand new system for signing users

01:18:26   into an Apple TV app just by using your Apple device

01:18:29   in the iCloud kitchen, but still in settings,

01:18:32   no standalone app.

01:18:34   Number seven, Apple updates the Listen Now page of music.

01:18:38   Now, this is a point, Steven, please ring the thing,

01:18:41   because they did update it.

01:18:46   There's the new--

01:18:48   - Okay, good.

01:18:49   There's the new "Shared with you" section.

01:18:53   It's literally the only--

01:18:54   Oh, yeah.

01:18:55   It is literally the only change in that page.

01:18:58   What do you think of this, by the way, the two of you?

01:19:00   I'm intrigued.

01:19:01   What do you think about this new "Shared with you" thing?

01:19:04   Gimmicky.

01:19:05   That's what I'm going to say.

01:19:06   It's one of those things that, yes, it's cool in theory,

01:19:09   but why--

01:19:11   like, I don't want to visit Apple News.

01:19:13   Like, I don't want to use Apple News.

01:19:15   I don't care about opening links in Apple News.

01:19:18   "Share with you for music" is probably how I'm going to be using this feature the most,

01:19:24   because we do have a group chat with Myke and One True John, where we exchange a lot of music links,

01:19:31   and I could see that being useful. But I don't know, it's one of those features that Apple shows off.

01:19:38   Yeah, I'll say that's true for me too. The music one is the only one that I could imagine ever

01:19:44   never find it useful. The two of you share a lot of music, mostly with each other, but

01:19:48   I'm there. That's the way it tends to go. Every now and then I give something. And I

01:19:55   don't really always add the stuff to the library, but if I'm looking for something new to listen

01:19:59   to it could be there. But my kind of feeling on this is I do things with stuff that people

01:20:03   send me or I don't. It's not like I need to be reminded later on.

01:20:08   Look all these links that Stephen sent, that all these people sent you.

01:20:13   Like, what do you... It feels like another inbox that I need to worry about, and I really don't want to worry about it.

01:20:19   And it's really like 15 new inboxes because it's in music, and it's in Safari, and like...

01:20:27   News, podcasts, photos. It's like a system-wide layer that...

01:20:33   Yeah, I almost think it'd make more sense if it was in a single place.

01:20:38   maybe along with things you say in Safari Reading List.

01:20:41   I'm gonna give you... Yeah, there continues to be this weird separation between,

01:20:46   "Oh, you can save stuff in Apple News, but you can also save stuff in Reading List."

01:20:50   Let's not even talk about how hard it is now to access your bookmarks and Reading List

01:20:57   in the new Safari on iPhone. This is another conversation that we gotta have at some point

01:21:01   soon. I know that Steven wants to talk about the new Safari as well, so we're gonna talk

01:21:08   about that soon. But I'm gonna give you a one million dollar idea. Okay. Let me out.

01:21:19   Reminders shared with you. When you don't want to do something, you just share it with

01:21:23   somebody else and they land on their inbox. Here's another one, here's another one,

01:21:32   mail shared with you. That's good, that's good. What about phone calls? Like, you know,

01:21:37   if like someone calls you and you don't talk to them? Here's another one, here's another

01:21:40   one, workouts shared with you. That's my favorite one. That's it, that's the one I want to do

01:21:49   the list. You do it.

01:21:51   Hey, let me share this 20-mile run with you. Can you do it for me? No, but yeah, so we

01:21:59   were saying number seven. Number eight, iOS 15 drops support for the iPhone 6S. Nope,

01:22:05   same devices that were supported by iOS 14 will run 15. The iPhone 6S lives on alongside

01:22:13   the Apple Watch Series 3, which can be upgraded to WatchOS 8.

01:22:17   You know, you gotta admire you gotta admire Apple supporting all devices at which point does it become a problem?

01:22:24   I think it already is a problem for the

01:22:26   Honestly, the biggest surprise for me though more than the success is the series 3 watch

01:22:31   Yeah, that that's a bigger surprise for me like you gotta get rid of it at some point

01:22:37   Like you can't keep dragging that thing along. Well, and now the update

01:22:41   Basically, like hey, we're gonna restore your watch is gonna take a couple hours

01:22:45   Like I've got a friend who has a series 3 and he's like, what is this?

01:22:48   I was like well a bunch of people had failed updates and so they're playing it safe with the new process

01:22:53   Not only is it old technology to support but it's they also represent

01:22:58   older screens right because the series 3 is the last small original watch design and

01:23:05   the guts of the 6s were also in the original

01:23:10   iPhone SE and

01:23:13   And so that, I guess that thing's still hanging around too.

01:23:16   Keep these things around forever, why not?

01:23:17   I know.

01:23:19   Number nine.

01:23:20   Number nine, the next version of iOS

01:23:23   lets you change icons for apps natively

01:23:26   without using shortcuts or custom profiles.

01:23:30   Nope.

01:23:31   They didn't do that.

01:23:33   And finally, number 10.

01:23:36   And also, by the way, I should mention,

01:23:37   you cannot turn off the confirmation banners

01:23:40   for shortcuts either,

01:23:42   so that when you launch one of those custom icons on the home screen, you still see that checkmark

01:23:48   that pops down from the top and blocks interactions on screen for a second? Why?

01:23:54   I mean, you literally brought shortcuts to the Mac and added support for a command line tool,

01:24:01   an AppleScript, and shell scripting, but you don't trust your users enough to turn off a

01:24:07   confirmation banner. Sure. Number 10. Is that? There's a new way to turn off confirmation

01:24:14   banners for shortcuts. So number 10 was that. I liked that. It was kind of funny to me.

01:24:20   It's like you got so mad you hadn't even read ahead and I'm like, yep, that you're about

01:24:25   to come across this again. I'm very good at preambles. So yeah, I got three out of ten,

01:24:34   and seven... it's a whole bag of sadness over here. How are you feeling about ten?

01:24:41   Oh I feel great! I feel like I'm losing with honor and my boldness will be

01:24:50   remembered because it inspired an amendment to the Bill of Rickeys. I mean

01:24:54   if you lose you're gonna be losing more than just honor you will be

01:24:58   losing a cool $175. It is for a good cause. Well you don't know what the cause is yet.

01:25:05   Well it must be a charity and all charities supposed to be good. No that's not true.

01:25:11   Oh come on you're not gonna pick a terrible charity. Who knows who knows who's picking.

01:25:17   Okay I propose an amendment to the bill of riches. Must be a good good charity.

01:25:25   Uh, is that going to be an official amendment? I mean, I can change the document.

01:25:28   No, it's not. No, we're not going to make that.

01:25:30   Okay, well now with people tracking these things, we need to be careful. Okay, so you got three

01:25:35   right and a whopping seven wrong. Myke, you had six flexies. Let's see how you did.

01:25:42   Flexy number one, new MacBook Pro.

01:25:44   Nope.

01:25:45   That did not happen.

01:25:46   Nope.

01:25:46   Flexy number two, preview of the Apple Silicon Mac Pro.

01:25:49   Nope.

01:25:51   That did not happen. Number three, the Home app gets redesigned.

01:25:54   So, it did on the watch, but nowhere else.

01:26:00   And I didn't say which one.

01:26:04   So technically...

01:26:05   No!

01:26:06   It isn't what I meant.

01:26:07   It isn't what I meant.

01:26:08   I'll tell you that.

01:26:09   But technically...

01:26:10   The pic is what it's written in the document.

01:26:14   That's true.

01:26:15   The pic says the whole map gets redesigned.

01:26:18   This is a point.

01:26:20   I didn't mean it, but it's...

01:26:23   New features for FaceTime, number four.

01:26:26   Killed it.

01:26:27   I was very right on that one.

01:26:28   All the features.

01:26:29   Way more.

01:26:30   Yeah.

01:26:31   The bell, Steven, the bell.

01:26:32   Ring the bell, please.

01:26:34   Yes.

01:26:35   You are the Nostradamus.

01:26:36   Is Nostradamus the hunchback of Nostradamus?

01:26:40   No, it's a different name.

01:26:42   No, Nostradamus is the guy with the prophecies, I think.

01:26:45   What's the character's name?

01:26:48   Five, new notification, Quasimodo.

01:26:51   Thank you.

01:26:52   Thank you, everyone in the Discord.

01:26:53   - Some confusion you got. - My brain is like "Notre Dame, Nostradamus must be the same!"

01:27:02   No, not the same. Five new notification management options. What do we think about these?

01:27:10   - Potentially great. I think it's one of the things where I'm feeling optimistic about that.

01:27:20   A good way to gauge the reaction from common people, for me at least, is to show the stuff

01:27:27   to Sylvia.

01:27:28   And when I see that Sylvia approves of something new, it's usually a good sign.

01:27:33   She's got a good pulse on what people are going to like in an update on the iPhone.

01:27:38   And the idea of setting, like I described it as, you can make your own custom Do Not

01:27:44   Disturb, and you can combine that with notifications.

01:27:48   I think it's something really compelling for a lot of people.

01:27:50   Yep, similarly, I was watching the keynote with Vadino and that point was like, "Oh,

01:27:55   that seems good."

01:27:56   It's like, I know I like the sound of it, I know Gray's gonna love it.

01:28:00   Well, I assume Gray's gonna love it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that this stuff is

01:28:03   enjoyed by anybody else.

01:28:05   I've been poking around with that, the focus stuff, and it's really interesting.

01:28:10   I'm not so personally that interested in that notification summary thing.

01:28:14   I enabled it.

01:28:17   I have two schedules, one at 10am, another at 8pm.

01:28:20   In fact, mine was delivered just a couple of hours ago.

01:28:24   It's still here, by the way.

01:28:25   Oh, ok, here it is.

01:28:28   It's nice, but the interactions are a little bit weird.

01:28:32   Like I thought that you could open the... tap on the notification summary card to get

01:28:39   like a bigger preview, but instead, there's no bigger preview.

01:28:45   All you can do is tap on the badge number to collapse the summary into individual notifications.

01:28:53   That's all you can do.

01:28:55   So in theory, I like the idea.

01:28:56   I wish there was like a...

01:28:58   I actually used to roll a similar system years ago using Zapier.

01:29:03   I would have a Notification Digest.

01:29:04   Oh, I remember that.

01:29:05   You put it into Slack, right?

01:29:06   Yeah.

01:29:07   I had a Notification Digest collecting updates from different places that was delivered to

01:29:14   me in the morning and in the evening. Literally the same concept.

01:29:19   This was part of that time where everybody wanted to set up their morning brief. That

01:29:24   was like a thing we all wanted to do for a while, right?

01:29:26   Yes, it was a thing. And this is what it is. I don't know. We'll see about that. But everything

01:29:32   else, they have a new system for notifications where they can be time sensitive, they can

01:29:37   be critical, important or passive. Like that stuff, I don't think developers were really

01:29:43   adopted. I wish there, like, I would prefer if I could, I as a user, if I could set notifications

01:29:52   and I could decide, oh, this is not important, this is time sensitive, like, I'm not sure

01:29:57   if I can do that or if it's only up to developers to support that in the API. But the focus

01:30:04   stuff and the controls, those are really good. And I like how you can define people, for

01:30:10   example, and so if you say, "I want to be notified by Myke," if developers add support

01:30:16   for that API, the same person will apply, regardless of whether Myke is using iMessage

01:30:23   or WhatsApp or Telegram, right? It'll just see the person, Myke, getting in touch with

01:30:29   me, and it will allow that person to break through the focus status.

01:30:33   Yeah, I like the thought of this. I like the sound of this. I'm intrigued to see how I

01:30:38   will be able to tell the system, you know, like how can I tell Slack that this is

01:30:44   Federico? I mean and especially when like I was setting this up yesterday and for

01:30:48   some reason I have two contact cards for Adina. Why? Why is that? Why do I have

01:30:53   that? You know I have so many problems with my contacts. My contacts are a

01:30:58   disaster and so which is a bit of a shame for me but that's just how it is.

01:31:02   Ah, the last one. Smoother or faster animations in iOS tools for developers.

01:31:09   This one came out right. This was very intriguing to me.

01:31:15   So they have a session on Friday called "Optimize for Variable Refresh Rate Displays" which

01:31:21   I think is enough to just like, "Yep, cool. That was what I was talking about."

01:31:24   Yeah, I think so.

01:31:26   Alright, so you have four flexes correct mm-hmm and two incorrect mm-hmm good job

01:31:34   Mac OS skips ahead to version 15 to match iOS and iPad OS

01:31:41   That didn't happen. What were you thinking? Yeah?

01:31:45   I was bold of you all the same number new

01:31:48   No, not new no new Mac notebooks are announced

01:31:55   People thought I was gonna lose this one, but I had faith that Apple was not ready

01:31:59   You had faith in no faith. The next version of Mac OS comes with a redesign to debut

01:32:04   It's exactly the same

01:32:07   No, no, they didn't do anything about the notifications. Nothing. It's exactly the same real shame. That's a real real shame

01:32:13   Yeah, hope this is something that could change during the beta process. I

01:32:19   Would hope so, but I'm not I'm not holding my breath. That's a real shame

01:32:24   We get some happy messaging from Apple about how much they value developers.

01:32:30   Well money too apparently. And money. 200 and something billion. Mm-hmm.

01:32:36   50 billion went to Epic probably. Apple unveils a new external display. I don't

01:32:45   know if I brought this up last time but it was intriguing to me that you picked

01:32:50   no new Mac notebooks. Yes. They will do an external display. Yeah. Do you want me to go through this?

01:32:55   Look, I'm a complicated man. It's probably exactly what I said last week.

01:32:59   So Federico, you owe $175 to the charity of Myke's Choice.

01:33:05   Myke, do you want to hook Federico up with that? Yeah, Federico, I would like

01:33:10   you to donate to Stonewall. So considering that it's Pride Month, I

01:33:16   wanted the donation to go towards a charity that supports the rights of

01:33:19   people in the LGBTQ+ community and Stonewall felt like a good choice for

01:33:24   this. This is a charity that I've been aware of here in the UK for a long time.

01:33:27   Is it stonewall.org.uk? Yep I sent a donation link in iMessage. So their

01:33:35   message is pretty clear. They say we imagine a world where all LGBTQ+ people

01:33:40   are free to be ourselves and can live our lives to the full and they do a lot

01:33:44   of work in helping institutions better support their people like workplaces and

01:33:48   schools so I'd like to help people understand and do like training and

01:33:52   support and they also do a lot of work in legislation especially here in the UK

01:33:57   so Stonewall is who I would like you to donate a hundred and seventy five dollars

01:34:02   to please beautiful okay so how can I do this some other amount okay specify the

01:34:12   Oh it says in pounds. Okay so I will... 170 let's ask Siri. What is 175 dollars in pounds? 124 pounds.

01:34:25   So 125 we'll round it up. Oh look at you big spender. Yeah I know. Okay

01:34:35   Yes, please add gift aid to...

01:34:38   So yeah, whatever.

01:34:40   Add, yes, add gift aids.

01:34:42   Yeah, you wanna do gift aid.

01:34:44   Gift aid's good.

01:34:45   Thanks for donating.

01:34:47   First, we need your counter details.

01:34:49   Title, what's my title?

01:34:50   The loser.

01:34:53   Loser.

01:34:54   (laughing)

01:34:54   Loser of the flexes.

01:34:58   Yep, I'm sure this is gonna go through.

01:35:00   First name. No problem.

01:35:01   Further, it did.

01:35:03   Last name will be teaching.

01:35:04   And the street address, oh, the one my address.

01:35:09   - You don't have to read that out loud.

01:35:11   - We maybe could take a break while Federico's

01:35:13   filming this in. - Yes, please, thank you.

01:35:16   - And then we'll see how that's gone.

01:35:18   This episode of Connected is brought to you by Hover,

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01:36:37   How's it going Federico? I'm still... Still working on it? I mean it's a fantastic initiative but their mobile form is really slow to use.

01:36:46   Okay, 76% completed. Excellent! Congratulations! 82%! Oh my god, we love to keep... email, email for sure.

01:36:57   Are they asking you questions?

01:36:59   Yeah, a lot of them.

01:37:00   Okay, we're now...

01:37:01   I'm paying now.

01:37:03   Don't you want to wait for that?

01:37:04   You know, it's a dramatic moment.

01:37:06   Submit and pay.

01:37:07   All right?

01:37:08   It's spinning the wheel.

01:37:10   And it is done.

01:37:13   Very dramatic, donating to Stonewall.

01:37:15   Is it done now?

01:37:16   I think so.

01:37:18   Excellent.

01:37:19   I got an email from...

01:37:20   Wonderful.

01:37:21   Thank you for the donation.

01:37:22   Absolutely.

01:37:24   Stephen, are you playing around with any of the betas?

01:37:25   Yep.

01:37:26   I have Mac OS Monterey on a laptop and it is remarkably like Big Sur. I think a lot of the

01:37:34   features are so dependent on other people having the beta and I haven't tried any of that stuff yet

01:37:39   with anybody. I think over the next couple weeks we'll start you know trying to watch movies

01:37:43   together and stuff but Monterey's fine you know don't run it on your primary device. Shortcuts is

01:37:51   definitely buggy but very present and that's really cool. I have not played

01:37:56   with 15 yet anywhere though I'm gonna put it on my iPad Pro probably this

01:38:02   evening or sometime tomorrow. Yeah shortcuts is a bit a bit janktastic on

01:38:07   the iPad as well too. It kind of always is during during beta season. It's a

01:38:12   complicated piece of software and I think is more so this time. I've noticed

01:38:18   that it's pretty tricky to move things around inside of a shortcut at the moment.

01:38:23   I found that to be a little bit tricky. But overall, iPadOS 15 is very

01:38:31   smooth, it's feeling very good to me. Federico, I know you've probably

01:38:35   installed everything, right?

01:38:37   I have iOS, iPadOS, and WatchOS going at the moment.

01:38:43   I'm really happy overall with iPadOS. As I said, some questions about

01:38:50   multitasking, what it means, the changes to multi-window. I finally

01:38:58   got a shelf, and it is called the "Shelf", but it's not a...

01:39:02   Oh, we didn't even talk about that.

01:39:04   I want to talk about all of these things next week, maybe, after having used all these

01:39:09   things for a while. It's not the shelf that I was expecting, which makes me sad, but there's

01:39:15   some, I guess my only concern right now, couple of days into using it on my iPad, is there's

01:39:22   a, I can see why some people will say, are they just putting a Band-Aid on top of something

01:39:29   that is inherently broken, right, as a multitasking system? And I don't fully agree with that,

01:39:36   I sort of understand the argument in certain places of the OS, so I want to talk about

01:39:41   all of this more in-depth next week. I'm really happy with shortcuts, and I think I'm going

01:39:46   to be able to do some real fancy things with file system access, and I'm really happy that

01:39:51   I chose to go all-in with Obsidian, because all of these actions, they work out of the

01:39:56   box with my new Not Taking Setup. Again, because it's just a folder of markdown files in the

01:40:02   system. So I think I'm going to be able to do some great things with automation and the

01:40:06   new shortcut actions. And lastly, it's going to be fun to set up multiple home screens,

01:40:13   and especially the home screen and iPad, by combining widgets and focus modes. So that

01:40:20   I think is something that I'm going to be spending a lot of time tinkering with this

01:40:24   summer, coming up with different systems for--I can automate a focus mode for recording podcasts

01:40:31   podcasts and showing specific timers and opening specific apps, like all kinds of

01:40:36   things that I can do. Also when it comes to editing the review or writing the

01:40:40   review, right, having these different workspaces, all things that I can do with

01:40:44   widgets and focus modes and shortcuts. So these three things coming together, I

01:40:50   have a pretty good sense of where the review will go in terms of core ideas

01:40:56   and examples. Just a few things I want to talk about regarding multitasking next.

01:41:01   week. Yeah it is something that while it's similar there it is new and I'm

01:41:08   still getting used to the best way to use it. Like I think it's one of those

01:41:13   things that's gonna take a few days more to really settle opinions on it because

01:41:20   there is definitely some changes there. Yeah but aside from that I found the

01:41:25   iPadOS beta to be really solid. Who knows how long that will last for if it

01:41:31   will right? Like I don't know and there's a bunch of stuff that we just don't have

01:41:36   access to and neither have we tried. Like if any of you tried any of the

01:41:40   share play features or anything? No not yet, not yet. I don't even know if you can.

01:41:44   Well I need to have somebody else on iOS 15 I guess. You can call me

01:41:50   watch a movie together. This beta process is just gonna be everyone hanging out

01:41:54   with Viti a lot. Yeah I think so. Just gonna watch movies of everyone, playing games with everyone, it's gonna be awesome.

01:41:58   Oh, yeah, you gotta prepare for that big time. Yes. I can't wait. Yeah

01:42:02   We're gonna watch some movies together. It'd be nice. You can watch Star Wars before we wrap up

01:42:08   Obviously there's a lot of stuff still going on

01:42:10   Is there anything the two of you feel like has been a big miss that we haven't touched on?

01:42:15   like stuff that you're kind of really disappointed about or

01:42:19   Things that didn't go the way that you wanted them to is there anything that jumps out at you?

01:42:25   I mean obviously that we didn't get anything external display focused.

01:42:30   I was about to say that, yeah.

01:42:32   I would have liked to see more like a clearer message from Apple on why is the M1 iPad Pro

01:42:41   necessary.

01:42:42   I think there's still a missing story there and the new stuff in iPadOS doesn't really

01:42:45   explain it because there's still the old memory cap on third-party apps.

01:42:51   So there really still is a missing story for the M1 iPad Pro.

01:42:56   And I think there's a big miss in having the second...

01:43:02   Having a follow-up to home screen customization in iOS 14.

01:43:07   That is a real disappointment for me.

01:43:09   I really thought Apple was going to recognize just how much people loved personalization

01:43:15   last year and instead they decided to focus on things like SharePlay and these FaceTime

01:43:23   features and I really think that come September those functionalities will feel to an extent

01:43:30   instantly old and it would have been so much nicer to see like a big upgrade for home screen

01:43:37   customization that didn't grow old but I think a lot of folks will be disappointed by

01:43:44   "Oh, this update doesn't really change anything for me," which was a big driver for updates

01:43:51   last year, right? All the excitement surrounding widgets and home screens. And those same people

01:43:58   are going to be disappointed this year because nothing is changing there. So that's too bad.

01:44:02   Yeah. I will say from developers that I've spoken to and also listening to Under the

01:44:06   Radar, I think developers are pleased, though, that there isn't anything huge that they need

01:44:11   to work on this summer.

01:44:12   Oh yeah, if you're a developer, what are you gonna be working on?

01:44:16   There's some changes to iPad navigation, right?

01:44:19   And there's the new focus engine, the new iPad keyboard navigation,

01:44:23   changes to keyboard shortcuts, but that's pretty much it.

01:44:26   Like, what else?

01:44:29   There's lots of little things you can integrate.

01:44:30   Some people have more work to do than others.

01:44:32   Maybe you can implement some stuff that you haven't already done before.

01:44:36   But there isn't like that feature this year that everyone's gonna do.

01:44:41   So take that for what you will.

01:44:42   If you want to find the links to the stuff we spoke about, head on over to our

01:44:47   website at relay.fm/connected/349.

01:44:51   There you can send us an email with feedback or follow up, or you can join

01:44:57   connected pro and get a longer ad-free version of the show each and every week.

01:45:01   You can find us all online.

01:45:04   Myke is on Twitter as I M Y K E.

01:45:07   He hosts a bunch of shows here on relay FM.

01:45:09   does awesome live streams about fancy keyboards.

01:45:12   So go check those out at Myke.live.

01:45:15   You can find Federico on Twitter at Vitici, V I T I C C I.

01:45:19   He's the editor in chief of Mac stories.net where y'all are just killing it this week

01:45:23   with the WWDC stuff.

01:45:25   You can find me on Twitter as ISMH.

01:45:27   I host a bunch of shows here on Relay FM.

01:45:29   Look for Mac power users episode 592 this week.

01:45:32   I think you will really enjoy that.

01:45:34   I'd like to thank our sponsors.

01:45:35   They are Fitbaud, CleanMyMacX, Mac Weldon and Hover.

01:45:39   And until next week gentlemen, say goodbye.

01:45:41   Adios, that's you.

01:45:42   I am the winner.

01:45:43   Goodbye.

01:45:44   Cheerio.

01:45:45   Bye, y'all.