Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► - Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 344.

00:00:12 ◼   ► It's made possible this week by our sponsors,

00:00:14 ◼   ► Pingdom, Smile, and Squarespace.

00:00:17 ◼   ► My name is Stephen Hackett,

00:00:18 ◼   ► and I'm joined as always by Mr. Federico Vittucci.

00:00:22 ◼   ► - Hello, hi, it's me, how are you?

00:00:24 ◼   ► - I'm good, how are you?

00:00:25 ◼   ► - I'm great, thank you.

00:00:27 ◼   ► - Good, we're also joined by Myke Hurley.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Ahoy!

00:00:30 ◼   ► Greetings!

00:00:31 ◼   ► Ahoy landlubber!

00:00:33 ◼   ► Greetings?

00:00:34 ◼   ► Is ahoy like a British thing?

00:00:38 ◼   ► It's not a British thing, right?

00:00:39 ◼   ► It's a sailing thing.

00:00:40 ◼   ► Yeah, it's like a sailing thing and maybe it's a British thing.

00:00:44 ◼   ► I think that might be a little combination.

00:00:45 ◼   ► Have you ever sailed?

00:00:46 ◼   ► Uh, I mean I've been on a boat.

00:00:48 ◼   ► Well, that doesn't count as sailing, but like you're not actually doing the sailing yourself.

00:00:52 ◼   ► I've never been on a boat with sails, I don't think.

00:00:55 ◼   ► Me neither.

00:00:56 ◼   ► Just been on boats with like engines.

00:00:59 ◼   ► whatever. I would like to go in a sailboat. We need to hire a sailboat. There you go.

00:01:04 ◼   ► We know what we're gonna do. But I don't know anybody who has one, so. Well, hire one.

00:01:08 ◼   ► I, a friend of mine has a sailboat and he did like this, he kind of traveled the world

00:01:15 ◼   ► on a sailboat. He's an incredible person. Like he did this tour. He started in Sardinia

00:01:22 ◼   ► in Italy, went to Spain, and from Spain he traveled by himself. He had this whole log

00:01:30 ◼   ► on his Instagram, actually. He basically traveled all around Africa, stopped, I believe, in

00:01:39 ◼   ► Madagascar, and then left again and reached the Caribbeans. A really fascinating way to

00:01:49 ◼   ► spend a year, like he actually did this during the pandemic year, like throughout the basically

00:01:54 ◼   ► the entire year of 2020. I mean, not a bad way to spend some time. Not, yeah. Provided you know how

00:02:01 ◼   ► to sail a boat, otherwise it's terrible. Yes, otherwise don't do it. Otherwise you don't see

00:02:05 ◼   ► the end of the year. Yeah, no. You don't make it a Madagascar, I'll tell you that. Seems very likely.

00:02:11 ◼   ► We have a couple of websites we need to point out. Google.com. Yeah, Yahoo. Yahoo. Bing.

00:02:18 ◼   ► "Ming", "AltaVista", any others? That's all the websites I know. "Ask Jeeves". "MySpace.com".

00:02:27 ◼   ► Nice, that's another good one, top one. "Friendfeed". Oh, remember "Friendsta"? I remember the name,

00:02:35 ◼   ► I don't think I was ever on it. Yeah, I don't remember either. Anyway! Jason Thompson, a

00:02:43 ◼   ► listener of the show created previously and we failed to mention it, thejeremys.herokuapp.com

00:02:51 ◼   ► and it is a running tally of the Jeremy's and so it shows the picks Federico made, the

00:02:58 ◼   ► outcome if it was incorrect or correct, and then the final score. Overall your total score

00:03:05 ◼   ► is 60% which seems pretty good.

00:03:08 ◼   ► That's pretty good. That's much better than I would have expected. What I like specifically

00:03:13 ◼   ► about this website is it doesn't just show what Federico guessed like right or

00:03:18 ◼   ► wrong it lists every guess he makes which is my favorite thing about this website

00:03:25 ◼   ► so and you know so for example Dreamcast face is listed on the face of spiral

00:03:32 ◼   ► or tea with holes at the bottom for bubble tea mm-hmm oh yeah look at all

00:03:37 ◼   ► these things I've said. I've seen many things. I wonder if a little sip of Grandpa's on here.

00:03:42 ◼   ► For flatbread I said base of a pizza left in the middle of a road and someone with a

00:03:47 ◼   ► car drove on top of it. Yep. And then I said... And then I said... Non-descript pizza was

00:03:53 ◼   ► also... Kiwi meatballs. Kiwi meatballs. I was watching a TV show a couple of days ago,

00:04:02 ◼   ► think it's Parks and Rec and Fake Rom was drinking an herbal is it urban mate is that how you say it

00:04:09 ◼   ► and we have a mate and uh i was thinking hi he's taking a sip of grandpa so classic uh you skunk

00:04:16 ◼   ► he said rat who had too much chili last night oh that's disgusting i hate that

00:04:27 ◼   ► What you use to go underwater?

00:04:29 ◼   ► The diving mask.

00:04:33 ◼   ► Okay, so go check that out. We also have

00:04:36 ◼   ► a new website

00:04:39 ◼   ► Made by you and as like a new entrant. What is it new challenger?

00:04:44 ◼   ► That's the ring

00:04:46 ◼   ► by listener Jason, this is rickys.net

00:04:49 ◼   ► and this is a

00:04:53 ◼   ► in their own words, but I agree, comprehensive repository of information about the ever-evolving

00:04:58 ◼   ► Apple prediction game played on connected. It has an about section, there's a github so you can open

00:05:06 ◼   ► issues, there are scores and stats which I want to come back to in a second, there is a bill of

00:05:13 ◼   ► Ricky's section complete with a full change log. Incredible. Wow. Going back to episode 123.

00:05:22 ◼   ► Here's my favorite. 245. Steven said Ricky instead of risky in an iMessage and now they're Ricky

00:05:28 ◼   ► pics. And in 259 you proposed naming the competition that after my typo. Yeah. We need to

00:05:39 ◼   ► talk about the scores and stats. Yeah, we do. Because there are some people that think

00:05:46 ◼   ► that there's cheating going on, but I just want to read our total graded picks, okay? As always,

00:05:56 ◼   ► when you see something, it wasn't what I expected. I thought it was very different to this because

00:05:59 ◼   ► memories are terrible. Yeah, so let's start with the victories, actually. I have never won an annual

00:06:06 ◼   ► competition. Myke has won one time. Federico has won twice. For keynote victories, I've

00:06:16 ◼   ► won three times. Myke has won twice. Federico has won three times. So you and I are tied for

00:06:23 ◼   ► keynote victories. You know, you like to come out here and swing around accusations of cheating that

00:06:29 ◼   ► that you never win. We now have proof that you win plenty. So I'm the Ricky King.

00:06:37 ◼   ► Well, no, you're not because we are all tied 5 out of 12 for risky picks. Evenly

00:06:43 ◼   ► perfectly tied. Oh that's beautiful. I like that. Yeah, so for the actual

00:06:48 ◼   ► risky part it's 5 out of 12 each. But yeah, Federico's won the most

00:06:53 ◼   ► predictions, the most overall competitions. Myke is the worst at the

00:06:58 ◼   ► flexies but I've lost most of the flexies I have donated $225 Federico

00:07:05 ◼   ► 175 Myke zero well that's cuz I might not be good but I'm smart right you

00:07:12 ◼   ► always add in the extra ones don't you and that that ends up being go down for

00:07:16 ◼   ► that's right then we get to coin flips this is incredible we've had three heads

00:07:21 ◼   ► and four tails I don't know what that I guess that means in the final I'm not

00:07:25 ◼   ► sure where that number comes from I guess the final one. Myke has won one two

00:07:31 ◼   ► three four five seven times. Wow. I have won once I won the 2019 WBC knockout

00:07:38 ◼   ► flip for first place. Mm-hmm. But Myke has beaten me every other time except

00:07:44 ◼   ► once where he beat Federico for second place at 2019's WBC. Matt who's one of

00:07:51 ◼   ► our amazing Discord mods calculated that there is a 97% chance of somebody doing worse than

00:07:58 ◼   ► me on a coin flip, which is also equal to, there is a 3% chance of me performing as well

00:08:03 ◼   ► as I have, so I am very good at coin flips. There is only a 3% chance that I would have

00:08:09 ◼   ► been able to do what I have done. So basically I think what we really want to know is, you

00:08:16 ◼   ► never want to be up against me in a coin flip, because that's where things are won and lost.

00:08:21 ◼   ► I think so. Mostly won by me. It's really painful. It's great. But yeah, definitely go check this

00:08:29 ◼   ► out. You can drill down into individual picks and see what round they were in, the score,

00:08:33 ◼   ► who made them. It's fantastic. Thank you very much, Jason, for putting this together. Yeah,

00:08:40 ◼   ► it's amazing. It's really, truly an incredible achievement. We haven't mentioned that it's

00:08:46 ◼   ► called the "Rikipedia". Yes. Like also the name. "Rikipedia". But what is actually even better than this,

00:08:55 ◼   ► is like better than maybe anything else I've ever seen on the internet ever, is the fact that it

00:09:01 ◼   ► goes all the way back and chronicles every prediction that we've done, including like

00:09:07 ◼   ► the audio predictions that we did one year, an air power based set of predictions that we did one

00:09:12 ◼   ► year. We did airpower. It's got everything. The audio predictions. Yep. Which I won. So it goes,

00:09:18 ◼   ► it begins in 2017 with our annual predictions. Nobody won the airpower game. No, because it

00:09:25 ◼   ► never came out. Yeah. But it was when will it come out and none of us picked never.

00:09:29 ◼   ► I said airpower will come out the first week of December 2018. I was very confident in this.

00:09:38 ◼   ► I was the least confident but still not unconfident enough.

00:09:42 ◼   ► It will come out after the 2018 iPhone event was what I guessed.

00:09:45 ◼   ► It says winner, nobody.

00:09:47 ◼   ► The Wikipedia is on GitHub and if you want you can open an issue, you can fork the repo.

00:09:53 ◼   ► It's incredible.

00:09:54 ◼   ► Okay.

00:09:55 ◼   ► Wow.

00:09:56 ◼   ► Don't start opening issues when you lose.

00:09:59 ◼   ► We'll see about that.

00:10:00 ◼   ► Right?

00:10:01 ◼   ► I'd like to open an issue.

00:10:02 ◼   ► I've not won enough.

00:10:03 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is brought to you by Pingdom from SolarWinds.

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00:11:26 ◼   ► first invoice. Our thanks to Pingdom from SolarWinds for their support of the show

00:11:30 ◼   ► and Relay FM. Should we move on to some follow-up? Yeah, in our last episode when we were

00:11:37 ◼   ► talking a little bit about air-tacks Federico recommended a topic for

00:11:42 ◼   ► "Ungenious" which is another show that me and Steven host about weird Wikipedia

00:11:46 ◼   ► articles and he recommended that we look into something called the "Quadro Tracker".

00:11:49 ◼   ► We just did it for our most recent episode. I recommend you go and listen to

00:11:53 ◼   ► it because it's bananas. It's fantastic. I didn't know you actually did it. Well

00:11:58 ◼   ► - Well, of course we did.

00:11:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, we bumped it to the top of the list.

00:12:02 ◼   ► - It's definitely worth listening to.

00:12:03 ◼   ► - Beautiful.

00:12:04 ◼   ► I mean, the description alone is gonna make you listen.

00:12:07 ◼   ► Need to find some drugs or a lost person

00:12:10 ◼   ► or maybe a hidden weapon?

00:12:11 ◼   ► We have the device just for you.

00:12:13 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:12:15 ◼   ► - That's basically it.

00:12:18 ◼   ► Hey Federico, how's your email journey going?

00:12:21 ◼   ► - It's in a limbo right now.

00:12:25 ◼   ► We are back on Gmail.

00:12:27 ◼   ► I think what we are considering the most is Fastmail

00:12:32 ◼   ► as an alternative service.

00:12:34 ◼   ► - Why?

00:12:35 ◼   ► - But I don't know, it seems interesting.

00:12:37 ◼   ► They have some team collaboration features, I believe.

00:12:40 ◼   ► They have this separate like collaborative service

00:12:44 ◼   ► that is also made by Fastmail

00:12:46 ◼   ► that I don't remember the name of it.

00:12:48 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:12:49 ◼   ► - Maybe Project Box, something like that.

00:12:52 ◼   ► - That's a terrible name.

00:12:53 ◼   ► - It's a terrible name.

00:12:54 ◼   ► It's like, I cannot remember that name

00:12:56 ◼   ► because it's so generic.

00:12:58 ◼   ► But yeah, I'm considering that.

00:13:00 ◼   ► The problem is that right now we already lost a few emails

00:13:05 ◼   ► because of DNS propagation silliness

00:13:09 ◼   ► in our transition last week from A to Gmail.

00:13:14 ◼   ► And right now, for reasons that I'm sure you, Myke

00:13:20 ◼   ► and Steven will totally understand,

00:13:22 ◼   ► I cannot afford to have emails be undelivered right now.

00:13:27 ◼   ► - It's a busy time.

00:13:29 ◼   ► - It's a busy time.

00:13:31 ◼   ► And so we have to use this current system

00:13:35 ◼   ► that we have right now.

00:13:36 ◼   ► We also had to deal-- - Topic box?

00:13:39 ◼   ► - Topic box, yes, not project box.

00:13:42 ◼   ► - I mean, topic box is not that much better

00:13:44 ◼   ► than project box. - Yes, it's not better.

00:13:47 ◼   ► - If anything, project box might be better for what the,

00:13:49 ◼   ► anyway, yup, okay.

00:13:51 ◼   ► And what was I saying?

00:13:54 ◼   ► So yeah, we're using Gmail.

00:13:56 ◼   ► We're still dealing with some DNS stuff and email

00:14:01 ◼   ► authentication and that kind of stuff.

00:14:02 ◼   ► But at the very least, we have working email

00:14:05 ◼   ► that we can send and receive.

00:14:07 ◼   ► And that's all that matters right now.

00:14:10 ◼   ► But we exported everything out of, hey,

00:14:12 ◼   ► I confirmed that we got everything we needed.

00:14:16 ◼   ► I canceled my subscription, let a few days pass.

00:14:20 ◼   ► And as of last night, I also deleted my Hey account.

00:14:24 ◼   ► So we are now, well, we're not completely gone

00:14:26 ◼   ► because I guess Basecamp will keep data for 30 days

00:14:30 ◼   ► and for like sort of last ditch attempt

00:14:34 ◼   ► to backup purposes for 60 days.

00:14:36 ◼   ► Like they say, they're gonna delete our data in 30 days,

00:14:40 ◼   ► but we will be able to request a backup in 60 days,

00:14:43 ◼   ► which is kind of confusing.

00:14:44 ◼   ► Like when will my data be gone from your servers?

00:14:47 ◼   ► Still, we're gone now.

00:14:49 ◼   ► So that's all that matters actually.

00:14:52 ◼   ► Yeah. Using Gmail, using Spark as per your suggestion, Myke,

00:14:58 ◼   ► because that's like the most basic version of collaboration

00:15:02 ◼   ► that John and I were able to find with something

00:15:06 ◼   ► that we were already familiar with.

00:15:08 ◼   ► - That's great.

00:15:09 ◼   ► - I like Spark.

00:15:11 ◼   ► I really dislike the iPad version

00:15:14 ◼   ► because it doesn't use the native multi-column layout.

00:15:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was listening to App Stories

00:15:18 ◼   ► and I hadn't thought of that before,

00:15:20 ◼   ► and then I hated to know it, right?

00:15:22 ◼   ► Like I hadn't considered it, but when you said it,

00:15:24 ◼   ► I was like, "God damn it," right?

00:15:26 ◼   ► Because now, whenever I use the iPad app,

00:15:28 ◼   ► I'm acutely aware of needing to swipe over

00:15:31 ◼   ► to get the folders.

00:15:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:15:34 ◼   ► But it's fine.

00:15:35 ◼   ► I really like a few things that Spark does,

00:15:39 ◼   ► like Todoist integration,

00:15:42 ◼   ► which we're gonna talk about that later

00:15:43 ◼   ► as to why that matters.

00:15:47 ◼   ► They have the, obviously, the ability to chat.

00:15:50 ◼   ► I have never used, will never use,

00:15:53 ◼   ► and I wish I could wipe it from settings,

00:15:56 ◼   ► the quick reaction thing.

00:15:58 ◼   ► Like, you know, how in Spark they want you to react

00:16:03 ◼   ► to messages with like this--

00:16:05 ◼   ► - I feel like I never see that.

00:16:06 ◼   ► - I think you can turn it off, maybe.

00:16:08 ◼   ► - You can turn it off,

00:16:09 ◼   ► but you cannot actually delete it from,

00:16:12 ◼   ► like you can delete, I believe, some of the emoji,

00:16:15 ◼   ► But at the very least, you've got to keep two emoji in settings,

00:16:18 ◼   ► even if you don't use quick replies.

00:16:20 ◼   ► I don't know. It's silly.

00:16:21 ◼   ► I don't understand why that --

00:16:23 ◼   ► -I think those emoji are for the Teams thing, though.

00:16:26 ◼   ► 'Cause they have, like, emoji reactions

00:16:30 ◼   ► in the chat stuff, like Slack does.

00:16:33 ◼   ► So I think that might be what that's for.

00:16:35 ◼   ► -Still, like, I don't love it for --

00:16:38 ◼   ► Yeah, I mentioned on an app store.

00:16:39 ◼   ► It's like they have this weird mix going on

00:16:42 ◼   ► of some native UI elements and some custom stuff.

00:16:47 ◼   ► And it's kind of a strange mix, visually speaking.

00:16:49 ◼   ► Sometimes you get a totally custom menu,

00:16:52 ◼   ► and other times you get a native context menu, for example.

00:16:56 ◼   ► And it's this kind of odd combination.

00:16:57 ◼   ► I wish they were able to

00:16:59 ◼   ► unify the design language a little bit.

00:17:02 ◼   ► But it's fine.

00:17:03 ◼   ► I mean, overall, it's fine.

00:17:04 ◼   ► I can share messages, I can collaborate with John.

00:17:06 ◼   ► It's okay.

00:17:08 ◼   ► But we'll see.

00:17:09 ◼   ► Maybe, maybe, what's the name?

00:17:11 ◼   ► topic box. Yeah, maybe that I will consider. But after I'm done with the, you know, not

00:17:18 ◼   ► right now because I cannot switch DNS again right now.

00:17:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, and the thing is that it's also, I guess, if you stay with Spark, it doesn't

00:17:25 ◼   ► matter what email service you use.

00:17:27 ◼   ► Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.

00:17:30 ◼   ► Because their chat thing is just built into a Spark account and then they just do whatever

00:17:34 ◼   ► they're doing to put it all together.

00:17:38 ◼   ► Yeah, I need to move from "hey" but I've got like...

00:17:43 ◼   ► I'm working with someone right now on a project and I gave them...

00:17:48 ◼   ► They needed an email address because they're setting up like a web thing for me.

00:17:52 ◼   ► And I created a "hey" email address for them.

00:17:55 ◼   ► And I really... and now I have to like deal with this other person's email address as

00:18:01 ◼   ► well as my own, you know?

00:18:02 ◼   ► And that's like so frustrating to me.

00:18:03 ◼   ► I have to be like "hey, you know I made you sign up for that email service that you probably

00:18:07 ◼   ► didn't want to use, well now I need you to go here, download your inbox file, take it

00:18:13 ◼   ► over to here, and it's like, "Ah, I think I'm going to wait until this project's done

00:18:18 ◼   ► then and I'm going to move."

00:18:19 ◼   ► And for me, it was like, as I said last time, I don't think I was ever going to stay on

00:18:22 ◼   ► Hey because I just fundamentally don't like it, but I'm going to move everything back

00:18:29 ◼   ► to Gmail, I think.

00:18:30 ◼   ► I'm glad I never left.

00:18:31 ◼   ► I'm really glad I didn't move my email around.

00:18:37 ◼   ► We got some more information about the new 24 inch iMac.

00:18:42 ◼   ► Apple put up a support document on the 30th

00:18:45 ◼   ► that caught my eye.

00:18:47 ◼   ► They say that under normal circumstances,

00:18:52 ◼   ► it is only seven decibels in volume.

00:18:56 ◼   ► So it does have two fans.

00:18:58 ◼   ► There are little fans there under the chin

00:19:00 ◼   ► because the whole computer's under the chin.

00:19:03 ◼   ► Seven decibels, I looked it up.

00:19:04 ◼   ► So I have some common sounds and how loud they are in decibels.

00:19:09 ◼   ► A chainsaw is 120 decibels.

00:19:13 ◼   ► - Oh, I thought you were gonna say, like, seven decibels.

00:19:16 ◼   ► A chainsaw.

00:19:17 ◼   ► I was like, "Oh, that's not quiet."

00:19:18 ◼   ► - A chainsaw from eight miles away.

00:19:20 ◼   ► Chainsaw is 120 decibels.

00:19:23 ◼   ► That's above the threshold of pain.

00:19:25 ◼   ► - Chainsaw would hurt.

00:19:26 ◼   ► - Concert, generally between 108 and 115 decibels or so.

00:19:32 ◼   ► About 110 decibels is the threshold of pain for most people.

00:19:37 ◼   ► If a jet flies over you at 1,000 feet, it's 100 decibels.

00:19:41 ◼   ► I don't know when you have the opportunity

00:19:43 ◼   ► to measure how high a plane is.

00:19:44 ◼   ► That one's not super helpful.

00:19:46 ◼   ► - Hashtag relatable.

00:19:47 ◼   ► - Garbage disposal or dishwasher, factory floor.

00:19:50 ◼   ► That's about 80 decibels.

00:19:53 ◼   ► 70 decibels is about the sound of road noise in a car

00:19:58 ◼   ► or like a normal human conversation.

00:20:00 ◼   ► 70 decibels is the high end of that.

00:20:02 ◼   ► You have like a conversation at home is maybe 50,

00:20:09 ◼   ► a library is about 40.

00:20:11 ◼   ► The whisper of rustling leaves is 20,

00:20:15 ◼   ► and breathing is 10.

00:20:17 ◼   ► And below 10, most people can't hear anything.

00:20:20 ◼   ► I certainly can't.

00:20:21 ◼   ► - So the iMac is just incredibly gently breathing.

00:20:24 ◼   ► - Effectively silent under everyday use.

00:20:28 ◼   ► - Don't like that at all. - Which is really cool.

00:20:30 ◼   ► I'm an iMac.

00:20:32 ◼   ► Hello.

00:20:33 ◼   ► Hello, I'm running Finder.

00:20:35 ◼   ► Now I'm running Dropbox!

00:20:37 ◼   ► I am so happy.

00:20:39 ◼   ► That was good.

00:20:40 ◼   ► You know what, I didn't give you the credit.

00:20:42 ◼   ► It took a second for that joke to land on me.

00:20:44 ◼   ► That was a very good joke.

00:20:46 ◼   ► I'm very pleased that the ship dates have continued to slip on this computer.

00:20:51 ◼   ► So you don't rage buy one?

00:20:53 ◼   ► I'm having a editing challenge at the moment

00:20:56 ◼   ► that my MacBook Pro can handle significantly better than my iMac Pro.

00:21:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:21:02 ◼   ► So I'm working on a member special right now where there are... you will probably

00:21:09 ◼   ► understand this more Steven than maybe a bit, like in logic every little section

00:21:14 ◼   ► is called an event. It's like we... this one has over 5,000 events. It's obscene.

00:21:20 ◼   ► It's obscene what I'm... what's happening.

00:21:22 ◼   ► You have created something you shouldn't have.

00:21:24 ◼   ► Yeah, I had somebody help me and they edit with strip silence and strip silence creates all those little anyway

00:21:30 ◼   ► Jason my iMac Pro there wasn't Jason

00:21:33 ◼   ► When I

00:21:37 ◼   ► Drag so if I select all forward and drag and I got like say like 4,500 events my iMac Pro beach balls

00:21:44 ◼   ► Right my m1 not a problem, you know what you need my m1 MacBook Pro. How does it fine?

00:21:52 ◼   ► You know you need to do you need to buy an iMac

00:21:54 ◼   ► No, and well I've got the Mac Pro now right, but like basically my thinking is well now

00:22:01 ◼   ► I'm kind of coming to the realization that this iMac Pro

00:22:05 ◼   ► Would performs worse than a 24 inch iMac would for me

00:22:09 ◼   ► Some of my tasks, so I'm I'm staying strong. I'm doing all of this editing on the MacBook Pro, but I

00:22:17 ◼   ► Cannot wait for a computer to replace my own Mac Pro now like I have

00:22:21 ◼   ► Even more so like I've actually I have hit an issue

00:22:25 ◼   ► Man, I'm so pleased I have this maggle pro because I would be pulling my hair out at this point trying to edit this project

00:22:31 ◼   ► Like I honestly don't know how it would do it. Mm-hmm. Yes

00:22:35 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm just I'm just pleased that that these things aren't immediately available

00:22:39 ◼   ► That's good for me. They've slipped and then I saw an article

00:22:44 ◼   ► Today as well that the especially the 12.9 inch

00:22:47 ◼   ► iPad pro is also way out into mid-july. It's like July

00:22:53 ◼   ► Yeah, I think they're being conservative a little bit too, but there definitely are shortages. Yeah, maybe like

00:23:01 ◼   ► I don't know if you too cuz I can't remember a time when a product had like a listed window after you buy it

00:23:09 ◼   ► it. Can either of you think of that? Like my, the iron pad that I bought for Idina,

00:23:13 ◼   ► like the delivery date is like 21st to 28th of May. Yeah it's demand, it's

00:23:18 ◼   ► chip shortage, and I agree with you I think they probably are being a little

00:23:22 ◼   ► conservative in case something happens. They would rather over deliver than come

00:23:28 ◼   ► back to you and say "oh you thought you were getting it this week but you really

00:23:31 ◼   ► you're getting it in three more weeks." Right, that's not a good look for anyone.

00:23:34 ◼   ► Yeah, it would be weird. Like, that would feel super strange for me to Apple, for Apple to contact me and tell me there's a delay on the

00:23:41 ◼   ► like that just seems like a very strange thing to occur. Mm-hmm. I would want a personal email from Tim if that was the case.

00:23:48 ◼   ► Tim, uh,

00:23:50 ◼   ► Tim is the operations guy, right? This is what they do. And so these dates, they're not gonna miss,

00:23:56 ◼   ► I don't think. But I will be sure to let you know how good the iMac is when my,

00:24:00 ◼   ► Mine gets here for my my review. I could just send it to you when I'm done with it

00:24:04 ◼   ► Prom soft. Well, I mean look good in your studio. Oh, it would look great orange is the color I would get

00:24:10 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean if you just want to give it to me then great. No, it's not

00:24:14 ◼   ► Really what I meant

00:24:16 ◼   ► That's the thing. That's what you said. You said I'll just send it to you. That was really can buy it from from

00:24:21 ◼   ► 512 pixels

00:24:23 ◼   ► Interesting and then you can buy well that doesn't make any sense

00:24:28 ◼   ► We are we're celebrating

00:24:30 ◼   ► Relay membership time the annual specials for our members are rolling out as we speak

00:24:37 ◼   ► These are extra episodes of a bunch of our shows

00:24:40 ◼   ► Just for relay FM members and so Myke you were on the record sample differences one that published today it published today

00:24:48 ◼   ► That was that was quite an honor. I had a great time. I'm gonna listen to that during my bike ride later

00:24:54 ◼   ► I think I don't really remember what we spoke about because we started recording at my 1 a.m. Wow

00:24:59 ◼   ► So I was a little loopy. That's that's no boy. No, that's no good at all. I think it was good

00:25:04 ◼   ► I think it was good for the show. Yeah, sometimes you got to make sacrifices, you know

00:25:08 ◼   ► Yeah for your for your content on on genius. We talked about Star Wars day May the 4th and

00:25:14 ◼   ► The connected one is out and it made a lot of people feel really special inside

00:25:18 ◼   ► So there's lots more coming you can get those no matter what show you're a member of

00:25:24 ◼   ► of. We send those to all Relay FM members. But if you go to GetConnectedPro.co, you can

00:25:30 ◼   ► become a member of Connected. You'll get all those annual specials from all the shows,

00:25:36 ◼   ► access to the Discord, and you'll also get Connected Pro, which is a longer ad-free version

00:25:40 ◼   ► of the show each and every week that we have a lot of fun making.

00:25:44 ◼   ► GetConnectedPro.co.

00:25:46 ◼   ► Federico, you may be getting your wish. So tell us about this report of Apple Music High

00:25:53 ◼   ► Yeah, so there's a couple of things here that are interesting. So according to this website

00:25:59 ◼   ► called HitsDoubleDaily, spotted by Myke Rumors, they're saying that Apple plans to unveil

00:26:07 ◼   ► a higher fidelity version of Apple Music within the, they say, the coming weeks. And they

00:26:13 ◼   ► also mentioned that there will be some new generation, some new AirPods to go along with

00:26:19 ◼   ► So, "It's Double Daily" is saying that Apple is working on Apple Music Hi-Fi, basically,

00:26:25 ◼   ► that new AirPods will be the product paired, like officially speaking, with this new version

00:26:32 ◼   ► of Apple Music, and it's expected to cost, well, actually the same current price of Apple

00:26:38 ◼   ► Music, which is $9.99 a month.

00:26:42 ◼   ► So this is fascinating for a few reasons.

00:26:44 ◼   ► Obviously, the price.

00:26:46 ◼   ► If that is correct, and if Apple is actually going to do a lossless high-resolution tier

00:26:51 ◼   ► for Apple Music at $10 a month, they would be undercutting the entire competition in

00:26:58 ◼   ► this field, including Amazon with Amazon Music HD, which I believe is $15 a month.

00:27:05 ◼   ► So pricing-wise, if this is true, I kind of get the feeling that Apple is not going to

00:27:15 ◼   ► make it a... So this is my theory. If this is correct, that there's not going to be like

00:27:21 ◼   ► a price increase for this, maybe it's not going to be a separate tier. They're just

00:27:26 ◼   ► going to say "Oh, and we updated the Apple Music stream quality, and now it's high resolution

00:27:33 ◼   ► and there's no change for you." Sort of like how they dropped 4K movies on iTunes without

00:27:38 ◼   ► having to raise prices at all. They've done it with music before, like iTunes Plus. The

00:27:44 ◼   ► The Digital Master version?

00:27:46 ◼   ► At a certain point they just put all the quality up, even on old songs, and you could upgrade them for free.

00:27:53 ◼   ► Yep, and even when they did the Apple Digital Masters on the iTunes Store, they didn't raise the prices.

00:28:01 ◼   ► So if this is correct, maybe they are going to repeat what happened in the past.

00:28:06 ◼   ► They're just going to say, "Yeah, we raised the quality."

00:28:09 ◼   ► Well I also wondered if they have like the regular Apple Music costs like $5.99

00:28:14 ◼   ► they just reduce the price of the standard tier and then $9.99 gets you the

00:28:19 ◼   ► higher tier. One of the reasons I thought they might want to do that is

00:28:23 ◼   ► because Apple Music on its own is really expensive now compared to Apple One. Like

00:28:30 ◼   ► so Apple Music on its own is $10 a month and Apple One is $15 a month and then

00:28:35 ◼   ► you also get Arcade, TV Plus, and iCloud.

00:28:39 ◼   ► So I don't know, maybe that could be,

00:28:41 ◼   ► or they could do what you're suggesting of like,

00:28:43 ◼   ► just hey, it's 10 bucks now and that's everything.

00:28:47 ◼   ► But that doesn't come with its own

00:28:49 ◼   ► branding opportunity though, right?

00:28:51 ◼   ► Because, so here's the thing,

00:28:53 ◼   ► like going on what you were saying,

00:28:55 ◼   ► and what you've been talking about before,

00:28:57 ◼   ► like that Spotify being the main one

00:29:00 ◼   ► will also have something called Spotify HiFi,

00:29:03 ◼   ► and that's gonna be their high fidelity tier.

00:29:05 ◼   ► And if Apple Music don't have this as a tier,

00:29:07 ◼   ► people might think that they don't have high fidelity.

00:29:10 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:29:10 ◼   ► Yeah, totally.

00:29:12 ◼   ► That is the problem.

00:29:13 ◼   ► So I don't know.

00:29:14 ◼   ► I kind of hope that it's going to be a separate thing

00:29:17 ◼   ► and that they are actually going to match

00:29:19 ◼   ► what the rest of the industry is doing in this regard, which

00:29:23 ◼   ► is why I find this detail on the pricing interesting.

00:29:27 ◼   ► Also, like, what a terrible time, though, for them to say,

00:29:30 ◼   ► oh, hey, we're doing something that

00:29:31 ◼   ► cost exactly the same as Spotify again. Right? With the European Union stuff?

00:29:36 ◼   ► Yeah. Right? Where it's like, oh yeah but they we're gonna charge the same price if

00:29:40 ◼   ► they want to do it we'll take 30% from them. But going back as well to that

00:29:43 ◼   ► AirPods thing you mentioned, does that seem like the right product pairing? Like

00:29:48 ◼   ► the regular AirPods with a high fidelity audio service? No, not at all. Not at all.

00:29:53 ◼   ► I don't think you want to listen to high fidelity music with a bunch of teeny

00:29:58 ◼   ► tiny AirPods. Yeah. What if they took the HomePod mini and made a

00:30:03 ◼   ► bigger version of it? Wouldn't that be called a HomePod? I think that'd be a

00:30:06 ◼   ► pretty interesting product that Apple's never explored. Oh I see what you're

00:30:09 ◼   ► doing. I see what you're saying. I'm like what is he talking about? That took me a

00:30:12 ◼   ► minute. Yeah Apple's really successful HomePod mini. They should make a bigger

00:30:15 ◼   ► one. They should make a bigger one. HomePod bigger. So here's my other question for

00:30:20 ◼   ► you two. So they're saying within the coming weeks will this be pre WWDC?

00:30:25 ◼   ► Would it be iOS 15? Would they announce it at WWDC?

00:30:29 ◼   ► Here's where it gets interesting.

00:30:31 ◼   ► So 9to5Mac reported this, MacRumors reported this.

00:30:34 ◼   ► I was also shown these code strings a few weeks ago and I kept silent.

00:30:40 ◼   ► But basically in iOS 14.6 Beta 1, there's a bunch of different code references

00:30:49 ◼   ► references to things like Dolby Atmos, Dolby Audio, and Lossless within the music app.

00:30:57 ◼   ► So in the files for the music app in the 14.6 Beta 1 firmware, there's these references

00:31:08 ◼   ► in the music app.

00:31:10 ◼   ► And it seems to me like iOS 14...

00:31:15 ◼   ► So my theory is that iOS 14.6 will be out before WWDC and this will be part of that

00:31:20 ◼   ► announcement.

00:31:21 ◼   ► I don't know, I just, I think it'll be kinda strange to see 14.6 as part of a WWDC keynote

00:31:31 ◼   ► video where they also announce iOS 15, right?

00:31:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:36 ◼   ► Wouldn't that be a little strange?

00:31:38 ◼   ► Like there's a new feature and we're gonna talk about it and there's some changes happening

00:31:43 ◼   ► to Apple Music and now also let's talk about the next version of iOS.

00:31:48 ◼   ► I don't know it feels like...

00:31:49 ◼   ► I mean maybe it could be like we're so excited for this we don't want to wait till the fall.

00:31:53 ◼   ► We want everyone to enjoy this now you know.

00:31:56 ◼   ► Maybe maybe.

00:31:57 ◼   ► Yeah like it they could they could have it as part of the Apple Music and Apple Music

00:32:02 ◼   ► part of WWDC right so like maybe they have some features in music that they want to show

00:32:08 ◼   ► off of iOS 15 and they'll say oh and hey we've got this new service that we're rolling out

00:32:12 ◼   ► from today that will... but like I expect personally if this does happen, if this is

00:32:19 ◼   ► happening soon, it will probably be a press release.

00:32:23 ◼   ► This feels like press release material to me, yes.

00:32:25 ◼   ► But at the same time I could also imagine them holding it for a little bit longer now,

00:32:31 ◼   ► because I don't know but it seems it's a bit of a rough go at the moment, right?

00:32:38 ◼   ► I don't know how much you would really want to continue to shine a light on

00:32:46 ◼   ► competitiveness in the music streaming service world. Like I don't know if now

00:32:50 ◼   ► is the right time. I also don't know if they would care but I think that an

00:32:54 ◼   ► argument could be made for one of the potential reasons why AirTags were so

00:32:59 ◼   ► delayed was that they were trying to get out ahead of the tile thing by putting

00:33:02 ◼   ► the Find My Network in place first. Because I feel pretty confident

00:33:07 ◼   ► in my assumption that the Find My Network maybe never would have existed

00:33:12 ◼   ► or definitely wouldn't have existed before air tax, right, in a different

00:33:16 ◼   ► regulatory environment or like threat of legal environment. It seems very strange

00:33:21 ◼   ► for Apple to be like we're doing this thing oh and here's our thing. It kind of

00:33:25 ◼   ► feels like it would have been the other way around if anything. So I don't know

00:33:28 ◼   ► but I stand by what we've said in the past on the show like Apple should do

00:33:34 ◼   ► this. They should have done this a long time ago considering the type of

00:33:37 ◼   ► of hardware that they sell. But as we also spoke about, it's going to be interesting

00:33:41 ◼   ► to see how much higher quality can they go and what hardware they as well actually support

00:33:47 ◼   ► that. Did you see Arnold Kim's tweet about Hits Daily Double? Yeah. I'll read it.

00:33:53 ◼   ► The last time we reported on a rumor from Hits Daily Double was way back in 2001. They

00:33:58 ◼   ► They predicted a device called the iPod.

00:34:04 ◼   ► The post is one sentence on MacRumors.

00:34:07 ◼   ► "iPod, a portable hard drive for music that will feature a FireWire connection for extra

00:34:12 ◼   ► fast data transfer."

00:34:13 ◼   ► They, uh, they got it right.

00:34:16 ◼   ► That is like the ultimate mic drop.

00:34:19 ◼   ► Like the last time we linked to these folks, they predicted the iPod.

00:34:22 ◼   ► That's pretty good.

00:34:25 ◼   ► That's all you need to know.

00:34:26 ◼   ► I love the MacRumors post.

00:34:28 ◼   ► Yeah, all of these old MacRumors posts from 20 years ago used to be like that.

00:34:36 ◼   ► Oh, 20 years ago!

00:34:38 ◼   ► Oh, that's a horrible thing you just said.

00:34:41 ◼   ► This is one of the things I love about MacRumors.

00:34:44 ◼   ► The fact that the website has been around for two decades, and the fact that Arn remembers

00:34:48 ◼   ► this stuff, and every so often links to these old posts on MacRumors.

00:34:54 ◼   ► It's kind of like what I hope I can do someday with Mac stories, which, you know, we've been

00:35:00 ◼   ► around 12 years, which is a pretty good time in internet years, but MacRumors has a much,

00:35:05 ◼   ► much longer history. And that's one of the many things I love about the website, that

00:35:10 ◼   ► they can do this kind of stuff. And you go back in time and you can see the comments

00:35:14 ◼   ► on this post. Truly incredible. Yeah. Good job. It's daily double.

00:35:20 ◼   ► Yeah, the "It" being 20 years ago, you know, I've been doing that 2001 Revisited series,

00:35:28 ◼   ► and it's very upsetting every time, because I have a long list of things in what month

00:35:34 ◼   ► they're in, and it's like, yeah, like OS X, I get it, but then like some of the things

00:35:38 ◼   ► later on the list is like, oh no, like, that's really upsetting, including the iPod.

00:35:46 ◼   ► When is the 20 years at the iPod?

00:35:48 ◼   ► It's in October.

00:35:49 ◼   ► It's in the fall.

00:35:50 ◼   ► October.

00:35:51 ◼   ► Speaking of things that haven't been updated in 20 years, the iPad Mini is back in the

00:35:56 ◼   ► rumor cycle.

00:35:57 ◼   ► That was good.

00:35:58 ◼   ► That was really good.

00:35:59 ◼   ► You're really good at this, Stephen.

00:36:00 ◼   ► You should be a podcaster.

00:36:06 ◼   ► We have all wanted the iPad Mini to become more like the iPad Pro and now the iPad Air

00:36:12 ◼   ► with flat sides and little bezels.

00:36:13 ◼   ► We think it'd be really, really awesome.

00:36:16 ◼   ► But it seems like that may not be the case.

00:36:19 ◼   ► So Myke, what is the current word on the street?

00:36:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, so there was some reports from Ming-Chi Kuo,

00:36:25 ◼   ► who's also reporting this today, a while ago.

00:36:27 ◼   ► We actually spoke about them ages ago on the show,

00:36:30 ◼   ► about there being an update,

00:36:31 ◼   ► but that Kuo was expecting it to still have a Touch ID

00:36:34 ◼   ► home button, still have a lightning port,

00:36:36 ◼   ► but have a larger display and some slimmer bezels.

00:36:39 ◼   ► And it was disappointing then,

00:36:41 ◼   ► but the thing that's become more disappointing about this

00:36:43 ◼   ► is now this product is not expected to be released

00:36:46 ◼   ► until the second half of 2021.

00:36:48 ◼   ► So by the time this product actually comes out, that is going to look so old.

00:36:55 ◼   ► Because Apple, especially because I think the rest of this year

00:36:59 ◼   ► is going to see some quite aggressive product design from Apple,

00:37:02 ◼   ► right, with the Macs. I think we're going to see some pretty

00:37:05 ◼   ► like incredible looking design there. And at that point

00:37:10 ◼   ► it will basically just be the original iPad

00:37:13 ◼   ► and the iPad mini that don't have that iPad Pro inspired flat side design.

00:37:18 ◼   ► And I think it's just going to look really odd to be like,

00:37:21 ◼   ► "Here's our new iPad Mini."

00:37:23 ◼   ► And it's like still got a home button, right?

00:37:25 ◼   ► It's like still curved around the edges.

00:37:27 ◼   ► Like it's going to,

00:37:29 ◼   ► this product would have been more acceptable

00:37:31 ◼   ► if they would have released it a couple of weeks ago.

00:37:33 ◼   ► I think like six, seven months from now,

00:37:36 ◼   ► it's going to really stick out, I think.

00:37:40 ◼   ► - But remember, like, so the way I think Apple thinks

00:37:42 ◼   ► about it is the iPad Air and the iPad Pro are a pair,

00:37:47 ◼   ► and the iPad mini and the cheap iPad are a pair,

00:37:51 ◼   ► which I disagree with,

00:37:53 ◼   ► 'cause the iPad mini is more premium,

00:37:55 ◼   ► at least in price, than the cheap iPad.

00:37:58 ◼   ► So maybe it's like until the regular iPad is ready,

00:38:02 ◼   ► the iPad mini doesn't get anything new either,

00:38:04 ◼   ► which bums me out,

00:38:05 ◼   ► but I can kind of see how that would make sense.

00:38:08 ◼   ► - But I agree with the idea of thinking

00:38:11 ◼   ► that they're pairings or whatever,

00:38:13 ◼   ► but I still think that they should update the design

00:38:16 ◼   ► them and pair them. Like you know like Apple make Touch ID power buttons now

00:38:21 ◼   ► rather than home buttons. We'll put that on it and get rid of the home button

00:38:25 ◼   ► from the front and now you know now we're starting to talk right like if it

00:38:29 ◼   ► would still look way more modern if they just got rid of the home button even and

00:38:33 ◼   ► you know they were able to make the device physically smaller at that point

00:38:36 ◼   ► and it'd be great but yeah I just think you know I would be intrigued by this

00:38:41 ◼   ► device depend also it depends on the internals as well for me like what chip

00:38:45 ◼   ► that I put in it, like I think, because you know the iPad Mini with the A12 in it right

00:38:50 ◼   ► now is really aged and you know I'd be worried, I hope they would put an A14 in it at least.

00:38:56 ◼   ► But yeah I just think that this isn't the product that I want it to be and you know

00:39:01 ◼   ► I feel a little bit sad about thinking that it's also going to be a really long time until

00:39:06 ◼   ► we see one.

00:39:07 ◼   ► I'm so sad about this, I was really hoping that we're going to do the small iPad Pro

00:39:12 ◼   ► device which is perfect for reading because I really oh this is a whole thing I really

00:39:22 ◼   ► I've gone back to reading things on the iPad and by things I mean articles it's a whole

00:39:29 ◼   ► story didn't you just get a Kindle and like do the whole thing no he got he got something

00:39:33 ◼   ► else didn't he what was it like kobo or something yeah that didn't work out huh man it's yeah

00:39:40 ◼   ► Who would ever switch between things like readers or task managers?

00:39:43 ◼   ► I know.

00:39:44 ◼   ► Email service calls.

00:39:45 ◼   ► It's like a diss.

00:39:46 ◼   ► How would you say flip flop in Italian?

00:39:48 ◼   ► Ah, see that's an interesting question.

00:39:51 ◼   ► Well, we don't say flip flop.

00:39:53 ◼   ► If any Italians are listening to this, please get in touch with me on Twitter.

00:39:57 ◼   ► I think we would say Volta Gabana, but I'm not positive.

00:40:03 ◼   ► Can you tell me that more slowly, please?

00:40:06 ◼   ► Are you texting it to me?

00:40:08 ◼   ► It's in the Discord.

00:40:10 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure... hold on.

00:40:12 ◼   ► Volta Gabana?

00:40:13 ◼   ► Yes, Volta Gabana.

00:40:14 ◼   ► Okay. So we have Flip-Flop and Volta Gabana.

00:40:17 ◼   ► Uh, yeah. Somebody who changes ideas and opinions.

00:40:20 ◼   ► For... see, that's the thing that I don't like about this word, which is kind of...

00:40:24 ◼   ► Somebody changes opinions and ideas for their own... or like for... because they are opportunistic

00:40:32 ◼   ► or for personal gain with great ease and quickly.

00:40:38 ◼   ► I would say personal gain with great ease and quickly.

00:40:41 ◼   ► Okay, so there's a, the synonym of that "bande-ruola" is also very good. I will go with that. Which

00:40:47 ◼   ► literally means "little flag". Bande-ruola. Can you again put that in the Discord so I

00:40:52 ◼   ► can try and say it? Yes.

00:40:55 ◼   ► Because I struggle to hear the letters. Okay, it's B-A-N-D-E-R-U-O-L-A. All those sounds

00:41:03 ◼   ► at the end there are difficult for me. Try and say that.

00:41:06 ◼   ► Yes, that's pretty good.

00:41:08 ◼   ► Okay, bandero alla and flip flop. There we go.

00:41:10 ◼   ► I don't know if there's a particularly British English, or just English, term for this.

00:41:16 ◼   ► I'd have to think if there's something more British, but I'm not a flip flopper or a bandero alla like you two, so no problem here.

00:41:24 ◼   ► In any case, I'm really sad that they're not making that iPad Pro Mini.

00:41:29 ◼   ► Well, unless they do make an iPad Pro Mini.

00:41:32 ◼   ► Where's Johnny Ive when you need him?

00:41:34 ◼   ► Johnny wouldn't stand for this. What is Johnny doing anyway?

00:41:38 ◼   ► Nothing. Nothing. Enjoying retirement.

00:41:41 ◼   ► Well, no, he works at Airbnb, doesn't he? You consult for Airbnb.

00:41:44 ◼   ► Ah, yes. Oh my god, I totally forgot this was a true story, right?

00:41:48 ◼   ► Yeah, because it was one of those things that was like, they announced it and then that

00:41:51 ◼   ► was the end of that, right? Like, they announced it in October and then, like, we never heard

00:41:56 ◼   ► anything more about it, but... Designing the future of Airbnb.

00:42:00 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:42:02 ◼   ► And it's all that there is to the story.

00:42:04 ◼   ► But to be fair, if it was just announced,

00:42:06 ◼   ► it's hardly likely they would have anything to show for a long time.

00:42:08 ◼   ► Right, sure.

00:42:10 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, look how long it took him to redesign the iMac.

00:42:12 ◼   ► He had to leave, so...

00:42:14 ◼   ► He had to leave to get that done.

00:42:16 ◼   ► Can't wait to see the first Apple LoveFrom collaboration.

00:42:18 ◼   ► Right? They were supposed to be working together for a long time.

00:42:20 ◼   ► Ah, LoveFrom.

00:42:22 ◼   ► Can't wait to see that.

00:42:24 ◼   ► Can't wait to see the first collaboration.

00:42:26 ◼   ► Maybe it's the AirTags, which is literally a white button.

00:42:28 ◼   ► a white button. No he would never like Johnny would never have a removable battery surely.

00:42:35 ◼   ► Right you're sure you're right you're right you wouldn't do that. All right.

00:42:40 ◼   ► This episode of Connected is brought to you by TextExpander from our friends at SMILE.

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00:44:11 ◼   ► What what the snippet is is it could kill it is?

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00:44:54 ◼   ► AirTags!

00:44:56 ◼   ► - Feels like they came out forever ago, doesn't it?

00:44:59 ◼   ► - It was just Friday.

00:45:01 ◼   ► It was like four or five days ago.

00:45:03 ◼   ► - They're kind of boring, right?

00:45:05 ◼   ► - So here's my thing.

00:45:08 ◼   ► It's fun to set them up.

00:45:11 ◼   ► It's fun to try them out for the first time.

00:45:15 ◼   ► And then that's it.

00:45:16 ◼   ► What I like, I feel like I have a very attractive key ring now.

00:45:21 ◼   ► I have the brown one, the leather brown one.

00:45:24 ◼   ► And I have the little white disk inside.

00:45:25 ◼   ► And it's got my initials on it.

00:45:27 ◼   ► And I think that's a very nice looking key ring.

00:45:29 ◼   ► And I'm happy I have the key ring.

00:45:31 ◼   ► It's also like it's big enough that it's easy to grab.

00:45:34 ◼   ► So I have something so I reach into my pocket.

00:45:36 ◼   ► And it's just an easy thing for me to grab there.

00:45:38 ◼   ► Nice, easy, very happy.

00:45:40 ◼   ► But I guess the whole point of this product

00:45:43 ◼   ► is like you are betting on your future with it, right?

00:45:45 ◼   ► - The thing about the EarthTags is that

00:45:48 ◼   ► it's a difficult product to enjoy

00:45:51 ◼   ► because as a product it's predicated upon the idea

00:45:54 ◼   ► of something bad happening to you.

00:45:56 ◼   ► And so like, can you enjoy EarthTags?

00:46:00 ◼   ► Well, yeah, you can if you lose your stuff

00:46:02 ◼   ► and that's not fun, you know?

00:46:04 ◼   ► So I also put them on my car keys.

00:46:07 ◼   ► I have now a fancy EarthTag, you know,

00:46:10 ◼   ► I have a sort of a key fob and air tag and Zelda themed key ring setup going on.

00:46:19 ◼   ► Did you get engraved?

00:46:20 ◼   ► Did you do engraving?

00:46:21 ◼   ► No, I'm not an engrave type person myself.

00:46:26 ◼   ► I wasn't and I'm not with anything else but for me the engraving on the air tags I think

00:46:30 ◼   ► is the move.

00:46:31 ◼   ► I think that's the way to go.

00:46:32 ◼   ► I only engrave my body with tattoos.

00:46:35 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:46:36 ◼   ► Not my objects.

00:46:37 ◼   ► Yes.

00:46:38 ◼   ► Can you imagine if they offered the full emoji set, we could all get weird fish air tags?

00:46:42 ◼   ► See in that case I would do it.

00:46:44 ◼   ► Same.

00:46:45 ◼   ► In that case I would make an exception.

00:46:48 ◼   ► They really need to find a way to do that.

00:46:49 ◼   ► I understand the issues like in just in logistics of having every single emoji.

00:46:56 ◼   ► No I don't.

00:46:57 ◼   ► When you have two trillion dollar, when you're a two trillion dollar company I don't understand

00:47:01 ◼   ► the issue with supporting the full emoji set.

00:47:03 ◼   ► I understand that it's difficult but they should find a way to make it happen is the

00:47:06 ◼   ► end.

00:47:07 ◼   ► I'm sure it must be hard. Fix it. I want every emoji available to me so I can choose.

00:47:13 ◼   ► I, uh, yeah, we bought several. They're on keys and then bags and I got one in my truck

00:47:19 ◼   ► for some reason. I'm using the Belkin keychain. So they have two. They have one that comes

00:47:25 ◼   ► with a ring and the one that comes with like a, like a loop that's on some sort of string.

00:47:33 ◼   ► are the ones we I used in mine and Mary's bags I think looped him around a

00:47:37 ◼   ► zipper on the inside mm-hmm I like the Belkin keychain I mean it's like black

00:47:41 ◼   ► plastic but the and I have an Apple one here I got the red one and I just I

00:47:47 ◼   ► don't love the leather look I don't know that the Belkin one is it's not are you

00:47:53 ◼   ► talking about the loops what which all the key ring well with Belkin I like the

00:48:01 ◼   ► look of both better than anything Apple does. Wow that's interesting. I don't like

00:48:06 ◼   ► the Belkin keyring. I love the Apple keyring. Yeah I have the Belkin keyring

00:48:11 ◼   ► on my keys. Okay I like the look of the leather loop ones but I'm not convinced

00:48:16 ◼   ► that they're right for like a backpack. I think maybe the like Belkin secure

00:48:20 ◼   ► holder thing is probably better for a backpack. Yeah. But I haven't I have one

00:48:24 ◼   ► of those but I haven't used it yet just cuz like I just have just like very

00:48:27 ◼   ► large like piece of leather just like on the bag now I don't know I don't like

00:48:33 ◼   ► the bulk and curing them why is this because it looks cheap it's not the

00:48:37 ◼   ► cheapness what I think I think I said this on upgrade but it kind of makes it

00:48:41 ◼   ► look more like a toy like just with it being like plastic rather than leather

00:48:46 ◼   ► I don't know it just has more of like a toy look to it especially for some of

00:48:50 ◼   ► the colors you can get it in yeah I think it's like a rounded plastic I

00:48:56 ◼   ► I think kind of evokes toy to me.

00:48:59 ◼   ► - I mean, it's not fancy by any means.

00:49:02 ◼   ► You're not particularly nice, but it works.

00:49:06 ◼   ► So I have a stack of them here

00:49:07 ◼   ► 'cause I haven't used them all.

00:49:10 ◼   ► So again, like we said last time,

00:49:12 ◼   ► I think when we travel, they'll be more useful.

00:49:14 ◼   ► They're here, they're fun.

00:49:18 ◼   ► The family sharing thing, people have talked about this,

00:49:20 ◼   ► where the way it works is if you travel

00:49:26 ◼   ► an unknown air tag, there's a setting to say, hey, this air tag belongs to somebody I know,

00:49:31 ◼   ► don't bother me about it for 24 hours, or don't bother him out. Don't bother me about it ever

00:49:37 ◼   ► again. And that's fine. And an Apple's gone the conservative route here. And I think that should

00:49:43 ◼   ► be the default the way that works. But I do wish for an option to say, hey, any air tag, you know,

00:49:49 ◼   ► set up by my spouse I'm I'm fine with it being where I am and I think that would

00:49:56 ◼   ► be a little bit less annoying than the current setup again I think the current

00:50:00 ◼   ► setup should remain I think what I'm saying should be an option for safety

00:50:04 ◼   ► reasons there isn't really a good option for family sharing it just isn't like

00:50:09 ◼   ► you can't share an air tag and I find that all you can tell your phone is to

00:50:14 ◼   ► ignore it. Yeah. And, and so if my wife takes my truck or my keys or both, you

00:50:20 ◼   ► know, she's going to get a message that an AirTag is gonna follow her around.

00:50:24 ◼   ► She's got to tell her her phone to ignore that, and I just think that could

00:50:29 ◼   ► be a little bit nicer. And I always find it frustrating when Apple has a new

00:50:34 ◼   ► feature or product that just doesn't work with family sharing, because so much

00:50:39 ◼   ► of it just ignores the fact that people sometimes know and even live with other

00:50:44 ◼   ► people. Again it's like Federico said, I'm sure we'll have more stories, we could potentially

00:50:49 ◼   ► have more stories to tell about them in the future, but it is very much like a "well,

00:50:54 ◼   ► I have it now, now I just need to wait to see what it's like if I lose something." You

00:50:58 ◼   ► kind of just have to wait. Honestly I bought them and I'm pretty sure I'm never going to

00:51:04 ◼   ► use them because I never lose anything, so as we all know. So we obviously spent a lot

00:51:09 ◼   ► of time talking about Hey last week, got a lot of great feedback and follow up about

00:51:13 ◼   ► episode which I appreciated or base camp I should say. There's been a

00:51:19 ◼   ► bunch of stuff happening since and I just wanted to touch on it kind of as

00:51:22 ◼   ► follow-up more than anything else. So there's another really great Casey Newton

00:51:25 ◼   ► article. It was in the Casey's newsletter platformer and also cross post on the

00:51:31 ◼   ► Verge as well which kind of details an all-hands meetings at base camp so all

00:51:39 ◼   ► and all employee meeting which occurred after the everything kicked off last week.

00:51:45 ◼   ► One detail that was kind of flabbergasting to me was that the way that Basecamp's employees

00:51:50 ◼   ► found out about the policy changes was the blog post that Jason Free posted.

00:51:55 ◼   ► They never actually consulted or even informed the employees at Basecamp about these changes

00:52:01 ◼   ► before they just went ahead and told the world how great they were at making them.

00:52:05 ◼   ► a lot of information that came out from people that were on the call giving quotes to Casey

00:52:10 ◼   ► Newton as to how it went and the internal call was just like it just seemed like a cavalcade

00:52:15 ◼   ► of disasters honestly. We won't go into it all here because there's a lot like I actually

00:52:20 ◼   ► just really recommend reading this article but it you know this call was so bad that

00:52:25 ◼   ► it led to over 20 of Basecamp 57 employees choosing to leave the company and there seems

00:52:30 ◼   ► to be more of them leaving still. So you know we're talking we're like

00:52:36 ◼   ► approaching half of the company has left after this and I think it was yesterday

00:52:41 ◼   ► Jason Fried published a blog post both Jason Fried and David Hanemeyer-Hansen

00:52:46 ◼   ► went quiet a couple of days ago which they weren't before. Which is weird for one of them.

00:52:50 ◼   ► Yeah my expectation is that they are working with a crisis management company.

00:52:54 ◼   ► I don't know this but would be my expectation because it's like all of a

00:52:59 ◼   ► sudden they just went quiet like they need someone else exist oh yeah it's a

00:53:03 ◼   ► whole industry yes like it's a part it's a part of public relations okay it's a

00:53:07 ◼   ► part of PR like crisis management and it can form it can take many forms it can

00:53:11 ◼   ► be something you've done or something that's happened to you right so like a

00:53:15 ◼   ► company your company's done something that didn't mean to do and now you're in

00:53:19 ◼   ► a crisis and so you need public relations help to deal with that I don't

00:53:23 ◼   ► know that they're that this is happening but also at the same time with the

00:53:26 ◼   ► considering the situation that they found themselves in right now and they are a serious

00:53:30 ◼   ► company, I would suggest that they probably should look into it. Like, how do you get

00:53:35 ◼   ► out of this?

00:53:36 ◼   ► I mean, they were in the New York Times over the weekend. That's not what you want.

00:53:40 ◼   ► Not great. So, you know, Jason Freeh pushed another Hey World post where he makes an apology

00:53:46 ◼   ► on behalf of the company, but there's no reversal of decisions. I think he's very kind would

00:53:55 ◼   ► be a word to use maybe about the staff that have left, you know, they said some nice things

00:54:00 ◼   ► about them and kind of like saying, "Hey, well this is what we're doing now and this

00:54:06 ◼   ► is how we're going to move forward." So my kind of feeling is, right, like their bed's

00:54:11 ◼   ► made, they've made their bed now and now they will lie in it, right? Like this is the decision

00:54:16 ◼   ► that they've made, they are happy with the decisions that they've made and this is what

00:54:20 ◼   ► I think we said this or at least I said this in last week's episode, they can run their

00:54:24 ◼   ► company however they want to, they did a thing, they've had a bunch of reaction, they've taken

00:54:28 ◼   ► in the reaction and they decided this is what they want to do, go for it. But then you live

00:54:32 ◼   ► with the ramifications of your decisions.

00:54:35 ◼   ► Yeah, good luck with that. I just want to clarify how I don't understand exactly what

00:54:40 ◼   ► is he apologising for in the blog post. David and I completely own the consequences and

00:54:46 ◼   ► we're sorry. So you're sorry for the consequences? Like I don't get it. So this doesn't really...

00:54:51 ◼   ► Yeah, that is interesting actually. I hadn't considered that until you just said it. It's

00:54:54 ◼   ► like, yeah, you can completely on the consequence. That's fine. What are you actually sorry about?

00:54:59 ◼   ► Because you're not changing anything. No. So why, what are you sorry? It's like, I'm

00:55:04 ◼   ► sorry you felt that way. You know, it's like one of those kinds of apologies.

00:55:07 ◼   ► Sorry that this blew up on Twitter and in public. Like, I don't think they are apologizing

00:55:14 ◼   ► for anything. I think they are pretty much set in their ways and good luck with that.

00:55:18 ◼   ► Yeah, as I said, like, go for it. Like, I fundamentally disagree with what they're doing,

00:55:24 ◼   ► but this is the decision that they've taken, and it's like, look, you've seen, they've seen what's

00:55:29 ◼   ► happened to them now, they know what they've done, they know that they've exploded their company,

00:55:32 ◼   ► and it's that. I really, like, I am very intrigued to see what happens from here, because 57 people

00:55:39 ◼   ► in a company, they've lost 20 of them, some reporting suggesting that, like, it includes

00:55:44 ◼   ► their entire iOS stuff. And I just don't know how you continue from something like that.

00:55:52 ◼   ► If you don't have an iOS dev team at all, the obvious consequence is that all updates to your

00:55:59 ◼   ► mobile apps are going to take a while, right? Yeah. And I don't know how you wholesale replace

00:56:05 ◼   ► an entire team. It feels like a massive task because usually it's a slower rolling thing,

00:56:11 ◼   ► right? Somebody leaves and then a new person comes in and then that person's trained about

00:56:17 ◼   ► the way the company works. And the codebase of the app, like there's a whole thing of the

00:56:23 ◼   ► frameworks that you're using, that's the whole stack, right, of the thing that you're building.

00:56:28 ◼   ► But to have an entire team just quit, I don't know how you're supposed to deal with that.

00:56:36 ◼   ► And from a pure customer perspective,

00:56:41 ◼   ► like I wouldn't want to be, and I'm not personally,

00:56:44 ◼   ► but I wouldn't want to be in a position where I rely

00:56:46 ◼   ► on Basecamp's iOS apps right now.

00:56:50 ◼   ► Because who knows when they are going to get updated

00:56:52 ◼   ► with fixes or new features, right?

00:56:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, as he's being, this is interesting,

00:56:56 ◼   ► I thought this is being pointed out in the Discord right now,

00:56:58 ◼   ► like a quarter of this post is just talking about

00:57:03 ◼   ► how they're running fine.

00:57:05 ◼   ► And that could be enough of... that could be why this post exists.

00:57:09 ◼   ► Like that could be what it's supposed... is like them attempting to show their customer base.

00:57:15 ◼   ► Don't worry about the fact that people have left.

00:57:19 ◼   ► Probably. I can see that.

00:57:21 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:57:22 ◼   ► Also, who's gonna work at Basecamp?

00:57:25 ◼   ► Like, let... set aside the fact that people are quitting Basecamp.

00:57:29 ◼   ► Now, in theory, they're supposed to hire new people.

00:57:34 ◼   ► So like to get the best people, in theory, these people are maybe already employed, they

00:57:38 ◼   ► have experience, like that's what they're going to need right now, they can't get a

00:57:41 ◼   ► bunch of people that are new to this role.

00:57:44 ◼   ► And you kind of feel like if you're looking for a new job, if you just googled, if you

00:57:50 ◼   ► didn't know about this company, and you just googled them, it doesn't necessarily seem

00:57:55 ◼   ► like an, well, I would say it doesn't seem like an attractive place to work unless, unless,

00:57:59 ◼   ► Well, maybe.

00:58:00 ◼   ► There are some people in the world who now, your politics is going to align with theirs.

00:58:05 ◼   ► Sure, sure.

00:58:07 ◼   ► So if you agree with them, maybe this is a great place to work.

00:58:10 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:58:11 ◼   ► But as we said last time, does that align with Jason Farid and David Hanamaya Hanson's personal worldviews?

00:58:19 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:58:21 ◼   ► Right? Like, I'm not going to say one way or another, right, like what they believe, because I don't know them.

00:58:26 ◼   ► uh as we see you know what they're putting out to the world seems to be not a great world view and

00:58:33 ◼   ► this is like one of those things where i said like you look around and you see who you have left and

00:58:39 ◼   ► do those people match with your view and i don't know if they're putting out of a view to the world

00:58:46 ◼   ► that would suggest it's necessarily a good one i don't know i struggle i really struggle to

00:58:53 ◼   ► understand how you would go from being one of the most respected, um, sort of companies

00:59:02 ◼   ► in the history of the modern web, right? To make, because they made this happen, right?

00:59:12 ◼   ► And having this be your legacy, all this because you couldn't bear the fact that you had to

00:59:21 ◼   ► listen to people at the workplace, share their different points of view. Again, it doesn't

00:59:28 ◼   ► seem really business savvy to me as a strategy. I find it fascinating in the same way that

00:59:38 ◼   ► train wrecks can be fascinating. I honestly don't understand how you could make all of

00:59:48 ◼   ► this implode just because of your politics?

00:59:54 ◼   ► So somebody said to me--

00:59:55 ◼   ► I was talking to a friend about this the other day,

00:59:57 ◼   ► and they gave me a point of view that I thought

00:59:59 ◼   ► was really intriguing, where people

01:00:03 ◼   ► have said about Hannah Meyer Hanson and Freed for years

01:00:09 ◼   ► that their whole view of business

01:00:12 ◼   ► is that they want to be comfortable,

01:00:15 ◼   ► and they just want to do the things that they want to do.

01:00:18 ◼   ► And that is, this is not a criticism.

01:00:21 ◼   ► Like, this is kind of their whole ethos, right?

01:00:24 ◼   ► This is the books that they've written of like,

01:00:25 ◼   ► this is why they don't take investment.

01:00:27 ◼   ► Like, they just wanna focus on the stuff

01:00:28 ◼   ► that they wanna focus on and live their lives like that.

01:00:31 ◼   ► - More comfortable than a rich white man in his 40s?

01:00:34 ◼   ► I mean, that's a goal.

01:00:35 ◼   ► - No, let me finish my point.

01:00:39 ◼   ► I know what you're saying, right?

01:00:40 ◼   ► But if they have this mentality of just wanting things

01:00:47 ◼   ► to be easy in the way that they want them to be.

01:00:50 ◼   ► You can imagine how, if that's your prevailing worldview,

01:00:55 ◼   ► if people start to challenge you, right?

01:01:00 ◼   ► So like, well, this isn't the easy time

01:01:04 ◼   ► that we were looking for, and so--

01:01:06 ◼   ► - They felt uncomfortable.

01:01:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, so they've decided, screw this,

01:01:10 ◼   ► we will get rid of this and it will be easy for us again.

01:01:15 ◼   ► And I thought that that was an interesting thought.

01:01:18 ◼   ► And again, we are making lots of assumptions,

01:01:21 ◼   ► but we're just having a conversation.

01:01:23 ◼   ► We don't know what's true, 'cause we're not these people,

01:01:26 ◼   ► but we can only talk about how it looks from the outside.

01:01:28 ◼   ► - There's 20 people leaving the company,

01:01:30 ◼   ► surely something must have happened, you know?

01:01:33 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:01:34 ◼   ► - And good luck to them, for sure.

01:01:37 ◼   ► I think they're gonna need it.

01:01:39 ◼   ► We'll see.

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01:03:43 ◼   ► What have you done Federico?

01:03:45 ◼   ► - So one thing you should know about me is that,

01:03:50 ◼   ► well, one of the things,

01:03:51 ◼   ► when I say something on the show,

01:03:54 ◼   ► it always has a purpose, right?

01:03:56 ◼   ► I never say anything accidentally,

01:03:59 ◼   ► especially unconnected.

01:04:02 ◼   ► So when I leave, you know, little hints here and there

01:04:06 ◼   ► of things that I would like to have

01:04:08 ◼   ► or things that I would like to do,

01:04:10 ◼   ► it's either because I already have them

01:04:12 ◼   ► or because I'm already doing them.

01:04:14 ◼   ► And I'm just letting you in on my thing

01:04:17 ◼   ► without actually telling you,

01:04:19 ◼   ► because that can be a thread that can be developed later.

01:04:22 ◼   ► Basically, what I'm saying is I'm a great storyteller,

01:04:25 ◼   ► especially on connected, yes.

01:04:27 ◼   ► And I'm also a confident person, as you can probably.

01:04:33 ◼   ► - As one can tell. - Yes.

01:04:36 ◼   ► So I remember a while back when I

01:04:38 ◼   ► said that one of the many things that really annoys me regarding

01:04:44 ◼   ► task management is how I spend most of my time writing

01:04:49 ◼   ► articles, notes, documentation.

01:04:53 ◼   ► But there's a disconnect between that writing

01:04:56 ◼   ► and the actual creation of a task that relates to that

01:05:01 ◼   ► document or draft or whatever it is.

01:05:04 ◼   ► And I complained about how there's this divide between my text editor and my task manager,

01:05:10 ◼   ► and I very often find myself wishing that I could just connect the two of them.

01:05:16 ◼   ► There are some ways that can be accomplished, but I was really suggesting a sort of deeper integration.

01:05:24 ◼   ► All of that, I would say, discussion a few episodes ago, was based on the idea,

01:05:33 ◼   ► and I'm gonna need to contextualize here, that I hired one true John's son Finn, one true John Jr.

01:05:45 ◼   ► to make... to make... I feel like we just created a cartoon character.

01:05:56 ◼   ► I hired his son to work on custom Obsidian plugins for me.

01:06:02 ◼   ► There's so many levels. There's so many levels to what you just said.

01:06:07 ◼   ► Yes. I realize that. I realize that. So I'm going to let you decompress for a second,

01:06:15 ◼   ► and then we can dive deep into what I've been doing.

01:06:18 ◼   ► Okay, so, see, now that's how you do an introduction, just from a storytelling standpoint.

01:06:26 ◼   ► Yeah, again, you are a great storyteller.

01:06:28 ◼   ► You know, it keeps you wanting more, right? That's the idea of introductions.

01:06:31 ◼   ► Yeah, and you are supposed to give more now, so...

01:06:34 ◼   ► Yes, I am supposed to. So, okay, so I've been listening to the Mac Power users...

01:06:41 ◼   ► No, don't blame me for this. This is Spark's fault.

01:06:44 ◼   ► I'm blaming you. I'm crediting you. I'm giving you the credit. You're supposed to be happy.

01:06:49 ◼   ► Okay, so let me rephrase. Don't listen to the Mac power users.

01:06:53 ◼   ► Yeah, what do they know? What do they know?

01:06:57 ◼   ► I've been intrigued by Obsidian for a while, but I always resisted the temptation to use

01:07:04 ◼   ► it because it was a desktop-only app. For context, Obsidian is a plain text, note-taking

01:07:11 ◼   ► app that is based on just regular plaintext on the file system. You use Obsidian by creating

01:07:20 ◼   ► a database called a vault, which is just a folder containing plaintext files. And you

01:07:27 ◼   ► may have heard of Obsidian by people who use it because they work in academic environments,

01:07:34 ◼   ► or they are students or teachers or researchers.

01:07:39 ◼   ► And they usually share all these custom and fancy setups

01:07:44 ◼   ► that show you these beautiful graphs of all these connections

01:07:51 ◼   ► that they can make between notes.

01:07:53 ◼   ► Because one of the core features of Obsidian is--

01:07:55 ◼   ► and it's kind of like a joke in tech podcasts--

01:07:59 ◼   ► right now, it's backlinking, right?

01:08:02 ◼   ► The idea that you can link to any note

01:08:04 ◼   ► and you can have these backlinks going,

01:08:06 ◼   ► firing off in both directions.

01:08:08 ◼   ► So you can link a note to another note

01:08:11 ◼   ► and you make these connections

01:08:12 ◼   ► and you can see those connections in Obsidian's graph view.

01:08:16 ◼   ► And more broadly speaking,

01:08:20 ◼   ► there's the whole theme of personal knowledge management

01:08:24 ◼   ► that sort of surfaced again in 2020,

01:08:27 ◼   ► I believe because of the pandemic, honestly.

01:08:30 ◼   ► Like, a lot of people are suddenly interested in products like Roam Research and Obsidian

01:08:37 ◼   ► and Notion, from that point of view, because they had a lot of time to spend at home in

01:08:42 ◼   ► front of their computers, and they realized, "Oh, well, I am deeply disorganized in all

01:08:48 ◼   ► the things that I'm doing, and also it's kind of fun to play around with these apps."

01:08:53 ◼   ► But anyway, that's a bigger topic.

01:08:55 ◼   ► Back to Obsidian.

01:08:57 ◼   ► I resisted trying it because it was desktop only.

01:09:01 ◼   ► But then, a couple of months ago, I discovered that Obsidian was actually testing a mobile

01:09:07 ◼   ► version for iPhone and iPad, that unlike what the developers suggested last year, it is

01:09:16 ◼   ► not a companion-type utility.

01:09:20 ◼   ► Like last year, I believe the Obsidian developers said, when we are going to do a mobile version,

01:09:26 ◼   ► It's going to be like a sort of companion type, you know, fewer features. It's not going

01:09:32 ◼   ► to be the full desktop experience. Thankfully, they changed their minds because...

01:09:36 ◼   ► They probably got quite a bit of pushback on that.

01:09:39 ◼   ► Yes. Obsidian for iPhone and iPad, which is currently in beta, I think it's in private

01:09:43 ◼   ► beta, for the, what they are called, I think, catalyst supporters. They have different tiers

01:09:50 ◼   ► of Obsidian membership, I'm going to call it.

01:09:55 ◼   ► You can purchase a license, they have different types of licenses, and they have been extended

01:09:59 ◼   ► that beta throughout all the different levels of supporters that they have.

01:10:05 ◼   ► But it is totally free to use, they have like a 100% free personal use tier, and at the

01:10:11 ◼   ► moment you don't get the mobile app, but I'm sure that when it passes beta, you will.

01:10:18 ◼   ► So right now the beta, which is on TestFlight and is also available on Android, is available

01:10:22 ◼   ► to supporters.

01:10:23 ◼   ► And when I realized that it was going to be the full desktop experience on iPhone and

01:10:30 ◼   ► iPad, and especially when I realized it's going to support the whole set of customization

01:10:39 ◼   ► features that make Obsidian great on the Mac, that's when it clicked for me and I realized

01:10:47 ◼   ► I have to try this because it means I will be able to have...

01:10:53 ◼   ► and this was sort of like the major realization that I had a couple of months ago...

01:10:57 ◼   ► if this is actually true, if they are doing this,

01:11:00 ◼   ► there's a good chance that I can finally create my totally custom text editor.

01:11:06 ◼   ► And by that I mean I can have custom plugins,

01:11:10 ◼   ► custom commands, keyboard shortcuts, custom CSS snippets,

01:11:15 ◼   ► custom preview themes and take advantage of all the features that Obsidian has by default,

01:11:20 ◼   ► but then build on top of it with my own stuff.

01:11:25 ◼   ► How is this stuff built? Like what are the options available for creating your own things?

01:11:31 ◼   ► So at a high level you can make plugins.

01:11:34 ◼   ► Plugins are this little...

01:11:37 ◼   ► Okay, let me back up a little.

01:11:41 ◼   ► Obsidian is an Electron app on desktop.

01:11:44 ◼   ► Big time.

01:11:44 ◼   ► Yes, but I will say this is the only Electron app that I will accept, because it's the very

01:11:54 ◼   ► web-based foundation of Obsidian, right? The fact that it's built on top of web technologies

01:12:00 ◼   ► that allows it not only to span multiple platforms, but to be easily customizable by a lot of

01:12:08 ◼   ► of people using web technologies.

01:12:13 ◼   ► You can inspect on the desktop,

01:12:15 ◼   ► you can show a web inspector for Obsidian

01:12:19 ◼   ► that totally looks like a Safari web inspector.

01:12:22 ◼   ► And you can take a look at how the text editor

01:12:24 ◼   ► is arranged, for example.

01:12:26 ◼   ► And you can make plugins using JavaScript

01:12:28 ◼   ► or using Node or using CSS.

01:12:31 ◼   ► And it's basically like programming these little web apps

01:12:35 ◼   ► that are not web apps are plugins for Obsidian.

01:12:39 ◼   ► And all of this is going to apply to iPhone and iPad

01:12:42 ◼   ► as well.

01:12:43 ◼   ► And so that's plugins.

01:12:45 ◼   ► And plugins can do things that go way beyond what you can do,

01:12:51 ◼   ► for example, in--

01:12:53 ◼   ► like I guess on iOS, you would have drafts,

01:12:57 ◼   ► or you would have something like TIO.

01:12:59 ◼   ► These plugins can go way beyond that

01:13:03 ◼   ► and actually modify the UI of the app itself

01:13:07 ◼   ► that are plugins that rearrange the way windows are,

01:13:11 ◼   ► the way that panels are created in Obsidian, for example.

01:13:15 ◼   ► - Do you think that these will pass through App Review,

01:13:17 ◼   ► that the system will pass through App Review?

01:13:18 ◼   ► - I don't see why they shouldn't pass,

01:13:22 ◼   ► given how you can have something like drafts,

01:13:25 ◼   ► you can have something like Pythonista,

01:13:27 ◼   ► you can have TIO, you know,

01:13:29 ◼   ► all these apps that can be extended.

01:13:30 ◼   ► - Maybe this isn't the case anymore,

01:13:32 ◼   ► but I know there used to be a thing about creating--

01:13:35 ◼   ► - Years ago.

01:13:35 ◼   ► - And adapting user interfaces

01:13:37 ◼   ► inside of applications was a no-no.

01:13:40 ◼   ► - I think years ago, it used to be frowned upon totally.

01:13:44 ◼   ► I think they're gonna be fine now.

01:13:46 ◼   ► And if they're not gonna be fine,

01:13:47 ◼   ► I'll make a big mess about it on Mac stories.

01:13:51 ◼   ► So that should be fun.

01:13:52 ◼   ► - I think you and Gray will get really upset

01:13:54 ◼   ► and shout about it a lot, and David as well.

01:13:58 ◼   ► - So plugins are one thing.

01:13:59 ◼   ► Then you can make themes, obviously.

01:14:01 ◼   ► You can customize the app UI with different colors, different fonts.

01:14:07 ◼   ► Themes is not a novel concept, but in Obsidian you get full control over every single element

01:14:15 ◼   ► of the app.

01:14:17 ◼   ► Because all of this is based on CSS, and I'm simplifying here, but you can make these CSS

01:14:24 ◼   ► snippets, for example, that change one particular aspect of Obsidian that you

01:14:31 ◼   ► don't like, and you can install this by dropping them in a folder in the

01:14:37 ◼   ► Obsidian vault that you're using and enabling them in settings. And for

01:14:42 ◼   ► example, a few days ago I wanted to change how search results are displayed

01:14:47 ◼   ► and I commissioned the CSS snippet to be made for me,

01:14:54 ◼   ► and I copied the CSS text and I saved it as a CSS file,

01:14:58 ◼   ► and I dropped it in, and I changed that particular aspect.

01:15:02 ◼   ► So the fact that it's an Electron app and that on iOS,

01:15:06 ◼   ► it's still going to have that Web API feeling,

01:15:10 ◼   ► although not as much as I feared, actually,

01:15:13 ◼   ► and it's getting better in the beta,

01:15:15 ◼   ► I will accept that because it makes all of this possible, right? But I kind of want to

01:15:22 ◼   ► explain why this is all so fascinating to me.

01:15:28 ◼   ► I need to just stop you just before you do, because obviously that's going to be like

01:15:31 ◼   ► a whole thing and we're never going to get back to this one other point that I wanted

01:15:34 ◼   ► to make, which is like, I understand what you're saying because I have this as some

01:15:38 ◼   ► tools that I use, right, too, where it's like, this is so far away. And like Spark, we were

01:15:44 ◼   ► about it as an example for me right like I do not want to use this app because of

01:15:48 ◼   ► the way it looks sometimes and the things that it does but the service is

01:15:52 ◼   ► so good I think I'm surprised how much you're willing to accept here because

01:15:59 ◼   ► you know like I've known about obsidian for a bit because gray was using it and

01:16:05 ◼   ► that any is using it I've never tried it myself because I look at it and I feel

01:16:11 ◼   ► like my brain starts melting. Like, it could not look less like an iOS app.

01:16:16 ◼   ► I don't think I've ever encountered an application that could look less like an

01:16:21 ◼   ► iOS app. Like, does the iOS version look like the desktop version?

01:16:25 ◼   ► Yeah. Yes.

01:16:26 ◼   ► I can't even fath- like, what it looks like is a Linux app because that's kind of what it is, right?

01:16:33 ◼   ► Or like it's built on that kind of mentality. It's got- I'm so surprised.

01:16:38 ◼   ► Like, I am genuinely very surprised. I understand how powerful it is, and I can't wait to hear

01:16:43 ◼   ► exactly why it's latched on for you, because I'm sure you're doing just some banana stuff

01:16:47 ◼   ► with it. But, like, does it not feel, like, really alien when you open this application?

01:16:53 ◼   ► It does, but it feels like Obsidian. It's like...

01:16:56 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah. You get used to it, right?

01:16:58 ◼   ► You get used to it, and I think what makes it acceptable for me is the excellent support

01:17:05 ◼   ► for keyboard navigation on iPad. And so even though it's got its quirks and it's weird

01:17:13 ◼   ► in places, it's getting better, right?

01:17:16 ◼   ► But like, aren't you gonna get real mad when they don't support the things you want them

01:17:19 ◼   ► to support?

01:17:20 ◼   ► But that's the thing. It kind of feels like when you're working on Obsidian, it's kind

01:17:27 ◼   ► of like its own OS, right? It kind of feels like its own system, like you're within a

01:17:36 ◼   ► different system. But here's, I think, the clever thing behind it. In a way, I will always

01:17:46 ◼   ► be able to take advantage of the latest features in iOS and iPadOS, because my vault is just

01:17:53 ◼   ► a folder in files. And so, if Apple adds versioning, like proper versioning to files, or better

01:18:03 ◼   ► search, or smart folders, I will be able to take advantage of that, because it's not a

01:18:10 ◼   ► proprietary system. And that's the beauty of it, that around Obsidian, like, I can work

01:18:17 ◼   ► inside the Obsidian app, and I've been doing that a lot, but I can also build my own series of

01:18:25 ◼   ► enhancements around Obsidian using files, using shortcuts that I've been building,

01:18:30 ◼   ► that take advantage of the file system on iPad and iPhone. And so it's this sort of combination of

01:18:39 ◼   ► when you work in Obsidian, it feels like its own system. But if you want to take advantage of the

01:18:46 ◼   ► the fact that you are on an iPhone and iPad, you still get access to those files in the Files app,

01:18:54 ◼   ► and you can choose to put your Vault anywhere. Personally, I keep it in local storage,

01:18:58 ◼   ► and then I use the Obsidian Sync service to sync changes between devices. And so, that's exactly

01:19:06 ◼   ► what I've been doing. Like, I've been using Obsidian itself, but also shortcuts, with

01:19:11 ◼   ► with Toolbox Pro that has some excellent files actions that Shortcuts itself doesn't have.

01:19:19 ◼   ► And I've been using other file-based utilities to open those files. And so I'm not locked

01:19:26 ◼   ► in. And if Apple ever adds certain features that I want to take advantage of, it's very

01:19:33 ◼   ► likely that I will, because everything is just stored in files. But really, for me at

01:19:40 ◼   ► least the most important point is that I'm making, I'm working to build my own writing

01:19:48 ◼   ► app with this system. And so I don't necessarily care if Apple doesn't give me the features

01:19:56 ◼   ► that I want because I'm going to make them myself.

01:19:59 ◼   ► I need you to explain this to me more before I ask you the million more questions I have

01:20:03 ◼   ► because you might answer it for me.

01:20:06 ◼   ► Right. So, for context, I've been... So, I will say that I've been unifying, finally,

01:20:14 ◼   ► all kinds of writing in Obsidian. So, not taking... Writing for Max Stories and Club

01:20:21 ◼   ► Max Stories, research, documentation that I've been writing for Max Stories and the

01:20:26 ◼   ► Club, highlights that I save from articles that I read and books that I

01:20:33 ◼   ► I read, everything is going in Obsidian. Obviously, it's stored in different folders, all nicely

01:20:40 ◼   ► organized, but everything is going in here.

01:20:43 ◼   ► And so, what I mean by making my own writing app is, I've been trying to identify some

01:20:54 ◼   ► key features that I've always wanted to have in a text editor, and that before they were

01:21:00 ◼   ► were either not possible or I had to build workarounds for them.

01:21:05 ◼   ► So the first plugin that Fin worked on for me, and I guess, by the way, at some point

01:21:13 ◼   ► we will probably open up these plugins for more people.

01:21:18 ◼   ► We will release them in public, I think, but we'll see.

01:21:21 ◼   ► So the first one.

01:21:24 ◼   ► It's called Export Markdown with Embeds.

01:21:27 ◼   ► So I'm going to try and make this simple. In Obsidian you can embed a note within another

01:21:34 ◼   ► note. This is called file transclusion. And it's usually...

01:21:41 ◼   ► File transclusion?

01:21:42 ◼   ► Yes.

01:21:43 ◼   ► Oh, he's losing me already.

01:21:47 ◼   ► Okay, so this is very simple. Imagine that you have a file named "table of contents".

01:21:52 ◼   ► you have a table of contents, and you have multiple chapters for a book, or for a review

01:21:58 ◼   ► in my case. You have chapter one, chapter two, and three. And you want to compile all

01:22:05 ◼   ► of those chapters in the final output, which is the complete book. In the table of contents

01:22:12 ◼   ► file, what you do is you embed each one of them. And by embed, I mean it's a single line

01:22:18 ◼   ► of text that says exclamation point, exclamation mark, double square brackets, chapter one,

01:22:26 ◼   ► and so forth for the other two chapters. So in three lines of text, you have referenced

01:22:31 ◼   ► three files, you have embedded them inside of the table of contents, so that when you

01:22:37 ◼   ► export it, you get the complete output that includes the text of all those three referenced

01:22:44 ◼   ► files. This is something that I've been doing for my iOS review for the past few years in

01:22:51 ◼   ► iAwriter, right? Using what they call in their system "content blocks". I wanted to replicate

01:22:59 ◼   ► the same system in Obsidian, but make it more powerful. And this is where I got real nerdy

01:23:06 ◼   ► about it all. So, with the plugin that we made, I can hit a keyboard shortcut, Command-Option-E,

01:23:17 ◼   ► to export the current Markdown file that I'm looking at. And what this plugin will do is,

01:23:25 ◼   ► it'll run through all of those referenced files. It will compile them all in the final output.

01:23:35 ◼   ► And then it gives me the option to share this final output to the system clipboard to create a new file

01:23:42 ◼   ► in Obsidian

01:23:44 ◼   ► containing all of those referenced items as well as the system share sheet.

01:23:49 ◼   ► Finn was able to add support for the clipboard and the share sheet. I don't know how, but it's a genius, so I don't care.

01:23:56 ◼   ► So I have three output options, but there's another magic trick that we've been doing here.

01:24:04 ◼   ► One of the things that I always wanted to do that I, a writer, did not allow me to do is to

01:24:11 ◼   ► process all the headings of each reference document.

01:24:18 ◼   ► So, essentially, when I'm working on an individual chapter,

01:24:23 ◼   ► ideally, I want the title of the chapter to be an H1 header, and

01:24:28 ◼   ► I want sections of that chapter to be H2, H3, and so forth.

01:24:33 ◼   ► But when I'm compiling the review, the title of the chapter cannot be an H1.

01:24:39 ◼   ► It has to become an H2, because H1 would be

01:24:44 ◼   ► iOS 15 Review, the Max Stories Review, the actual title of the story.

01:24:48 ◼   ► Which means that each heading needs to be increased by one.

01:24:54 ◼   ► Right? So H1 needs to become H2, H3 needs to become H4, and so forth.

01:25:01 ◼   ► So this plugin has a toggle that asks "increase level of addings"

01:25:08 ◼   ► and if you flip it, it'll automatically do that for all of the files that you've referenced in your table of contents

01:25:15 ◼   ► And I don't have to do this manually anymore. This is a thing that I used to do manually

01:25:21 ◼   ► before or I

01:25:23 ◼   ► And it was super annoying and now the system takes care of that for me

01:25:27 ◼   ► So that's the first plugin we made

01:25:30 ◼   ► And of course, because it's Obsidian, all of these commands, they show up in the command palette of Obsidian,

01:25:37 ◼   ► which you can invoke with Command-P, and

01:25:39 ◼   ► Fin was able to add separate commands for each option.

01:25:45 ◼   ► So I can also directly press Command-S to bring up the sharesheet instantly.

01:25:51 ◼   ► Yes.

01:25:53 ◼   ► The second plugin that

01:25:56 ◼   ► we're working on. This is still a work in progress, and this is the most ambitious one, I think.

01:26:02 ◼   ► So there's an existing plugin

01:26:05 ◼   ► made by an Obsidian user

01:26:07 ◼   ► called Obsidian Todoist. And Obsidian Todoist is very clever in that

01:26:14 ◼   ► it allows you to

01:26:17 ◼   ► embed

01:26:19 ◼   ► tasks from Todoist in a note, and when you preview the note, you get

01:26:26 ◼   ► this actual, like, it looks like a tiny portion of the Todoist website

01:26:30 ◼   ► in the node preview.

01:26:32 ◼   ► And it's actually...

01:26:34 ◼   ► Oh, my God.

01:26:35 ◼   ► And it's actually interactive.

01:26:37 ◼   ► Oh, my God.

01:26:38 ◼   ► So that you can click check boxes in that preview to check off the task.

01:26:43 ◼   ► Oh, jeez.

01:26:45 ◼   ► But there's more. Hold on. There's more.

01:26:47 ◼   ► And that block of tasks is customizable.

01:26:55 ◼   ► So using the native Todoist filter syntax,

01:27:00 ◼   ► you can, in each note,

01:27:05 ◼   ► you can preview a different set of Todoist tasks.

01:27:08 ◼   ► So if you have a note for Relay FM,

01:27:11 ◼   ► I don't know, sponsors,

01:27:13 ◼   ► you can just show the Todoist tasks

01:27:17 ◼   ► that belong to the sponsor project

01:27:19 ◼   ► and that have been tagged with invoices.

01:27:22 ◼   ► Or in my case, if I have Cloud Max Stories admin tasks,

01:27:26 ◼   ► I can filter those and in the note preview of my club note,

01:27:30 ◼   ► I can show those.

01:27:31 ◼   ► So this is made by an Obsidian user.

01:27:34 ◼   ► It's incredible, really well done.

01:27:37 ◼   ► But I asked Finn, can we go a step beyond this?

01:27:41 ◼   ► Because right now, what this plugin does,

01:27:44 ◼   ► and this is, I think,

01:27:45 ◼   ► where you're gonna be even more impressed.

01:27:47 ◼   ► So what this, so by, also, I should say,

01:27:49 ◼   ► By default, this plugin was not working on mobile,

01:27:52 ◼   ► so Finn was able to fork the existing plugin

01:27:55 ◼   ► and make it work for me the way I wanted on iPhone.

01:27:58 ◼   ► But I said, so this plugin, all it does is preview tasks,

01:28:04 ◼   ► and you see now what I was talking about on connected.

01:28:10 ◼   ► One of my biggest problems with task management

01:28:14 ◼   ► and text editors is that I was never able

01:28:16 ◼   ► to connect the two of them, right?

01:28:19 ◼   ► And so I wondered, what if we extend this plugin in a way that it can scan my document

01:28:30 ◼   ► for lines of text that look like tasks, and with the proper syntax, sync them up to my Todoist account,

01:28:42 ◼   ► and file them under a specific project task with a due date.

01:28:48 ◼   ► Basically, we are, Finn is working,

01:28:52 ◼   ► we are extending this plugin to achieve true two-way sync

01:28:58 ◼   ► between the text editor and Todoist.

01:29:00 ◼   ► A text editor, a to-do app.

01:29:02 ◼   ► These aren't two separate things.

01:29:05 ◼   ► This is one thing.

01:29:08 ◼   ► So, the idea is that I gave Finn a spec to follow in terms of I want to reference a project

01:29:17 ◼   ► with a hashtag, I want to reference tag with the @ sign in front of them, and I want to

01:29:23 ◼   ► enter due dates this way. But the idea is that the plugin will scan a document for lines

01:29:28 ◼   ► of text that begin with a dash followed by a space and two square brackets, which is

01:29:33 ◼   ► the default sort of plain text syntax for tasks, supported in iWriter, in drafts, it's

01:29:39 ◼   ► sort of like a standard at this point, and when it finds one it will create a task in

01:29:47 ◼   ► Todoist for it, but at the same time it'll also store in the original document the fact

01:29:53 ◼   ► that that line of text is now a task in Todoist.

01:29:57 ◼   ► So I just want to make sure I'm contextualizing this, right? So like, you're writing the iOS

01:30:01 ◼   ► 15 review and while you're writing the iOS 15 review you're like "ah crap I've got to

01:30:06 ◼   ► take a screenshot of this thing" so you do like close bracket open bracket or whatever

01:30:11 ◼   ► way around it was. No no I just typed I have a keyboard shortcut I have a what's it called

01:30:16 ◼   ► a text replacement I just type ttt and it expands into the and then you're like take

01:30:23 ◼   ► screenshots and then when you're done writing for the day you run this script it will collect

01:30:30 ◼   ► up everything that's left in that document and put it into Todoist. Yes.

01:30:34 ◼   ► Incredible. But there's even more. But wait, there's more! It can also auto refresh so I don't need to

01:30:41 ◼   ► remember to do it. And in Obsidian the task will automatically get a link back to the

01:30:51 ◼   ► task on Todoist and in Todoist the task will get a link back to that line of

01:30:56 ◼   ► of text in Obsidian. So that in the two places I can jump back and forth. So if I'm looking

01:31:03 ◼   ► at Todoist I can say "hey what's this about?" and I click the link and it takes me to that

01:31:07 ◼   ► specific line in Obsidian. I guess it can look however it wants really, can't it, if

01:31:11 ◼   ► you can do stuff like that. And when I preview the note, obviously, that line of text becomes

01:31:19 ◼   ► a Todoist preview so that I can check it off from Obsidian and it's also complete in Todoist.

01:31:26 ◼   ► So that's what we're working on right now.

01:31:28 ◼   ► That's very cool.

01:31:30 ◼   ► We also did something else. We took another existing... See, this is the beauty of this

01:31:37 ◼   ► community. The Obsidian community has been, frankly, amazing, especially in the Discord

01:31:41 ◼   ► server. Very welcoming community. A lot of people that were already listening to Connected

01:31:46 ◼   ► before, so that was fun when I showed up. That was a really fun moment. Actually, those

01:31:52 ◼   ► people have known for a while that I was doing this. And thank you for keeping it quiet,

01:31:58 ◼   ► because it looks like everybody right now in the relay Discord had no idea, so that's

01:32:03 ◼   ► cool. The beauty of this Obsidian ecosystem is that all of these plugins are usually open

01:32:09 ◼   ► source, and so you can take them, you can fork them, and you can modify them in a way

01:32:14 ◼   ► that suits your needs. So we took the—and this is another thing that a lot of people

01:32:21 ◼   ► are using these days. We took the Obsidian Readwise plugin, which is also made by...

01:32:28 ◼   ► I have no idea what this is.

01:32:29 ◼   ► So Readwise is a service, maybe Steven knows it. I know that David uses it, I believe.

01:32:34 ◼   ► He does.

01:32:34 ◼   ► Readwise is a service that aggregates highlights from all the things you need to...

01:32:40 ◼   ► Oh, I know this.

01:32:41 ◼   ► Yeah, okay.

01:32:41 ◼   ► Yeah, from Read It Later Services, Kindle, etc., etc.

01:32:46 ◼   ► There's a plugin made by an Obsidian user that syncs your readwise highlights with Obsidian.

01:32:55 ◼   ► And basically for every article that you read or every book that you read,

01:32:59 ◼   ► it creates a note in Obsidian containing the metadata of the item and all the highlights

01:33:07 ◼   ► that you saved. So that plugin was not working on mobile, and so Fin fixed it, and the first step

01:33:15 ◼   ► was "okay now this can be used on mobile". But then we also modified the plugin so that

01:33:21 ◼   ► when you sync your Readwise account it's not like it just dumps all of those files

01:33:29 ◼   ► at the root level of your vault. In our version you can choose a specific folder to store those

01:33:37 ◼   ► highlights in. So now, and this goes back to my point about how I don't really care if Obsidian

01:33:47 ◼   ► doesn't take advantage of the latest APIs. Around all of this, I've been building my own shortcuts

01:33:54 ◼   ► to sort of complement the experience. And one example that I think I will share on Cloud

01:34:00 ◼   ► Mac stories at some point soon, is I wrote a shortcut that when I'm reading an article in Safari

01:34:08 ◼   ► and I want to highlight something, I highlight a bit of text on a web page, I run the shortcut,

01:34:15 ◼   ► that bit of text turns yellow in Safari, because I had some JavaScript in shortcuts to do this, but

01:34:27 ◼   ► The highlight gets also saved to my Readwise account.

01:34:31 ◼   ► So I can read stuff in Safari, I can take advantage of content blockers,

01:34:37 ◼   ► Safari Reader, all of the stuff that you get in Safari.

01:34:41 ◼   ► I run a shortcut, and it visually highlights stuff on the page,

01:34:47 ◼   ► but it also syncs that bit of text to my Readwise account.

01:34:51 ◼   ► Later, when I open Obsidian, the plugin is configured to run automatically when I start

01:34:58 ◼   ► up the app so that I don't have to do anything.

01:35:01 ◼   ► When I open Obsidian, it pulls all my latest highlights from Readwise and adds them to

01:35:09 ◼   ► the folder that I specified.

01:35:11 ◼   ► I plan to switch back to my Kindle instead of the Kobo for this very reason.

01:35:18 ◼   ► Oh, it all comes together.

01:35:21 ◼   ► We just talked about that.

01:35:22 ◼   ► - Yep, so.

01:35:23 ◼   ► - You know, what is it, a beautiful mind

01:35:28 ◼   ► where like the guy has all the red string

01:35:30 ◼   ► to all the walls figuring things out?

01:35:32 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:35:33 ◼   ► - This is what it's like to live inside Federico's brain.

01:35:36 ◼   ► - So for read later, because of this shortcut,

01:35:41 ◼   ► I've gone back to Safari reading list

01:35:46 ◼   ► because you can, unfortunately,

01:35:49 ◼   ► If you use a third-party browser on iOS,

01:35:53 ◼   ► you do not get access to the DOM of the web page,

01:35:58 ◼   ► which means you cannot do things like accessing selections,

01:36:02 ◼   ► for example.

01:36:03 ◼   ► If you use Firefox or Google Chrome,

01:36:05 ◼   ► you cannot do what I'm doing with JavaScript in Safari.

01:36:08 ◼   ► And so I'm using that for articles.

01:36:13 ◼   ► And Readwise does not support COBOL highlights.

01:36:18 ◼   ► it appears, unfortunately.

01:36:19 ◼   ► So I gotta use the Kindle for that.

01:36:21 ◼   ► This is also why, just a few minutes ago,

01:36:23 ◼   ► I said that I was sad that the iPad Mini

01:36:27 ◼   ► with the iPad Pro design is not coming out soon

01:36:30 ◼   ► because I really wanted to have that device

01:36:31 ◼   ► for reading articles.

01:36:33 ◼   ► So these are three examples of plugins

01:36:36 ◼   ► that I have just for me right now.

01:36:39 ◼   ► I have plenty more ideas that,

01:36:41 ◼   ► and I have a lot of work for Fin if he's up for it.

01:36:47 ◼   ► Because I realized, you know, all the things that I want to do, they don't exist.

01:36:53 ◼   ► I don't care.

01:36:54 ◼   ► I'm just going to have someone build them for me.

01:36:57 ◼   ► And it's incredible.

01:36:58 ◼   ► It's an incredible feeling to know that you have this foundation, but you can also build

01:37:07 ◼   ► on top of it.

01:37:09 ◼   ► So I also wanted to mention quickly some plugins made by the community that I have not modified

01:37:17 ◼   ► because they are pretty awesome as is.

01:37:20 ◼   ► Workspaces, I believe this is a core plugin.

01:37:25 ◼   ► It lets you save

01:37:27 ◼   ► specific workspaces in the app. By workspace

01:37:30 ◼   ► I mean you have a specific note on the left, another note on the right. You can save that workspace,

01:37:36 ◼   ► give it a name, and then you can reload it. And it recreates that workspace in Obsidian for you.

01:37:43 ◼   ► I love it. I use it a lot. I give it a keyboard shortcut. It's fantastic

01:37:47 ◼   ► Advanced obsidian URI. This is a plugin that and it's kind of wild

01:37:53 ◼   ► If obsidian doesn't have a URL scheme that you want

01:37:58 ◼   ► You can add your own and this plugin does that it creates more commands for the obsidian URL scheme

01:38:07 ◼   ► Which is incredible

01:38:10 ◼   ► quick switcher plus plus

01:38:13 ◼   ► This is also a fun one because it lets me navigate to a specific header in a document.

01:38:20 ◼   ► It's called Symbol Navigation.

01:38:22 ◼   ► So, if I have a story with a bunch of sections, I can hit Option+S, and it brings up a list of all the sections in my story,

01:38:30 ◼   ► and I can use the arrow keys to navigate to a specific section.

01:38:34 ◼   ► And lastly, Page Preview. This is also one of the core plugins of Obsidian.

01:38:39 ◼   ► It's really awesome because you can hover over a referenced note in Obsidian

01:38:46 ◼   ► and it shows you a little floating preview of the note that you're referencing.

01:38:52 ◼   ► So that's a really cool plugin.

01:38:54 ◼   ► I also want to shout out to, I mentioned the Obsidian community before,

01:38:59 ◼   ► I want to recommend this newsletter, ObsidianRoundUp.org.

01:39:04 ◼   ► Really, really fantastic place to discover a lot of Obsidian-related things on a weekly

01:39:11 ◼   ► basis. It's curated by Eleanor…

01:39:13 ◼   ► There's a community for everything, right?

01:39:15 ◼   ► Yes. But this one, like, if you want to discover CSS snippets and plugins and themes, it's

01:39:22 ◼   ► got all of that.

01:39:23 ◼   ► To cut you off, you were going to say Eleanor Konick, right? Is the puzzle.

01:39:27 ◼   ► Yes, Eleanor Konick. One last thing. I don't think I'm using Obsidian the way that

01:39:34 ◼   ► most users are. No, no you're not. Doesn't sound like it. I don't care about Zettel,

01:39:41 ◼   ► Kasten. I don't care about the fancy graph view. I understand why a lot of people do.

01:39:47 ◼   ► I'm using Obsidian as my custom writing app for everything that I am going to extend over

01:39:54 ◼   ► time with all the Markdown related additions that I want. So this is really going to be

01:39:59 ◼   ► the hub for IOS 15 for you this summer? Yes, that is the goal. So we're trying to

01:40:06 ◼   ► get to the point where by the summer I have this entirely custom system for me that takes

01:40:11 ◼   ► care of outlining, mind mapping, because there's also plugins for mind maps in Obsidian, task

01:40:19 ◼   ► management, so being able to save todos when I'm writing and to have them be available

01:40:26 ◼   ► elsewhere via Todoist. And backups and versioning, that is also, I guess that's

01:40:32 ◼   ► the thing we're gonna look at next. When I'm done, when we're

01:40:37 ◼   ► done with Todoist, I want to look at a backup plugin made just for me, and

01:40:43 ◼   ► also a way... because also, like, over the past few months we've been doing a lot

01:40:49 ◼   ► of things at Maxor is behind the scenes that we will announce soon, but one of

01:40:52 ◼   ► them is a brand new CDN that we're using. And so I get another plugin that I've

01:40:56 ◼   ► would like to have is one that directly communicates with our CDN so that any local image attachment

01:41:04 ◼   ► can easily become an actual image link for our CDN. I have plenty of ideas. If you're

01:41:13 ◼   ► an Obsidian plugin developer and you're looking for some work, get in touch with me. I mean,

01:41:18 ◼   ► Finn cannot do it all by himself. The army of one true Johns.

01:41:23 ◼   ► I'm hiring, this is what I'm saying.

01:41:28 ◼   ► I'm hiring for a very, very specific role.

01:41:31 ◼   ► Incredibly specific role.

01:41:33 ◼   ► I mean, this is the end game of editorial years and years ago.

01:41:38 ◼   ► I've been thinking about editorial the entire time.

01:41:41 ◼   ► I mean, I didn't want to bring it up, because it was like,

01:41:44 ◼   ► you know, this is kind of what I was getting at.

01:41:46 ◼   ► And I know what you're saying about if it doesn't support

01:41:50 ◼   ► technologies, but I do also imagine a point where it would start to become a problem for

01:41:55 ◼   ► you, but I don't think we're even close to that.

01:41:59 ◼   ► Because what I'm saying is, like, imagine that they, like, you know, Apple's like, "I

01:42:03 ◼   ► have this new amazing window and system, just plug it in with a monitor," and Obsidian's

01:42:07 ◼   ► like, "Ah, we can't do that."

01:42:09 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

01:42:10 ◼   ► Like, that's the kind of stuff that I imagine.

01:42:11 ◼   ► And I know what you're saying of, like, you can build stuff that hooks into it, but if

01:42:15 ◼   ► If you're doing the actual writing in the application, you know, you're going to want

01:42:20 ◼   ► it to try and be up to date in some ways, at least.

01:42:25 ◼   ► That is part of the beauty of it though, is that at the end of the day it is just a folder

01:42:29 ◼   ► of markdown.

01:42:30 ◼   ► So you could, if that were to happen, or if you just found another writing environment

01:42:35 ◼   ► you liked more, you could use this as some sort of like hub and then use an external

01:42:40 ◼   ► editor.

01:42:41 ◼   ► And then you jump into the ghetto of old Obsidian and write the scripts.

01:42:45 ◼   ► the burning husk.

01:42:47 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. But not that, I mean, although this is a burgeoning new community, like I,

01:42:52 ◼   ► you know, if anything happens, it's not going to happen for a long time because like, it's

01:42:56 ◼   ► new and it's got a lot of attention and I'm sure that they're making a big business out

01:43:00 ◼   ► of this right now, so, you know.

01:43:03 ◼   ► Just one quick thing to answer, TJ in the Discord. He asked, "Has Federico ever used

01:43:08 ◼   ► the same system for two iOS reviews.

01:43:10 ◼   ► Yes, I've been using IE Writer for two years,

01:43:14 ◼   ► or maybe even three.

01:43:16 ◼   ► No, but for sure, two iOS reviews I've done

01:43:19 ◼   ► in the same app with the same system,

01:43:21 ◼   ► which is also why I was kind of, you know, a little fed up

01:43:24 ◼   ► and I was like, I really want to have my own thing

01:43:27 ◼   ► going at this point.

01:43:29 ◼   ► Yeah, so I'm optimistic though,

01:43:31 ◼   ► because the Obsidian developer

01:43:33 ◼   ► is really responsive to feedback.

01:43:36 ◼   ► So, you know, fingers crossed that they will support.

01:43:39 ◼   ► I have one last question for you.

01:43:41 ◼   ► I know that Obsidian on the Mac, it's pulling folders from the file system.

01:43:46 ◼   ► Yeah. How does this work on iOS?

01:43:49 ◼   ► The same way. Same way you create a vault.

01:43:52 ◼   ► So it's pulling it from the files app?

01:43:54 ◼   ► That's why I told you I can build all of these additional shortcuts.

01:43:59 ◼   ► No, no, I figured it was like, I don't know, like it was going somewhere

01:44:02 ◼   ► and it goes into the files.

01:44:04 ◼   ► OK, so that's super interesting.

01:44:05 ◼   ► Yes, yes, yes.

01:44:07 ◼   ► Which is like, it makes me feel better

01:44:09 ◼   ► because I know that the very foundation

01:44:12 ◼   ► is the system that Apple will continue to develop over time.

01:44:17 ◼   ► How does it work cross-platform then?

01:44:20 ◼   ► Well, that's the beauty of Obsidian Sync.

01:44:23 ◼   ► It's not storing your data,

01:44:26 ◼   ► it's only syncing the changes, right?

01:44:30 ◼   ► How do you feel about using an early beta

01:44:33 ◼   ► of an application for your iOS review? Well we'll see when I start writing if it's still

01:44:39 ◼   ► in beta but this is exactly why I want to have a backup and a plugin made next. Because

01:44:46 ◼   ► again you've probably heard this but when Gray used the alpha it deleted a bunch of

01:44:51 ◼   ► his data. I know, I know. I know. I listened. He had a backup because he figured something

01:44:56 ◼   ► bad might happen and the worst thing happened you know. I like it's a habit of mine now

01:45:02 ◼   ► Now I always manually export my drafts to working copy and I sync them up to my GitHub

01:45:10 ◼   ► account so I'm not too concerned about that.

01:45:13 ◼   ► This is what you're going to do if you change system every year, right?

01:45:16 ◼   ► You're going to run into at least some problems along the way.

01:45:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:45:20 ◼   ► Well, look at you.

01:45:24 ◼   ► It's all fun making these custom things.

01:45:27 ◼   ► I want to see it in action at some point and that would be exciting.

01:45:31 ◼   ► I'll show you.

01:45:32 ◼   ► Once I have...

01:45:33 ◼   ► Show me some videos.

01:45:34 ◼   ► I will.

01:45:35 ◼   ► I will show you.

01:45:36 ◼   ► Especially when I have the create a new task thing happening.

01:45:41 ◼   ► That would be fun.

01:45:42 ◼   ► I think that does it.

01:45:43 ◼   ► If you want to learn more about the stuff we talked about, there are some links in the

01:45:48 ◼   ► show notes at relay.fm/connected/344.

01:45:54 ◼   ► While you're there, you can get in touch with email for feedback or follow up, or you can

01:45:58 ◼   ► do that out on the internet.

01:46:00 ◼   ► You can find us all on Twitter.

01:46:02 ◼   ► Federico is there at Vitici, V-I-T-I-C-C-I, and he's the editor-in-chief of MacStories.net,

01:46:09 ◼   ► and as we now know, Obsidian Wizard.

01:46:13 ◼   ► You can follow Myke on Twitter as @IMYKE.

01:46:16 ◼   ► Myke hosts a bunch of other shows here on Relay FM, and streams over on Twitch about

01:46:21 ◼   ► mechanical keyboards at Myke.live.

01:46:24 ◼   ► You can find me online as @ismh and my writing at 512pixels.net.

01:46:29 ◼   ► Before I let you go, I'll tell you about another show here on Relay FM that you should check

01:46:33 ◼   ► out and that's Parallel.

01:46:35 ◼   ► If you like tech podcasts, you're going to like Parallel.

01:46:37 ◼   ► It's hosted by journalist, accessibility expert, and all around excellent person, Shelley Brisbane.

01:46:43 ◼   ► Parallel is a tech podcast with accessibility sprinkles that you can listen to by going

01:46:47 ◼   ► to relay.fm/parallel or search parallel wherever you get your podcast.

01:46:53 ◼   ► I'd like to thank the sponsors for this episode of Connected, Pingdom, Smile, and Squarespace.

01:46:59 ◼   ► And until next time, gentlemen, say goodbye.

01:47:02 ◼   ► - I do that to you.