Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:09 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Connected, episode 301.

00:00:13 ◼   ► I had an internal debate if I was going to say 301 or 301.

00:00:17 ◼   ► Do either of y'all have thoughts on that?

00:00:18 ◼   ► 301, it sounds more professional.

00:00:21 ◼   ► I thought so too.

00:00:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:00:23 ◼   ► 301 is a little casual.

00:00:25 ◼   ► Because you could mean like 3.01, right?

00:00:28 ◼   ► Like we could start numbering the show like developers number their releases now.

00:00:31 ◼   ► It looks like a like a web browser error, like three error,

00:00:36 ◼   ► three or one like, you know, disconnected or something.

00:00:39 ◼   ► When whatever podcast it was hit episode 404 for the first time,

00:00:43 ◼   ► I was very nervous that it was going to break our CMS. But it didn't.

00:00:47 ◼   ► Yeah, we just hit it for the pen addict a few weeks ago and I was terrified to

00:00:51 ◼   ► publish that episode.

00:00:52 ◼   ► Anyway, this is still the intro of a podcast.

00:00:55 ◼   ► Yes, so welcome to Connected episode 30.1.

00:00:58 ◼   ► My name is Stephen Hackett.

00:00:59 ◼   ► This episode is sponsored by our sponsors because they sponsor things Smile, Miro, and

00:01:05 ◼   ► Pingdom.

00:01:06 ◼   ► It's an odd episode, so Myke, you get to go first.

00:01:08 ◼   ► Hi Myke!

00:01:10 ◼   ► I would like to request that when you introduce me in the future that you introduce me as

00:01:17 ◼   ► His Excellency, the Royal Keynote Chairman.

00:01:19 ◼   ► What?!

00:01:20 ◼   ► I'm not gonna do that.

00:01:22 ◼   ► I have decided that my chairmanship is a Royal chairmanship, as you will see from the @keynotechairman

00:01:28 ◼   ► account which now features lots of crowns and decrees. And I would like to be known

00:01:33 ◼   ► as His Excellency, the Royal keynote chairman, Myke Hurley.

00:01:37 ◼   ► You don't have the lineage for a Royal chairmanship.

00:01:40 ◼   ► Sure I do.

00:01:41 ◼   ► No, it's not something that you can just come up and say.

00:01:44 ◼   ► You only got it because I had it. You were my son.

00:01:46 ◼   ► I have Divine Podcasts right. That's what got me here. And so that's what I want. That's

00:01:54 ◼   ► what I want.

00:01:55 ◼   ► He wins a single thing and look at what he's done to his head. Like, oh my god.

00:02:01 ◼   ► His Excellency, the Royal Keynote Chairman, Myke Hurley.

00:02:05 ◼   ► You know we're gonna call you this for the next 12 months, every single week.

00:02:10 ◼   ► I will be thrilled to be known as...

00:02:12 ◼   ► Steven, can you please redo the intro and actually call him? We're gonna put this in

00:02:17 ◼   ► the document so he's gonna be happy. I'll do it next time. We'll see. I'll just bring

00:02:23 ◼   ► it up. Okay. Hi Federico. Hey Steven, how are you? Hey. I'm a normal person so I don't

00:02:29 ◼   ► have any requests. I'm just happy to be here with you. And, what's his name? His Excellency

00:02:35 ◼   ► the Royal keynote chairman Myke Hurley. Yeah. It's an honor, sir. Thank you, thank you.

00:02:41 ◼   ► always nice to spend time with the subjects. Wow. It keeps me grounded, you know? Wow, wow, wow,

00:02:49 ◼   ► we appreciate it. Thank you so much for... You could lose this title anytime. They could have

00:02:54 ◼   ► another keynote at any moment. Just a heartbeat away from retaining my crown, which I lost in a

00:03:03 ◼   ► stupid coin flip. I'm retaining the crown. You would be regaining, I don't know, a presidency

00:03:10 ◼   ► or something. You don't have royalty there.

00:03:12 ◼   ► Oh, we could. We're sliding towards it. Okay!

00:03:16 ◼   ► Follow up! Federico, teach me everything you know about Xcode Preview.

00:03:21 ◼   ► This is fun because, if you recall, one of my passion picks from the previous round of predictions was...

00:03:28 ◼   ► No, it was your Ricky pick!

00:03:30 ◼   ► Yes, it was a Ricky pick, but it was made with passion, so it was a passion Ricky.

00:03:33 ◼   ► Right, right, right, right.

00:03:35 ◼   ► that Apple was going to introduce a new development tool for iPad that was not with Playgrounds.

00:03:41 ◼   ► And of course, that did not happen. However, it was recently revealed, we've seen in one

00:03:48 ◼   ► of the sessions and it was shared by Jordan Singer on Twitter, that Xcode 12, which is

00:03:54 ◼   ► the new version of Xcode for Mac OS, does come with a new utility app called Xcode Previews

00:04:01 ◼   ► that you can run on your iPhone, that you can run on your iPad, that allows you to have interactive

00:04:07 ◼   ► on-device previews of your SwiftUI views. So you can run these Xcode previews utility on your iPhone

00:04:15 ◼   ► and your iPad, you're going to have a real-time preview of SwiftUI, and you can, you know, it's

00:04:20 ◼   ► better than just having a simulator, you can actually do it on device. And there's an actual

00:04:24 ◼   ► icon called Xcode previews, it's a new feature of Xcode, so it is kind of close to having

00:04:31 ◼   ► a new development tool for iPad. Of course it does not qualify for my Ricky

00:04:37 ◼   ► pic because it does not let you write code on device. This is a preview

00:04:43 ◼   ► utility. So it is a developer tool but it does not let you write your

00:04:48 ◼   ► own code and test your own code on device. It's an Xcode extension

00:04:53 ◼   ► essentially that lets you preview your code but that code still needs to be

00:04:58 ◼   ► written on a Mac. So, close, but not what I was actually predicting.

00:05:04 ◼   ► It is cool, though. I could see this being really useful working in SwiftUI. Not that

00:05:08 ◼   ► I know about development.

00:05:11 ◼   ► What is your opinion on SwiftUI, Steven?

00:05:13 ◼   ► I think it's a UI idiom.

00:05:17 ◼   ► It's declarative, right?

00:05:18 ◼   ► Yeah, it declares itself to be Swift.

00:05:21 ◼   ► It declares!

00:05:22 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, if there's one thing we can all agree on is that SwiftUI is declarative.

00:05:27 ◼   ► can agree on that part. Yeah, yeah. I mean, of course, you know, when it comes to the

00:05:32 ◼   ► clarity, but yeah. It's like the most declarative UI really. And again, we can all agree that

00:05:40 ◼   ► that is good for scaling across the platforms, which we want. Sure. I mean, declarative is

00:05:46 ◼   ► the way to go if you're going to have a, you know, uh, uh, an ecosystem, right? Of modern

00:05:52 ◼   ► frameworks. Of modern frameworks. You want to make sure that you're like, you're writing

00:05:56 ◼   ► code and you look at your coding and you're like, is this declarative enough? And if not,

00:06:00 ◼   ► you know, you gotta really, you gotta reassess your setup.

00:06:03 ◼   ► You look at the code and you're like, this isn't declaring anything. And then you throw

00:06:07 ◼   ► it away. Start again.

00:06:09 ◼   ► We should be developers. I'm just saying.

00:06:12 ◼   ► We know, we know what we're talking about.

00:06:14 ◼   ► We do. We do.

00:06:15 ◼   ► While we're in the lane of WWDC follow up, Apple design awards were held this week. Not

00:06:21 ◼   ► the week of WWDC, which is kind of, kind of weird, but I guess they could take all the

00:06:25 ◼   ► time they want. John Voorhees, whoever that is, has an article over on MacStories about

00:06:31 ◼   ► the winners. No Mac winners, all iOS. Some people are cranky about that. But I think

00:06:38 ◼   ► the apps here are all really pretty cool.

00:06:41 ◼   ► It's nice to see a lot of iPad apps, I think, in this year's awards, specifically called

00:06:48 ◼   ► about. Darkroom, for example, Loom, which is a very fun and innovative animation utility

00:06:55 ◼   ► for iPad. There's Shaper, which is of course the 3D modeling app. There's StaffPad, I remember

00:07:01 ◼   ► it being a big deal for professional musicians when it came on the iPad. I think StaffPad

00:07:06 ◼   ► used to be on Windows before, and they were able to bring out an iPad version as well.

00:07:11 ◼   ► And then of course there's some Apple Arcade games, we're going to talk about Apple Arcade

00:07:15 ◼   ► later, I think. But yeah, I think it's nice to see, especially on the productivity side,

00:07:20 ◼   ► Apple giving these awards to iPad apps. It's a good sign, I like it, personally speaking, of course.

00:07:27 ◼   ► The lack of Mac awards, we were actually talking about this in private in our group,

00:07:34 ◼   ► also with John Voorhees. There's a real question of, like, who would you give the award to on the

00:07:41 ◼   ► the Mac. Sure, stuff like Pixelmator Pro didn't really come out in 2020, though. It was more

00:07:47 ◼   ► like of a 2019 thing and it received a bunch of...

00:07:50 ◼   ► I just searched because I was intrigued. There were no Mac winners last year either. There

00:07:55 ◼   ► was a game that ran on the Mac, but it was an iPhone and iPad game that also ran on the

00:08:00 ◼   ► Mac. So this isn't new.

00:08:01 ◼   ► Yeah, like the Apple Arcade ones run on the Mac, but they're not what I consider Mac apps,

00:08:06 ◼   ► right? They're not cross platformy things. Anyways.

00:08:10 ◼   ► That's not to say there are no great apps on the Mac, it's just there's a lot fewer

00:08:17 ◼   ► than them, especially on the Mac App Store.

00:08:21 ◼   ► In 2018 the app Agenda won for iOS and Mac OS, but let's be honest it probably won for

00:08:28 ◼   ► iOS.

00:08:29 ◼   ► Mmhmm.

00:08:30 ◼   ► I'm like trying to go back, like how far do I need to go back to find an app that was

00:08:35 ◼   ► just a Mac app?

00:08:37 ◼   ► like 87 88 you know the least apps were dying off 2017 there weren't the only

00:08:44 ◼   ► app that ran on the Mac or two actually things in airmail 3 but they were also

00:08:50 ◼   ► cross-platform so honestly may have not even be considered for their makness

00:08:54 ◼   ► man you guys keep going but I'm gonna keep searching for this so we'll do some

00:08:59 ◼   ► real-time follow-up to our follow-up shortcuts got a lot of stuff you know

00:09:04 ◼   ► it wasn't mentioned in the keynote, wasn't really in the State of the Union, I don't think, but

00:09:08 ◼   ► turns out there's a lot of cool stuff. We talked about some of it last week, but Federico, we

00:09:14 ◼   ► wanted to point out one thing in particular here, right? I had no idea that this was actually

00:09:18 ◼   ► brought back, but it was first noticed by Simon Stovering, who is the developer of Scriptable

00:09:24 ◼   ► and DataJar on Twitter. He noticed that it is now possible again to import shortcuts as files. So,

00:09:33 ◼   ► if it used to be possible that you could export an individual shortcut as a .shortcut file.

00:09:41 ◼   ► And in previous versions of shortcuts before iOS 13, it was possible to basically create these

00:09:47 ◼   ► local backups, these local copies of your shortcuts, and delete them from the app. And then

00:09:53 ◼   ► if you wanted to re-import one of those shortcuts, you could just use the file. And this feature was

00:09:59 ◼   ► removed last year in iOS 13 as part of the stricter security measures in shortcuts.

00:10:06 ◼   ► And a lot of people, including myself, criticized this decision of not allowing people to back up

00:10:15 ◼   ► their own shortcuts as individual files offline, instead forcing everybody to use iCloud.com,

00:10:21 ◼   ► which is a sharing method, it's not a backup method. Those are two different things. Now,

00:10:26 ◼   ► in iOS 14 you can import your .shortcut files again. So very good news, especially if you like

00:10:34 ◼   ► me. I have lots of shortcuts and you maybe... maybe you have like a shortcut that is kind of meta, but

00:10:41 ◼   ► I have a shortcut that backs up all my shortcuts in a zip archive. And I run this regularly, and in

00:10:47 ◼   ► fact I had so much faith that complaining about this stuff would actually work that I've been

00:10:54 ◼   ► running this shortcut every month for the past year, even though it wasn't possible

00:10:58 ◼   ► to import those shortcuts anymore, because I kept my faith. I'm a man of faith. I keep

00:11:02 ◼   ► my faith in things that I feel strongly about. And my faith has been rewarded, because now,

00:11:08 ◼   ► well, not that I need to import my backup again, but I was right in feeling that this

00:11:15 ◼   ► feature would come back. And I think, generally speaking, it feeds into this idea that Apple

00:11:21 ◼   ► has been listening to power users regarding shortcuts for the past few months. In fact,

00:11:26 ◼   ► in addition to power user features like this one and the other features that we talked about

00:11:32 ◼   ► last week, like copy and paste and folders, there's also some really interesting additions for

00:11:38 ◼   ► developers who want to integrate with shortcuts and do something more than just use like a series

00:11:45 ◼   ► shortcut to activate like a quick feature. If you're a developer you can now mark some of your

00:11:53 ◼   ► actions in shortcuts as deprecated. This is quite common for apps that ship a specific shortcuts

00:12:02 ◼   ► integration and then later the developer wants to do something else but they are stuck with that

00:12:07 ◼   ► old action. They cannot quite remove it because it would break a shortcut that maybe some people

00:12:13 ◼   ► have created, but they want to introduce a new version of the same action. Well, now if you're

00:12:18 ◼   ► a developer, you can say this action is deprecated, it'll break in a future version of my app,

00:12:23 ◼   ► there's a new action, there's a new different action that you can install in the meantime.

00:12:28 ◼   ► So that's very nice. And I know that developers like Simon and like Greg Piers of Jafs have been

00:12:33 ◼   ► asking for this kind of functionality. And the second one, this was actually mentioned in one

00:12:39 ◼   ► one of the sessions, there's a new API for shortcuts developers. It's called

00:12:45 ◼   ► In-App Intent Handling, which basically means that if you're a developer and

00:12:50 ◼   ► you have an intents-based integration, so intents are the

00:12:55 ◼   ► technology that powers the actions the developers can make for the shortcuts

00:13:00 ◼   ► app, now you can handle those intents inside of your own app, instead of

00:13:06 ◼   ► of running the intent inside of the extension.

00:13:09 ◼   ► Basically, this means that you're not,

00:13:14 ◼   ► like the end user, you're not gonna notice anything.

00:13:16 ◼   ► It's more of a technical change.

00:13:18 ◼   ► But in practice, it means that a lot of actions

00:13:21 ◼   ► are gonna be a lot more powerful with iOS 14.

00:13:25 ◼   ► Because running an intent-based extension

00:13:29 ◼   ► comes with its own limitations,

00:13:31 ◼   ► in terms of like APIs and frameworks that you can access.

00:13:35 ◼   ► And now if you run the intent in app,

00:13:39 ◼   ► you will not have those limitations anymore.

00:13:41 ◼   ► A good example of this would be again,

00:13:43 ◼   ► Scriptable by Simon Stovring.

00:13:47 ◼   ► Previously with the old Intents framework,

00:13:50 ◼   ► you couldn't use bookmarks, file bookmarks,

00:13:53 ◼   ► created in Scriptable inside of shortcuts.

00:13:58 ◼   ► And Simon treated again a video showing how

00:14:02 ◼   ► it was able to switch to the new

00:14:03 ◼   ► in-app intent handling in iOS 14,

00:14:05 ◼   ► and now shortcuts will be able to retrieve and use

00:14:08 ◼   ► and access all of your file bookmarks

00:14:11 ◼   ► that you created in Inscriptable,

00:14:12 ◼   ► because there's no extension in the middle anymore.

00:14:15 ◼   ► So a lot of these limitations, I believe, will go away

00:14:18 ◼   ► and will have a lot of actions

00:14:20 ◼   ► that will be a lot more powerful than before.

00:14:22 ◼   ► So again, these are very much like technical changes,

00:14:25 ◼   ► but if you're the kind of developer

00:14:28 ◼   ► really wants to integrate with shortcuts,

00:14:29 ◼   ► you should be taking a look at this stuff,

00:14:32 ◼   ► because both of these, like being able to mark actions

00:14:35 ◼   ► as deprecated and have a superior handling

00:14:38 ◼   ► for your intents.

00:14:40 ◼   ► I know developers like Simon, like Greg,

00:14:42 ◼   ► have been asking for these features.

00:14:44 ◼   ► Also Alex of Toolbox Pro, they've

00:14:46 ◼   ► been asking for these features for the past 12 months.

00:14:48 ◼   ► And it's very good to see that somebody on the shortcuts team

00:14:52 ◼   ► is still listening, even though they may not

00:14:54 ◼   ► be as vocal about it on Twitter as before,

00:14:57 ◼   ► but they're still listening.

00:14:58 ◼   ► And really, for them, this in theory

00:15:01 ◼   ► should be low priority stuff. This is not like...

00:15:06 ◼   ► This is the most power of power users that use these tools. You've got

00:15:11 ◼   ► Shortcut's power users and then you have power user power users who are using

00:15:14 ◼   ► like Scriptable and Charti and yeah you know that it's like a... this is not to

00:15:21 ◼   ► discredit those applications they are fantastic but they are you know they

00:15:27 ◼   ► really are for specific people which is why they're priced that way as well as

00:15:30 ◼   ► they should be like they're not cheap applications for that for that reason so

00:15:33 ◼   ► by the way 2015 again was the last time that an app let me guess which one okay

00:15:43 ◼   ► they were two two of them yeah one of them is capo incorrect oh no

00:15:51 ◼   ► Steven, do you want to guess? 2015. 2015.

00:15:55 ◼   ► Pixelmator or something. Wrong.

00:15:57 ◼   ► Umm... Reader?

00:16:00 ◼   ► Wrong.

00:16:02 ◼   ► Tot?

00:16:04 ◼   ► Noctapel.

00:16:06 ◼   ► Fantastical2 and Affinity Designer.

00:16:08 ◼   ► Affinity!

00:16:10 ◼   ► And they won explicitly for their Mac apps.

00:16:14 ◼   ► So it's been five years since a standalone straight up Mac app has won an Apple Design award.

00:16:20 ◼   ► So the fact that people seem surprised this year, there you go, don't be.

00:16:25 ◼   ► We have some very important follow-up. Myke, I feel like as his Royal Highness you should share this with the people.

00:16:32 ◼   ► No, this isn't how it works because we don't have these kinds of documents.

00:16:37 ◼   ► Alright.

00:16:38 ◼   ► We don't have these kinds of documents in a Royal institution.

00:16:44 ◼   ► Right.

00:16:45 ◼   ► So I think you should do it.

00:16:46 ◼   ► So big news, Batias over on Twitter has created for us a PDF that is the Bill of Rickeys.

00:16:54 ◼   ► This is incredible. I cannot believe that this happened so quickly.

00:16:59 ◼   ► Now I have a question. Was this in the main show? Or was it in the post show?

00:17:05 ◼   ► I don't, I can't tell the difference.

00:17:07 ◼   ► Okay.

00:17:08 ◼   ► But yes, basically, as a joke, as most of the things I say, it was just like a quick joke of

00:17:15 ◼   ► of like, hey, imagine if all the rules behind our Ricky's and our predictions game that

00:17:21 ◼   ► we do every year, imagine if it was like presented as like a physical manuscript that looked

00:17:28 ◼   ► like the bill of rights or the Magna Carta and somebody actually put this together. So

00:17:35 ◼   ► as you can imagine, it looks like an old document with the handwriting.

00:17:39 ◼   ► It's very well done. It's very well done. And it begins saying,

00:17:44 ◼   ► What's the name of when you start one of these documents and the first letter is bigger than

00:17:51 ◼   ► the rest of the text?

00:17:53 ◼   ► Drop cap?

00:17:54 ◼   ► Maybe. Maybe it's dead. Maybe it is dead.

00:17:57 ◼   ► Not when it's bigger, when it also has that very specific look.

00:18:00 ◼   ► Yeah, it's got that look.

00:18:03 ◼   ► As Jason knows, he was around when they wrote the Constitution.

00:18:05 ◼   ► It's got that look.

00:18:06 ◼   ► Well, he was.

00:18:07 ◼   ► Anyway, it says, "We, the co-hosts of the Connected Podcast, in order to form a more

00:18:13 ◼   ► perfect podcast, establish justice, foster network tranquility. Boy, tranquility is such

00:18:19 ◼   ► a good word. Promote the weird fish emoji, uphold technology without borders and secure

00:18:26 ◼   ► the blessing of Apple related news to ourselves and our listeners. Do ordain and establish

00:18:33 ◼   ► this bill of rickies for the connected podcast of relay FM. My word, this is perfect. This

00:18:38 ◼   ► is beautiful.

00:18:39 ◼   ► It's beautiful. And then it goes on to list all of the rules as they are currently.

00:18:46 ◼   ► There is a space for us to sign this and I think the three of us should all sign it.

00:18:52 ◼   ► And we have to sign it and send it around to get real signatures.

00:18:56 ◼   ► That sounds like a project for me.

00:18:58 ◼   ► Should we get this notarized? Like actually notarized?

00:19:02 ◼   ► Yes, we should.

00:19:03 ◼   ► If you are a listener who is a notary, let us know if this is a crime.

00:19:08 ◼   ► Is this legal? Like, can you actually notarize this stuff?

00:19:13 ◼   ► I genuinely would like it notarized. How do we do that? Do we have to get on a Zoom call?

00:19:18 ◼   ► No, no, we're doing this wrong. We have to sign this in person. So next time we do a

00:19:23 ◼   ► live show...

00:19:24 ◼   ► Oh my... Oh, yes. Yes.

00:19:26 ◼   ► We'll sign it and have it notarized on stage.

00:19:29 ◼   ► You've got to make it big. Like, really big.

00:19:32 ◼   ► That we will do. So we will find an Otterie who's willing to come on stage for a live

00:19:37 ◼   ► podcast recording.

00:19:39 ◼   ► I have another thing, and this should probably be added into the Bill of Rickeys. Whoever

00:19:43 ◼   ► wins has to take it home, and it is their property, until the next winner wins. And

00:19:53 ◼   ► it then has to be sent to that person to be looked after.

00:19:57 ◼   ► Wow, yes. Also, what are your guys' thoughts on having some kind of like medieval style

00:20:06 ◼   ► announcer read out the Bill of Rickeys before we declare the winner? Like a jester or like

00:20:14 ◼   ► somebody? Well, that's a good, I mean we always read the rules anyway. It could be like either

00:20:19 ◼   ► a jester or like, like, like, I don't know, somebody and like there's like also trumpets.

00:20:25 ◼   ► A town crier? A town crier with a bell? Yes. Oh my god. Is that another job for Jason?

00:20:32 ◼   ► Town crier? As long as they don't have to flip a coin we're fine.

00:20:37 ◼   ► We can talk. Alright, so this is continuing to get more and more complicated.

00:20:43 ◼   ► So I have a PDF of this in our dropbox and we'll go from there. But this is amazing,

00:20:48 ◼   ► thank you so much for this amazing work. We have some follow out. I wanted to point

00:20:55 ◼   ► people to upgrade episode 304 or Myke you and Jason had a really cool interview

00:21:01 ◼   ► yeah we had the opportunity to interview Bob Borchers and Ronak Shah who work on

00:21:06 ◼   ► Apple's product marketing teams and we spoke about Mac OS Big Sur and some of

00:21:12 ◼   ► the new features in Safari so if you want to check that out I think it was a

00:21:16 ◼   ► really great interview came out really well and yeah I'm really pleased that

00:21:20 ◼   ► that we were able to get Apple on the show.

00:21:23 ◼   ► Like I guess, spoiler alert,

00:21:25 ◼   ► like we're about to, after this break, right,

00:21:28 ◼   ► we're gonna have another interview,

00:21:29 ◼   ► which we'll talk about in a minute.

00:21:30 ◼   ► Stephen, would you like to take a break

00:21:31 ◼   ► and we'll introduce that?

00:21:32 ◼   ► - Let's take a break and then we'll introduce that.

00:21:35 ◼   ► How does that sound?

00:21:36 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:21:37 ◼   ► - Great.

00:21:39 ◼   ► - We're on the same page.

00:21:40 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:21:42 ◼   ► - Federico, what do you think?

00:21:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, sure.

00:21:46 ◼   ► I mean, why not?

00:21:48 ◼   ► Mm hmm. Mm hmm. This episode of connected is brought to you by PDF

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00:23:11 ◼   ► All right, so a few days ago, we had the opportunity of sitting down

00:23:15 ◼   ► with Jenny Chen and Stephen Tomer from Apple.

00:23:18 ◼   ► Stephen is from the product marketing team.

00:23:20 ◼   ► And Jenny is an engineer who works on Apple Pencil software.

00:23:24 ◼   ► Jenny was in the keynote showing off the new features

00:23:27 ◼   ► for the Apple Pencil, which obviously I'm very excited about.

00:23:30 ◼   ► So we're going to go to that interview now and you're going to hear all about

00:23:33 ◼   ► Apple Pencil and a lot of conversation about iPadOS as well.

00:23:38 ◼   ► So for me, definitely both Scribble and the new handwriting and shape recognition features in

00:23:45 ◼   ► iPadOS and PencilKit are easily my favorite new features in the entire operating system.

00:23:50 ◼   ► So I really want to start talking with these first. So Jenny, do you imagine that these new

00:23:58 ◼   ► features are going to make the Apple Pencil even more of a core part of iPad use for a lot of

00:24:05 ◼   ► people? Yeah, I mean, definitely. I think one of the really great parts about Apple Pencil and the

00:24:11 ◼   ► iPad is, A, the note-taking abilities that we had before, but now we're so much smarter with what

00:24:17 ◼   ► you can do with it. Like, you know, we can recognize your handwriting. It's so much easier

00:24:21 ◼   ► to select without having to enter any modal type things. And then along with Scribble, it's like,

00:24:28 ◼   ► I can go from one to the other, never have to put it down. Yeah, I think that's totally right. And

00:24:33 ◼   ► And just to add a little bit more to that is,

00:24:37 ◼   ► one of the things we've heard for many years

00:24:39 ◼   ► from our very passionate Apple Pencil users is--

00:24:43 ◼   ► and I think this is something that you can only

00:24:45 ◼   ► appreciate if you really are a passionate Apple Pencil user--

00:24:48 ◼   ► is when you're using it, when you're

00:24:50 ◼   ► in that flow of drawing or illustration or note taking,

00:24:54 ◼   ► putting it down can have that effect of breaking that flow.

00:24:59 ◼   ► And you don't want to have to put it down to respond to an i

00:25:02 ◼   ► message or do a quick search in maps for, you know, a dinner location or something like

00:25:07 ◼   ► that.

00:25:08 ◼   ► And so with Scribble, you don't have to put it away to do those kinds of things.

00:25:12 ◼   ► And it keeps you in that pencil state of mind, which is tremendously helpful for people who

00:25:18 ◼   ► love being in the flow of using Apple Pencil.

00:25:21 ◼   ► And that's kind of the, I think that's really the spirit of bringing Scribble to iPad is

00:25:25 ◼   ► keeping you in that flow while you're using Apple Pencil.

00:25:29 ◼   ► So when I'm using the Apple Pencil, that's the mode that I'm in at that time.

00:25:33 ◼   ► Like I have done things like having the little mini keyboard in the side and using the swipe

00:25:39 ◼   ► to enter text on that.

00:25:41 ◼   ► So I am like so so happy now about being able to just handwriting the text that I want.

00:25:46 ◼   ► It's such a fantastic way of keeping me doing what I'm doing rather than thinking about

00:25:51 ◼   ► having to switch to typing now.

00:25:54 ◼   ► It really kind of keeps the flow on the device that I love.

00:25:57 ◼   ► Cool.

00:25:58 ◼   ► college we took this user interface class and how efficient the user interface was always

00:26:03 ◼   ► judged on how long does it take you to do a task, how many taps does it take, or even

00:26:08 ◼   ► in this case, how long does it take me to flip out my keyboard to enter this modal state,

00:26:13 ◼   ► enter text again. And I think one of the nice parts about the pencil is that you just put

00:26:18 ◼   ► it down. No taps. Quick and easy.

00:26:23 ◼   ► So speaking of the flow of working on the iPad, something that I got from watching some

00:26:27 ◼   ► of the sessions is this idea of you now have this multiplicity of inputs on iPad.

00:26:34 ◼   ► So you have touch, first and foremost it's still a primary touch device, and you have

00:26:38 ◼   ► a keyboard and you have the pointer and you have the pencil.

00:26:41 ◼   ► And I was wondering, what are some of the challenges of making sure that all of these

00:26:46 ◼   ► different inputs can work together so seamlessly on iPadOS?

00:26:49 ◼   ► Yeah, so that's actually something that we spent a lot of time refining.

00:26:55 ◼   ► I'm sure as you've played with Scribble, you'll notice how the keyboard interacts with it.

00:27:00 ◼   ► And so when you start scribbling, the keyboard doesn't start popping up.

00:27:04 ◼   ► You stay in this scribble experience, and there's that little palette that shows Go

00:27:10 ◼   ► or any of the other quick actions that you may need without the keyboard popping up and

00:27:14 ◼   ► getting in your face, even though you clearly aren't using it because you're scribbling.

00:27:19 ◼   ► And even with pointer interactions, too, we've done a lot of special things for Scribble

00:27:22 ◼   ► to make sure that you know where you're writing, but without it being super in your face.

00:27:28 ◼   ► Do you expect that some users will end up in situations where maybe you're using a magic

00:27:32 ◼   ► keyboard or an external keyboard and a pencil at the same time? Like, is it something that

00:27:37 ◼   ► you see or that you get, like, requests from customers of, "I want to so quickly switch

00:27:42 ◼   ► between all these different inputs"? Is that something that you get frequently?

00:27:46 ◼   ► Yeah, Federico, absolutely. And I actually think that's one of the main reasons people

00:27:51 ◼   ► by an iPad is it has this incredible versatility of inputs. It's arguably the most versatile

00:27:59 ◼   ► device we make at Apple, and that's its superpower, right? So I can, without actually changing

00:28:08 ◼   ► anything about the UI, and this is genuinely what I love about iPad, is I can go from a device that's

00:28:14 ◼   ► touch first, right? That is the center of gravity for us, is touch first. Then I can put it in the

00:28:19 ◼   ► Magic Keyboard and I can use the cursor. And then I can use Apple Pencil in that same flow,

00:28:27 ◼   ► and I never once have to change the way the UI works. I don't go from some desktop mode to touch

00:28:34 ◼   ► mode. The OS just knows what I'm doing and adapts to that. And I think that is how we think about

00:28:42 ◼   ► iPad. That's what our customers love about iPad. And so we work really hard

00:28:48 ◼   ► and it's at the engineering level, and Jenny could probably talk more about this, is it's

00:28:54 ◼   ► really hard to make that seamless, but that's why we do what we do, right? We don't want the customer

00:29:00 ◼   ► to have to have to worry about any of that. They should just be able to use the iPad with any input

00:29:04 ◼   ► they want, and it seamlessly adapts to them. I've been playing with the handwriting recognition for

00:29:10 ◼   ► a couple of days on my beloved iPad mini. I'm trying to get all my friends back into the iPad

00:29:14 ◼   ► Mini Club. Hey I'm back in the iPad Mini Club, I'm right there with you. Yeah I know, it's

00:29:18 ◼   ► really just Myke. If they keep talking about it I'm gonna end up doing it. It's like, but

00:29:28 ◼   ► then I'll have three iPads in consistent use. I told you it's perfect for reading, the thing

00:29:33 ◼   ► is you don't like to read. So that's the problem. Then we'll get you. I've been incredibly impressed

00:29:40 ◼   ► with not only the accuracy of the handwriting recognition, but the speed of it as well.

00:29:46 ◼   ► Could you talk a little bit about how that's happening?

00:29:48 ◼   ► Is it on-device?

00:29:49 ◼   ► Is it using machine learning?

00:29:51 ◼   ► What's going on behind the scenes?

00:29:52 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, we've obviously done a lot of work on the machine learning side.

00:29:57 ◼   ► It's all on-device.

00:29:59 ◼   ► We've trained a lot of models with a huge amount of data.

00:30:03 ◼   ► And then we have this on-device machine learning that we've made sure is super quick, super

00:30:08 ◼   ► performant.

00:30:09 ◼   ► We've actually done a lot of work this year because we have all of these super

00:30:13 ◼   ► responsive handwriting type features that kind of require, you know, immediate

00:30:17 ◼   ► feedback to make sure that everything is smooth and zippy.

00:30:20 ◼   ► And then even from the user interface side, you know, there was also a lot of

00:30:24 ◼   ► work done in terms of like tuning those animations to make sure they also feel,

00:30:28 ◼   ► you know, reactive and zippy as well.

00:30:29 ◼   ► And I think the other interesting point on this one is there's no

00:30:34 ◼   ► training of this system involved.

00:30:37 ◼   ► You don't have to go through a give us your handwriting sample,

00:30:41 ◼   ► write the quick brown fox seven times or anything like that.

00:30:45 ◼   ► We've really worked hard to make sure that this thing works

00:30:48 ◼   ► amazing out of the box.

00:30:51 ◼   ► And the processing happens all in real time.

00:30:54 ◼   ► So as you're taking notes, you can immediately

00:30:56 ◼   ► go into data detectors.

00:30:57 ◼   ► You can immediately start selecting text.

00:30:59 ◼   ► And I think that's a real testament to the work

00:31:02 ◼   ► that Jenny and the team have done on the model training

00:31:05 ◼   ► part and the A-series processors right in every iPad that our users have is they're incredibly

00:31:11 ◼   ► fast, incredibly powerful, and we can do all of this in real time. And it's when you bring that

00:31:17 ◼   ► hardware and software integration together that really makes that experience incredibly seamless

00:31:22 ◼   ► for the customers. Two things that I've been super impressed about in my testing so far

00:31:28 ◼   ► is one how the system doesn't care if I'm writing in like print or cursive or a mixture of both,

00:31:35 ◼   ► which is what I do, which I was so surprised that it didn't care. But also I have quite bad

00:31:41 ◼   ► handwriting, doesn't matter. And like seriously hats off to that because like this stuff is

00:31:47 ◼   ► incredibly hard to do and especially as you say with no training like that is very impressive.

00:31:52 ◼   ► Hey Jenny, do you you might also want to talk a little bit about how

00:31:57 ◼   ► You guys worked really hard to make sure it works great when you're writing, you know,

00:32:01 ◼   ► not in a straight line and some of the considerations there, because I think that's

00:32:05 ◼   ► also, there's some really great details that the team thought about here.

00:32:09 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I think both are really great points. The fact that it recognizes most people's

00:32:14 ◼   ► handwritings, even if maybe a human couldn't even read your handwriting, I think is really impressive.

00:32:20 ◼   ► And I think that's really a testament to the amount of work that our machine learning team

00:32:25 ◼   ► has done, right, and gathering the corpus of training model data so that when you do write

00:32:30 ◼   ► on your device, you don't need to have trained it with your own handwriting already. It kind of

00:32:35 ◼   ► already knows. And then, in addition, like Stephen said, you could write in a little spiral and it

00:32:41 ◼   ► would still recognize it, which I think is also really impressive. And so we've also done a lot

00:32:45 ◼   ► of work tracking your strokes as they go to see what path you might have followed. And you can

00:32:53 ◼   ► can see that even when you smart select, right, you know,

00:32:56 ◼   ► when you smart select, when you select normal text, it's very

00:33:01 ◼   ► linear. But I think that's one of the awesome parts that we

00:33:05 ◼   ► have with smart selection with your handwriting is that, you

00:33:08 ◼   ► know, how often is my handwriting actually a straight

00:33:11 ◼   ► line? Probably never. It always has a slight tilt. And you know,

00:33:16 ◼   ► maybe I'm feeling a little fun and want to write in a little

00:33:19 ◼   ► spiral or like in a little wave. And I think that's one of the

00:33:22 ◼   ► really cool parts about smart selection is that, you know, we can still know that you're

00:33:27 ◼   ► writing in this wave and select it like that instead of being constrained to this really

00:33:32 ◼   ► linear form.

00:33:33 ◼   ► JEAN-PAULO

00:33:51 ◼   ► that Scribble uses. And so I feel like it's one of those things where it's like, "Oh, yeah,

00:33:57 ◼   ► of course you should be able to select handwriting like this. It works with typed text. Easy peasy,

00:34:02 ◼   ► right?" But there's so much machine learning happening under the hood. And then in addition,

00:34:07 ◼   ► like, as I said before, one of those challenges is that text is just so linear versus your

00:34:13 ◼   ► handwriting. It could be diagrams and drawings, nonlinear text, random arrows pointing everywhere.

00:34:20 ◼   ► And so that was definitely one of the challenges of handling

00:34:23 ◼   ► selection, smart selection, in Notes.

00:34:27 ◼   ► So I was playing around with Scribble on iPad S14

00:34:30 ◼   ► on my iPad Pro.

00:34:31 ◼   ► And something that I noticed is that-- so I

00:34:33 ◼   ► tried to handwrite in a bunch of different text fields.

00:34:36 ◼   ► And something that I noticed was that when I opened Music

00:34:39 ◼   ► and I went to search for something on Apple Music,

00:34:42 ◼   ► and I used Scribble in the search field,

00:34:45 ◼   ► the placeholder text inside the search field disappeared.

00:34:48 ◼   ► And so then I was watching a session about this,

00:34:51 ◼   ► and I wanted to ask you, if I'm a third-party developer,

00:34:55 ◼   ► and I wanna integrate, and I wanna offer support

00:34:57 ◼   ► for Scribble in my text fields,

00:34:59 ◼   ► are there any particular considerations

00:35:01 ◼   ► that I should account for, such as, for example,

00:35:04 ◼   ► in Apple Music, you got the placeholder text,

00:35:07 ◼   ► but it disappears because it doesn't wanna get in the way

00:35:09 ◼   ► of your handwriting?

00:35:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, definitely.

00:35:12 ◼   ► I think your music example is a perfect example of that.

00:35:15 ◼   ► Other considerations are if your text field moves.

00:35:19 ◼   ► So search is actually a good example of this.

00:35:22 ◼   ► So if you type in your Safari search bar,

00:35:25 ◼   ► you know, with a normal keyboard,

00:35:26 ◼   ► you'll actually notice the search bar moves up

00:35:28 ◼   ► as you type to, you know,

00:35:29 ◼   ► give more room to surface the search results.

00:35:32 ◼   ► But when you use a pencil,

00:35:34 ◼   ► you actually don't want that, right?

00:35:35 ◼   ► Because if you're writing and then all of a sudden

00:35:37 ◼   ► the text, the like search bar moves underneath your pencil,

00:35:40 ◼   ► like that's such a jarring experience, right?

00:35:43 ◼   ► I think one of those principles that we really want third parties to adhere to is, you know,

00:35:48 ◼   ► make sure that your text fields stay where they are when users write. Another consideration, too,

00:35:54 ◼   ► is how big your text field is in the space. So if you'll open messages, for example, you have

00:36:01 ◼   ► a single line text field on the bottom, which, as you're typing, feels pretty natural, but as

00:36:08 ◼   ► your writing can get a little awkward as your hand is, you know, hanging halfway off the iPad,

00:36:13 ◼   ► or as you like, you know, start entering a multi-line scenario. And so kind of adjusting

00:36:20 ◼   ► your text field so that they feel the most natural that you can for writing. I think one of the great

00:36:25 ◼   ► parts that we actually also do for you that you don't have to do as a third-party app developer,

00:36:29 ◼   ► but you can customize if you want, is that you can be a little sloppy and right outside the box

00:36:34 ◼   ► if you want. So even if I start scribbling and my handwriting is too big for this tiny text field,

00:36:40 ◼   ► you can still write outside the lines, don't have to follow the lines like you did in elementary

00:36:44 ◼   ► school, and will still know what text box you meant to write in.

00:36:48 ◼   ► Yeah, and to add a little bit more to that, Federico, since you brought it up,

00:36:52 ◼   ► the other thing the team worked incredibly hard on is making sure that the vast majority of

00:36:57 ◼   ► third-party apps don't actually have to do any adoption to get scribble.

00:37:01 ◼   ► Right, that was my follow-up.

00:37:02 ◼   ► So good. You and I are on the same wavelength, which is no surprise at all. Yeah. So this is

00:37:08 ◼   ► something that as we were looking at Scribble internally, we wanted to make sure that adoption

00:37:13 ◼   ► was only necessary in the places where we might not be able to do that at the system level. Maybe

00:37:19 ◼   ► there's something highly custom in the app, but I think you'll find that the overwhelming majority

00:37:23 ◼   ► of apps will just work with Scribble. And I think that is, and that includes apps that use web views

00:37:29 ◼   ► in their apps and native obviously UI text fields. And I think this is part of really bringing

00:37:35 ◼   ► Scribble to life is it just works and you'll find that and I think that's what users will expect

00:37:41 ◼   ► right when you think about it. You don't think if a keyboard is going to come up when you tap into

00:37:45 ◼   ► a text field and Scribble should work exactly the same way and it does. I am also as well a big pen

00:37:52 ◼   ► and paper nerd but one of the things that I love about when you can intersect these analog and

00:37:58 ◼   ► digital tools is how they can assist you in places that you would otherwise be lost in.

00:38:05 ◼   ► And smart shapes and data detectors are really good examples of that because I can still get the

00:38:12 ◼   ► feeling of drawing myself or writing down something, taking a note myself, but still get to take

00:38:18 ◼   ► advantage of what a computer can do for me. And I thought that that was such a beautiful way of

00:38:25 ◼   ► Bridging the gaps between those two things does that type of stuff ever drive your thinking about trying to find ways to bridge those?

00:38:31 ◼   ► experiences for people oh

00:38:33 ◼   ► Absolutely. I mean, I think one of the principles that we have with Apple pencils

00:38:38 ◼   ► we really want to make it, you know, just as easy as

00:38:40 ◼   ► Picking up a normal pencil and paper right? I put my pencil down

00:38:44 ◼   ► I'm making marks really easy and like you said, I think at least for me too. There's something really

00:38:51 ◼   ► memory enforcing about writing something down. Yeah. And so I

00:38:55 ◼   ► take notes aggressively, just so that I can help absorb that

00:38:59 ◼   ► information. Another one of those things that we think about

00:39:01 ◼   ► is, how can we make it as smooth and easy as possible? But then

00:39:06 ◼   ► what can we also provide you? That makes it even better? Like,

00:39:09 ◼   ► why would I reach for an iPad over a pencil and paper, right?

00:39:12 ◼   ► And I think these smart features really help build on that a lot,

00:39:17 ◼   ► so that it's not just the thing you wrote and, you know, help you absorb this information.

00:39:22 ◼   ► But also you can take action on it. You can do things to it later. You can, you know, I think

00:39:29 ◼   ► one of the great parts is like, "Oh, I needed to insert this whole extra paragraph because I forgot

00:39:35 ◼   ► to write it in." And instead of, you know, drawing those really long arrows and trying to fit things

00:39:40 ◼   ► in the margins, I can just like move everything and everything still looks really nice.

00:39:44 ◼   ► things like search, right? Paper, you can't search your handwriting. And so yeah, I think

00:39:49 ◼   ► Jenny's spot on. We want to provide that friction-free experience you get with paper,

00:39:55 ◼   ► but then take it to a whole new place. You know, even scanning documents in, right? You scan a

00:40:01 ◼   ► document in and you can search that document now in Notes. And so that's, yeah, we're really excited

00:40:07 ◼   ► about this kind of whole new way to work with on iPad. Yeah, I was actually, you know, taking

00:40:12 ◼   ► notes the other day and then someone was wrote a website and I was like oh I really want that

00:40:16 ◼   ► website and I'd handwritten it and then I was able to like go to the website afterwards and I was

00:40:20 ◼   ► like wow this is so useful. When the Apple Pencil came around the first time when we first had it,

00:40:26 ◼   ► it was really focused on being a creative tool and an artistic tool and that was like a really

00:40:32 ◼   ► fantastic purpose for it but now it's it really feels like these features are helping it become

00:40:38 ◼   ► the meeting tool, the note-taking tool that many people I think do use the Apple Pencil for,

00:40:44 ◼   ► but these new features really help make that a much, much better experience,

00:40:49 ◼   ► which I think is really amazing. Yeah, 100% agree. It's been really fun to watch

00:40:55 ◼   ► Apple Pencil grow, right? And I think the principles of it, what's great is they've

00:41:02 ◼   ► remain the same. We want low latency, right, versatility. All of those things have helped

00:41:08 ◼   ► make it give you that feeling of paper. And I think the other key part of this is,

00:41:15 ◼   ► and we talked about this last year at WWDC, where we were able to reduce the latency in software.

00:41:20 ◼   ► And I think that's one of the incredible parts about Apple Pencil is that we can continue to

00:41:25 ◼   ► improve it, both from the hardware and the software perspective. That's what's been helping

00:41:29 ◼   ► it grow and grow and grow into this really incredible way to input on iPad.

00:41:36 ◼   ► Yeah, to add to Steven's point too, I think iPad itself has seen this transformation from this

00:41:42 ◼   ► creative device to this productivity device as well. I can do so much more on my iPad,

00:41:47 ◼   ► and then all these pencil features just help you be more productive as well.

00:41:51 ◼   ► So Steven, I'd like to dig in a bit deeper on iPad S14 in general, if you don't mind.

00:41:59 ◼   ► Believe it or not, Federico has some questions.

00:42:03 ◼   ► Exactly, exactly.

00:42:05 ◼   ► Look, I have a long list and I had to cut it down, so bear with me.

00:42:09 ◼   ► Just a few questions.

00:42:13 ◼   ► So I guess the first one that comes to mind is the home screen, right?

00:42:18 ◼   ► And on IPRS 14, we have these new widgets,

00:42:20 ◼   ► this new widget kit framework for developers,

00:42:23 ◼   ► and these widgets that can be glanceable, can be relevant,

00:42:26 ◼   ► and of course you've provided some default widgets.

00:42:29 ◼   ► We can try it now with Apple Music and Notes and Reminders,

00:42:32 ◼   ► and they look fantastic.

00:42:34 ◼   ► Now, on the iPhone, the home screen allows you

00:42:37 ◼   ► to intermix these widgets with app icons,

00:42:40 ◼   ► and so you can have these very custom layouts

00:42:42 ◼   ► with widgets of multiple sizes,

00:42:44 ◼   ► and then you can have the icons flow around them.

00:42:46 ◼   ► On the iPad, in iPadOS 14, however,

00:42:49 ◼   ► the widgets are still placed in the left column.

00:42:51 ◼   ► And I was wondering if you could elaborate a little

00:42:54 ◼   ► on what was the reasoning behind this difference between the two home screen experiences?

00:42:59 ◼   ► Absolutely, glad you asked about that. Before I jump into that, I do think, and I think it's worth

00:43:06 ◼   ► kind of noting that aside from the difference in where you can place them, the widgets themselves

00:43:12 ◼   ► are identical in terms of capability. So the design, the size, the smarts, which we can talk

00:43:18 ◼   ► about as well if you'd like, are all the same, which is great. So it really gives you that nice,

00:43:22 ◼   ► consistent experience. The short answer is that this year we really decided to focus the iOS

00:43:30 ◼   ► experience on intermixing on the home screen. As you know very well, last year we added the

00:43:35 ◼   ► ability to pin widgets to pin the Today View as it were next to your apps on iPad. And we really

00:43:42 ◼   ► felt this year that that was the right placement for them because you can have them right there

00:43:47 ◼   ► with your apps on iPad, the larger screen on iPad also lends itself better to that so you can get

00:43:53 ◼   ► more content on the screen. Whereas on iPhone, if you want that experience, you know, prior to iOS

00:43:58 ◼   ► 14, you had to swipe over to Today View, which you can still do. But putting them on the home screen

00:44:03 ◼   ► gave iPhone users that same immediate benefit of accessing the widgets from the home screen. And so

00:44:08 ◼   ► that was why we decided to kind of keep those separate. The other feature that is also only on

00:44:14 ◼   ► on the iPhone for now, I believe, is the App Library.

00:44:16 ◼   ► So you have this new method of organizing apps automatically

00:44:20 ◼   ► for you in different categories.

00:44:21 ◼   ► And you have also intelligence there

00:44:23 ◼   ► because you have suggestions and you have recently added,

00:44:26 ◼   ► but that's only on the iPhone.

00:44:27 ◼   ► And now this is my personal theory,

00:44:29 ◼   ► and you can correct me if I'm wrong,

00:44:31 ◼   ► but between the widgets and the App Library,

00:44:34 ◼   ► I feel like the App Library makes more sense on the iPhone,

00:44:37 ◼   ► like personally speaking.

00:44:38 ◼   ► And that's also part of something that I heard

00:44:40 ◼   ► in one of the sessions of that the average person

00:44:43 ◼   ► goes back to the home screen over 90 times a day.

00:44:47 ◼   ► And that to me feels like an iPhone thing.

00:44:48 ◼   ► It feels like an iPhone interaction.

00:44:50 ◼   ► Like you pick it up and you navigate back and forth

00:44:52 ◼   ► between apps and the home screen.

00:44:54 ◼   ► If that's the line of reasoning, I guess it makes sense

00:44:57 ◼   ► to have the app library on the iPhone

00:44:59 ◼   ► because it's the kind of organizational tool

00:45:01 ◼   ► that speeds up these interactions

00:45:04 ◼   ► between apps and the home screen.

00:45:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that could certainly be part of it

00:45:08 ◼   ► for a lot of people.

00:45:09 ◼   ► I think the other kind of thing to keep in mind too

00:45:12 ◼   ► is on iPad again, and I'll I think that's worth kind of continuing to sort of beat this drum of

00:45:18 ◼   ► we have a large screen you can have more apps per page and as you know Federico but I'll say it for

00:45:25 ◼   ► you know posterity we've got the dock and I think on iPad the dock is something that you can load up

00:45:31 ◼   ► with lots of apps you can access it over apps so it becomes that additional way of switching between

00:45:37 ◼   ► apps and as well if you have a hardware keyboard on iPad you can command space and launch apps that

00:45:44 ◼   ► way and I think this does come back to a higher level point which is you know we really do think

00:45:48 ◼   ► about these experiences independently right how can we create the right experience for iPad how

00:45:54 ◼   ► can we create the right experience for iPhone and then of course share those technologies where it

00:45:59 ◼   ► makes sense for users but also acknowledge that people use devices in different ways their screens

00:46:04 ◼   ► are different sizes and so and that's what drives all of our software design and software

00:46:10 ◼   ► development. You know that's why you see this really great distinct experience on iPad.

00:46:14 ◼   ► While we're talking about iPad design, a phrase that's kind of been used in some of the sessions

00:46:21 ◼   ► is designed for the iPad or the iPad idiom and I wanted to know how you think about that. You know

00:46:27 ◼   ► there's a lot of consistency like you just said between the phone and the iPad but now there's

00:46:31 ◼   ► also consistency between iPadOS and macOS. So kind of how do you feel, how do you think about those

00:46:38 ◼   ► things and where does the iPad sort of fit into that spectrum? Absolutely. Great question. Kind

00:46:42 ◼   ► of stepping back just a little bit, I think when we think about those three categories of devices,

00:46:46 ◼   ► and of course all the other devices we make like Apple Watch, et cetera, the Uber driving force

00:46:52 ◼   ► for us is to deliver the right experience for the right device. I think that is, you know, that's how

00:46:57 ◼   ► we think about these things, and as I mentioned before, and figuring out how they are consistent

00:47:03 ◼   ► and how do they work well together, because a lot of our users have all those devices,

00:47:07 ◼   ► right? And so they should work really well together. Then as we think about iPad, what

00:47:12 ◼   ► drives us there is how can we make really efficient use of that large screen to help

00:47:19 ◼   ► people get more done faster? And I think a great example of that is, and we talked about

00:47:26 ◼   ► a little bit earlier before we got started, which was the addition of sidebars really does speed up

00:47:31 ◼   ► that experience because what you end up with is you end up with apps that are able to put

00:47:35 ◼   ► all of their core functionality right in the main window. So instead of tapping on something and

00:47:41 ◼   ► having another panel open or shifting to another place, you can just tap, tap, tap like in photos

00:47:47 ◼   ► or music and the content updates on the right hand side. That's a really powerful and efficient way to

00:47:52 ◼   ► to work on an iPad. The other nice thing about the sidebars is they support drag and drop

00:47:56 ◼   ► and spring loading, as you saw in the demo, so you can pick things up and move them around

00:48:00 ◼   ► really naturally and fluidly. And that's an efficiency that we and that's kind of what

00:48:05 ◼   ► drives our thinking, which is how can we let users get more done on this beautiful, large

00:48:11 ◼   ► multi-touch display? And then the other benefit there, as you alluded to on the Mac side,

00:48:16 ◼   ► is any developers that want to bring those apps over to the Mac via Mac Catalyst, those

00:48:21 ◼   ► all of those features translate beautifully to the Mac. So you'll get those great sidebars on the Mac,

00:48:26 ◼   ► etc. pull-down menus. And I think that's another way to kind of really help the ecosystem out.

00:48:33 ◼   ► One other couple other points I wanted to drop in there too, while we're talking about design for

00:48:37 ◼   ► iPad elements is, you know, we not only went with sidebars, but we went really deep into the

00:48:44 ◼   ► experience. So pull-down menus, which are incredibly efficient. We have a new date picker. So,

00:48:50 ◼   ► You know the kind of slot machine style date picker on iPad?

00:48:55 ◼   ► That is now a mini calendar where you can type in.

00:48:57 ◼   ► I love that so much. I'm so happy.

00:49:01 ◼   ► Isn't it awesome?

00:49:01 ◼   ► Yeah. I didn't realize that I didn't want the kind of wheel anymore until I started using the

00:49:09 ◼   ► trackpad. And then I was like, I have a trackpad and keyboard. I want to type now or tap now.

00:49:15 ◼   ► Right. That is really wonderful.

00:49:17 ◼   ► Ask and you shall receive.

00:49:20 ◼   ► And then the other one is, and Jenny can talk even deeper about this, we now have a system-wide color

00:49:26 ◼   ► picker with an eyedropper just like you would expect, and so that will help developers implement

00:49:32 ◼   ► this. And the overarching idea here is that we can generalize these tools. Developers can easily

00:49:40 ◼   ► integrate them into their apps, including things like Pencil with PencilKit, and our users get this

00:49:47 ◼   ► incredibly consistent experience across apps, which is just a great way for them to deliver

00:49:54 ◼   ► great apps across all our platforms. While we're here, I'd like to hear a little bit about the

00:50:00 ◼   ► color picker. Again, something that's been on the Mac for ages now showing up elsewhere. What

00:50:05 ◼   ► considerations went into that? Yeah, I mean, I think, like you said, we kind of take it for

00:50:10 ◼   ► granted on the Mac, right? You know, it's this easy to use thing. I can pick colors really easily

00:50:14 ◼   ► on the Mac, but at least for on iOS and iPadOS, you know, if you wanted a color picker, you had

00:50:21 ◼   ► to implement all of that yourself. And you know, there are lots of different ways to pick colors,

00:50:26 ◼   ► there's the grid of colors, there's the spectrum, then you have color spaces and opacity. And all of

00:50:31 ◼   ► it is a lot of work to implement as a third party developer and even as a user, right, you know,

00:50:35 ◼   ► getting used to different applications, color pickers are kind of a different experience.

00:50:41 ◼   ► And so it's really great that we were able to unify this all together so that you don't have to

00:50:45 ◼   ► do all this work if you want to just, you know, be able to change colors of like, you know, text

00:50:51 ◼   ► or drawings in your app. Something that really stood out to me as soon as I installed the iPad

00:50:57 ◼   ► S14 was I look at these sidebars and I look at these pull-down menus and I look at search,

00:51:03 ◼   ► and a lot of it felt instantly familiar as somebody who's seen those elements on macOS.

00:51:10 ◼   ► but at the same time they also felt like they didn't feel like additions to the iPad

00:51:18 ◼   ► didn't make sense for the platform, and I feel like you've struck a really good balance in

00:51:22 ◼   ► bringing over these features that maybe are inspired from work that you've done previously

00:51:28 ◼   ► on macOS, but they also were adapted to the iPad and they make sense for the platform.

00:51:33 ◼   ► And search really stands out to me there, as now you have this floating search bar in the middle

00:51:38 ◼   ► of the screen that doesn't hide what you're doing underneath. Can you elaborate on this,

00:51:44 ◼   ► sort of, bringing over these elements from the Mac, but while also rethinking their design and

00:51:50 ◼   ► their functionality for iPadOS? You know, one of the really unique advantages we have at Apple is

00:51:57 ◼   ► we make the world's best phones, the world's best tablets, and the world's best computers. And while

00:52:03 ◼   ► we... and we can keep those distinct, and we can share features across them. And as you note,

00:52:08 ◼   ► when we share features we don't just bring them over to one device or another. We really do think

00:52:13 ◼   ► deeply about how can we take those elements and make them feel kind of exactly as you said Federico

00:52:18 ◼   ► considered for that device. And there are some cases where we don't think it's right to bring

00:52:23 ◼   ► things over to one platform or the other. Or maybe sometimes we reimagine them completely.

00:52:28 ◼   ► I think you're right search is one of those ones that feels instantly familiar. It's the same

00:52:33 ◼   ► keyboard shortcut that you're familiar with on the Mac. It does there's kind of some nice fun

00:52:37 ◼   ► treatments in there where if you look up an app and you want to open up that app in split view,

00:52:42 ◼   ► you can actually drag it out of the search field and over to the side, and that's just a quick way

00:52:47 ◼   ► to get into multitasking. And so we really do think about how do we bring these to the platforms

00:52:54 ◼   ► and make them feel natural on that platform? How do we make them work great with touch,

00:53:00 ◼   ► right? We always come back to this idea iPad is a touch first device. I like to say when you use

00:53:05 ◼   ► iPad in its purest form, it's a sheet of glass you hold in your hand, and you should be able

00:53:09 ◼   ► to do everything with touch. And then as we layer on other ways to input, like the trackpad

00:53:17 ◼   ► and the pencil, those just make the experience better, but everything works with touch. You

00:53:21 ◼   ► know, pull-down menus, touch and hold and drag down work fantastic. Of course, if you

00:53:26 ◼   ► click on one of those with the new trackpad, it works great too. So we really do think

00:53:31 ◼   ► about all of the details there. And I think the result is that that really shows through

00:53:37 ◼   ► in the experience.

00:53:39 ◼   ► And speaking of those menus, they feel like an evolution of the context menus that you

00:53:46 ◼   ► launched last year in iOS 13. And it kind of feels like they have taken over the entire

00:53:51 ◼   ► OS because in a bunch of different places, like I was having a phone call with my mom

00:53:55 ◼   ► a couple of days ago, and I wanted to switch from the iPhone speaker to one of my home pods,

00:54:02 ◼   ► and when I pressed on the speaker icon, I got a pull-down menu. So it does feel like these

00:54:09 ◼   ► context menus have sort of taken over, and maybe it's because, as you mentioned, they

00:54:16 ◼   ► transition so beautifully from touch input to pointer input. Was that the reason why

00:54:23 ◼   ► a lot of menus are now those kinds of pull-down menus?

00:54:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, and also there's that,

00:54:28 ◼   ► and they're just really an efficient way

00:54:30 ◼   ► to pack a lot of functionality into a single location.

00:54:33 ◼   ► And I think that, you know, if we've learned something,

00:54:36 ◼   ► you know, from our years on the Mac is,

00:54:38 ◼   ► context menus can be a great way to give users

00:54:42 ◼   ► a lot of functionality right where they need it, right?

00:54:46 ◼   ► You don't have to go up to a menu at the top.

00:54:48 ◼   ► You can get it immediately in place.

00:54:51 ◼   ► And as you probably have noticed,

00:54:53 ◼   ► what I love about the iPad context menus is they grow,

00:54:56 ◼   ► the animation of they grow right out of where your finger is

00:54:59 ◼   ► which gives you that really,

00:55:01 ◼   ► that beautiful direct manipulation feeling,

00:55:04 ◼   ► whether you're right clicking on the track pad

00:55:05 ◼   ► or you're touching and holding.

00:55:06 ◼   ► And so I think that really is the spirit of this is

00:55:09 ◼   ► they're fast, they're efficient,

00:55:11 ◼   ► and they're exactly where you expect them to be.

00:55:14 ◼   ► And they just, the context menus just turned out

00:55:17 ◼   ► absolutely beautiful.

00:55:18 ◼   ► And on iPhone, you'll notice the new menus have a haptic

00:55:22 ◼   ► as you move your finger up and down, which is cool.

00:55:24 ◼   ► So it gives you that feedback of where you are.

00:55:26 ◼   ► And so, yeah, we love these.

00:55:28 ◼   ► We think there are great design element for apps.

00:55:31 ◼   ► There's a lot of stuff going on in iPadOS,

00:55:35 ◼   ► and which is really great to see.

00:55:36 ◼   ► Like we were already hoping that the introduction of this new platform

00:55:40 ◼   ► last year would continue to bring more evolution year over year,

00:55:43 ◼   ► which it definitely has.

00:55:45 ◼   ► From a developer's perspective, like we have a lot of developers

00:55:48 ◼   ► that listen to the show.

00:55:49 ◼   ► How would you describe what a great iPad app in 2020 will be following iPadOS 14?

00:55:56 ◼   ► What areas do you think developers should be really put in focus on when it comes to making the best iPad experience?

00:56:02 ◼   ► Yeah, that's a great question.

00:56:05 ◼   ► You know, I think what we look for in a great iPad app is a few things.

00:56:09 ◼   ► Number one, really consider that large screen.

00:56:14 ◼   ► There is so much you can do on this large screen on iPad

00:56:19 ◼   ► with three column views and more information

00:56:23 ◼   ► in the main window.

00:56:24 ◼   ► I think that is just, when you really kind of consider

00:56:29 ◼   ► this screen, the app experience can be extremely distinct.

00:56:34 ◼   ► That's number one.

00:56:35 ◼   ► Number two is I think, of course,

00:56:37 ◼   ► we want all of our developers to consider

00:56:39 ◼   ► implementing size classes so that the app works great

00:56:43 ◼   ► you're in split view and slide over and all of those elements which is which is what our

00:56:48 ◼   ► iPad customers are now coming to expect which is they can use the app full screen they can use the

00:56:53 ◼   ► app and slide over they can split it multi window right that's becoming another part of being a

00:56:59 ◼   ► modern iPad app and what I love about when you build a modern iPad app you don't have to worry

00:57:06 ◼   ► about implementing other things like trackpad support because that just comes along right

00:57:12 ◼   ► it turns out that if you build a great app for touch on iPad, it'll just work great with the cursor,

00:57:17 ◼   ► period, right? And so I think that is that part of it users will come to expect. And then I think

00:57:23 ◼   ► actually as we come back around to Pencil, that's another area that Jenny and team and she can talk

00:57:28 ◼   ► more about PencilKit because I think PencilKit is another thing that users are going to come,

00:57:34 ◼   ► you know, in some contexts come to expect that Pencil will work great in apps and PencilKit is

00:57:39 ◼   ► an awesome and easy way for our developers to add that capability to their apps.

00:57:45 ◼   ► Yeah, I think one of those things to add to Steven's point is, you know, building your own

00:57:49 ◼   ► pencil experience before used to be kind of a lot of effort. And one of the great parts about

00:57:54 ◼   ► Pencilkit is that we make it really easy. You can just, you know, I think we advertised in our talk

00:57:59 ◼   ► last year that it requires only five lines of code and you can get a pencil experience in your app.

00:58:05 ◼   ► And so I think that's part of the,

00:58:07 ◼   ► one of the really big parts about making your app

00:58:10 ◼   ► more friendly, not only just this, you know,

00:58:12 ◼   ► being really friendly with multi-window sizing appropriately,

00:58:15 ◼   ► but also, you know, helping support all these inputs

00:58:18 ◼   ► that users might want to use to interact

00:58:20 ◼   ► with your application in an easier way.

00:58:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think I can speak for all of us.

00:58:25 ◼   ► And we say like, we're super excited about iPadOS this year

00:58:29 ◼   ► and can't wait to spend much more time with it.

00:58:31 ◼   ► And then as the year goes on,

00:58:33 ◼   ► and seeing developers integrate and use all these new tools

00:58:37 ◼   ► is going to be amazing.

00:58:38 ◼   ► So we want to thank you both for taking the time

00:58:40 ◼   ► to talk to us today and to share all of this with our listeners.

00:58:43 ◼   ► It's been amazing.

00:58:44 ◼   ► Thank you so much.

00:58:45 ◼   ► Thanks for having us.

00:58:46 ◼   ► Yeah, thank you, guys.

00:58:47 ◼   ► This was a lot of fun.

00:58:48 ◼   ► We always love talking about this stuff.

00:58:50 ◼   ► So thanks for carving out some of your time in your day

00:58:52 ◼   ► to talk to us.

00:58:55 ◼   ► So that was a lot of fun.

00:58:56 ◼   ► I enjoyed this interview.

00:58:57 ◼   ► It was really cool.

00:58:58 ◼   ► Yeah, I was really happy for the time.

00:59:01 ◼   ► had lots of questions, obviously about the Apple pencil stuff because as I've said, and

00:59:06 ◼   ► I've I'll keep saying it. It's my favorite feature of iPad OS right now. So like I'm

00:59:13 ◼   ► super into it. And I was really happy with the information that we got from Steven and

00:59:17 ◼   ► Jenny. So I want to thank them and everybody at Apple who made that possible for us.

00:59:22 ◼   ► We've got some more stuff to talk about. Up next we're going to spend some time in the

00:59:26 ◼   ► Apple Arcade minds. But first, let me tell you about our second sponsor. This episode

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01:00:51 ◼   ► relay FM. Alright so a few weeks ago we spoke about Apple Arcade a little bit on

01:00:57 ◼   ► the show because Federico cancelled his Apple Arcade subscription and spoke a

01:01:02 ◼   ► little bit about being unsatisfied with the overall kind of crop of games. So was

01:01:07 ◼   ► Apple because there's been a strategy change for Apple Arcade as reported by

01:01:12 ◼   ► Jason Schreier from Bloomberg. This was Jason Schreier's first piece for

01:01:16 ◼   ► Bloomberg right? I think working with Mark Gurman, Jason was at Kotaku is

01:01:21 ◼   ► Is that right Federico?

01:01:22 ◼   ► Yes, you used to be a Kodaku.

01:01:25 ◼   ► And so I'm actually really intrigued to see what Jason will bring to Bloomberg as somebody

01:01:29 ◼   ► who's been in the games industry for such a long time.

01:01:32 ◼   ► But the two of them worked together on this piece that there's been a strategy change.

01:01:35 ◼   ► Apple want to see better engagement and retention for the games and Apple Arcade.

01:01:40 ◼   ► They have been canceling some contracts and looking for new places for games that can

01:01:47 ◼   ► fit this new strategy.

01:01:49 ◼   ► the contracts that have been made with developers for upcoming games.

01:01:53 ◼   ► Apparently Apple paid developers based on quote

01:01:56 ◼   ► "achieved milestones" that have been hit and also told them that they would work

01:02:00 ◼   ► with these companies again if they were willing to make the types of games that

01:02:04 ◼   ► they were now looking for which is quote from the article

01:02:07 ◼   ► "Apple is increasingly interested in titles that will keep

01:02:11 ◼   ► users hooked so subscribers stay beyond the free trial

01:02:15 ◼   ► of the service. So I wanted to just preface this by saying I am not diametrically opposed to

01:02:24 ◼   ► this approach that Apple now wants to take. I agree with everything I'm sure Federico will say

01:02:32 ◼   ► in the opposite to this, although I will also preface this by saying Federico was clearly

01:02:36 ◼   ► unhappy with the games that were in Apple Arcade already. But the way that I look at what Apple

01:02:42 ◼   ► was trying to do here now is to make in-app purchase games without purchase like IAP without

01:02:49 ◼   ► P is how I'm thinking of it. Like that they will want to now be funding and publishing the types of

01:02:56 ◼   ► games that will keep people hooked. So there was a hope and there are people that say that they

01:03:05 ◼   ► They wanted Apple to change the quality of mobile gaming.

01:03:10 ◼   ► But I would say for myself, the games that have been on Apple Arcade that are like that,

01:03:15 ◼   ► that are either a) trying to be a console experience or games that are better with a

01:03:19 ◼   ► controller on any platform, you know, like games that are platformer games that I think

01:03:25 ◼   ► tend not to work very well with onscreen controls for myself.

01:03:28 ◼   ► I don't want to play those types of games on my iOS devices or my Apple TV.

01:03:34 ◼   ► Will play those types of experiences on a games console. I want games that feel like mobile games on

01:03:41 ◼   ► My phone so the games that I have liked the most from Apple arcade games like

01:03:47 ◼   ► Grindstone round guard what the golf they feel like mobile games and mobile experiences

01:03:54 ◼   ► But there were these games. It was like that under the sea game, right?

01:03:58 ◼   ► And Nick and I know people love this game, but it's not for me like ocean horn

01:04:02 ◼   ► like I'll just play Zelda. If I want kind of big titles I will play them on a console where they

01:04:10 ◼   ► can be bigger for whatever reason. The games that I have liked could easily fit into the free to

01:04:19 ◼   ► start world, like the in-app purchase world. You can imagine that very easily. In fact, Apple

01:04:25 ◼   ► have been citing Grindstone as an example of what they think is a successful title for them going

01:04:30 ◼   ► forward when talking to developers. And you can imagine a game like Grindstone very easily

01:04:36 ◼   ► with in-app purchase parts of like, oh you've lost a level a bunch of times, pay or wait

01:04:42 ◼   ► two hours before you can play again. You can imagine that mechanic fitting very well into

01:04:46 ◼   ► that. And a lot of Apple Arcade's original launch titles, you could feel that they were

01:04:52 ◼   ► clearly games that were designed around having in-app purchase in them and that was removed.

01:04:58 ◼   ► there were games where the Frogger game had different outfits. Why would you do that?

01:05:03 ◼   ► Because you wanted people to pay for them, probably.

01:05:06 ◼   ► So for me, I think games that work on the App Store that are built to make people engage

01:05:14 ◼   ► with them, even though they at times use questionable tactics, they do give people a level of enjoyment.

01:05:25 ◼   ► enjoy playing those games. So if you can still give people that enjoyment or that dopamine

01:05:30 ◼   ► hit without at the same time gouging them for $50 gems, I would ask, is that such a

01:05:37 ◼   ► bad thing?

01:05:38 ◼   ► It's not a bad thing per se. I think it makes a lot of sense, right? I just think it's kind

01:05:46 ◼   ► of sad when you consider how Apple Arcade was pitched and presented. And when you consider

01:05:54 ◼   ► the technological advancements that Apple is bringing to gaming on iPad, I

01:06:00 ◼   ► just think it's said that when that Apple Arcade is changing in a way where

01:06:04 ◼   ► the only metric that matters is retention. And of course, I mean, it's a

01:06:09 ◼   ► service, right? And of course Apple wants to make sure that the people are using

01:06:13 ◼   ► the service and continuing to pay for the service. However, what makes me sad to

01:06:20 ◼   ► hear this, to read this report, is the fact that Apple is shutting down other ideas because

01:06:29 ◼   ► they're not addictive enough, because they're not that kind of game that makes you hooked

01:06:36 ◼   ► and pushes you to keep playing. Because when Apple Arcade was... Here's why, for me, this

01:06:43 ◼   ► is kind of a letdown. When Apple Arcade was presented, it offered this unique vision of

01:06:49 ◼   ► a mix of the games that you just covered, those arcade games without inner purchases,

01:06:55 ◼   ► combined. That was the thing for me, because those games were combined with other kinds of games, like those

01:07:02 ◼   ► games with the vision, games that had a story to tell, games that are a particular mechanic

01:07:07 ◼   ► that wouldn't make sense on consoles, and I'm talking about things like War Cards Fall,

01:07:13 ◼   ► Skate City, Mutazione, Over the Alps, Neocap, all these games that some of them eventually

01:07:20 ◼   ► also came out on consoles, but games that, you know, by all metrics, they wouldn't be

01:07:26 ◼   ► considered addictive games. They are, and of course, Beyond the Steel Sky, which was

01:07:31 ◼   ► one of the original announcements, and then it just launched, it finally came out last

01:07:37 ◼   ► week, which is kind of weird timing considering this, you know, this is story-based games or games

01:07:44 ◼   ► that are like a particular angle, a particular artistic vision, and the promise of Apple Arcade

01:07:50 ◼   ► was $5 a month, your one-stop place for gaming on the App Store, and you're gonna find all kinds of

01:07:59 ◼   ► games. We're gonna fund games that are easy to play, so puzzle games, platformers, multiplayer games,

01:08:06 ◼   ► sports games, family games, but you're also going to find these more sophisticated experiences. Maybe

01:08:12 ◼   ► that's a good way to describe it, sophisticated experiences, these more artistic indie games,

01:08:18 ◼   ► you know? And to hear that in the end, according to this article, again this is just rumors, but,

01:08:26 ◼   ► you know, Jason knows what he's writing about when he writes about video games.

01:08:31 ◼   ► In the end it just resolves itself as well,

01:08:34 ◼   ► "Yeah, we tried, but we're not addictive enough,

01:08:37 ◼   ► so sorry, we're gonna pay you for your milestones,

01:08:39 ◼   ► but we're not gonna find any more games."

01:08:41 ◼   ► And by the way, if you're looking for a game

01:08:44 ◼   ► to make for Apple Arcade, look at this one.

01:08:45 ◼   ► Look at this puzzle game. - Make this game.

01:08:47 ◼   ► - I mean, it's an amazing game.

01:08:48 ◼   ► But to actually go out and say,

01:08:49 ◼   ► "Well, we're actually looking for more of this,

01:08:52 ◼   ► please and thank you."

01:08:53 ◼   ► Like, that's, I don't know,

01:08:54 ◼   ► it just makes me kind of sad, you know?

01:08:57 ◼   ► Because that was such a good promise,

01:09:00 ◼   ► such a good angle to say it's a subscription and you're gonna find all kinds of experiences.

01:09:08 ◼   ► And of course some of them are not addictive in a way that going to, you know, going to a museum

01:09:15 ◼   ► is not addictive as like watching, you know, reality television could be. Like, those are

01:09:21 ◼   ► different kinds of experiences and in life it's, you know, we have different kinds of experiences

01:09:26 ◼   ► And so in a arcade you could find the puzzle game, you know, the quip, like what's the name of those games like

01:09:33 ◼   ► Myke, you know, infinite clickers, like what's the name?

01:09:38 ◼   ► Yeah, you can get like the clicker games, there are like match three games

01:09:42 ◼   ► which grindstone is.

01:09:44 ◼   ► Super easy games that are perfect for mobile and I'm not criticizing those games because there's a place for those but also

01:09:52 ◼   ► there was a place for other types of stories and other types of games and now

01:09:56 ◼   ► it looks like there won't be anymore because there, you know, the retention for those is not good enough.

01:10:02 ◼   ► So it makes me sad because

01:10:05 ◼   ► it's, I just find it

01:10:08 ◼   ► artistically speaking kind of sad that a company is shutting down

01:10:12 ◼   ► potentially really good ideas

01:10:16 ◼   ► Especially now that, you know, with iOS and iPadOS 14, we're gonna have even deeper support

01:10:22 ◼   ► for controllers and even, you know, mouse and trackpad and keyboard support for gaming

01:10:28 ◼   ► on iPad.

01:10:30 ◼   ► Now those developers, you know, they will not be funded by Apple.

01:10:34 ◼   ► If they will want to make their game on the App Store, they will gonna have to go to traditional

01:10:39 ◼   ► route like set it for price on the App Store.

01:10:42 ◼   ► >> Or get a publisher.

01:10:44 ◼   ► >> Or get a publisher.

01:10:45 ◼   ► Right.

01:10:46 ◼   ► Right, but like, I will just say, these games already existed and you weren't interested in them, right?

01:10:54 ◼   ► So like, Apple's current crop, which include these games that you think are really awesome,

01:10:59 ◼   ► like, that was not enough to get you to keep your subscription.

01:11:03 ◼   ► And I think that's kind of...

01:11:05 ◼   ► Because they wouldn't come out anymore, because like, Beyond the Seal of Sky came out last week.

01:11:10 ◼   ► We both had the point of saying there's a backlog of games that we just never got to.

01:11:16 ◼   ► So the content was there, but I think it's just not grabbed either of us.

01:11:21 ◼   ► And speaking for myself, the only games that I have really truly enjoyed,

01:11:26 ◼   ► I think are the types of games that Apple would still fund, honestly.

01:11:29 ◼   ► All those ones that I mentioned, like What the Golf, and I really enjoyed Grindstone

01:11:37 ◼   ► and those types of games, I think that they fit with the type of stuff that they're talking about.

01:11:42 ◼   ► So I get the point that you're making, but I think if I was going to continue to offer

01:11:48 ◼   ► counterpoints, which I will, if people aren't playing them, you know, it's a business. It's

01:11:56 ◼   ► not a charity. The point that you made about comparing it to museums, I like that point,

01:12:04 ◼   ► But people weren't playing these games or Apple would not be making this move.

01:12:10 ◼   ► And it's not like that didn't try.

01:12:12 ◼   ► Like they made a tab in the App Store for these and put a ton of marketing behind it.

01:12:18 ◼   ► Like, I don't know how much more they could have done to try and get these games in front of people.

01:12:25 ◼   ► And it hasn't worked.

01:12:28 ◼   ► I don't know. Some things take time.

01:12:30 ◼   ► And I just think, you know, it doesn't even be in a year.

01:12:33 ◼   ► and now they're already pulling the plug on those because, you know, the numbers were not good enough.

01:12:39 ◼   ► I don't know, maybe, you know, maybe...

01:12:42 ◼   ► Look, it could be, right, like, they might come back to it.

01:12:46 ◼   ► Maybe this is an idealistic vision of we're just gonna keep funding them because it's good for the art of it.

01:12:54 ◼   ► And I get it, like, maybe it doesn't make sense.

01:12:56 ◼   ► Okay, so this part of Apple, they're not doing things for art right now, you know, like...

01:13:02 ◼   ► No art would exist. No art would exist if you looked at numbers. Like sometimes,

01:13:07 ◼   ► I don't know, you can make this some argument for music, right? But then again, Apple doesn't run a

01:13:12 ◼   ► music studio, so you know, you can be a musician and put up music even though, like, very few

01:13:18 ◼   ► people are going to listen to it, but you just do it because it's right. And now I get it. Apple is

01:13:23 ◼   ► in a very weird spot because they're not the promoters of art necessarily. They actually fund

01:13:29 ◼   ► it. They spend money on it. So they need to sell these subscriptions. Like this is the growth part

01:13:35 ◼   ► of their business is selling these subscriptions. Now like you know I think maybe Apple Arcade

01:13:45 ◼   ► is feeling the crunch more than Apple TV+ is, right? Because like they're both suffering from

01:13:54 ◼   ► the same problem which is neither TV+ or Arcade has had a runaway success, right?

01:13:59 ◼   ► But we haven't seen stories of Apple TV+ shows not being renewed, so Apple Arcade is

01:14:09 ◼   ► kind of feeling the brunt of this maybe a little bit more, or maybe the situation is much worse.

01:14:17 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know. I just feel like having variety is always good. Maybe Apple is a lot more

01:14:24 ◼   ► strict about this than I thought they were. Look, there is also the thing that you must always

01:14:31 ◼   ► consider, right, is that the people who have told this story are the people that have had this told

01:14:40 ◼   ► to them. Right. Right. So yeah, of course. There could still be a selection of games,

01:14:46 ◼   ► which are the games that you want to see, coming to Apple Arcade. But maybe fewer of

01:14:51 ◼   ► them. Yeah, maybe fewer of them. I can understand that. That would actually make sense. Instead

01:14:56 ◼   ► of just saying... Yeah, like saying like, no, we're not going to do this, but like less

01:15:01 ◼   ► of these. And what we need is more games to drive the user base and keep people wanting...

01:15:07 ◼   ► There are a lot of other games that they have spoken about, like the ones that you've mentioned,

01:15:10 ◼   ► like Beyond a Steel Sky.

01:15:12 ◼   ► You complete it and you're done with it.

01:15:14 ◼   ► Now that's not a subscription service, right?

01:15:17 ◼   ► You need to have bingeable content, good, like this is the Netflix model, right?

01:15:22 ◼   ► Bingeable content, great back catalogue content that people want to keep coming back to.

01:15:26 ◼   ► So you need these almost like IAP games to get people really in on the system and have

01:15:33 ◼   ► this base of games that are considered good that you can play infinitely. And then also

01:15:39 ◼   ► have these narrative games to sit alongside it. And I don't think they found that balance

01:15:46 ◼   ► yet. And that's maybe what they are retooling to do. I do not deny that there are people

01:15:54 ◼   ► that have been told exactly what they have been told. But we can't say for sure right

01:16:01 ◼   ► now that this is the case for every developer of every game at Apple Arcade.

01:16:06 ◼   ► Yeah, I get it. Makes sense.

01:16:09 ◼   ► Like, okay, so Annapurna Interactive, who published Sayonara Wild Hearts, they obviously

01:16:14 ◼   ► loved that game and it did well for them because they gave it a design award. So if they want

01:16:19 ◼   ► to make Sayonara Wild Hearts 2, I bet Apple will fund that.

01:16:23 ◼   ► Right, I hope so.

01:16:26 ◼   ► You would expect so, right? Like, they liked it enough to award it. So, I don't know. I

01:16:31 ◼   ► don't know. It's difficult.

01:16:33 ◼   ► This story doesn't sit well with me because it reaches to this bigger idea that I really

01:16:42 ◼   ► dislike of creating anything art-related or content-related based on numbers. Because

01:16:52 ◼   ► Because if I live my life like that, I wouldn't publish the articles that I publish, because,

01:16:57 ◼   ► you know, some of them I'm really happy with, and they don't do really well.

01:17:00 ◼   ► All three of us here have podcast projects that we do, that make no money, but we do

01:17:06 ◼   ► them for fun.

01:17:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:08 ◼   ► So this idea, having to consider this for games and Apple Arcade, something that I was

01:17:13 ◼   ► so excited about, like, the principle of it makes me kind of sad.

01:17:20 ◼   ► I want to believe that maybe this happened and there's gonna be a shift but maybe Apple will be able to find that balance of

01:17:26 ◼   ► Yeah, we're gonna have you know more of those like types of games like grindstone

01:17:31 ◼   ► Like stuff like Sonic Racing, you know this kind of stuff that is very

01:17:36 ◼   ► consumer ready and we're gonna continue investing on some of these deeper and like more unique

01:17:45 ◼   ► unique experiences but fewer of those

01:17:48 ◼   ► But even if that is the way it goes, which is definitely our own manufactured best case scenario,

01:17:54 ◼   ► because that's not what this report says, that is still keeping true to the report,

01:18:00 ◼   ► which is saying that there has been a change in strategy, because there are games that they were

01:18:06 ◼   ► funding that they are no longer funding for these reasons. So there is a change, and I guess we'll

01:18:12 ◼   ► just have to hope that there'll still be a balance in the future. Steven, do you like games?

01:18:17 ◼   ► They're fine.

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01:19:55 ◼   ► There is a story going around based on some rumors that the next iPhone will not feature a charger

01:20:04 ◼   ► in the box. So I'll put a link in the show notes to an article on The Verge by Dieter

01:20:09 ◼   ► Bohn and also to a tweet thread from MKBHD. But I want to read Marques's tweets because

01:20:17 ◼   ► he summed up that he basically said there are two sides to this argument and I think that he

01:20:22 ◼   ► pitched them both perfectly and it's a good way to get into this conversation.

01:20:26 ◼   ► Reaction number one. Is this a joke? $1,000 for a phone and the most necessary accessory

01:20:32 ◼   ► is sold separately. Has a phone ever shipped with no charger in the box? This is a new

01:20:36 ◼   ► level of greed. Classic Apple about to make a lot of money creating a problem and selling

01:20:41 ◼   ► the solution. That would be take one.

01:20:45 ◼   ► Take two, reaction two, is good. Less e-waste at scale. Almost everyone has a charger already

01:20:51 ◼   ► anyway. If people want a faster wireless charger, they can still get one. Around 300,000 tonnes

01:20:58 ◼   ► of e-waste came from just inbox charges last year.

01:21:03 ◼   ► And that is a statistic taken from a Dieter Bohn's article, I think, which is basically

01:21:08 ◼   ► saying that there are people that don't need charges who get charges.

01:21:14 ◼   ► And if you think about the amount of time, effort, resources that are put into manufacturing

01:21:22 ◼   ► and shipping and then being discarded, it is a lot of waste.

01:21:26 ◼   ► So that is the setup to this.

01:21:28 ◼   ► I would like to ask you both, from a top level, what do you think about the idea of there

01:21:34 ◼   ► being no charger in the box with the next iPhone?

01:21:36 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, it's kind of awkward, right?

01:21:40 ◼   ► That you buy something and it doesn't come with a charger.

01:21:43 ◼   ► I do, but I do understand the e-waste argument.

01:21:46 ◼   ► I think that angle makes a lot of sense.

01:21:48 ◼   ► And I honestly don't know how to feel about it because it, I don't know.

01:21:54 ◼   ► I just think it's a bit awkward having to explain why you buy it.

01:22:00 ◼   ► It doesn't have a charger inside, but I think it's one of those things that, if explained

01:22:04 ◼   ► well on stage, that it's good for the environment and that most people have duplicate and duplicate

01:22:10 ◼   ► chargers and that most people actually...

01:22:12 ◼   ► Like I know that I leave my old chargers in the box of each iPhone that I buy every year

01:22:17 ◼   ► because I already have my own charger.

01:22:21 ◼   ► So yeah, I always leave them in the box.

01:22:24 ◼   ► I don't use them, might as well not put them in there. I just think the principle of it

01:22:30 ◼   ► is kind of awkward, because if you do this you open yourself up to all kinds of criticisms,

01:22:35 ◼   ► especially if you're Apple and a lot of people already have some preconceived notions about

01:22:40 ◼   ► the company, like they're greedy and all this stuff costs too much, all the things that

01:22:45 ◼   ► people say. So maybe of all companies, Apple is in the worst position to do this, even

01:22:52 ◼   ► though the angle is right, I think they're going to catch a lot of criticism. Just like

01:22:56 ◼   ► when they did with the headphone jack. They were sort of right eventually, but they are,

01:23:05 ◼   ► you know, of all companies, they're going to have the toughest time justifying this.

01:23:09 ◼   ► Like Samsung could do it. And a lot of people would say, oh yeah, Samsung, great job for

01:23:13 ◼   ► the environment. You know, great argument. If Apple does it, they may be right and it

01:23:18 ◼   ► it could be the right angle, but because it's Apple, they're going to catch a lot of negative

01:23:23 ◼   ► press.

01:23:24 ◼   ► It will be the headline. Charger gate. And they could be doing like what I believe they

01:23:32 ◼   ► did with the headphone jack is like, so we spoke some time ago about a portless iPhone.

01:23:38 ◼   ► Maybe that's the next one. Maybe that's 13, maybe that's 14. They get rid of the charger

01:23:42 ◼   ► now for the portless iPhone in the future. But Steven, what do you think about this?

01:23:48 ◼   ► would you feel? I think Federica is right that even if their heart's in the right

01:23:52 ◼   ► place when they do this they already have the reputation for being stingy and

01:23:55 ◼   ► this is not going to help that. Now it's Apple's fault that that's their

01:24:00 ◼   ► reputation because they have been stingy, right? No one put them in that

01:24:05 ◼   ► corner, they put themselves in that corner. I was thinking about how do you

01:24:09 ◼   ► mitigate that? How do you do this? It's the right thing to do. Maybe it's you

01:24:15 ◼   ► have something in the box that's like hey we know talking about e-waste and

01:24:20 ◼   ► promoting the recycling program and saying look we don't put a power charger

01:24:23 ◼   ► in here anymore because of these issues and you know some people no matter what

01:24:30 ◼   ► they do some people will still lean on the side of apples being stingy but I

01:24:33 ◼   ► think there's ways you could get people kind of in the middle on your side so

01:24:36 ◼   ► some sort of messaging not only in the keynote but in the box on the box saying

01:24:41 ◼   ► "Look, this is why we've made this change."

01:24:44 ◼   ► There was another rumor that I think I saw last night

01:24:47 ◼   ► or today of the next iPhone box being super thin.

01:24:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's part of this.

01:24:54 ◼   ► - Right, 'cause it would take less fuel and plane space,

01:24:58 ◼   ► et cetera, to move these things around the world.

01:25:01 ◼   ► Apple, back in the iPod days,

01:25:03 ◼   ► when they were doing a new iPod refresh every year,

01:25:07 ◼   ► several times that came up, like,

01:25:08 ◼   ► "Look, the packaging is 42% smaller,

01:25:11 ◼   ► "so we can put more of them on planes."

01:25:13 ◼   ► They talk about that with MacBook Air boxes

01:25:15 ◼   ► and all sorts of stuff.

01:25:16 ◼   ► So you also have that to consider as well.

01:25:19 ◼   ► They can do this, but they've just gotta know,

01:25:22 ◼   ► they gotta know two things.

01:25:22 ◼   ► One, some people are just gonna be mad,

01:25:24 ◼   ► and that's just how it's gonna be.

01:25:26 ◼   ► But two, or B, I don't know if I said one or A.

01:25:29 ◼   ► The second point being,

01:25:31 ◼   ► is communicate it somehow to customers who don't pay--

01:25:32 ◼   ► - Another point. - Another point!

01:25:34 ◼   ► Communicate to customers

01:25:36 ◼   ► who aren't paying attention to the keynote.

01:25:38 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that there is also the possibility

01:25:41 ◼   ► of reducing the iPhone price a little,

01:25:44 ◼   ► saying that this is why, right, whether it is or it isn't.

01:25:47 ◼   ► But they may be able to reduce the iPhone price

01:25:50 ◼   ► while still keeping their margins,

01:25:51 ◼   ► and maybe even increasing their margins

01:25:53 ◼   ► if it's cheaper to produce these things,

01:25:56 ◼   ► cheaper to ship them, all that kind of stuff.

01:25:58 ◼   ► - I would go back to the previous argument

01:26:00 ◼   ► that Apple is stingy.

01:26:03 ◼   ► They're not gonna, I don't think they're gonna reduce

01:26:05 ◼   ► the price of the iPhone because of this.

01:26:06 ◼   ► They reduced, well, okay, but it might not be because of this.

01:26:09 ◼   ► They did reduce the price of the iPhone this last time.

01:26:12 ◼   ► They did.

01:26:13 ◼   ► So they could still do that.

01:26:16 ◼   ► They could make the iPhone thirty dollars cheaper for a million reasons.

01:26:19 ◼   ► But this could be one of them.

01:26:21 ◼   ► And they could also say this is the reason if they want to.

01:26:23 ◼   ► They could also and should also

01:26:27 ◼   ► make it a part of the buying process to easily add a charger.

01:26:32 ◼   ► Right. So like when you buy your iPhone,

01:26:36 ◼   ► say hey, they need to be cheaper, the chargers need to be cheaper if they're going to do this.

01:26:41 ◼   ► Chargers, Apple's chargers are way too expensive right now. If they're going to make it a

01:26:46 ◼   ► requirement, that crappy slow charger that they put in the box, they need to make it available on

01:26:53 ◼   ► the store for a cheaper price than it currently is. It needs to be a small cost to people if

01:26:59 ◼   ► they're going to do this. Because look, I bet that there is some statistic that tells them

01:27:05 ◼   ► the amount of people using those charges is going down, right?

01:27:10 ◼   ► More people were using wireless charges.

01:27:12 ◼   ► More people were using third party charges.

01:27:15 ◼   ► You know that they know those numbers.

01:27:17 ◼   ► And like,

01:27:18 ◼   ► I'm not saying that it's a small percentage of people that are using those

01:27:22 ◼   ► charges,

01:27:22 ◼   ► but if 97% of Apple's customers are using the charger that comes in the box,

01:27:28 ◼   ► this would be a really silly thing to do because you would have so many people

01:27:33 ◼   ► upset at you, right?

01:27:35 ◼   ► So like they must, I'm sure they must know that less people are,

01:27:38 ◼   ► and there must be a story for it now, right? Like it makes sense that there is a

01:27:42 ◼   ► strong potential that more and more people were using other charging options

01:27:47 ◼   ► than the one that comes in the box. Yeah. Right.

01:27:51 ◼   ► Cause you know, so many of their customers, it's not their first phone.

01:27:54 ◼   ► So many of their customers are using Qi. So many of their customers are using,

01:27:59 ◼   ► like, and again, if you are a third party manufacturer,

01:28:03 ◼   ► What a great opportunity for you, right?

01:28:05 ◼   ► Oh, yeah. Anchor. Oh, man.

01:28:07 ◼   ► Yeah, it's Christmas for them.

01:28:08 ◼   ► Like, if you sell a cheaper charger than Apple's one,

01:28:12 ◼   ► you are going to be rolling in it.

01:28:15 ◼   ► Talk about the opposite of antitrust, right?

01:28:17 ◼   ► Like, you are just having the greatest time.

01:28:21 ◼   ► So I personally, if they are going to do this, I would love

01:28:25 ◼   ► what I would love to see them say is like,

01:28:28 ◼   ► we're doing it for environmental reasons

01:28:31 ◼   ► and the iPhone is going to be a little bit cheaper this year.

01:28:33 ◼   ► Do I think that they will do both of those things?

01:28:36 ◼   ► No?

01:28:38 ◼   ► But that's what I would like to see.

01:28:42 ◼   ► But I don't know if it's the right thing to do because you're inviting the criticism.

01:28:47 ◼   ► But it will be way worse if they don't talk about it

01:28:51 ◼   ► and then people get that little piece of paper in the box.

01:28:55 ◼   ► That's a worse story. I'm almost convinced of that.

01:28:58 ◼   ► Because that has the ability of going viral, right?

01:29:02 ◼   ► Like that has more of, I feel, that kind of ability

01:29:05 ◼   ► than if they said upfront like, "Hey, we're doing this."

01:29:09 ◼   ► I think that that could end up being less

01:29:11 ◼   ► of a blowback situation.

01:29:13 ◼   ► - They gotta do all of that.

01:29:14 ◼   ► They have to tell people as much as they can

01:29:18 ◼   ► before they get the phone in their hands,

01:29:19 ◼   ► that it's the case.

01:29:20 ◼   ► Keynote, I love your idea about having on the checkout page,

01:29:23 ◼   ► you could even have, look, if you want a five watt charger,

01:29:26 ◼   ► it's really slow, but it's this much,

01:29:28 ◼   ► and then that you can always upsell--

01:29:29 ◼   ► - It's $15. - Yeah.

01:29:30 ◼   ► You can always upsell to the faster charger.

01:29:32 ◼   ► Like I don't use a 15 watt charger for any,

01:29:34 ◼   ► or anything anymore, a five watt charger, excuse me.

01:29:37 ◼   ► I'm all in on faster charging.

01:29:39 ◼   ► And I think a lot of people don't even know

01:29:41 ◼   ► faster charging is a thing.

01:29:42 ◼   ► Like I agree with you that a lot of people

01:29:44 ◼   ► will probably just leave them in the box,

01:29:46 ◼   ► but I think they're leaving them in the box

01:29:47 ◼   ► because they're using an old five watt charger.

01:29:49 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:29:50 ◼   ► - So yeah, you can tell them, hey look,

01:29:51 ◼   ► if you do this one, it's 30 bucks,

01:29:52 ◼   ► but you can charge in half the time,

01:29:54 ◼   ► then you've had an upsell.

01:29:56 ◼   ► And Apple loves an upsell.

01:29:57 ◼   ► - Like at the moment, a cable is $19.

01:30:02 ◼   ► And the 18 watt charger is $29.

01:30:06 ◼   ► Yeah that's way too much and those Apple cables and chargers are not really great.

01:30:11 ◼   ► And the 5 watt charger is $19.

01:30:14 ◼   ► Yeah that's... no. Just no.

01:30:17 ◼   ► If you're gonna do this you gotta make a better option.

01:30:21 ◼   ► That's not worth... that 5 watt charger is not worth $20.

01:30:25 ◼   ► Even if you offer a one-time discount at purchase, right, that you can get the whole thing for 15

01:30:34 ◼   ► bucks instead of like 35, I think that might go a long way as well. And like, if you want to charge

01:30:41 ◼   ► people more for extra options, you can go for that. But my favorite meme that I saw about this was

01:30:48 ◼   ► everyone was asking Apple for a faster charger put in the box and instead they just take the charger

01:30:53 ◼   ► way. Which is an incredibly Apple move to do and we can make that joke because it goes

01:31:03 ◼   ► into the idea of them being like that kind of company. They make these decisions and

01:31:09 ◼   ► we can call it courage and many people will, right? Bring that old joke back again. But

01:31:15 ◼   ► I think there are this one, this is a story I can get on board with way easier than the

01:31:20 ◼   ► headphone jack removal. The headphone jack didn't change the environment. It doesn't

01:31:25 ◼   ► affect any environment. But I can buy that. I genuinely can buy that. They can have whatever

01:31:31 ◼   ► reason they want to have for why they do it, but if they say it's because we want to reduce

01:31:35 ◼   ► this waste, that is a cause and effect type thing I will accept personally. Other people

01:31:41 ◼   ► may or may not, but I never really felt like there was a good reason given for why the

01:31:46 ◼   ► headphone jack went away but this is a like a we've done this why have we done

01:31:51 ◼   ► this because we want to be but we want to continue our commitment to the

01:31:56 ◼   ► environment okay I don't know what they're gonna do this could be like a

01:32:00 ◼   ► little flash-in-the-pan story that go out hand or it could be true but I think

01:32:05 ◼   ► the reason that it has gained some steam is because it's very conceivable to

01:32:10 ◼   ► imagine that this is going on could go on I think that's it yep if you

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01:33:08 ◼   ► Until next week, gentlemen, say goodbye.

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01:33:11 ◼   ► Cheerio.